From a Commoner to a Soldier

Monday and my shoulder's back at the wheel ... but over the weekend I worked to provide continuity to a series of posts that have only now been sorted out on the Authentic wiki.

Starting with the "commoner," this is my take on the ordinary worker in society, whose training and knowledge is minimal and mostly confined to one set of tasks: farmers, herders, sailors, the like.  My rules regarding hit points per die explains the origin of the commoner's hit points, which are essentially the same for any animal or humanoid of the same approximate weight.  As the commoner has no training whatsoever in the art of fighting, a 150 lb. farmer with 1 hit die has the same number of hit points as a 150 lb. goat, also with 1 hit die.  I find this appropos.

Because a commoner ought to be able to learn how to fight, I built a set of rules as a "sage ability" called "harden commoner."  This explains the simple procedure for how a player character (or anyone with the ability) can turn a simple commoner into a semi-effective asset in a fight, should that be the plan.  Here I'm thinking of the scene in 1960's The Magnificent Seven, in which experienced gunfighters educate the local peasants on shooting and setting traps, in order to help defend their own village.  But it's important to understand this brief training wouldn't make these peasants "soldiers" ... but it also means they cease to be untrained commoners, also.

I made up a word for such persons, calling them "comrades" ... and updated this description also to reflect the rules under harden commoner.  Those rules, the reader should notice, are quite gritty.  There's room for six measures of "comrade," depending on how much training they've received.  For example, if the players have only one week to train a group of peasants, then it's possible for some of them to learn how to hold and use a shield in combat.  With another week, those who failed the first time to use a shield may yet learn, while others could have their constitution increased 1 point, reduce their non-proficiency penalty with real weapons, and properly wear a helmet in combat.  Recruits in training do sometimes trip and fall because they have trouble with these.

Before I defend the increase in constitution (which I know I have to), I want to express first how realistic I find the procedure described.  It's time sensitive.  The changeover from commoner to comrade isn't instantaneous, nor is it black and white.  Each stage makes an individual a little less a commoner and a little more a comrade, until the process is complete.  As I say, gritty.  But also the sort of thing that lends real interest for the player's immersion in the combat.  If Tomas, say, can actually use a machete (hereditary weapon) and a shield in the fight, while none of his fellows succeeded in getting that far, it gives reason for the players to recognise that Tomas is not Sotero, and not Miguel.  They're people ... and that encourages the players to INVEST in them, even if they're non-player characters.  These elements really matter in keying the players into the game world's romanticism.

Okay, about constitution.  With respect to AD&D, and early D&D rules, the player characters ability stats were sacrosanct.  Nothing short of a wish or like powerful magic could change them, and even at that such power was not absolute.  Gygax understood, as did others, that if the players could simply all change their ability stats to 18, much of the game's verisimilitude would be lost ... and the whole point of rolling up a character made redundant.  Fixed ability stats forced players to adhere to this in game play, if nothing else, and the player's liking or not liking of it be damned.  Under extreme circumstances, stats could be lowered or raised; or they could be affected by the character's age; but most of the time, what the die said when we rolled our character, that's what we lived with.

But ... I argue that before an ordinary NPC becomes a levelled NPC, something must have taken place.  It stands to reason that if we start with an individual who is not in fit condition, is not used to physical hardship, and we train that person, something must happen to their ability stats.  We are not born with wisdom, we learn it.  I'd argue the same with intelligence, but we don't need to get into that mire now.  The stats that a levelled player character upon their entry into the campaign is supposed to be those people at the height of their physical and mental potential, following their training.  A commoner certainly isn't that.  So, yes, with two weeks hard work, I believe that they could get trim enough to increase their unhealthy constitution to a healthier one.

During my vacation, though I ate well, I lost 8 lbs. in 19 days.  By the 5th day, I could feel that a change was taking place.  By the middle of the second week, my body had unquestionably hardened, and my endurance for the effort each day had increased.  I wasn't getting tireder, I was getting stronger.  And I'm pleased to find that I'm at 238 right now.  I'd rather be at 225, but this is a really good mass for me just now.  Tamara is certainly enjoying it.

Okay, so ... we have our comrade.  With time and further training, we may assume he has all the characteristics associated with a comrade.  But suppose we want to go farther?  What's the next stage up?  Well, from peasant-turned-combatant, the next stage is combatant-turned-soldier.  So I reworked the page on how to train a comrade to be a soldier.

I perceived this to be more intense, and more long-lasting.  In modern warfare, we train an ordinary person (usually one who's experience team sports, physical exercise and a better diet than our medieval counterpart) into a soldier in 6 weeks.  This involves a great deal of scientific expertise in the effort, hundreds of years of practice, the use of guns and not swords, and worldly persons who can comprehend difficult esoteric matters of conflict.  A medieval or renaissance recruit lacks much of this "prep" and therefore, I'm stretching the time to four months.  I have no evidence to tell me whether this is too much or too little, because none exists.  Which means, conveniently, that anyone with a different opinion is no more right, nor less right, than I am.

Training a soldier is also presented as a gritty procedure.  Once again, soldiers with one month of training still have more skills that a comrade (or a chance for them), while yet not being a full soldier.  This means there is a quantifiable measure for how useful it is to empty a local school of its half-trained recruits, should that be necessary.

Finally, a page for "soldier-at-arms" had to be written to reflect the training.  This did exist on the old wiki, but it's better fleshed out now.  When a player hires a soldier, they understand what they're getting; they understand where that soldier came from, and what he or she had to do to become a soldier.  All this grit gives the player a much better sense of what they can order a soldier to do, and more to the point, what soldiers won't do because they're not dungeon-fodder for the players.  They've seen things; taken part in actual wars; had comrades and friends die.  They may not be levelled, but that doesn't mean they're not going to speak up when the players make a plan, or wait to be expended.  Players aren't "officers."  If they turn on a soldier, and kill one for not obeying orders, that's murder, not justice.  And everyone present will see it that way.  Players need to learn that when they hire someone for their ability, they must also respect that ability.  Or risk consequences for their actions they never intended.

Anyway ...

The next step, and I don't cherish it, is to finally settle in and describe the process by which a soldier, or any person, is transformed from being an ordinary person without skills into a levelled person who has them, and can cast spells and perform other unimaginable feats besides.  It's going to be a long, long effort.

And I'm not starting today.