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…