Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 10)

We played the tenth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 1 (Maya)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Armstrong, human man-at-arms (NPC)
• Bronson, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

Last time, the party and their goblin allies engaged in a heated skirmish with the Stonespeaker orcs of Quasqueton. The party avenged the fallen mage Malkara when they slew the goblin Lumpknuckles, and convinced the goblin Numbnuts to throw down his arms and surrender, rather than die in battle. The goblin Narka took a grievous wound from the orcish vanguard, but was saved by Robbernar. The goblin leader, Grilk, was ambushed by a second group of orcs while leading a flanking party. Sadly, he was slain. The party eventually killed the orcish vanguard and forced the rear guard to retreat back to their lair.

The party and their goblin allies gathered the dead. The player characters were allowed to keep the orcs' pocket change for themselves when they showed Narka how to open the secret door leading to the hidden room with barrels and casks of provisions, which was christened the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder.

We picked up from there. As the party debated its next course of action, they heard the magic mouths in the entrance corridor activate. The goblins armed themselves again and ran to investigate with Llombaerth and Robbernar in tow. They found a female human fighter in studded leather, wielding spear, shield, and longbow. She introduced herself as Mirkle, and said she had come in search of Quasqueton's great treasures.

The goblins wanted to fill the newcomer with arrows, but Mirkle tossed them a gold piece, and the remaining party members convinced the goblins to let her pass.

The party decided to go after the remaining orcs, but wished to recruit some of the goblins to accompany them. Robbernar gave a rousing speech to rally the goblins, to which Llombaerth added "For Grilk!" This managed to embolden Grilk's squire, Viss, who raised his mace and echoed "For Grilk!"

The rest of the goblins were unmoved. Rekk was eventually convinced when the party pledged to be in the vanguard themselves. The goblins would bring up the rear, and would not need to engage in melee combat. In addition, every goblin which participated would receive a half-share of any treasure recovered. 

Numbnuts wished to stay put and hide. Robbernar tried to convince him that if the party failed, the orcs would come for Numbnuts next. Numbnuts countered that he would simply run away and hide amongst the rats, to which the party responded that the rats outnumbered Numbnuts, and wouldn't it be more glorious for Numbnuts to die in battle against the orcs than to be eaten alive by rats? This convinced Numbnuts to join the group.

Narka was still nursing her wound from the previous battle, so she decided to hang back and guard the goblins' territory. The traitorous goblin Pigmug was still a captive, after all, and someone would have to keep an eye on him.

With that, the party decided that they would retrieve a few barrels of water from the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder and use them to barricade the northern entrance to the orcs' territory. They would then loop around to the southern entrance and attack the orcs from the rear. They enlisted the goblins' help in transporting the barrels.

With the whole group in position at the southern entrance, Llombaerth snuck on ahead to scout the area. The long, winding corridor went left, left again, right, right, right again, and then left, upon which Llombaerth came to an intersection - one corridor straight ahead, and another to the right. 

Llombaerth was in hearing range of an orc sentry, so I had him make a Move Silently check, which he passed. To the right, the corridor went 60 feet and then opened up into a larger room, lit by flickering torches. Where the corridor ended, two orcs stood guard, facing straight ahead, so their left flank was exposed to Llombaerth. He decided to move through the intersection and continue straight ahead.

Shortly after passing the intersection, Llombaerth failed a second Move Silently check, stumbling over a loose flagstone. He heard a grumbling orcish voice from the corridor just ahead, and heard orcs cautiously approaching from both directions. He attempted to Move Silently back the way he came, but tripped again, and the orcish grumbling turned to shouts. The orcs' cautious steps turned into a full pursuit.

Llombaerth had a lead on the orcs, and was faster besides, so he led them on a chase back down the winding corridor until he was able to rejoin the rest of the party and alert them to his pursuers. Armstrong and Robbernar moved forward into the corridor, shields up, while Mirkle and the three goblins lingered just beyond the threshold, their bows at the ready.

An orc came stumbling around the corner, and Mirkle and the goblins loosed a volley of eight arrows down the hall. One of Mirkle's and one of Viss's arrows connected. A staggering six arrows missed the orc, who survived the initial attack, though only barely. The orc reeled and made to retreat, and the party pursued.

As the party rounded a corner, a second orc was waiting for them. It loosed an arrow at Armstrong, but the shot went wide. The second orc fell back as well. The party pursued both orcs at full speed, leaving the slower goblins behind, but gained ground on the orcs each round. 

At the intersection which Llombaerth had come to previously, the wounded orc went right, while the other continued straight. The party ran down the injured orc and Robbernar drove his sword into its back, killing it.

As the orc fell, the party spotted another two orcs just ahead, waiting for them with bows drawn. One of the orcs wore the usual suit of studded leather, decorated with rough stones and pebbles which clattered as it moved. The second orc looked to be one of those injured in the prior battle. As the party charged, the second orc lowered its weapon and fled, leaving the stone-armored orc alone. It loosed an arrow at Armstrong and landed a critical hit for 8 damage. The arrow went through Armstrong's eye, and the man-at-arms fell dead in a heap. The orc retreated into the room, its back to the far wall.

Before the party could pursue, the remaining uninjured orc emerged from around the corner to the left, blocking their path. An arrow from Llombaerth was deflected by the orc's shield. Mirkle took up Armstrong's position in the vanguard and stabbed her spear into the orc's side. As it twisted in pain, Robbernar slashed with his longsword, slaying the orc.

Meanwhile, the stone-armored orc turned and fled out of sight. The party heard the sound of grinding stone somewhere up ahead. As they emerged into the room, they found the remaining wounded orc trying to escape through the door they'd barricaded shut. Llombaerth loosed a pair of arrows and Mirkle threw her spear. All three attacks caught the orc in the back for maximum damage - 22 total damage to an orc with 1 hit point left! The various projectiles handily killed the orc and pinned its body to the door.

The party found themselves in a throne room. Two great white marble thrones sat upon a red granite dais overlooking a rectangular court of black slate flanked by red granite pillars. Dusty, moldering yellow and purple drapes hung from the wall behind the thrones. They did not see where the stone-armored orc had gotten to. The goblins had caught up with them at this point, so they set about searching for secret doors.

They nearly didn't find any, until Numbnuts got tired of searching and decided to sit on one of the marble thrones. In doing so, he accidentally pressed a button on one throne's armrest. A secret door in the back-left corner of the room slid open, and they heard an orcish curse.

The party offered the orc surrender. Instead, they heard the sound of grinding stone again. They pursued through the first secret door and entered into a bedchamber decorated like a log cabin or woodland lodge, its walls lined with strips of finished wood. Rich tapestries hung from the corners of the room, a great bed and cabinet pushed up against the right wall. The orc fled through a second secret door to the left.

