In my less professional days, I’d post these articles the moment I finished typing the article’s last word. Which meant I was posting first drafts. Don’t ask when I stopped doing that. It’s not important.

Now, my less professional days didn’t end all at once. They gradually ended. First, I started proofreading my s$&%. Then, I started reading my articles aloud and correcting s$&% that my proofing—and Grammarly—missed while also fixing anything that just sounded clumsy or crappy. Eventually, I started doing actual revisions. I’d sit down and bang out a first draft as fast as I could type. And then I’d rewrite the whole thing, start to finish. Sometimes, I’d rewrite the thing multiple f$&%ing times. And then I started outlining my articles before I started writing them.

It’s this evolution of my writing process that helps me keep a straight face when I call myself a professional writer. Hell, I couldn’t do that even after I’d written and published a book and sold a few thousand copies. Again, try not to think about when I finally stopped passing off my first drafts as finished work. And how much you spent on that book.

Becoming a professional writer, though, has really f$&%ed up the whole Long, Rambling Introduction™ thing. See, my Long, Rambling Introductions™ involved me doing something that every professional writer agrees you should never, ever let anyone see you doing. It was me “warming up my engines.” Rattling around, organizing my thoughts, and trying to find the beginning of the actual article. Professional writers highlight-and-delete that s$&% before they publish. Hell, they usually don’t let that s$&% out of the first draft. Or even into the first draft.

But the Long, Rambling Introduction™ is part of my whole oeuvre. It’s a part of my style. Because being crappy and unprofessional is a style these days. And while, at this point, I feel like I totally should jettison them, every time I mention that possibility, people get pissed off. Because lots of people really love those Long, Rambling Introductions™. And the people who don’t like them know how to skip them. They know they can just scroll down to the first header in the article. That’s where the real Dark Souls begins. And if you’ve ever wondered why the first paragraph after the first header in most of my articles summarizes the actual useful points buried in the Long, Rambling Introduction™, now you have your answer. I do that on purpose to make the article work without the 750 words of useless flailing around.

These days, the Long, Rambling Introduction™ is something I usually transplant from my first draft. And I purposely start every draft flailing around looking for the proper start of the article just so I’ll have a Long, Rambling Introduction™ when I’m done. But every so often, I write an article like this one. One where I know exactly what I’m going to write and exactly where to start. One whose outline pretty much says it all. One which needs no flailing. And then I have no idea what to fill the Long, Rambling Introduction™ with.

But I digress. My point is that I built a pretty cool, universal-ish system for companion NPCs in D&D. That’s what I’m talking about today.

The More, The Merrier

Welcome kids to the first in a two-part series about companion characters. About how your players can hire henchpeople, attract followers, lead apprentices and squires, buy pets, summon magical thralls, fail escort quests, and even own slaves. If that’s something you and your players are cool with in your game.

Once upon a time, leading followers was a big thing in D&D. You knew your PC had made it when he had an entourage following him around. And if your PC didn’t make it, he could at least fake it by paying an entourage to follow him around. But, that’s just another feature that used to exist in older editions and didn’t make the cut for the “best of everything that Dungeons & Dragons had to offer” edition that is 5E. Of course, it’s not like there’s any sort of precedent in the literature for the heroes leading fellowships or bands of merry men around. So it makes sense that the designers would flush that s$&%.

Except that s$&% ain’t really gone from D&D. First, while PCs no longer start attracting a following once they hit name level, a few PC classes do get to pal around with buddies. Wizards can have familiars. And depending on which iteration of the class we’re running this week, rangers can have animal companions. And, technically, the equipment chapter of the PHB does have prices for hirelings, pets, and mounts. And some spells let PCs summon or animate all sorts of magical critters and creatures. Funny thing though? People don’t see most of that s$&% the same way they see henchmen, hirelings, followers, and sidekicks. Remember that. It’s important.

Now, WotC has made attempts to bring henchfolk and followers back into D&D ex-post-facto-like in Unearthed Arcana articles and in the D&D Essentials boxed set. And other creators—notably Matt Colville—have made excellent attempts to come up with alternate sidekick systems within the D&D framework. Check out Colville’s Strongholds & Followers if you’re interested in such things.

Recently—well, it was like a year ago at this point—I ended up wishing D&D had a good, core way to handle hirelings and sidekicks because my home group ended up down a player and needed a meatshield to accompany them on their adventures. Now, I’ll admit that D&D never had good rules for this s$&%. Even the older editions basically just allowed for the possibility that the players could hire employees for their little adventuring company and spelled out exactly how many hangers-on heroes would eventually attract by class and level. But that’s about all D&D ever did.

