Quote from: Skarg;962555I agree. I think many game designs become relatively pointless when they make healing (and revival/res) easy, fast, and/or trivial, and/or actual death very unlikely.

I also prefer it when play (combat and otherwise) offers potential ways to actually avoid injury, rather than inevitably leading to a gradual drain from a huge pile of hit points. I'd rather manage risk and meaningful injury than manage a relatively predictable and unavoidable drain that has little/no consequence as long as it doesn't reach zero.

In fact, I think when a game removes the risk of serious lasting injury with effects, it escalates the stakes of gameplay, sometimes to the point where in order for combat to have any risk or consequence requires TPK or at least removing the healing abilities somehow (prevent the healer from healing one way or another). I think often this "seems to work" mainly because players don't really want unpredictable risk of losing PCs or TPK, or they're just used to it and don't know or also don't want to deal with limping, one-armed, or long-term convalescing PCs. Personally, I think the latter is more interesting, especially with a combat system where those results are more or less consequences of in-combat situations and choices.

I didn't see that you already took the words right out of my mouth. Except you wrote it better.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;962509Which actually makes me wonder about the original crew's expectations.  I wonder if level 1 in Fighting Man or Magic User actually meant that they had reach a war leader stage, where they could easily get a decent army of minions to do a lot of the grunt work for them.  That being a Fighting Man already meant years, if not decades of little adventures and pissant "Kill the Rats" jobs and now they could actually issue a call for aid and expect it.

Says it right there in the OD&D. a Level 1 Fighter is considered a Veteran warrior capable of serving in an organized army and fights as a single warrior under the Chainmail rules.

Doesn't mean that it has to be that way in your campaign. In Majestic Wilderlands I considered Level 1 and 2 to be apprentice levels. People that are capable of doing professional work but just starting out. Once you reach level 3 you are considered a fully trained professional of one's class. I consider a level solely as experience. Some referees consider levels to mark the PCs as special heroes  and OD&D considered level 4 characters to be literally Heroes and level 8 to be Super Heroes.

There is no right way and both approaches can be made to work.

Quote from: estar;962701Says it right there in the OD&D. a Level 1 Fighter is considered a Veteran warrior capable of serving in an organized army and fights as a single warrior under the Chainmail rules.

Ah, that's the disconnect we're having.  Interesting.  I'll have to remember that when discussing older editions.

My upcoming Lion & Dragon RPG will feature a very interesting "authentic medieval" magic system, but it would be completely feasible to remove all the magic and miracles from it and run it straight as a 'historical' game. Or even more so, to make a campaign where PCs can't play magic-users.

Quote from: Kiero;962671Up to four plus your CHA bonus. Ie somewhere between 4 and 7, depending on what that is. Even four henchmen per PC is a lot of extra bodies - and all of them with class levels and so damned useful.

There's no limit beyond your purse to the number of hirelings you can have.

So most people would have likely had a total of 16 to 20 other NPCs, with those who decided to use cannon fodder, having up to what, a total of 40?

Unless it's a really big table, at which point, you'd be running a mini's skirmish/war game.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963192So most people would have likely had a total of 16 to 20 other NPCs, with those who decided to use cannon fodder, having up to what, a total of 40?

Unless it's a really big table, at which point, you'd be running a mini's skirmish/war game.

If you use your henchmen as "cannon fodder" you'll lose them. They have loyalty rolls for a reason.

B/X D&D runs fast enough that it works quite well skirmish style. I ran a skirmish with almost a hundred participants on a battlemat in my ACKS game that took around 90 minutes to resolve. Most of the opposition fled or surrendered by the end. I've had plenty of combats in D&D4e involving ten participants that took a lot longer than that.

I like to use Chainmail (3E) for fights involving more than a dozen people on a side, particularly with the 'hack' that the mass combat rules can be run as-is at 1:1 or 1:5 rather than 1:20 scale. This lets you resolve combats super fast while retaining the granularity of a skirmish among individuals.

Quote from: Larsdangly;963274I like to use Chainmail (3E) for fights involving more than a dozen people on a side, particularly with the 'hack' that the mass combat rules can be run as-is at 1:1 or 1:5 rather than 1:20 scale. This lets you resolve combats super fast while retaining the granularity of a skirmish among individuals.

I have to admit, I didn't appreciate just how swift the oldest editions of D&D are until I'd been through the later ones and come back. The mass combat system for ACKS, Domains@War is built out from B/X combat and I wouldn't be surprised if it draws fro Chainmail as well.

Example Attempt
Modern NARC DEA setting, 5e paradigm (class>archetype>background):

Fighter. Archetype: Patrol Officer, DEA Raider, Wise Guy...
Ranger. Archetype: (Coyote) Smuggler, Park Ranger, Bounty Hunter...
Rogue. Archetype: IT Specialist, Bathtub Chemist, Accountant (Forensics)...
Bard. Archetype: Street Dealer, Double Agent, Attorney...

I am wondering how to distill these archetypes further into backgrounds. Thoughts?

Quote from: Kiero;963260If you use your henchmen as "cannon fodder" you'll lose them. They have loyalty rolls for a reason.

Sorry, I meant, 16-20 Henchmen, and then you spend a bunch of coin for actual canon fodder (Hirelings.)  My bad.

Quote from: Kiero;963260B/X D&D runs fast enough that it works quite well skirmish style. I ran a skirmish with almost a hundred participants on a battlemat in my ACKS game that took around 90 minutes to resolve. Most of the opposition fled or surrendered by the end. I've had plenty of combats in D&D4e involving ten participants that took a lot longer than that.

So, really, and again, no snark, the older games assume you're taking a platoon with you into every dungeon.  Huhn, how things have changed.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963367So, really, and again, no snark, the older games assume you're taking a platoon with you into every dungeon.  Huhn, how things have changed.

Well, in my game specifically, the skirmish took place in a valley where the trail narrowed. It's a historical game with no dungeons (or monsters or magic).

I only had a couple of campaigns where my PCs made full use of henchmen, and the party did indeed look more like a mercenary warband than a standard party of PCs. And yes, loyalty/morale checks were hugely important.

Brady, you have to look at the audience...wargamers.

Today our soldiers have air support, tanks, artillery, satellite communications, a supply chain with Humvees, APCs, Helicopters, and Cargo planes that can carry a small herd of elephants...and our troops still have to carry 40-80 pounds of gear not counting weapons or armor.

The guys back then knew how logistics and supply went.  Travel through a forest for a week, then up through that mountain pass and into the dungeon.  We need to carry all the supplies, plus protect it, plus have a way home.

They weren't necessarily taking all those people "into a dungeon", they were taking all those people on an Expedition.

What is boils down, Krueger, is that for a lot of people, we're talking two different languages, despite talking about the same game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;963843They weren't necessarily taking all those people "into a dungeon", they were taking all those people on an Expedition.

Exactly, last year I read a series of books on deep cave exploration. It not just a handful of guys delving into the earth, there are dozens involved with some serious logistical planning behind it just to get two or three people down into the deepest part of the cave system.

While a handful of people could do it by themselves in some cases, the expedition overall has a much better chance of success and is able to take on much greater challenges. Like so many other things human beings are involved with organization is the trump card. For dungeons, the expedition setup is a sure fire way of maximizing your chances of coming out alive and wealthy.