The party pursued again, and found that the second secret door deposited them in the hallway in which they had barricaded the door with barrels of water. Mirkle fired another arrow at the orc's back as it fled. The orc was wounded, but wasn't brought down. Robbernar ran down the orc at a full sprint, with Llombaerth and Mirkle bringing up the rear.

Too slow to escape pursuit, the orc turned and surrendered to them, begging for its life. They pressed the attack. Both Mirkle and Robbernar's attacks glanced off the orc's shield. Llombaerth climbed atop one of the barrels to get a clear shot and finally put an arrow through the orc's head, killing it.

Llombaerth took the orc's stone armor and bestowed it upon Viss, declaring him Stonespeaker. The armor was too big for Viss and he could barely stand while wearing it, but it seemed to earn him respect from the other goblins. Viss thanked the party and said he hoped that he would have the party's support in the upcoming Goblins' Moot. While the party were not goblins and so did not have a say in choosing their new leader (or any rights in goblin society), their endorsement might encourage more of the goblins to throw their support behind Viss's bid.

Lastly, Mirkle took the stone-armored orc's flail as a trophy. With that, we concluded the session. 

This was another fun one. The twisting corridors of Quasqueton continue to present unique challenges and really liven up what could otherwise be dull dungeon skirmishes. There was a 50% chance that the orc leader's critical hit arrow could have instead targeted Robbernar, which would have killed him in one shot as well (and it was even a below average damage roll). The margin for error in low level AD&D is very small, so the party really needs those lucky breaks to survive (and in this case, a "lucky break" is their hireling dying instead of them).

The orcs have been a big to-do for the party since the early sessions of the campaign, so I'm excited to see what direction the players go in now that they're finally dead. Llombaerth got enough XP to reach 3rd level (which comes with a THAC0 improvement in addition to more hit points and points for his thief skills), but the rest of the party is still 1st level, so Quasqueton's remaining challenges will continue to pose a series threat to them, even though they've come so far!

AD&D's Most Expensive and Irritating NPC

No NPC embodies the Gygaxian maxim that dealing with NPCs "should be expensive and irritating" quite like the sage.

Like the spy, the sage is a special class of expert hireling which follows its own bespoke rules and procedures. Also like the spy, their main gameplay function is the recovery of information on behalf of the player characters. They are the "encyclopedias" and "computers" of the AD&D milieu:

Each sage has a chosen field of study (their major field), expertise in two to four special categories within that field, and some knowledge of one or two other fields of study (their minor fields):

Intuitively, the higher one rolls on the above table, the better the sage, with a roll of 91 to 100 indicating a sage with knowledge of four special categories in their major field of study as well as knowledge of two additional minor fields of study.

A sage's major and minor fields of study are determined by rolling on the table below:

Let's say I roll d100 and get a result of 76, which is a sage with knowledge of three special categories in their major field and knowledge of two additional minor fields. I next roll 53, so the sage's major field of study is humanoids and giantkind. I then roll 66 and 38, so the sage also has minor knowledge of physical universe(s) and demi-humankind. Tragically, there are no subtables to determine the special categories known to the sage, but there are eight listed under humanoids and giantkind, so I'll roll 3d8. I get 5 (legends and folklore), 4 (languages), and 3 (history).

Whether or not a sage knows the answer to some question is based on whether the information is within one of the sage's fields of study or special categories, as well as the nature of the question (general, specific, or exacting):

As you can probably imagine, determining whether a question is of a general, specific, or exacting nature is left to the judgement of the DM:

Here's where we get to the good stuff. In order to conduct their studies, sages require no fewer than four rooms (living quarters, a study, a library, and a workroom) and a total of at least 800 square feet of space for all their materials. The DM is specifically instructed to "make a point of asking for far more than is actually needed", with the example sage specialized in flora requesting an additional root cellar, greenhouse, fungi beds, and several acres for growing plants:

800 square feet is is eight 10' squares or 16 5' squares, so it's not a lot of real estate on a sheet of graph paper, but one can imagine a sage with even just the bare minimum amount of space required occupying at least an entire floor of a tower in, say, the player character's stronghold.

You can roll to determine the sage's ability scores, alignment, and hit points:

As you can imagine, sages have high Intelligence and Wisdom, average Dexterity, and slightly below average Constitution and Charisma. For some reason, they tend towards average Strength (11.5, the same as if you rolled 3d6), but with a higher minimum score (8). They also have 8d4 hit points before Constitution bonuses are applied, which is the same as an 8th level wizard! They are most commonly Lawful Neutral or Neutral in alignment, and most rarely Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Good.

Interestingly, sages are capable of casting spells, and which spells they can cast is determined by a die roll (d4+2 to determine the maximum level of spells, from 3rd to 6th) and their fields of study:

This also suggests that 70% of sages have clerical abilities, 20% have druidical talents, and 10% have magic-user or illusionist abilities (referring back to the table for determining fields of study).

My hypothetical sage with knowledge of humanoids and giantkind, physical universe(s), and demi-humankind is a natural fit for clerical spellcasting abilities. I roll 5 on d4+2, so they can cast up to 5th level spells and will know 1d4 spells of each level. Like a magic-user (or even a cleric, if you choose to take to heart a brief aside in OD&D), a sage's spells are "contained in various source books." This is thematically excellent and evocative, and is maybe the only (?) mention of druid spells being written down somewhere, which is neat.

I'm less sure what to make of the assertion that sages cannot cast "Spells such as bless, chant, prayer, commune, raise dead, commune with nature, and contact other plane." The prohibition against raise dead makes enough sense, as - if no one in the party is capable of casting it - the player characters are expected to pay out the ear to get an NPC to cast such a spell for them. The commune spells and contact other plane are thematically within the sage's wheelhouse, but their inclusion on the list makes some sense, as their use undermines the very purpose of the sage (and makes it far too easy for them to retrieve knowledge on the party's behalf). If other basic spells like bless, chant, and prayer are forbidden, it raises the question: What spells exactly are sages supposed to be allowed to learn? I wish the DMG offered some guidance on that front, but alas.

Note that, because the sage is the most annoying NPC in AD&D, they "will tend to keep [their] spell knowledge as highly secret." The player character is only providing employment and room and board, after all - why should the sage be upfront with them about their abilities?

The next paragraph is not especially remarkable, but take note that sages are all middle-aged to venerable in age:

We'll come back to that in a moment.

Only certain classes can hire sages:

The notable exclusions from the list are magic-users, illusionists, clerics, druids, and monks - which, aside from monks, are the very classes to which sages kind of sort of belong. Perhaps this indicates another aspect of the sage's particularness - they cannot bear to be in the employ of someone with abilities similar to or greater than their own.

