How to Play AD&D Part XVII: Hirelings--Sages

Something weird was going on in Gary's campaign that compelled him to write 20 paragraphs of rules for running sages in AD&D. 

First off we have tables for determining how much knowledge your local sage has. Briefly, each sage has a major field of knowledge, say Humanoids & Giantkind. Within this major field, a sage will have 2-4 Special categories--rolled on a random table of course. So your H&G major could have a specialization in the biology and languages of Humanoids and giants.   

We also learn that Sages require significant space: a useful sage must have living quarters, a library, workroom, and a study, each room to be at least 200 sf. So 800 sf at the minimum. Not terribly huge, but why must every sage have a separate study and library? And what the heck goes on in a history major's "workroom"? More importantly, why do we care? We just wanted to find out if it's true that orcs have forked penises, what do we care how big the sage's house is? Stick with me, Gary has a reason.

Next we learn about the characteristics of a sage: for instance sages roll 1d8 for their STR and add 7, which means their range is 8-15, which is actually stronger than the norm. Surprising given the sedentary nature of their labors.  They also have exceptionally high Int--makes sense--and Wis--makes less sense--but shit Con and Cha--also makes sense I suppose if we're going to generalize and stereotype, 70s style. 

They also have access to spells up to levels 3-6; not bad considering they are not actually members of a spell casting class. Gygax equates certain fields to certain class of spells--Nature studying sages would have druid spells, supernatural studies indicate MUs, and experts on the physical universe and/or deviant sex would have clerical spells. 

Also, sages have 8d4 hit points. Not bad.   

There are also rules for when PCs hire sages as employees--as opposed to just asking for a consultation. Remember those space requirements mentioned a few paragraphs ago? This is where they come into play: as an employer, you are now required to provide the sage with adequate space to ply its craft. 

This raises the question of who the heck was hiring sages as permanent employees? I honestly can't fathom a reason why anyone would want to do this. Well, it wasn't spell casters because only fighters, rangers, paladins, thieves, and assassins may hire a sage as an employee. Apparently the Brotherhood of Sages (an actual thing) won't allow them to take a permanent gig with a wizard. 

Further, sages will only accept permanent employment offers that are lifelong! You can't just hire a sage for a year or two or ten; once you hire a smarty-pants know-it-all sage, they're on your payroll until they kick off this mortal coil. How many sages with this arrangement end up getting murdered by their patron once they are no longer needed?

Consulting with a sage, however, is open to anyone, spell caster or not. However, Sage-work is a tiring business--sages require 1 day of relaxing and recuperating for every 3 days spent answering a question. And such employment cannot last more than a week or the sage will then be unable to answer any further questions for at least one month!  How the heck did these chumps get through grad school?

All this tells us that finding expert advice was such a valuable commodity in Old Man Gygax's campaigns back in the day that he felt the need to create elaborate rules for sages dispensing knowledge. But you know what else this tells us? It tells us that somebody in Lake Geneva was gaining such an undue advantage from these sage rules and Gygax had to shut that crap down!

 

Another Hommlet Podcast

A Hommcast? Anyway, the latest is from the folks over at Mighty Deeds, which is, I believe, a DCC actual play podcast. Season 3 of which sees our heroes venturing into Hommleton. They continue on to the Temple of Ephemeral Edicts, but they spend about 16 episodes in the village/moathouse.

Strangely, even though they're using DCC rules--published by Goodman Games--they seem to be using the 4e Version of Hommlet, not the Goodman Games reprint. Probably because they didn't want to take a out a second mortgage to get the Goodman Games tomes. But the DM--or whatever they're called in DCC--keeps dissing Uncle Gary's flavor text even though the text he is reading is often not from the original T1. 

Linked here:

Mighty Deeds: Hommlet podcast 

Happy St. Cuthbert's Day!

Today is the saint's day of the original cuddy, St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel! Although the real world Cuthbert seems not to have used a cudgel at all; in this photo of one of his many miracles, he is clearly armed with a sword. If you find yourself near Hommlet today, swing by for the festivities.

St. Cuddy invents the 2x4.

