Hirelings and You
This is for Valeria who asked about hirelings and got me to spend most of the day writing this. Love.
I love hirelings. They're one of my favorite parts of old dungeon games. Yet I feel like some people have trouble wrapping their heads around them, thinking they're either too complicated or not worth the money. Let's talk about that. I'm just going to explain how I handle them, which may or may not work with some bespoke rulesets that love to make things complicated by throwing lots of numbers at you. Though who knows, they might be compatible after all.
Mind you, as always, most of this advice really shines in a long-running campaign. In a one-shot or a short dungeon module, you basically get those extra hands for free, without having to deal with any lasting consequences. You're probably just treating them like lemmings to make it through, same as your own characters.
The very first thing I usually hear from players who haven't been down in the hireling trenches with me is something along the lines of why should you bother giving valuable resources like money or xp to these glory-stealing sacks of numbers without a soul? Well, the answer isn't complicated, though I'm obviously a bit biased. Without these goons, your characters will reach their limits pretty quickly. And to put this in shounen terms for my anime heads, if you play with me, you're not playing a game where your characters can overcome everything just by being the chosen one. Not even through hard work and dedication, though that usually gets you further. To pull off the truly impossible feats, you'll need the power of friendship.
Paying for hirelings is really just a way to balance things. Whether they get a share of the xp or you pay them in coin, you're still going to have to put in the effort to find treasure. Old dungeon games are all about that cycle anyway, so it makes sense. Hirelings give you extra power, and that comes at a cost.
I've also played with reputation, where some people would only follow you if you had a name for yourself. Wolves Upon the Coast has a mechanic where you need a thousand coins of wealth for every hireling you want. So it's not enough to just acquire some treasure and spend it all, you need to actually have that wealth. I also let players use downtime to slowly befriend NPCs, inspired by Downtime in Zyan. That way, you might get someone to join you for almost nothing, or even for free, if you're willing to put in the time and build a lasting relationship.
But that's just how I justify the cost, not why I want hirelings in the first place. The real reason is that hirelings let your party do things your characters couldn't manage on their own. You get another member of the party without having to recruit another living person. Some might say that's a huge benefit, while others might be appalled because you can't suck the energy out of a fictional character. Many hands make light work.
One practical bit of advice for the bookkeeping is to ditch those annoying "pay them x gold pieces every day" procedures. Just pay them upfront for a week or a month and mark their next payday on a calendar. Much less of a hassle. And of course, there are hirelings who just expect a share of the treasure, which is even easier to handle. And if you've got someone who's sticking around purely out of loyalty, well, those are the most precious ones to lose.
Ok, so if you've made it this far, another concern you might have is that this all sounds very tedious. Suddenly you're the middle manager of a company, delegating tasks to fictional people. And yeah, sure, that can be an experience if you want to keep track of everyone all the time. But it doesn't have to be. You can zoom in and out of hirelings as much as you want.
In my games, they're usually in the background unless a player addresses them. When I ask the players what they want to do next, I usually also ask if any of their hirelings are going to do something. Just a little reminder that they're there and can take action too. I sometimes play games that use overloaded encounter dice and like to make one of the results Hireling chatter. When that comes up, I take it as a prompt to have one of the hirelings say or ask something, or maybe frame a small scene with them. And that's about it, really.
And yeah, in case it wasn't clear, each player is in charge of directing the hirelings they've recruited. They just don't get to decide how those NPCs feel about it or how they react to things. This also helps with the whole worry about hirelings stealing all the glory. They're just another part of the player's repertoire for interacting with the game, with the added tension of having to provide upkeep and keep them somewhat happy.
That's the other part. If you treat them like a bunch of numbers, that's all they'll be, just uninteresting accounting. What really makes them shine is when they're interesting characters. Gig Economy is one of my favorite supplements and I use it in almost every game because it quickly gives me some fun personalities for hirelings. But you don't even need that. Some of the most effective hirelings we've had were people the players met while adventuring, maybe through a random encounter, or some dungeon freak they got to join them. Sometimes they're just NPCs who follow you for a while and sometimes you can convince them to follow you some more.