Any character can "consult" with a sage (which will later be referred to as "short-term employment"), but any character of the aforementioned eligible classes seeking to employ a sage on a long term basis "must have a stronghold with ample space for the sage" (the four 200-square-foot rooms mentioned above, at the very least) and must be willing to employ the sage for the rest of the sage's life! Very demanding, these sages.

Sages are found only in large towns and cities:

How many sages might be found in such a place? We can work backwards to figure that out. If you have a means of identifying what character-type NPCs live in your settlements, you could decide that any middle-aged to venerable magic-user, illusionist, cleric, or druid in the area capable of casting 3rd to 6th level spells is available for employment as a sage. Using my B1 sandbox as an example, I might decide that Sigismund, a 7th level magic-user, is a sage.

You can then keep working backwards to determine such a sage's fields of study. Sigismund, as a magic-user, would presumably major in supernatural and unusual studies, with minor knowledge in other fields.

I'm fascinated by the assertion that sages belong to an informal "Brotherhood" (but note that they're not all assumed to be men), and that all sages in the area will know about the employment of a sage. The sages are hanging out at the forums, gossiping about all the dumb questions you ask them!

A player character who consults with a sage is employing them on a short-term basis, which is limited to one week's time. After which, the sage is unavailable for one month, because sages don't like to waste their time with "foolish questions" (especially if the fools aren't offering lifetime employment and room and board):

The one-week restriction on short-term employment will affect the sorts of questions a sage so employed will be able to answer, which we will get to later. Note that this service costs at least 100 gold pieces per day!

Sages employed on a permanent basis are also incredibly expensive, costing 400 to 2,400 gold pieces per month:

The "initial material expenditure" represents the purchasing of "reference works, experimental equipment, and so on." The minimum amount (20,000 gold pieces) allows the sage to answer specific and exacting questions at just 50% "efficiency" (unclear to me if this is referring to time spent researching the answer to the question or the sage's actual ability to find the answer). 60,000 gold pieces gets the sage to 90% efficiency, and only after 100,000 gold pieces are spent does the sage operate at 100% efficiency:

The player character can spend additional gold to increase the sage's question answering ability in the general and specific areas. The player character can spend up to 25,000 gold pieces to increase the sage's knowledge outside their fields of study by up to 5%, up to 50,000 gold piece to increase their knowledge in their minor fields of study by a like amount, up to 300,000 gold pieces to add three minor fields of study, and 200,000 gold pieces to add a major field of study! 

Payments are made up front. Increasing knowledge requires a month of game time per percentage point, and adding a field of study requires 2 years of game time. If the player character dares ask a question of the sage during this time, "all is lost" - the sage completely "forgets" all they have learned so far, and presumably demands more money and more time to begin their studies again.

Discovering information takes time, and this is determined by the type of question asked:

A sage can answer a general question in just a few minutes, but specific questions require hours, days, or even weeks. Exacting questions require days or weeks of time. Remember that a sage employed on a short-term basis charges a 100 gold piece fee per day in addition to the costs shown on this table, and that they will only accept employment for a week's time. Thus, the specificity of question which a sage so employed can answer is greatly limited.

There is a chance that answering the question will require more funds, if for example the sage must travel to some town or city for materials. There is also a small to good chance that the reference material is readily at hand, meaning that no additional expenses are incurred:

It is always best to find a sage who has knowledge of the relevant special category of study, but especially so if the sage is being consulted on a short-term basis.

One especially irritating characteristic of the sage is that they will "continue a fruitless search" for knowledge even if a question can never be answered positively:

This sounds as if the sage is not aware that the question is impossible to answer and is simply trying their hardest to find the information, but I choose to interpret it as the sage deliberately wasting the player character's time and money, because it fits my narrative that these NPCs are being annoying on purpose.

Researching a fruitless line of inquiry will always take the greater part of the maximum time required, but at least the sage will only charge half the usual amount for their ineffectual services:

I really like the image of the sage sitting and looking wise for 4 to 6 minutes before simply saying "Yeah I don't know."

Let's say the player characters seek out a sage to consult on a question of an exacting nature. The sage agrees to try to find the answer for them, but will only spend one week doing so. The subject is one of the sage's minor fields of study, so they demand 1,100 gold pieces per day to research it. I roll 5d8 and determine that it will take the sage 23 days to find the answer, so it is impossible for them to do so in the timeframe given. After a week, the sage meets with the party, shrugs their shoulders, and demands their payment of 3,850 gold pieces (half the agreed upon amount). Money well spent! And no, the sage will not try again or spend another week continuing their research. They have more important things to do. See you in one month!

This is my favorite part. After spending more than a day researching the answer to a question, the sage requires time off (1 day for every 3 spent working - quite the PTO policy):

If you bother the sage during their R&R time, they demand additional days off for the intrusion! Until you give them their time off, they will (presumably, deliberately) take the maximum amount of time and require the maximum amount of gold expenditure to answer any questions. The sage has excellent work-life balance, and the Brotherhood, while apparently informal, is presumably a strong and demanding union. Good for them!

Before you start to sympathize with the plight of the sage, let me add that they are also racist:

In a world of scammers and jerks, these guys really are the worst of the worst. You do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them"!

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 9)

We played the ninth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)
• Armstrong, human man-at-arms (NPC)
• Bronson, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

The last time we played, the party enlisted the help of three goblins (Numbnuts, Lumpknuckles, and Slug) in disassembling an antique bedframe. They paid Slug - the goblin who was good at counting - a gold piece to tell them how many orcs were in the dungeon, to which he said seven. They tested his counting ability by laying fourteen copper pieces on the floor, but stiffed him on payment for this service when he got the count wrong. 

Things escalated, and a fight erupted. Numbnuts fled from the room, screaming. Lumpknuckles was badly wounded by the mage Malkara, but came back and delivered a fatal blow to her with his mace, then fled after Numbnuts. Slug alone stood and fought, and was killed by the party's man-at-arms, Armstrong.

The party fled the scene, with goblins screaming and orcish drums pounding in the deep. As they reached the secret door leading back to the dungeon's entrance, they found a pair of orcs lying in wait down the corridor. The orcs loosed arrows at them, but missed, and the party charged. Rory slew one orc and the other fled back to orcish territory. The party dragged the dead orc back through the secret door and began planning an ambush.

We picked up from there. Llombaerth spiked the secret door half shut so that it would provide the party with partial cover from missiles and force any attackers to come through the breach one at a time. He also scattered caltrops on the floor on the party's side of the door. Grilk, his goblins, and the party's porter, Bronson (who had befriended the goblins and was staying with them) were nearby, so they coordinated with the party to defend their own territory from the enemy orcs.

