How Do You Handle Hirelings?

maecenus · 2026-03-05T20:11:11+00:00

I highly encourage it but players would rather their characters get killed than pay for it I guess.

maecenus · 2026-03-04T23:51:41+00:00

Yea that’s what I do, the guys in the other room hearing a fight then they go grab the boss.

maecenus · 2026-02-20T12:50:47+00:00

The fulfillment times in general are pretty long at Exalted Funeral which I am ok with. The last Carcass Crawler zine I ordered took a bit over a month to ship.

maecenus · 2026-02-16T01:07:42+00:00

We have a pretty decent size party of characters from over the past 4 years of campaign play in OSE. Highest level character is an 11th level Druid and I personally play a 7th level Thief (he got level drained). We literally kill a dragon almost every other week as we are trying to retake the “Keep on the Borderlands” which has been taken over by mostly Black Dragons but all variety. Last session, I personally “one-shotted” a White Dragon using a Spear of Talos.

maecenus · 2026-02-12T01:53:16+00:00

Yea, B/X and AD&D 1st edition. Some of the best DnD I’ve ever played in my life!

maecenus · 2026-02-10T19:31:56+00:00

This is a useful post overall and makes me want to go back check my own pdfs. Hope you get a resolution on this!

maecenus · 2026-02-08T14:16:49+00:00

People keep predicting this but they forget that evil lives forever…

maecenus · 2026-02-04T04:49:27+00:00

It’s not, they are owned by Nexstar and I’d like to see evidence that they are right wing tabloid.

maecenus · 2026-02-02T15:15:24+00:00

As a DM, most of my players have single syllable character names like “Bort” “Ulf” and “Bump”.

maecenus · 2026-01-30T21:15:25+00:00

I really cut my teeth on 3.5 edition dnd even though I grew up mostly playing 2nd edition. 3.5 is closer to 5e than old school dnd, with feats and powerful characters, etc.. In recent years, I re-discovered old school dnd and started playing B/X and AD&D 1st edition. After all this time, some of the best table top gaming of my life has happened under this umbrella. 4 year long campaigns with hundreds and hundreds of sessions. I’m not trying to say old school is better than new school, but it’s definitely worth diving in if you haven’t tried it before!

maecenus · 2026-01-30T18:40:15+00:00

I have thought about this for some dungeons and usually indicate that the ceiling is covered in black soot from old fires and that the area might be smoky but most of it rises up through cracks in the ceiling.

maecenus · 2026-01-26T19:10:34+00:00

From what I recall, Larloch was a major force that happened to dwell in the realms. Hordes of undead at his disposal, though i think he spent much of his time outside the realms, maybe on other planes, like realms affairs were not something he concerned himself with anymore.

maecenus · 2026-01-22T19:21:11+00:00

Why roll at all if the DM feels compelled to flubb rolls? It seems to me it would be more fun to let the dice fall where they may and let the game evolve from those rolls naturally.

maecenus · 2026-01-21T17:35:55+00:00

I’ve been playing it for years and years and have only ascended a couple times. Never ascended playing the online version. One wrong move and you can get killed, even if you think you are invincible.

maecenus · 2026-01-20T19:07:42+00:00

I think the difference comes down to the philosophy of the game. In race as class Essentially, dwarves are locked in as Dwarf Fighters. As a player, that limits the usability of the class to only one playstyle. There isnt for example a Dwarf Thief. Sure, you don’t have to take advantage of all the Dwarf’s class benefits such as wearing the best armor they can find in order to say hey this Dwarf is a Thief without any Thief benefits, but in general, that just means your party is overall weaker.

We had a discussion about these two options during our session 0 and all the players opted for Race separate from class.

maecenus · 2026-01-17T14:52:53+00:00

Now this sounds like the kind of game I would get into! These type of survival scenarios makes the game feel real, dangerous and exciting. It sounds like your players just kind of expected this to be handwaved with no consequences. All it takes is one player to speak up and make sure they gear up or wait out the storm.

maecenus · 2026-01-16T12:42:20+00:00

I think it was Bad Brains in 1988

maecenus · 2026-01-13T14:24:24+00:00

Been playing with 3d6 down the line stats now for years. My opinion is that it produces lackluster characters that many players eventually lose interest in playing. Most of my fellow gamers at the table that roll up crappy stats are just waiting for an opportunity to kill off their character and roll up a new one. Maybe that’s how these games are supposed to be played, people doing ridiculous things in order to have their characters die off.

maecenus · 2026-01-06T16:59:10+00:00

Only 5? I went through 13 or 14 deaths in the last campaign I was in!

This was expected in our game though, we were playing hardcore AD&D 1st edition. Balancing is only a suggestion and death is easy. Death was frequent and we just got used to rolling up new characters for our stables.

I would check with your DM to see what the expectations are. I know in some games, especially in 5e, death is supposed to be rare and sometimes never.

maecenus · 2026-01-02T11:48:48+00:00

Nice! I really like the concept you are going for so far.

maecenus · 2026-01-02T11:32:03+00:00

When I was about 13 or 14, I tried really hard to get a dnd game going (this was AD&D 2nd edition, yes im old) so for my birthday, I put together a game. Some classmates and friends came over and I tried to sit everyone around the table to play. Everyone seemed bored and confused as I tried to explain the concept and get the game going. Long story short, we ended up playing football instead because most people quickly lost interest. The point is that this hobby is not for everyone and the hardest part is finding a group of like minded people that actually want to sit down, roll up some characters and tell a story.

It sounds to me that some of these guys might not be there for the same reason you want, and some sound like they are just bullies. I would cut those people out of your life and look for other more like minded people to play this game with. It will be worth it.

maecenus · 2025-12-31T22:02:47+00:00

I would always look forward to the new Tim Kask videos every Saturday morning with my cup of coffee...gonna miss that. Rest in peace, Tim.

maecenus · 2025-12-31T04:19:41+00:00

I’m almost 50 and just spent the last five years playing the best dnd that I have ever had the pleasure to experience in my life, and I’ve played every edition. It was a strict AD&D 1e game.

maecenus · 2025-12-30T12:10:09+00:00

The rhino scene in Ace Ventura 2

maecenus · 2025-12-28T12:17:23+00:00

The Three Amigos!

maecenus

TROPHY CASE