Pseudodragons and Nodwicks
This week’s Game WISH is about what pets and henchlings bring to a game, good and bad.
Well, naturally, they can be a munchkin’s dream if allowed to be. It’s for this precise reason that third-edition D&D insists that the GM, not the player, control companion animals and henchlings.
I think that’s a bit harsh, myself. A good roleplayer can be trusted to use critters and henchlings for the sake of the roleplaying. My current gaming group had a munchkin with a munchkin’s pet tiger and a munchkin’s sentient armor (player is now gone), and has several very appropriately-played henchmen spread among several players (of whom I am not one).
The difference between munchkinism and appropriate henchling usage is responsibility, I think. High-level characters need to bond with their pets and their henchlings, or the GM should flatly disallow said associates. It should be nasty for the character when his or her pets or henchlings get hurt or die. If the character’s player doesn’t ensure that, the GM has to.
Fechan had a pseudodragon familiar at the GM’s insistence (have I mentioned that the GM was a mega-munchkin?), and a giant badger who served as her steed (Digger was my idea). They turned out to be useful windows into her personality; the familiar mirrored her unpredictability, the badger her loyalty. I don’t think they unbalanced the game any more than the GM’s other munchkinny tricks.
I’ve never done the sentient-weapon thing. The dynamic would be rather different from that created by a henchling or a pet, I should think, as the weapon is a possession in a way henchlings and pets are not (slavery aside), and it is significantly more difficult to anthropomorphize and feel empathy with.
This isn’t necessarily bad, but in order to avoid abuse and boredom it does suggest that the relationship between player and weapon needs a certain amount of antagonism (otherwise what is the point of the sentience?), and that the GM must be ready to exercise a little more control.
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