Rekk, the goblin chef, manned a barricade at the top of a short flight of stairs at the end of the hall to the left of the party's position, 60 feet away, ready to fire arrows at any orcs that breached the doorway. Narka, the goblin ratcatcher, manned a second barricade 30 feet to the left of Rekk, allowing her to cover the intersection just outside of the secret door. Grilk, his "squire" Viss, and Bronson (wielding a rusted cleaver and wearing a cooking pot helm) would loop around a long back hallway to catch the orcs in the rear.

The trap was laid, so all they had to do was wait. The drums had gone silent for some time, so the characters could hear their own hearts beating. They heard footsteps from the corridor to the right of the intersection beyond the secret door, straight ahead of Narka's position, along with the crack of a whip and commands bellowed in orcish. Narka screamed out in goblin, and Rekk informed the party that the orcs were sending in the goblins first. Rekk pleaded with the party not to kill his misguided friends.

The party saw Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts rounding the corner, charging through the secret door. Lumpknuckles looked out of it, dried blood caked to the side of his head from the wound Malkara had dealt him. Numbnuts looked terrified. The party wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for Malkara's death. Knowing that Numbnuts was a coward, they yelled at him to throw down his arms and surrender.

As the goblins charged through the breach, they ran over the caltrops, stumbling and hopping and shrieking in pain. Armstrong easily cut down the off balance Lumpknuckles with his longsword. Numbnuts clearly did not want to fight. He threw down his mace and Robbernar stood aside to let him pass. Numbuts threw himself to the floor at Llombaerth's feet, picking caltrops out of his feet with one hand and clinging to Llombaerth's leg with the other.

As the goblins occupied the party, they watched as a pair of orcs armed with long bows moved quickly past the secret door, advancing on Narka's position. They heard arrows fly on both sides, followed by an orcish grunt of pain and a goblin's shriek from a substantial wound.

Rekk moved to reinforce Narka, and Robbernar followed. Robbernar tried to rally Numbnuts to come with him, but Numbnuts stayed clinging to Llombaerth's leg. Llombaerth saw Bronson, Grilk, and Viss emerge from the corridor at the edge of the light shed by Walgretor's lantern, and heard orcish battle cries just beyond that. The orcs waiting in the shadows fell upon the party. Bronson turned and fled immediately through the secret door, stumbling over caltrops and hiding behind Llombaerth along with Numbnuts. Grilk and Viss were trapped in melee with the second group of orcs.

Robbernar found Narka nursing an arrow wound to the shoulder, and swapped places with her just as the orcs came crashing into the barricade with their flails. Llombaerth kicked Numbnuts off of him and advanced into the corridor beyond the secret door. He lit a flask of oil and flung it at the back of the orcs storming the barricade. He missed, but because he had been aiming low, the flask smashed on the floor just behind the orcs. The orcs were splashed by fire, now trapped between the barricade and the flames.

The second group of orcs and goblins battled at the edge of the lantern's light. Grilk let out a blood-curdling shriek as an orcish flail smashed him in the head, and Llombaerth heard a small body hit the floor. Rory and Armstrong left their fortified position to join the fray. Rory led with a deadly slice of his halberd, standing astride Grilk's corpse, but the blade was just barely deflected off an orc's shield. Armstrong pulled Viss out of the way and cut at the other orc with his longsword, delivering a serious blow.

Back at the barricade, Rekk struck with his "mace" (a meat tenderizer) and smashed an orc in the face. The orc fell back onto the flames, its corpse burning and filling the hall with the stink of cooked flesh. Robbernar slashed the second orc with his longsword, but it was only a glancing blow. Llombaerth fired a pair of arrows into the orc's back. One was a direct hit, the arrowhead protruding from the orc's chest right before Robbernar's eyes. The orc slumped forward onto the barricade, dead.

The melee in the second corridor was a series of frantic swings and misses, but the orcs' morale broke. They turned and fled back down the corridor and through the door into orcish territory. The party considered a pursuit, but chose to regroup instead.

In the lull that followed, the party and their goblin allies gathered the dead - Lumpknuckles, Grilk, and the three orcs. The party found fourteen electrum pieces and five platinum pieces on the orcs' bodies. Narka insisted that the party share the loot. Instead, Llombaerth showed Narka how to open the secret door to the room filled with barrels and casks of provisions, where the party had first encountered the rats which Narka was so intent on catching. This was a true treasure trove to the goblins, so they agreed to let the party keep the coinage, and the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder was founded.

The goblins and the party used one of the barrels of lard to lay grease traps in front of the barricades in case of a future attack. Robbernar used a cure light wounds spell to heal Rory (who hadn't actually taken any damage in the battle, but had been burned by flaming oil a few sessions ago in the fight against the carrion crawler). The party planned to launch a counterattack into the heart of orcish territory next session, and we concluded there.

This was a really fun one! This was one of those combats that you kind of just let take up the session. We had been building to this for a while, and while the battle didn't exactly occur on the players' terms, they had plenty of time to make a game plan and set up. It was cool to watch that plan unfold, even if it didn't go as expected, and to see how the players responded to the twists and turns.

Speaking of twists and turns, while the Quasqueton map is hilariously nonsensical with all of its long, winding, narrow corridors, it is really fun to play out a dungeon skirmish in an environment like that. The narrow corridors meant that the orcs couldn't bring their full strength to the fight, while the party and their goblin allies could set up strategic choke points. At the same time, the multiple avenues of approach allowed the orcs to set up counter-ambushes that caught the party and their allies off guard more than once.

The whole combat was maybe four or five rounds at most, meaning it was over in five minutes in game time. Low hit point totals on both sides meant that every blow struck felt significant. While the player characters themselves took no wounds, if they had gotten just a bit less lucky they might have, and any such wound could have killed them instantly.

It was a lot to track at first, with three player characters, a man-at-arms, four goblins, and an unskilled NPC on one side, and two goblins and four orcs on the other. I used individual initiative, which certainly didn't simplify things, but the individual approach affects the ebb and flow of the battle in an interesting way, and prevents one side from easily overwhelming the other with an alpha strike-type round. Combatants quickly die, surrender, or are wounded and must retreat, and the aforementioned narrow corridors limit the number of active combatants at a time, which keeps things manageable.

Do not underestimate the power of naming your monster NPCs! It was super satisfying to me that the players were able to recognize Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts when they came running around the corner. They wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for killing Malkara, and they knew that Numbnuts was a coward and would probably surrender if given the opportunity. They were distraught that it was Narka specifically that took the arrow wound, and her life-threatening injury instilled a sense of urgency in Robbernar as he moved to reinforce the barricade. Rekk, the goblin chef, is now a known badass with a meat tenderizer. It's meaningful that it was Grilk, the goblin leader, who died fighting the orcs, rather than some other generic goblin. It was much more interesting knowing that these specific goblins were putting their lives on the line fighting alongside the party, not just four generic, unnamed goblins. 