 

Let the players play! MWFs in old time modules

I have a longstanding beef with modules that have some rule written into them that forbids the players from learning important information or performing certain actions that they might otherwise reasonably have a chance of learning/doing. I call that a Module Writers Fiat (MWF). Did Sir Gary Gygaxalot ever include one in his modules? Not that I'm aware of, but here are some old timey modges that did incorporate MWFs:

A1--Slave Pits of the Undercity 

There is an MWF proclaiming that the PCs are not allowed to figure out how to operate the firewagon in the courtyard of the slaver temple. Killjoy.

A3--Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords

The informants in Suderheim that dole out cryptic clues for finding the entrance to the slaver lair will not provide any further assistance beyond repeating their single line of dialog, even though it would certainly help the cause if they would just say "Go to the White Knight Tavern on the Bowery at 4th Street and ask for Phebe."

L1--Secret of Bone Hill

Tales from the rumor table are
only known by NPCs of Level, so the regular townsfolk will have no information to provide even though many of the rumors on the list are pretty prosaic and seem like exactly the kind of gossip you might catch from chatting with the locals at the tavern. 

N1--Against the Cult of the Reptile God

The elves hired by the mayor are not allowed to help the PCs, instead insisting on working alone to stop the Cult. There's no way that two low-level elves are going to do jack squat against the cult on their own. It's not like two freakin' elves are going to tip the balance of power too far in the party's favor if that's the MW's concern--which it obviously wasn't since there is a 7th level MU in town who the PCs are expected to befriend if they want any chance of succeeding at this modge. 

X3--Curse of Xanathon  

This turkey has at least two MWFs. 1) Similar to A3 above, once they've dropped their cryptic clues, neither the dwarf nor the High Priest/Beggar will elaborate on their knowledge regarding the goings on at the Ducal Barracks, even though getting the PCs to investigate the barracks is absolutely essential to the continued play of the module. 2) PCs are not allowed to find the secret door to Xanathon's lab until after they return from the mountains with his soul in a jar. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there were three or four more MWFs to be found in this one.

U1--Super Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

PCs are not allowed to find out why the Persons of Lizardliness are on the smugglers ship at the end of the module, and for good reason: that knowledge would decrease sales of the sequel module!

Interestingly, the sequel in question--U2 Diabolical Danger at Dunwater--does not have an MWF preventing PCs from entering the Lizard Lair through the front door even though this could immediately upend the adventure. Presumably this is because you've already bought the modge; whether you actually play it or not is irrelevant. 

What U2 has instead is a practical design feature making the front entrance unlikely to be used: you have to swim to use it. No second level party is going to want to swim their way into a cave full of lizardmen. Or women. Practical Design Features (PDFs?) are always a better choice than MWFs. 

Greatest Hommlet Blog Post of All Time and Space

While this blog isn't exclusively a Hommlet hagiography, I have certainly written more words about it than any other single topic. And while I am far too humble (and attractive) to claim that any of my posts are the best blog post on the topic, I have identified the single greatest blog post about Hommlet--and it was not even written by a blogger. Rather, it wasn't written on that writer's blog, it was posted in the comments section of the old UnderDark Gazette.

Remember the UnderDark Gazette? Precursor to Dreams of Mythic Fantasy by the late (yes, sadly) James Smith? Remember when ScottsZ usurped James's Hommlet post with a lengthy dissection of  The Temple of Elemental Evil?

James's initial piece went up on June 28, 2011 and was mostly a splat post of different maps of Hommlet and its vicinity. But then, in the comments section, ScottsZ--a dude who had a pretty awesome blog of his own back in the day (Cold Text Files, though no evidence of it remains [EDIT: evidence found! See comments below])--proceeded to provide an in depth analysis of T1-4, posting hundreds of words on a near-daily basis before tailing off in August. He came back for one final post on September 24th but then he disappeared from the internet entirely, never to be heard from again.

Read the whole affair here: 

http://underdarkgazette.blogspot.com/2011/06/village-of-hommlet.html?showComment=1309342335705#c5108633311901958138

Other noted OSR blowhards such as Malishefski, G'hawk G'nard, and even yours truly make appearances in that comment section--just hoping to ride ScottsZ's coattails to glory. His sagacious words outclassed us all. I miss the guy, he had some great thoughts on adding richness to your game setting using deep knowledge of real world history and mythology. He even posted comments on my stoopid blog back in the day, though that should not be counted against him.