On the flipside, hirelings aren't immune to danger. Having them around expands which parts of the character sheet I can attack. They're often favorite targets for monsters and poor decisions by players can put them in harm's way too. That's part of the game. Losing a hireling should feel bad and be inconvenient, though usually in a different way than losing a PC. But sometimes a hireling becomes so beloved that losing them might actually feel worse.
The important part for me is that a single person can only reasonably achieve so much. A dedicated group can achieve a lot more, especially if they're talented and lucky, but even then there are limits. To reliably make big changes in the world, you need a bunch of folks. I don't see a problem with players figuring out that the best way to increase their odds of slaying a dragon is to hire a small army. After all, that's what people in charge do. But having more people doesn't necessarily make the job easier. The more people, the more problems, whether it's logistics, politics, or dealing with the ambitions and troubles of your own people. And that's great, because dealing with all those problems can generate so much play while also opening up all sorts of new possibilities.
In one of my games, my players encountered an undead amalgamation sitting on a pile of treasure in a small dungeon, just one hex away from a farming hamlet. They knew they were no match for it, so they started rallying the villagers. They recruited the most capable ones into a small company, bought a wagon and as many oil flasks as they could get their hands on, and trekked back to the dungeon. It took a bit of time to organize all of this, but they figured the payoff would be huge.
Together, they split into three groups and lobbed firebombs at the monster, retreating whenever it got too close. The plan worked pretty well, though one unfortunate villager wasn't quite fast enough to get away.
But they defeated the monster. They celebrated and shared some of the coins with the villagers, who cheered for their victory while mourning the one they'd lost. The PCs became local folk heroes and the whole thing became a story people in the hamlet kept telling.
And of course, the inverse is also true. Sometimes doing a job with fewer people makes much more sense. Maybe you need a few highly skilled hirelings for a specialized job instead. They'll probably cost more and might come with their own problems and personalities. The world is your oyster. You can make it as interesting or hands-off as you want.
Another reason I like hirelings is that I sometimes play with small groups of just one or two players. Having a few extra hands gives them the obvious benefit of filling out the ranks of an adventuring party if they want to or find themselves struggling.
In one of my games with just two players, they were always trying to recruit more people they met along the way. One time, they ran into three capable hunters during a random encounter. By helping them out, having some leverage, and making a compelling offer, they managed to hire all three on the spot. At one point, I think their group was twelve people strong, with only two actual players.
Sometimes it also just makes sense to hire someone for a particular job, like a local guide or a specialist with a skillset your party lacks. And then there's having people on retainer who do stuff for you while you're away. Maybe you've got someone managing a local business you started on a whim, people taking care of your castle grounds, or you're delving into sicko land and delegating adventuring tasks to your hirelings. Send them out to check out a rumor while you do something more pressing. Sure, most of this stuff happens off-screen, but a dedicated player can use it to their advantage and increase their footprint in the world.
All this requires happy retainers. Treat them like they're disposable or bust their union and your reputation is on the line. Just something to keep in mind.
Btw, this is also a pretty clear segue into domain play, since a lot of this is stuff you'd be doing there anyway. And you don't have to wait until level whatever to get started. You just need the means, some resources, and an idea of what you want to do. Start small and get bigger as you go.
Like with hirelings, domain play can lose a lot of its appeal if you reduce it to just juggling numbers. Some numbers are necessary, of course. They generate tension. But rather than making them the main driver, I'd focus on relationships and the consequences that follow from people's decisions. You still want some good, manageable procedures to handle all this. And I can't recommend calendars enough.
Bottom line is hirelings are awesome and can enrich the game a lot. They make the world feel more real. If you'd rather play something with a bit more main protagonist syndrome, where the PCs can solve every problem themselves, or something more like a sitcom or TV drama where everything revolves around the same cast of misfits, that's fine too. Hirelings can still work as sidekicks or sources of drama, or you can just leave them out if nothing I said sounds interesting to you.
But for me, a world where you can get people to help you do things beyond your own capabilities is a much more interesting place to adventure in. Whether you're just hiring someone to carry your bags or convincing a whole village to fight a dragon, the best part is when those people become more important to your campaign than you ever expected.