The orcs all had names too. While the players don't know which is which, I do. I know that the orc who died in the initial attack last session was Muv, the friendly orc who was considering defecting to the heretical orcs in the lower level. I know that the orcs who died in this session were Brubar the drunk and Rheev, the orc with an interest in barbarian history. I also know which two orcs survived and how they are likely to respond now that they've survived the initial bloodbath. It's a little extra work, but it goes a long way!

Developing the Sandbox: Villages, Hamlets, and Thorps

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

The subject of this post is the development of villages, hamlets, and thorps - that is, small settlements. For larger settlements like towns and cities, see my earlier post on the subject. The process of developing a small settlement will look similar to that for developing a large settlement, so it's worth it to revisit that post before proceeding.

Villages, hamlets, and thorps are the bread and butter of low level D&D. This is, I think, because they are relatively small environments filled with simple people with simple problems and a relative lack of agency in solving those problems themselves. It is much easier to come up with a low level adventuring hook like "Kobolds are stealing chickens" or "Bandits plague the roads" when there aren't high level character-type NPCs around to solve those sorts of problems themselves (although as I've argued in past posts, there are plenty of reasons why these powerful NPCs would not deal with these problems themselves).

Players characters tend to have more agency in these environments, regardless of their level, which makes them a great place to start adventuring, relative to towns and cities. Their actions have more impact in small settlements - they can offer immeasurable aid to its inhabitants, push them around, and make the places theirs, for better or worse.

That isn't to say you don't also need towns and cities. The latter offer a more complex, fantastic, and dangerous urban gameplay experience, alongside greater utility. It doesn't make much sense for the player characters to be able offload their vast sums of treasure in a poor village, hamlet, or thorp. There probably aren't many henchmen in such a place, nor are there likely to be high level NPCs to offer training, or sizeable factions to contend with. That's what towns and cities are for.

I don't find true-to-life medieval demographics to be much use in D&D, but they can occasionally serve as a helpful reality test. Take donjon's Fantasy Demographics generator, for example. Here is an example of what sorts of tradesmen might be found in the average AD&D thorp (population 50):

I don't really care how many chicken butchers and rugmakers there are in my D&D game, but things like blacksmiths, furriers, inns, jewelers, locksmiths, magic shops, spice merchants, and taverns can all be extremely relevant.

Here is an example representation of the average AD&D hamlet (population 250):

Here is an example representation of the average village (population (population 750):

And finally, for comparison, here is an example of the average town (population 4,000):

It's not until you get up to town-sized settlements that you start to have most of the trades reliably represented. Again, most of this is useless for your D&D game, but it is a handy reference point when conceptualizing these locations. If the player characters are truly in need of some specific good or service, they can't count on a village, hamlet, or thorp to have it. They must seek out the town or city.

What then are villages, hamlets, and thorps for? As stated previously, they are a great place for the player characters' adventure to start. They offer low level hooks and agency. They are a training ground for the more complex urban gameplay environments to come.

As with towns and cities, the first step in developing these locations will be to create a minimalist sketch including the settlement's population, any character-type NPCs who live there, who rules there, and the general population or ruling power's initial attitude towards the player characters. You can do this exactly the same way as you would for towns and cities. The population will be smaller, which means fewer character-type NPCs, which means less work for you.

The only settlement of this type in my B1 sandbox is Ebongrove, a thorp of about 30 people. There are 26 humans, 2 dwarves, 1 elf, and 1 half-elf. There are no character-type NPCs. I'll make a point to detail the four demihumans that live here, since they will stand out. If there were character-type NPCs, I'd detail those as well, and since there would be so few, I could really go into detail if I wanted to.

Since the thorp lies in the shadow of a castle to the north (Fayette's Hold), I decide that it is under that stronghold's protection. However, the stronghold has been taken over by brigands, who have imprisoned its ruler. The brigands are agents of Lambrecht (the Evil wizard who rules Timbershore) but are now in conflict with him. They lord over the thorp and terrorize the surrounding countryside. I place a detachment of 20 brigands with a 3rd level fighter leader in the thorp as an occupying force.

Another thing which distinguishes these locations from towns and cities is their size. Obviously, they are smaller. Unlike towns and cities, where the player characters must crawl from district to district and from one location to another within each district, possibly incurring random encounters, these settlements are all basically one "district", and the player characters can travel from one location to another more or less as they please. Nonetheless, I like to have a few locations and their relations to one another laid out, like so:

This is a small settlement in AD&D, so of course there are trifling treasures buried in cellars and gardens and hidden in taxidermized animals, saddlebags, and under floorboards. I also note where NPCs can be found at different times of day. There isn't really any rhyme or reason for the number of locations or nodes, aside from the fact that I wanted a seven-node "flower".

Since the thorp has a population of 30, I decide there are three militia people among them, which the party can recruit to help fight against the brigands:

The "-2 to recruitment attempts" is just an interpretation of a standard reaction roll. In this case, I rolled either a 4 or a 5 for this NPC, which is an "unfriendly" reaction. As you can see, I justified this modifier by leveraging the NPC's relationship to another NPC in the settlement.

Here, then, is the list of the remaining NPCs:

Because these settlements are smaller and more tightly knit than towns and cities, we get to zoom in on these otherwise unremarkable NPCs and focus on their relationships with one another, the small favors the player characters can do for them, and the favors the NPCs can offer in return. Player characters can earn the NPCs' aid by simply going up to them and asking them (which is where the modifier/reaction roll comes in), by doing them a favor, or by earning another NPC's trust (similar to how militia people are more likely to lend their aid if their family members have already been helped). This creates a web of relationships which is much denser than what I would prep for a town or city.

This is ultimately what distinguishes small settlements from larger ones. Because there are so many people in large settlements, we have to focus on the most important ones, and the rest become fuzzier as a result. Small settlements offer a different sort of "slice of life" gameplay wherein even woodcutters, charcoal burners, and shepherds become important. The player characters can show up and simply fight the brigands and run them out of town (or thorp, in this case), but they also have a bunch of places where they can get help, if they need it.

Again, there's no real rhyme or reason to the number of NPCs I've chosen to detail here. Including the militia (and not including the brigands' leader), I've detailed 14 here, which is almost half the thorp's population. That's probably a bit much, but I just tried to think of who all might be here and what sorts of aid they might be able to offer. Five or six NPCs might have been a perfectly fine amount.

Also worth noting are single dwellings, which are home to just 1d12 occupants, but appear in 3% of all hexes according to the AD&D stocking method. These may seem rather dull and unimportant, but they're a lot of fun. With just 6 or 7 occupants on average, you can really flesh these out as homesteads with either multiple families or as single family dwellings with lots of children, elderly parents, adult siblings, hired hands, and the like. 

