Followers for Upper Level Player Characters

On page 16 of the old Dungeon Masters Guide begins a series of rules for calculating the special followers that player characters collect upon reaching name level.  Because I have a different definition of "follower" [read the wiki page, it's relevant], I call these special followers "Retainers."  And strange as it may seem, I have never adjusted the tables found here for clerics, fighters, rangers, thieves and assassins.  I have used them, though not too often, since I run very long campaigns and once you've gotten to this point with your long-run character, you don't get to roll on these tables again.

Remember as you read this that where the DMG says "followers" in the name-level sense, I will use the word "retainers."

According to the DMG, it is never stated explicitly WHY druids, illusionists, paladins or mages do not get retainers.  On page 32 of the old Players Handbook, there is a section describing the retainers a monk gets upon reaching the 8th level of experience.  There is no explanation for why this section does not appear in the DMG, or for why the retainers gained as described in the DMG needs to be kept "secret" from the players, while those of the monk do not.

The bard has no retainers; the essentially ridiculous rules surrounding the bard (though I saw them played in other campaigns) stipulate that the bard must start as a fighter, leaving that class before the level needed to gain retainers, then become a thief, again leaving that class before the level needed to gain retainers, and THEN become a bard, which is an essentially useless class without any serious special abilities whatsoever.  No mention is made of a bard's "name level" nor of any retainers, except a line that says that bards "are unable to employ henchmen other than druids, fighters or thieves of human, half-eleven [sic], or elven race."  No explanation is given for this particular bit of racism.

Bards obviously deserve to have retainers; no person in a creative industry is ever exempt from taking on students and more than any other group, bards are the most logical class to be in constant contact with OTHER bards.  We have fairs dating back to the 9th century designed specifically so that bards can cluster together with bards.

I am good with druids being isolated characters; except that I fill the druid's roster with a host of "animal friends" that become the druid's retinue.  Paladins deserve the retainers a fighter gets; there's no logic whatsoever for a Paladin to be a "long wolf," since as I pointed out a couple weeks ago, the word means "peer of the realm," which means person of the court, which means lands, castles, the right to collect rents and so on.  How else do we think Paladins pay for their crusading adventures?  Just because Lancelot was broke doesn't mean the other two hundred paladins hanging around Camelot were.

It isn't all about Lancelot.

I'm fine with mages and illusionists getting short shrift.  Both have their heads buried in their laboratories and books, and as scholars neither should know a damned thing about employee management.  But before the reader gets anxious, let me explain that yes, in my game world, a player has to work very, VERY hard to end up without retainers in the long run.

Let's come back around to "followers" as opposed to retainers.  In my game, followers are friends that the players have made through their adventures.  Some are friends right off, others become friends over time.  That is how life works.  My judgment applies in whether or not a follower becomes a friend, based on whether or not I feel the player has treated that NPC fairly, conscientiously, protectively and monetarily.  If the player constantly forgets the individual's name when describing the NPC to me, or forgets to mention said individual when heading off somewhere, or loses parts of the individual's character details, or in any way shows they just don't care about that particular NPC to assure they're safe and considered in day-to-day game matters, then the NPC definitely does not become a follower.

The players often don't notice, but I listen closely every time a player mentions a related NPC, what words the player uses, how long its been since the last time anyone said hello to an NPC they haven't seen in a long time, or visits them, or shares information with them and so on.  I do not tell the players I am listening; and most of the time, I do not point out that the player has just made a serious gaffe of some kind.  I will just now, for the sake of an example: and because just now, there's nothing my online players can do about it.

Recently, the players returned to their new house in Treborg, then headed off to Stavanger, then returned to their house in Treborg, then hurried off back to the dungeon that interests them.  A while ago in the campaign, they hired a farmer/forager/hunter named Valda to look after their house and land while they're out.  And while the players have been diligently feeding Valda out of their stores, because they're required to do so on account of the hireling contract they have, guess how many times any of the players have said anything like, "I say hello to Valda," or "I ask Valda how she's doing?"  Guess how many of them thought to buy something small and useful for Valda from Stavanger while they were there?  Now ... does this make Valda a reliable hireling, or one likely to care as much for her employers as they care for her?

Altogether, I have four levels of friendly characters in my game, apart from the players themselves.  I have hundreds of nasty killer monsters, and of course a lot of humanoids in the civilized areas are dangerous as well, but the players ARE able to create a defensive bulwark of associates, friends and acquaintences, IF they take the time to get to know people and apply themselves to giving as well as constantly showing up to ask questions or buy things.  As another example, some time ago I introduced a girl in Treborg to the party named Monica.  Monica's father is an important person.  Monica spent a little time mooning around after one of the player characters, after helping him recover from damage he'd received many game weeks ago.  Anybody wandering around to say, "Hi Monica" ... ?  You see what I'm saying.

Players aren't required to chat up NPCs.  And a lot of NPCs aren't worth chatting up, what with them being minimally skilled and lacking in resources.  However, there is a tendency, based on the way that D&D has been run for 45 years, to act like lone wolves until the DM gives you retainers that you're allowed to treat like shit.  There is a section in the DMG about loyalty and such, and we will get to that in time, but there isn't a word about that in the "follower section" on pages 16-18.  Basically, you pile enough experience together, you pass a post, and a bunch of dudes show up at your door and say, "Order us around, please."

It's a game and I'm good with that dynamic.  It's only that the retainer thing sort of went away because (a) players didn't know how to handle it; (b) DMs revealingly didn't know how to handle it; and (c) what do we want all these hangers-on for anyway?  "We're LONE WOLVES.  What part of that don't you get?"