So, I did what I always do. I decided I’d just figure it out for myself. I’d come up with my own system for henches and hirelings. With blackjack and hookers. And I really do mean that. Metaphorically. I’m not going to include actual blackjack. And hookers don’t need any special rules beyond the standard rules for hiring an NPC to perform a service. But I did want to go beyond just henches and hirelings.

See, I found myself wondering just why the f$&% such a system didn’t already exist. Because, it seems to me that if you built a good, solid system for adding NPC allies to a PC party, then you could skip all the special rules for familiars and animal companions and summoning spells and just, you know, refer to the NPC ally system. It’d just cover so much. Familiars and animal companions and mounts are just special kinds of followers. Summoned critters and animates are just temporary contractors. Hell, even NPCs that the party escorts or specialists they bring along to deal with specific problems? Those are just followers. It’s all just followers.

So why not just come up with a universal treatment for every NPC ally that might join a PC party for any length of time and for any reason? Which is just what I did.

In this two-part article—you’re reading the first part; the second part comes next week—I’m going to explain how and why I came up with the system I did and then give you the system. In as finished a form as I ever give you anything. You know, it’ll have spreadsheets and tables and reasonably complete rules and a few examples and, if you print all that s$&% out and take good notes, you can use it yourself at your home game.

Making Friends… From Scratch

I’m following my standard, Angry approach in this two-parter. I’ve identified a problem; I’m going to solve it. First, I’m going to outline the problem and figure out what the solution’s gotta look like. Then, through the magic of sheer, unbridled genius I’m going to solve the problem. And then I’ll share the solution. And while I’m outlining the problem, I’m going to ignore other people’s solutions. Except where I rip them apart because they solve the wrong problems in stupid ways.

The problem is that sometimes the PC party ends up with some extra characters in it. Characters who aren’t controlled by the players, but who nonetheless contribute directly to the adventure as de facto party members. Temporarily, permanently, or until death do they part. There’s no systematic way to handle these companions. No rules for statting them up and balancing them. No guidelines for managing them. Nothing. And there should be.

Now, there’s lots of ways an NPC might end up bumming around with a PC party. And I want to encompass all the possibilities as I’ve said. Even the short-term, summoned-for-one-encounter monsters and the NPC experts who are hired to provide one useful skill and go cower in the corner of the battlemat every time a fight breaks out. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to call all such NPCs companions.

What Good are Friends Anyway?

I said there’s lots of reasons why the players would want to drag a companion or three along on their adventures, right? Well, what are those reasons? At least, what are the main reasons?

First, the players might want to fill out their roster with someone who can provide a specific role or skillset. Maybe the party doesn’t have a healer or a strong front-line fighter. Or maybe they feel like they need an extra front-line fighter. Or they want to preserve their magical resources for s$&% other than healing. Maybe no one in the party can disarm a trap or pick a lock. Or maybe they don’t have a tracker and a specific adventure calls for one. Point is, the first reason players might want a companion is to provide some kind of strategic—game-mechanical—benefit.

Second, the players—or a specific player—might have friends along for fluffier, more narrative reasons. For example, rangers have pet wolves and wizards have pet ravens and knights have squires and nobles have retainers. A player might consider such an ally to be part of their character identity. The mechanical benefits of having such an ally are nice, but it’s what they represent in the story that really matters.

Likewise, sometimes the players actually come to like NPCs. And so, they invite them along on their adventures. That’s where all your Splugs and Meepos come from. And while such characters might have useful mechanical skills to contribute, the party usually isn’t keeping them around for an extra sword-arm or whatever. Some companions end up hanging out with the PCs because the story just goes that way. Because the PCs would take the character along.

Of course, some companions—the best companions—provide both gamey, strategic benefits and fluffy, narrative benefits. But it’s important to recognize that these are two different kinds of benefits.

Third, some parties end up with extra members because the GM deemed it so. I’m not talking here about the GM foisting a dreaded DMPC on the party. I’m talking about those situations where the needs of the quest require the players to add one or more NPCs to their roster whether they want them or not. This is where you’ve got your escort quests, of course. But it’s also where you get stuff like NPCs the party rescues from savage orc slavers who then want to join the fight against their cruel taskmasters. And the linguist who’s the only one who can read the riddles carved in the ancient Ruins of Blahk Pulzel.

Right now, I’m just outlining the whole companion thing. What are companions? Why might players bring them along? What do they add to the game? It’s important to spell this out because, if you don’t understand it, you might think all you need to do is hand the ranger a stat block for a wolf or—worse—just give him a bonus attack or feature and say it comes from the wolf. And that just won’t work. But we’ll come back to that.