These places are extremely vulnerable to depredations by monsters, so you can have the same sort of "Kobolds stealing chickens" hooks, or even something like "Our kid wandered off and there are wolves out there." There's also always at least a 1% chance that any of these people can be character-type NPCs. One of these days I'm going to roll up a single dwelling with just a 20th level wizard living there inexplicably and it's going to be awesome.

Since my B1 sandbox has just the one thorp, you can check out my B2 sandbox for an example of a village and some single dwellings or my B3 sandbox for a bunch of villages and a hamlet, albeit much less fleshed out than the example provided here. You can see how I'm able to give each of the character-type NPCs just a little bit more detail as a result of there being fewer of them overall.

Hopefully I've demonstrated how villages, hamlets, and thorps differ from towns and cities. It may be tempting to include just a grand city to cover all your bases, just a village because it's easier, or just a town because it sits in the sweet spot in between, but different types of settlements offer different things, both in utility to the player characters but also in terms of gameplay experience. Not every sandbox will have both. Not every sandbox needs both. But the variety will make your sandbox - and the gameplay which takes place there - richer for everyone.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 8)

We played the eighth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
• Malkara, N human mage 1 (Maya)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)

Last time we played, the party wandered into the territory of the Stonespeaker Clan, the band of orcs and goblins led by Drak who control a large corner of the dungeon. The party captured a goblin sentry, Pigmug, interrogated him, and brought him back to Grilk for further questioning. They found the other side of one of the one-way secret doors that connected back to the dungeon's main entrance corridor, then delved deeper into orc territory.

There, they found a carrion crawler attempting to batter down a door at the end of a long corridor. The party's man-at-arms, Booker, fled with the lantern when the carrion crawler charged. Rory took a wound but resisted the carrion crawler's poison. After a tense battle, the party managed to burn the crawler alive with flaming oil. Behind the door the crawler was attempting to batter down, the party found another goblin, Numbnuts, searching a bedchamber. They managed to convince Numbnuts that they were powerful Stonespeakers themselves, and persuaded him to draw them a map of the orcs' territory.

We picked up from there. With Numbnuts now friendly to them, the party began to search the bedchamber. 

A nice tapestry depicting a handsome warrior rescuing a beautiful woman from a burning village hung on the wall in a wooden frame. A message embroidered in gold cloth at the top read "Melissa, the most dearly won and greatest of all my treasures." The party removed it from the frame and rolled it up to take with them.

Malkara found a single gold piece in a tortoiseshell dish atop a red cedar chest of drawers. Inside the chest, she found a silver-plated comb buried beneath some old clothing, which she kept.

While the embroidered green cloth canopy hanging above the bed was dusty and moldering, the headboard was carved and inlaid with gold leaf which read "Melissa". Numbnuts had already begun scraping some of the gold leaf from within. The headboard and baseboard was innately carved rosewood and looked valuable, but it would take time to disassemble and would need several people to carry.

Knowing that the secret door leading back to the dungeon's exit was nearby, the party decided to disassemble the bed and carry it out. They asked Numbnuts to recruit Lumpknuckles, the goblin next door, to help. Numbnuts left briefly and returned with the other goblin. It took some time to convince the goblins that a bed could be turned into gold, but the party managed to persuade them that humans are silly and sometimes want their bed to be beautiful, and will pay good money for it.

The party quickly realized that it was too difficult to show the goblins how to take the bed apart carefully, so they decided to do it themselves, instead using the goblins as sentries at the door. Before long, a third goblin, Slug, came along. Slug was the goblin who was good at counting, so the party asked him how many orcs there were. Slug demanded a gold piece in exchange, but eventually told them there were seven orcs, with more downstairs, though the two groups weren't friends.

To test Slug's counting ability, Llombaerth laid 14 copper pieces on the floor and asked Slug to count them. Slug proudly declared that there were 10 copper pieces and demanded another gold piece. Llombaerth refused to pay up, things escalated, and Slug drew his blade. The party attempted to talk him down, but failed. Robbernar drew his own blade, and things fell apart.

Numbnuts failed his morale check. Since he was in the doorway, he turned and fled down the hall. Slug and Lumpknuckles stood and fought. The party's porter, Walgretor, hid under the half-disassembled bed. 

Robbernar slashed at Slug with his longsword, but the attack glanced off the goblin's armor. In close quarters, Malkara moved into melee and smashed Lumpknuckles in the head with her quarterstaff, nearly killing him with one blow. The party's remaining man-at-arms, Armstrong, the goblin Slug, and Rory all flailed at one another ineffectively. Lumpknuckles recovered from Malkara's attack and countered with his mace, hitting an AC of 9 (against Malkara's AC 10) for 4 damage, the exact number of hit points Malkara had. Lumpknuckles cracked her over the head and she fell to the floor, dead. Llombaerth, who meant to pursue Numbnuts, instead stayed put and fired a pair of arrows at Lumpknuckles. One missed and the other glanced harmlessly off the goblin's armor.

At the top of the next round, Lumpknuckles's morale broke, and he turned to follow Numbnuts. Slug stayed to fight to the bitter end. Armstrong struck him with his longsword, killing him with one blow.

Rather than pursue the goblins, who had retreated deeper into orc territory, the party decided to flee. Walgretor grabbed Malkara's corpse. As they fled, Llombaerth spiked shut the door to the hall which led to the orcs' lair, hoping to deter their pursuers. The party fled down the hall, past the burned corpse of the carrion crawler, as they heard drums pounding through the walls. They fled down the long, twisting corridor towards the intersection with the secret door back to the entrance.

As they reached the intersection, they spotted two orcs in the corridor to their right, arrows knocked and bows drawn. The orcs fired into the party's flank. An arrow whizzed by Robbernar's head, and a second glanced off of Rory's armor. The party chose to charge the orcs while Llombaerth opened the secret door and prepared to spike it shut once the party retreated through it.

The orcs drew spears, and one charged to meet the party, missing an attack against Robbernar. Armstrong slashed at the orc, but missed as well. Rory hacked at the orc with his halberd, cleaving into the meat of its shoulder and killing it instantly. Robbernar charged the second orc. They flailed at each other, but both missed. On the next round, the orc's morale broke and it retreated down the corridor and through a door back to orc territory.

The party retreated through the secret door, dragging the slain orc behind them. With Grilk's goblins in sight at the end of the entrance hall, the party coordinated with them to make a plan. They laid caltrops on the floor on their side of the door, then used a piton to create a doorstop so that the secret door could only open halfway, forcing any pursuers to pass through single file. Two of Grilk's goblins would man their barricades at the end of the two halls (one on either side of the secret door), and Grilk and a fourth goblin would run around the long way to flank any attackers from the rear.