Anyway, as I was saying, four levels of friendly character.  I've mentioned three: retainers, followers and hirelings.  The fourth are henchmen.  I've written about these in my game often.  Before continuing on with this thread, let me pause a moment.

It is a cruelty to ask a player to run one character class for ten continuous years of a campaign.  Some like it, but it makes sense that players would want to try other classes out from time to time.  It also makes sense that players would like to try other genders and other races, as well as other combinations of weapons, spells and abilities.  Any good game system must have a means for players to stretch beyond an imposed boundary that limits their experimentation.

We all know that most DMs and groups solve this problem by running campaigns for shorter periods, or no campaigns at all.  Every player gets to try out scores of different characters ... until every character concept is part of a large grey sludge of meaningless nuance.  The problem with this approach is that none of these tried and tested characters ever amount to anything rich and dense as far as character experience or ambition.  Having lots of sexual partners sounds exciting and provocative, but for those who have tried it, only a few years need to pass before realizing that we ... just ... don't ... care about any of these people we're sleeping with.  There isn't time to know them.

Excuse a little life advice, but for those of us in long-term relationships, the old bugaboo about "My gawd, do you want to eat the same flavour of ice cream for the rest of your life" is a bit stupid.  Marriage is about getting to know someone extremely well, but it is also about the two of you getting to know reliable, long-lasting friends, and your children, and their friends, and your children's children, and so on.  Because living a calm, reliable life draws company ... whereas living a frenetic life of chasing other people only breeds drama, resentment, exhaustion and people who don't want to know you much.

Okay, let's set that on a shelf.  The benefit of playing a single character for a long campaign is that you have a lot of memories about that character.  And the benefit of letting the players gain an occasional new player character, a henchman (I still can't get myself around to saying "henchperson," but I'll get there eventually), according to a strict rule, gets around the need to rip down the campaign to give the players a new experience.  Getting to 5th level is a lot easier than getting to name level; and picking a new associate character that is reliably yours, no matter what the DM wants, is an important a step as picking your first character.

Consider:  it takes you 18,000 experience to become a 5th level fighter in the old game.  At that point you get a hench — and because you've already got a fighter, you're free to go for something really different: a mage or a bard, or maybe a thief.  You've got the fighting covered; spells would be nice, or maybe someone to sneak around or a character that knows about plants and animals.  Whatever.  Let's say you take a cleric as your hench.

Your fighter will need 17,000 more experience to be 6th level.  [I know these stats don't mean a fucking thing to you 5e readers, but maybe you could recognize a bit of logic in a structure that actually limited what a player could do until they earned their way].  To reach 4th level, your cleric hench only needs 6,000.  And while that cleric is only going to get half as much experience from treasure as you get, and half as much bonus experience as you get, that character only needs a third as much to go up three levels as you need to go up one.  After awhile, because the cleric hench needs less overall experience than you do, by the time you get up to name level as a fighter, the cleric will be near to reaching name level as a cleric.

That's why it doesn't matter that mages and illusionists don't get retainers.  A mage or an illusionist is bound to take a fighter of some kind upon reaching 5th level, in my game at least.  And that fighter is going to be very nearly 9th about the time the mage and illusionist reach 11th or 10th.  The mage may not get retainers, but the mage's fighter will ... and since the mage and the fighter are both run by the same player, it all works out.

All this way around the barn to get back to this:  the player has the opportunity to get a hench at 5th level and retainers at name level ... but they can obtain hirelings the FIRST DAY of adventuring and they can make friends soon after.  What if the character doesn't want to wait for 5th level or name level?  Should they have to?

I don't think so.  Smart players who are willing to do the work ought to be able to get themselves established in a community long before they get to name level.  A cleric should not have to wait for 9th level to build a church — that argument makes no sense in relation to anything we know about religious organization or missionary work.  There are never enough churches and temples and there are always communities who desperately want one.  Nor should a mage need to wait to build a laboratory, or a thief have to wait to build a gang of thieves.  These measurements established in the old DMG, that players need to wait to gather like friends together, which five-year-olds do without thinking about it, don't wash.  It's called "role-playing," people!  You meet, you share, you show interest, you help them out, they help you out ... hell, Sesame Street taught us this.  "Cooperation!"  A DM should be glad you're not waiting for the so-called "End Game" to build a structure of contacts and associates.

Think about how EASY it is to set up an adventure when the players already have two dozen people whose lives they care about.  Fred — you remember Fred — was walking in the woods yesterday and guess what he saw!  Oh, and Mary wanted a well dug on her property and would you believe it? There was a deep, dark frightening looking hole that appeared when a section of the surface fell in.  Oh, what will we do?  If only we could find some party to investigate that hole, or check out those woods.

But, heck, we can't have that, can we?  I guess it's another game session where we start out at the bar.

I confess.  I've had a damnably hard time selling this idea to players I've had in online campaigns.  Some get it; the present party, Valda and Monica notwithstanding, have done better than everyone else combined.  But there is unquestionably a resistance.  One member of the party has personally met the Crown Prince of Sweden, and gained the prince's respect ... but wants nothing to do with that contact, judging by actions taken.  I've waved other red flags in front of these bulls, but no takers.  This lone wolf thing dies hard.  I'm guessing that mixing in with other people and their problems feels like, oh, responsibility or something.  Or having to put up with the DM's manipulation of the campaign, something that we've all been burned from so hard we dream about fire alarms.

Still, I put the rules in place, I explain the fundamentals and I introduce the NPCs ... and I wait.  I wait to see what the players will do with those toys, if ever they seriously think about picking them up.