Henchmen musing

 AD&D 1e actually has pretty in depth rules for finding henchmen. Players generally aren’t very happy with it, since it costs 100s of gold and in-game weeks to find random lvl 1 NPCs with no equipment. Like all of 1e’s rules, it’s pretty punitive on the players seeking henchmen. This can be justified, as henchmen properly run are a huge boon to the party, and it prevents the henchman from becoming disposable.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a game where the DM used these rules as written. 

My favorite way of introducing henchmen to the party is for them to persuade or subdue NPCs our in the wild to join them.

>>82555592

Side note: Finch’s Primer is bad for converting 5e players, because 5e players can make a simple argument that all his “old school DM” examples can be accomplished in 5e as well. I’ve never gotten much use out of Finch’s OSR primer. It’s probably better to just say what you like about OSR and point out how 5e doesn’t do it.

>>82555773

Finch's primer is just bad in general. Not only does he use strawmen to make his point which will give most readers the impression that OSR people are just boomers with an irrational hatred of any edition post 2e despite having never really touched it (true in many cases), but most of the advice doesn't even apply if you're playing anything but the LBB. Why the fuck OSE still has it listed in the introduction is baffling to me.

>>82555848

Also, hilariously, one of his pieces of advice is literally "add in critical successes and failures" without using that terminology, which is something grogs always say they hate about WOTC editions.

 

 

Documented for posterity

 Running an AD&D 2e game, I had expected to come back and reference the 1e DMG for all the good tables and content. In practice I didn’t feel the need to, even once, as I had all the material necessary for addressing  in game issues within the 2e core books.  Maybe the 1e DMG is better for pre-game prep.