Since this seemed like it could be a big climactic battle and take some time to resolve, we ended the session there. Next time, we'll find out how the orcs respond and whether the party's plan will work.

Using AD&D's Spying Table to Resolve NPC Missions

AD&D is a game in which the player characters are expected to overcome challenges themselves. This is made most explicit in the section on NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS, and is embodied by the guiding principle that dealing with NPCs "should be expensive and irritating" - that is, that player characters seeking aid from outside sources should be dissuaded from doing so by the mere fact that those DM-controlled characters will be extremely costly and annoying to recruit, convince, placate, and the like. This is made explicit in the section on HIRING NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS TO CAST SPELLS OR USE DEVICES:

I'm sure that there are many other examples in the text, although my Ctrl + F skills are failing me at the moment to dredge up more evidence. You will have to trust that I've read enough AD&D to be an authority on the matter when I say that this sentiment is apparent in Gygax's writing even when he doesn't spell it out in so many words.

Deserted castles dot the landscape, but do not exist solely for the convenience of player characters seeking strongholds of their own. There are roads to the dungeon built for ease of access, but they're not free to use. Towns and cities are full of NPC adventurers looking for work and high level NPCs with a great deal of power, but henchmen are not easy to find, and high level NPCs are more likely to use the player characters for their own ends than they are to aid them. Dragons' lairs contain mountains of treasure, but henchmen will not stay and guard them on the player characters' behalf. Player characters can find a cleric to cure them of their diseases, but it will cost them dearly.

One exception is, of course, hirelings - those NPCs which the player characters hire and pay on a regular basis (daily or monthly, in the case of standard hirelings, or monthly only in the case of expert hirelings). Most of these are not the adventuring sort, however, and mainly serve to do those mundane or tedious tasks on behalf of the player characters which would make for dull gameplay if handled by the player characters themselves. A limner can draw up a heraldic device for the fighter, an armorer or blacksmith can toil away in the player character's stronghold, and a properly equipped sage can conduct research to come up with the answer to some question in which the player characters have an interest.

Hirelings will go on adventures sometimes, but these are never without the party present. Bearers and porters might carry treasure from the dungeon back to town, linkboys might bear torches or lanterns, pack handlers and teamsters might deal with beasts of burden and vehicles, a scribe might keep the party's map of the dungeon, and a ship's crew might ferry them along a river or across a lake to expedite their forays to and from the site of adventure, but these are all supplemental to the party of player characters - never a replacement for them.

The one hireling which embarks on their own to engage in what we might recognize as "adventuring" activity is an exceptional sort of expert hireling - the Spy:

The spy is a type of assassin NPC which can be recruited much like any other hireling or henchman. They are similar to the sage in that they follow their own bespoke set of gameplay rules and in that their principle purpose is the obtaining of information. The difference is that - while yes, it would be cool if the information the party needs is located in an ancient tome inside a long lost library, and they must adventure to obtain it - the sage's purpose is to abstract the dull work of actually spending months of game time poring over the texts for the answer to the question, whereas traveling to a castle to gather information about the ruler's mustering of forces, infiltrating a secret society, or posing as important officials to gain access to their resources - all without being discovered - is a bona fide dangerous adventure that the player characters well and truly could engage in themselves, and it would be fun to do so.

Whether or not it's a good thing that this potentially fruitful adventuring activity can be handed off to an NPC is not really my concern. Why this particular adventuring activity can be handed off to an NPC and yet the party cannot, say, hire another party of adventurers to conduct some other mission on their behalf (or send their henchmen, their mercenary army, or other followers to do so) is a more interesting question.

It's not such a confounding question, really. The answer is that spying, for one reason or another, is an element of adventuring which Gygax felt comfortable allowing the player characters to engage in at a distance. Going into dungeons, clearing out monster lairs, and laying siege to strongholds is the meat of adventure, and player characters should be involved in those activities themselves.

Except they don't really need to - not 100% of the time. When a necromancer moves into some ruined tomb the player characters cleared out at 1st level and starts raising the dead, why shouldn't those same characters - now rulers of their domains with huge armies and companies of henchmen - be allowed to send those henchmen off on their own adventure to deal with the problem while they focus on more important matters? Why shouldn't they be able to delegate the work of clearing monster lairs from their territory to their mercenary army? When some petty lord in a humble tower stops paying taxes, why should we stop the game to go put him in his place?

The answer is, obviously, because that stuff could be fun. You can send your henchmen to the old dungeon to clear it out again - you just play as your henchmen. You can send the captain of your army to chase the goblins off your land or bring your vassals back into the fold - you just play as the captain commanding the troops. It's all adventure, and worth being a part of.

But maybe sometimes the players don't want to spend a bunch of game time playing out that sort of thing. Their characters have other stuff to do, and they want to get to it. Is that such a crime? Maybe. But I think it should be an option on the table, and if we can abstract spying missions, surely we can abstract other adventuring activity involving NPCs, and I think AD&D's ASSASSIN SPYING TABLE provides a pretty good framework for doing so:

I would argue in favor of ignoring the specifics of this table (that is, the fact that it pertains to spying missions in particular) and instead focusing on what it represents more broadly. On the Y axis, we have the level or strength of assassin, spy, or, more generally, the NPC(s) undertaking the mission. On the X axis, we have the degree of difficulty of the mission. The Simple, Difficult, and Extraordinary categories are defined as such:

While these are all defined within the framework of spying (what sort of action is required of the spy and the resulting chance of discovery), I don't see why they can't be generalized.

For example, the Level Of The Assassin/Spy might instead be the average level of the henchmen sent to clear out the dungeon, or the level of the commanding officer leading the army to clear out the monster lair or lay siege to the stronghold. 

If henchmen are sent to clear out a dungeon, whether the mission is Simple, Difficult, or Extraordinary could be determined by the level of the dungeon relative to the level of the henchmen. If the henchmen are, on average, 4th to 7th level, a dungeon of 3rd level or lower might be a Simple mission (65 to 80% chance of success), a dungeon of 4th to 7th level Difficult (40 to 55% chance of success), and a dungeon of 8th level or higher Extraordinary (20 to 30% chance of success).

If an army is sent to clear out a monster lair or lay siege to a stronghold, an owlbear den or small stronghold (a small shell keep, tower, moat house, or friary) might be Simple, an ogre lair or medium stronghold (a large shell keep or small or medium walled castle) might be Difficult, and a village of 300 orcs or a large stronghold (a concentric castle, large walled castle, or fortress complex) might be Extraordinary. Such an army led by a 5th level captain would have a 25 to 70% chance of success, while the same army led by an 8th level captain would have a 35 to 85% chance of success. You can also use your understanding of the complexity of different location types when determining a mission's difficulty.

