OSR How much does your party use Retainers, Henchmen and Strongholds?

Schmoe said:

I'm not familiar with OSE and Domains as a proper noun is a new concept to me. Is there somewhere I could learn more about them?

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I don't know OSE either, I run AD&D with TSR D&D domain management rules.

ldvhl said:

I don't know OSE either, I run AD&D with TSR D&D domain management rules.

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Where do the TSR D&D domain management rules come from?

TiQuinn said:

For those who play OSE or any other OSR game that has these features, how often do they come up in your play? Are they crucial to either the classes that feature them (particularly martials), or to the survivability of PCs? Or alternatively, are they holdovers from the wargaming past and not something that I need to wrap my head around in order to make the most of the system?

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I'm a GM running Shadowdark and coming off of some OSE...plus (unfortunately large amount of) D&D 5E. IME, retainers get ignored because players don't want to split their loot (even though they can theoretically get astronomically more with the extra hands), and domain play never gets off the ground because campaigns either end before high enough levels, or have a specific and often time-compressed focus that precludes the long-form stuff inherent in domain management.

As a player, I've never played in a campaign of high enough level for long enough for domain stuff to come into play. And as far as retainers/henchfolk, I've always championed using them, but it fell on deaf ears among the players, or the GM didn't want to have to "rebalance encounters," despite assurances that we wouldn't bring (most) retainers dungeon-delving with us. A big part of this is that most of the games I've had the opportunity to play in were either later editions with more complex rules (so, not really the topic of your post), or were an AD&D game that was just an endless series of hostile monsters and NPCs.

Schmoe said:

Where do the TSR D&D domain management rules come from?

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D&D Companion Set and Expert Rules

I have never used hirelings, henchpeople, etc in any game I've run or played in, dating back to when I started in 1993. Even in the last few years when I've been primarily using Dungeon Crawl Classics, it's just not a thing that seems worth the headache, bookkeeping, or taking the focus off the PCs.

timbannock said:

And as far as retainers/henchfolk, I've always championed using them, but it fell on deaf ears among the players, or the GM didn't want to have to "rebalance encounters," despite assurances that we wouldn't bring (most) retainers dungeon-delving with us.

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Kinda interesting because one of the things I keep hearing about even modern OSR games is that adventures are geared towards larger groups of 7+ players and to use NPCs if there are fewer than that.

I like the idea of companions in some fashion to round out the party if needed and always find a way to mechanically tie it to Charisma.

I think my latest pipedream setup for my OSR games is every player gets one "actual" character that is more powerful on average (4d6, drop lowest, assigned by player). In addition though, they can also have a number of characters (CHR Bonus) that are average (3d6, assigned in order).

When they can recruit, how much it costs, and if negative CHR has an impact it TBD...

Oh, mostly play C&C.

Schmoe said:

Where do the TSR D&D domain management rules come from?

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The 1e DMG kinda waves at the idea in passing. There's probably enough there to allow a with-it DM to build a workable system on to, but as written it's very sparse.

In the games I DM: henches have been (IMO surprisingly) rare, mostly because the players, thinking in-character, don't want to have to worry about keeping them upright, keeping them paid, seeing to their training, and so forth.

Of late, however, there's been a trend toward hiring captives or surrenderees on as henches; and a PC just recently took on a hench in the more usual manner.

Hirelings - as in porters, torchbearers, guards-of-mounts, etc. - are nearly unheard-of.

In prior campaigns I've run, parties have had bases of operations or strongholds. In one campaign, a reigning-monarch PC married another PC, and their palace became a base for a while. In another, they were rewarded a small castle by a grateful King and by the time the PCs got done with it (close to 100,000 g.p. and several years later) the place was immense. But in my current campaign the closest there's been to a base of operations was that a PC built a pub, which became a meeting point for adventurers for years.

As a player: I probably use henches as much or more than anyone else.

And in the game I play in, our several-dozen-strong collection of adventurers took over a cleared-out dungeon and made a great big secret base out of it. We've got a few dozen hirelings there as guards, and a few dozen more as assorted help because they're completely alien to this world (we rescued them from off-plane dangers and brought them home) and would probably get slaughtered if they went anywhere else.

This base provides a convenient place to park our currently-inactive characters and yet keep them in the loop as to what's going on.

Jahydin said:

I like the idea of companions in some fashion to round out the party if needed and always find a way to mechanically tie it to Charisma.

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Yeah, having companions and making sure you are using those reaction modifiers is key to preventing Cha from being just a dump stat, which honestly is what we used it for way back when I was playing 2e.