Now that I’ve looked at what companions add to the game, I need to think about what it looks like at the table when the players bring some extra non-player friends to the party.

Imaginary Friends

I’m going to do a little thought experiment. I’m going to pretend that my players—for various reasons—have asked me if they could have some NPC companions join them on their quest. I’m going to pretend that I know nothing about any of the dumb rules WotC has crapped out in their recent releases and that I don’t know who Cat Molville is and thus have to handle the situation using only the core rulebooks and my own formidable brain. The problem is the game’s about to start. What the most obvious way to add some NPC buddies to the party?

First, those buddies need game stats, right? Everything in D&D needs stats. If it doesn’t have stats, it doesn’t exist. Now, the easiest way to give a human or demi-human with class levels some game stats is to use the character generation rules, right? That’ll work for hirelings and henchmen and retainers and apprentices and stuff, but not for critters and creepy crawlies. There’s no way to use the character creation rules to make the ranger’s pet ocelot or the wizard’s raven or the angel that the high-level cleric pulls out of the bath with a planar ally spell. Fortunately, there’s a whole book of birds and beasts and extraplanar beings. So, to fill the party’s follower roster, we just have to spend a few minutes copying stat blocks from the Monster Manual or a few hours filling out character sheets.

And that’s already a problem, huh? Using monster stat blocks is easy enough, but character generation is a slog. Especially if the character’s got more than a couple of experience levels. Making characters is a huge pain in the a$& in 5E. And it’s probably not necessary either. D&D characters are broad. They’re versatile. They have lots of skills and abilities. But players usually seek companions to provide specific skills or to fill specific roles. But using monster stats isn’t a good solution either. The Monster Manual doesn’t really provide a good roster of humanoid-type adventuring companions. Oh sure, there’s plenty of NPCs in the appendix that look enough like humanoids with class levels to pass for adventurers, but there’s just not enough of a selection to make sure that a party of any power level can find a companion with the skillset they’re looking for.

So, I build a bunch of custom creatures using the DMG’s monster creation rules to fill the roles the players want filled. I have no idea if they’re balanced or not since the monster-maker rules aren’t really meant to make stand-in PCs. But I wing it. And now my players have their roster of companions. So I can start running the game. Minutes later, a fight breaks out. In the game, not at the table. Everyone rolls for initiative and… s$&%.

Who makes the initiative rolls for the companions? And when a companion’s turn comes up, who decides what the NPC does? Someone has to. Either the GM or the players. If it’s the players, which player decides? Do the players decide as a group? And how does this play out in the world?? Does a PC have to order the NPC to do something? Does that require an action? What if no one spends an action to give the NPC an order? Does the NPC just stand around gormlessly doing nothing? I mean, the NPC has a brain and a life-or-death combat is happening. The NPC should do something.

This isn’t a minor issue. It’s a big one. It’s the big one. It’s the issue that all companion systems seem to revolve around. Because there’s a lot at stake. First, there’s the burden it places on whoever has to actually run the NPC. Mechanically. Running any character in D&D is a lot of work. There’s decisions to make, stats to reference, and resources to track. It’s a heavy cognitive load. Sure, it makes sense for the GM to drive NPC companions because they’re NPCs and the GM drives NPCs. But holy f$&%, the GM has enough to do without asking him to also run extra PCs. Shouldn’t the players run the party? Well, the problem there is player-characters are pretty complex things to run. The GM has a lot to do, but all of his jobs are pretty simple in terms of moment-to-moment attention and thought. And because GMs are used to juggling a lot of things, they also tend to be better at multitasking than players are. And they’re more familiar with the game’s mechanics. Moreover, when a GM is running a character, the GM doesn’t have to stop the game to ask for a ruling when the character does something unusual. The character is hooked up to the same brain that makes the ruling. So maybe it’s better if the GM does play the companions.

Now, I have to mention the petty non-issue of spotlight time. Because, if I don’t, someone will shriek about it in the comment section. See, there’s this stupid idea that if one player is running two characters—their own PC plus a companion—they get to spend twice as much time as the other players playing the game. They get more time in the spotlight. And that’s not fair.

That argument is a matter of petty, childish jealousy. And it’s barely worth acknowledging. The fact is any player for whom spotlight time is an issue shouldn’t be playing a team sport like D&D anyway. But there is a real issue underneath it. One that is worth considering. And that’s the issue of game lag. Deciding what to do and resolving it? That takes actual time. Game time. While one companion character ain’t going to chew up enough time to wreck the game, a whole bunch of them could.