We're also given the amount of time required to accomplish the mission:

This does not include travel time to and from the mission location. Simple missions require 1d8 days (average 4 or 5 days), Difficult missions require 5d8 days (average 22 or 23 days), and Extraordinary missions are left to the referee's discretion. If we want to proceduralize it, we could call it 9d8 days (9 to 56, average 40) or 10d8 days (10 to 80, average 45 days). That seems fair. If the players want it done faster, they should do it themselves. This also ensures that they are limited in the number of missions they can have their henchmen, hirelings, and followers conducting at any given time. If players rely too much on these resources, they will soon find themselves spread thin.

In spying missions, there is always a chance that the spy is discovered:

The chance of discovery is a function of the time spent spying (longer missions are more dangerous), the level of the spy (the use of low level spies is more dangerous), and the precautions taken by the spied upon (more prepared targets for spying are more dangerous). Being discovered automatically results in mission failure and imposes a modifier to the SPY FAILURE TABLE which generates more disadvantageous results on that table.

Since this is very specific to spying, and the missions which I'm talking about are not concerned with being "discovered", we might recontextualize this mechanic instead as a "chance of complication". The mechanic is already very much left up to the DM's judgment, so we can get weird with it, using these modifiers to account for any other mitigating factors not already accounted for by our initial calculation of the mission's chance of success - that is, any other considerations which might negatively impact the mission's chance of success.

In the case of the dungeon, are there undead present, and does the dispatched party lack a cleric? Are there monsters which can only be harmed by magic weapons, and does the dispatched party lack these tools? Does the dispatched party have a map of the dungeon? Have wards and traps beyond the ordinary been placed there? Is there some higher level monster present of which the party is unaware?

If the target is a monster lair, are the monsters organized by some more intelligent force than is known? Are the monsters expecting an attack? Do they possess some especially powerful magic item? Have they made an alliance with other monsters in the area? Is the terrain especially unforgiving towards a large army? 

If the target is instead a stronghold, is it ruled by a powerful spellcaster? Does the ruler keep a pet dragon? Does the garrison possess other monstrous creatures like griffons or ogres (such as those strongholds detailed in OD&D)? Is the stronghold well provisioned to withstand a siege? Does the ruler have a spy of their own among the player characters' followers? Is an allied army rushing to meet the besiegers in the field?

The last bit to consider is the SPY FAILURE TABLE and its modifiers:

Again, we can loosely interpret these results to suit our purposes:

• On a result of 01 to 35, the mission simply fails and can be reattempted, but the duration must be rolled again. The time spent on the first attempt is wasted. 
• On a result of 36 to 60, the mission fails, and further attempts are 90% likely to fail as well. We can interpret this as the denizens of the dungeon, monster lair, or stronghold taking additional measures to thwart further missions against them. 
• On a result of 61 to 80, the player characters' agents are caught, imprisoned, and not heard from again.*
• On a result of 81 to 95, the agents are caught and tortured. In the process, either they are killed, they reveal some information which the party does not wish to fall into enemy hands (something about the party's plans or interests, or maybe a vulnerability of their own stronghold), or they are turned to the enemy's side.*
• On a result of 96 to 100, the agents are simply killed or turned to the enemy's side.

*A result of 61 to 95 can also result in the agents being set free, but only if doing so would disadvantage the party in some way. Perhaps they are cursed or infected with a disease and sent back to the player character's stronghold to spread it among their other followers, or perhaps they are unknowingly given a device by which the enemy can scry upon the characters and monitor their activities.

As you can see, "discovery" (or in our case, an unforeseen complication) greatly increases the chance of something bad happening as a result of mission failure. Difficult missions are also more likely to yield unfortunate results when failed. Missions of Extraordinary difficulty are for some reason less likely to result in a bad outcome upon failure (still trying to wrap my head around that one).

It is also worth shouting out the brief aside on Fanatical Spies:

This is very flavorful and very spy specific, but we can use it. Rather than killing themselves (which is the bit that feels very specific to spies), perhaps certain NPC followers are so loyal and devoted to their player character masters/causes that they simply refuse to allow themselves to be captured or turned, forcing their enemies to torture or fight them to the death, rather than betray the player character. This would be an excellent opportunity for a loyalty check.

This bit also points us back to the EXPERT HIRELINGS section (at the top of this post) to determine how much it costs to employ a spy. While we're concerned with henchmen and hirelings already in the player characters' employ with some sort of set compensation (either shares of treasure or a certain amount of coin per month), it does make sense that undertaking an especially dangerous or involved mission such as this would warrant some kind of bonus pay.

Instead of referencing the information about spies, however, let's flip over to the PHB and the table MINIMUM FEES FOR ASSASSINATION:

This table lists the amount of gold earned by a player character assassin for a successful assassination. This is a function of the assassin's level and the level (or notoriety) of the victim. I imagine it could also be the amount of gold the player characters must pay to hire an NPC assassin to do their bidding - after all, why not? Might as well make use of those assassins' guilds running around AD&D towns and cities.

We can also use this as a reference for roughly calculating what sort of "bonus pay" player characters might have to pay out to their followers for completing some mission. The 3rd level henchmen sent to clear out a like-level dungeon would receive a bonus of 225 gold pieces (plus any plunder from the dungeon itself, presumably), the 5th level mercenary captain sent to lay siege to a 9th level fighter's stronghold would receive 900 gold pieces, and the 8th level captain sent to battle an orc army would earn somewhere around 4,000 gold pieces to distribute amongst the soldiers under his command.

Getting others to do your dirty work isn't always fun, but at higher levels of play, player characters have access to lots of resources, and lots of options when choosing what they'd like to do next. I don't see anything wrong with letting them delegate some of their responsibilities so that they can prioritize the goals in which they're personally invested without the world falling to ruin around them. I for one think it's neat that player characters with enough resources can simply hire a spy to infiltrate a secret society on their behalf, or pay an assassin to go kill that evil wizard for them so that they can do something else. 

I don't see a system like this getting much actual use at the table. Most campaigns probably won't reach this level of play, and when they do, I imagine that most players will want to play out these scenarios themselves (whether as their own characters or by assuming the roles of their followers), but I think it's interesting food for thought and wanted to demonstrate how it might work in practice.

Of course, you don't have to limit yourself to resolving player character-orchestrated NPC missions this way. You can also use this method to resolve other NPC "missions", sort of like a "faction turn". Does the rival adventuring party clear out the dungeon and steal the player characters' glory out from under them? Does the villainous wizard successfully create that new magic item or spell they've been working on? Does the upstart gang of thieves in town overthrow the reigning Guild? There are many potential uses. 

AD&D is full of these odd little resources that you don't see very often in modern TTRPG materials, usually covering some very specific scenario which doesn't come up all that much in play. It's fun to let these odds and ends inspire you and let your imagination run wild with creative new ways to utilize them.