Look at this guy's face:
He's mad!
Why? Probably because, per the AD&D DMG, dealing with NPCs "should be expensive and irritating":
The example that follows is very funny and very Appendix N:
Poor Celowin Silvershield first visits a local tavern to learn of the location of a high-level magic-user. The people there are vague and unhelpful until plied with several rounds of drinks (the bartender, of course, must also be taken care of). In the streets Celowin is "pestered unendingly" by a beggar until he either pays (attracting "a swarm of other beggars") or calls the watch, who may in turn take offense to Celowin's lack of generosity.
Upon reaching the magic-user's tower, Celowin must pay off a petty henchman or risk having the door slammed in his face. When he finally gets an audience with Llewellyn ap-Owen, the wizard immediately takes umbrage with his presence and demands substantial payment before granting any request. If Celowin does not have what the wizard wants, a geas will be laid upon him to force him to go acquire it.
The section preceding this one, PERSONAE OF NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS contains a variety of "FACTS TABLES" for determining NPCs' alignment, possessions/wealth, appearance, and sanity, as well as "TRAITS TABLES" for determining general tendencies, personality, disposition, intellect, nature, materialism, honesty, bravery, energy, thrift, "morals" (which Gygax clarifies means "sexual tendencies" - cool!), piety, interests, and, if their interests include collecting, what it is they collect.
These traits somehow affect reaction rolls, as suggested by this almost entirely unhelpful section:
While the usage of the term is an oft-discoursed topic these days, the bit about sanity is amusing, as less-sane NPCs have more variable reaction adjustments which can go in either direction, ensuring that dealing with these individuals is particularly irritating.
While "NPCs will have some alignment", as well as varying levels of sanity and other traits which may affect their reactions, they are nonetheless, apparently, universally greedy and avaricious (and, presumably, annoying).
Gygax uses the same general tone when discussing the recruitment of NPC spellcasters:
The prices that follow are pretty hefty (and these are just the prices if the player characters are of a similar alignment/religion as the NPC):
(As an aside, there is something very funny about paying an NPC 10,000 gold to cause a magical earthquake.)
Of course, the fees can be much greater:
(This bit about traveling "any distance" makes the fee for an earthquake spell even more amusing. I can imagine a situation where you might want a cleric to travel to a dungeon or enemy stronghold and cause an earthquake there, but 10,000 gold is the fee to cast earthquake without traveling, suggesting that for some reason adventurers are going to the temple in the city or wherever and paying the cleric to cause an earthquake there. Why?)
If the players complain about the cost of spellcasting services, Gygax for some reason recommends quoting scripture at them:
Oh, but that's nice. If the task would further the cleric's own agenda, they'll accept an IOU - it will just be more expensive in the long run.
And don't try getting cute with enchantments, or else the stone to flesh spell intended for your petrified fellow might instead become a flesh to stone spell targeting you:
If the players think they've found an NPC spellcaster to rely on for the foreseeable future, they're out of luck:
There's no such thing as valued repeat customers when those customers are stupid, filthy, meddlesome adventurers. Every request made by such ilk is nothing less than an insulting intrusion!
Between expensive and irritating NPC dealings, taxes, tolls, and encounters disguised "using vagueness and similarity", Gygax paints a portrait of urban life in AD&D which stands in stark contrast to dungeon and wilderness play. Dungeons are deadly labyrinths of monsters, tricks, traps, and treasure, and the wilderness in between is dotted with strongholds (both those ruled by powerful character-type NPCs and those totally deserted for one reason or another), monster lairs, and highly variable random encounters with gangs of teenaged dragons.
Settlements by comparison will appear tame and safe. For the most part, they are. The player characters might run into the occasional group of assassins, bandits, ruffians, rakes, thieves, a press gang, or even a demon, devil, doppelganger, or undead creature, but they will mostly just wander around interacting with NPCs. They don't have to poke every section of the cobblestone path with a ten-foot pole to check for traps, and they won't run into an orc warband 300 strong.
However, the AD&D city or town is not a friendly and welcoming cosmopolitan metropolis - even those NPCs who do not wish to do harm (that is, the ones that don't plan to deceive, tax, indenture, rob, or kill the player characters) will still be resistant to helping and will demand exorbitant compensation in exchange for their aid. Every interaction is a challenge of wealth and patience. The settlement is not a place where the player characters earn their fortune or assert their power over a domain - it is a place that drains their coffers, where more powerful individuals lord over them. The settlement is an adversary of a different kind.
That is all to say, while dungeons and the wilderness are sites of adventure, the city stands in contrast as a site of misadventure, hijinks, and shenanigans, where the Picaresque adventures of Appendix N are painstakingly played out, very rarely to the player characters' gain.