Recruiting PCs and NPCs in DF Felltower

In DF Felltower, two things are true about recruiting:

- there always just enough 250 point guys in the world to justify a new PC, but not enough to justify recruiting a 250-point NPC to aid the PCs

- there are plenty of 62 point schleps out there willing to join bandit gangs, pirate crews, militias, cults with funny hats, and other organizations that fight delvers.

It's never an issue when a PC dies and someone wants a new guy. Fine. Or someone just wants to make a new paper man and play that guy for a while. Also fine! I won't argue unless there is something odd about the character. No "in town helper" guys - you can't make a 250-point optimized loot seller who sits in town and takes a percentage to resell loot, or a 250-point healer to fix wounds for free, or anything like that. Your delvers only help play when they actually get involved in play. But I'm not going to say no when you want a new guy, in general.

Also, no matter how many orcs you butcher, there are plenty of orcs who want to join the orcs. They're not going to die like those last two, ten, fifty. No way. Need more bandits? Plenty of guys ready to sign up! Cultists? Does it come with a funny hat and some coins? Sign me up!

This doesn't mean I automatically replenish losses one to one. I tend to make a formula. But until you destroy a group's center of gravity, they will keep recruiting. I was inspired for this by adventures like WG4 The Lost Temple of Tharizdun and T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, which had specific guidelines for not only replacing losses but expanding the garrison of the locations. I always liked the idea of places that lived in the absence of the PCs. So my groups do that - and some of them slink away in the night with their loot when attacked ineffectively. And yes, some can't replace losses and just get ground down by attrition.

Even so, the second rule applies - there are a lot of schleps in the world to replace losses.

While this means PCs could, potentially, put together a small army of 62-point guys, given sufficient payment and inducement. But it would take some work to do, and continuous money to keep them together. Delvers don't have much of an infrastructure to recruit and maintain groups. They just don't. The few delvers that could, generally don't, and irregular pay, regular danger, poor treatment by the delvers, and ridiculous casualty rates take care of the rest. They can still be recruited delve to delve with some notice, mostly because I need to generate stats and VTT tokens and names for the new guys.

But yeah, want a new paper man? You got it, there is a 250 point guy out there and it's you. Your bandit foes need some more guards? There are a lot of 62 point guys out there all ready to sign on for glory! And thus the cycle of gaming continues . . . which is all these truths are about.