That might seem like the perfect reason to use the action economy to fix the problem. Especially if you’re also worried about mechanical game balance. So, if Alice’s ranger has a wolf companion, you could require the ranger to use their action to control the wolf. Or something like that. Basically, Alice only gets one turn each round and her ranger and her wolf have to share it. Thus Alice wastes no extra game time just because she had the gall to want a pet. The monster. The problem is, that’s actually a pretty terrible solution. And I know it’s terrible because D&D has implemented that very solution and the result was no one ever used their f$&%ing companions. No player ever thought it was worth wasting their own bada%& PC’s action so they could play as someone’s pet for a turn. Even when the pet’s actions were just as effective, mechanically, as the PCs. If the players aren’t willing to use their companions, the companions might as well not exist. Like familiars in 3E whenever a wizard wasn’t using one of the passive mechanical bonuses they granted.

But let me add another wrinkle to this mess. One a lot of people miss. Even professional f$&%ing game designer people. So far, I’ve only been talking about mechanical control. Who decides what game actions a companion takes? Who rolls the dice? Who tracks their hit points? But there’s another kind of control too. Narrative control. And that can break a companion system too.

There’ve been companion NPC systems in various RPGs—even previous iterations of D&D—in which a companion just boiled down to a set of static bonuses or specific character abilities. Like, if your raven familiar was nearby, you got a bonus on Perception rolls. Or if your wolf was active in combat, you could use your Pincer Attack ability to deal double damage. S$&% like that. Now, if all you want from a companion is a mechanical bonus or a specific role covered, that works totally fine. You won’t care if the companion is basically just the equivalent of a magic item that doesn’t take up a slot. Or a bonus feat. But if you’re one of those players who want a companion because it’s part of your character’s identity, that approach sucks raven balls. If you want to be the ranger with the wolf companion or you want to bethe summoner specialist wizard, you need your companions to feel like more than just a magic item or a feat. They have to actually be companions. And if your group rescued and befriended Meepo, well, you want Meepo at the f$%&ing table. If you let the players control their companions directly or reduce companions to simple mechanics, you’re destroying the very idea of companions. Nice job breaking it, GM.

And now let’s talk about game balance. Let’s imagine I’ve overcome the nontrivial issue of who drives the party’s companions how. Now I have to think about what effect those companions have on my carefully balanced encounters and my brilliantly paced gameplay experience.

Well, here’s the thing. I don’t actually have to think too hard about that s$&%. Unlike the rest of the f$&%ing gaming community, I don’t have any illusions about how carefully balanced and brilliantly paced my gameplay experiences are. Nor do I delude myself into thinking it matters that much. RPGs just aren’t that precisely balanced. Which is okay because players don’t notice balance nearly as much as they—and their GMs; and the games’ designers—think they do. And that’s good. Because I don’t want to rebalance every f$&%ing encounter just because the bard decided to hire some background singers five minutes before the party set off for adventure.

That said, throwing a twelve-member Scooby gang of heroes and their groupies at a fight balanced for three to five player-characters is going to cause some issues. D&D’s action economy is broken enough without me doubling the number of turns the players can spend tanking-and-spanking the dragon before it gets a chance to breathe.

Balance is an issue, but it’s not a huge issue. D&D fights are supposed to make the players feel like unstoppable bada$&es. The game’s modus operandi is easy fights and minimal risk. Fortunately, D&D’s combat engine is interesting enough to hold the players’ attention even when it isn’t particularly challenging. You can cite your flow theory and share your favorite personal anecdotes until you pass out. The average group of players doesn’t notice how easy things are or equate easy with boring. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be playing D&D anymore.

Speaking of balance—and how it is an issue, but not a giant issue—I guess I have to mention all the noise gamers make about companion NPCs overshadowing PCs. They’re stupid noises. And they’re always made as an excuse to hobble or lobotomize companion NPCs. To make them less powerful than the PCs running the show. First, that s$&%’s unnecessary. If the players feel like the companions are part of the party—another argument in favor of just letting the players control their companions—they won’t feel overshadowed. They’ll just feel like their party is awesome. Second, crippling companions—making them weak or delicate compared to the PCs—just means the players will be afraid to use them. It’s the same as balancing things with the action economy.

Companions have to be roughly as powerful as the PCs. Otherwise, they might as well just not show up for the game. But that means that, from a balance perspective, every companion is the mechanical equivalent of a PC in a fight. So there has to be a way to keep the players from bringing so many companions that they push the game’s balance beyond the breaking point. Wherever that is. D&D, by the way, says that it’s six. Six PCs break the game. So we’ll have to watch that.

That said, not every companion’s a combatant. Remember, companions fill more narrowly defined roles. They’re as effective as PCs, but not as versatile. The players might hire a meatshield or healer, sure, but they might also hire a torchbearer or a Nodwick or a Burglar Baggings to bring some non-combat skills to the table. Wizards don’t send their sparrows and rats into battle against ogres and trolls. And, if they do, they just aren’t responsible pet owners. In point of fact, except for the odd summoner, necromancer, or ranger, most player groups probably aren’t going to bring too many extra combatants along anyway. At most, a small party that’s lacking someone to fill a key combat role might hire a sellsword to play linebacker.

That said, non-combat companions can have a weird effect on the game. It’s not quite a balance issue, but it is an issue. A subtle issue. I’ll explain by way of example.

Suppose I’m running a D&D game for you and two of your buddies. You sit down together and decide to collectively field a warlock, a cleric, and a barbarian. You’re really excited about your team and you think you’ve got some neat synergies. Some really cool combat tricks up the sleeves of your collective robes, vestments, and, uh, loincloths. But then you remember that I like to run traditional raid-and-pillage-style dungeon crawls. And you know I loves me some good, old-fashioned Indiana Jones-esque trap-filled labyrinths. The problem is none of you wants to play a rogue. Rogues suck. Then, you remember that you can just hire a non-combat burglar to follow you around. And you remember that it’s D&D. Which means you’ll find a crap-ton of treasure and have nothing to spend it on. Problem solved. Later on, when you’re comparing your characters, you notice that the barbarian’s player didn’t take any wilderness survival skills. He just doesn’t see his barbarian as a survivalist. No big deal, you figure. You’ll just hire a wilderness guide. And that’s when you realize that it doesn’t matter what non-combat s$&% you and your friends can do because you can easily hire the companions you need to make sure you can just do everything.

While non-combat companions won’t necessarily break the game’s rigorous and precise—LoL—mechanical game balance, their easy availability will trivialize the choices the players make during character generation. The skills you don’t bring actually mean more than the ones you do. Because the situations you can’t just roll your way past are the ones that challenge you to think.

Now, let’s pretend I’ve solved those balance issues. The mechanical combat issues and the weird issue letting the players have everything they need for a trivial cost. Once I get past that issue, I can actually start running my game. And that means I’ve now fully outlined the problem.

What Makes a Good Friend?

The point of that whole exercise was to show you how I know what a good companion system has to look like. What solutions does it have to provide? What problems does it have to address? What questions does it have to answer? And what qualities does it have to have?

My companion system necessarily has two parts. First, it’s got a companion-building part. That’s the part that tells the GM how to stat up any companion NPC they need. Second, it’s got the companion-running part. That’s the part that tells GMs and players how the companions act during gameplay and who handles what.

Now, those two parts have to meet some specific criteria. First, they have to allow for a lot of variety. There’s lots of different reasons why players might bring companions along and lots of ways they might acquire them. And there’s lots of different kinds of companions. And, while they all have to work within the same framework, they all have to feel different from each other. Pets and hirelings and summoned creatures and loyal followers should all play the same, but feel different. And non-combatants should feel like non-combatants even if they can take actions in combat.

Second, companion NPCs have to be relatively simple. They can’t bog down the gameplay or burden the GM or the players. Companions should require minimal effort to play and track. But they also can’t be weaksauce or pointless.

Third, companions have to feel like independent entities. A companion has to feel like it has a mind of its own. Even if it’s under the direct control of a player at the table. The extent to which a companion must feel independent varies, of course. Summoned creatures and animated constructs really are just an extension of the PC that conjured them up. But they’re the exception, not the rule.

Fourth, companions have to play nice with the game’s balance. They have to impact the game or they’re pointless. Players who bring companions along have to be better off than players who don’t. But there have to be limits in place so they don’t trivialize the game’s challenge or render the choices made during character generation meaningless. In short, companions can’t be instant win buttons by letting the players overwhelm every foe with sheer numbers or by letting the players have access to every skill in the game.

As my final word, I’m going to add an extra condition onto that last one. I know WotC loves imposing hard, arbitrary limits for game balance purposes. Like, “you can only have as many companions as your charisma allows.” Well, that’s amateur-hour bulls$&% as far as I’m concerned. That’s a f$&%ing cop-out. I want to let the players have as many companions as they think they can manage. Of course, I’ll give the GM veto power if the players want more companions than the GM can manage.

Come back next week and I’ll show you how I—mostly—pulled this off.