KISMET'S DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CAMPAIGN

  My Implementation of Leadership 

My Concept of Leadership

      My concept of Leadership for my current campaign is rather simple.  The way I see it, hired people are less loyal and more willing to jump ship than followers gained through Leadership.  Followers tend to be people who see things in their leader that they like a great deal (for whatever reason), and to such an extent that they'll do a lot more for their leader than other people.  So one key element to my concept is the idea of attraction.  Romantic and sexual attraction can come into play between leaders and their followers, but a follower's attraction can spring out of many other motives.   A follower can be drawn to a leader due to envy, admiration, love, friendship, and other things besides.  Another key element is extent - followers will do more and probably ask for less in return.  Followers are far more willing to relocate, perform labor, offer spells, share information, keep an eye on the player character's interests, guard the player character's stuff, and so on.  Followers will not necessarily work for free but they are likely to charge less and to be happy with other rewards (more contact, praise, sexual attention, what have you).

      In my game, however, NPCs are their own people with their own desires, fears, and minds.  This might seem like a stupidly simple thing to say, but it heavily influences my portrayal of Leadership.   For instance, players never get to design their own followers or cohorts when I run.  I initially made that decision based on my own thoughts about social interactions.  I believe that people are a mystery to one another until they start to socialize, and even then you never know anyone else completely.  In gaming, I feel that it is part of my job to make the NPCs feel as much like people as possible; relatedly, I feel that it's important to leave mysteries between the PCs and the NPCs.  In the end, I figure: the players don't usually get to decide how the NPCs are made and they aren't generally privy to character statistics - why should that change because of Leadership?

      Thus, I do not usually allow players to control cohorts and followers gained through Leadership, nor do they generally gain access to character sheets for their people.  Players will learn what their people can do as they get to know them.  Generally speaking, I design followers and cohorts to be good at what they do (within reason).  Cohorts travel with the group while followers stay behind as friends, support, business partners, information gatherers, and so on.  This means that there isn't a horde of NPCs traveling with the party and the player characters don't lose much of the spotlight.  Recently I have given my players the choice of controlling their cohorts in combat; one has taken over his cohort, the other hasn't.  I continue to portray cohorts and choose their statistics to keep them distinct from the player characters.  It is important to me that NPCs of all kinds remain their own people - they're not just extensions of the player characters, or cardboard cutouts.

      I based such decisions on my concept for Leadership (as well as my overall DMing philosophy) and they strike at the heart of the most heated complaints against the feat.  Some DMs disallow the feat outright because they have seen players build unreasonably powerful cohorts and/or followers; sometimes players get so out of hand that their followers outshine the player characters.  Other times, DMs shy away from Leadership because they don't want players to be able to play another class and gain the associated benefits, for only the price of one feat.  There are certainly other reasons for disallowing the feat, but many of the complaints I've heard might be remedied if DMs were willing to take a more active role in how the feat is adjudicated.

Recruitment

      In my game, leaders can only try to recruit certain people, or types of people - in the end, it is up to the NPCs to decide to follow.  Leadership is definitely based on Charisma and powers of attraction cannot necessarily be controlled, or reliably controlled.  A leader can discourage people from joining them but they don't get the final say on who shows up in the first place.  Followers will also leave if they are treated poorly on a consistent basis, regardless of whether or not the player character's Leadership score has changed.  The first characters to take Leadership in my long-standing campaign got to pick their people from NPCs who showed up in the course of the game.  I did not come up with complete stats for every possible choice; that would have been crazy.  Once the leader made an "official" choice and the NPC agreed, I would fill in the NPC's stats.  There were several followers that my boyfriend designed for other players to take and his builds were reasonable, so I allowed them.  One leader showed up later, at ninth level, so her followers and cohort were given details before she entered play.  I've found that when PCs gather followers along the way, the whole process has a more organic feel.  

The Numbers

      Since I want a more personal approach, I have made some adjustments to the sheer number of followers.  First, I allow players to level up followers they already have instead of gaining new followers at higher levels.  Next, I have come up with a way to slightly reduce the number of followers without disadvantaging the PC.   After a leader gets 10 first level followers and is entitled to 5 more, they make a decision.  They can gain five new first level followers, or they can add one level to five of the first level followers they already have.  I am thinking of doing this at regular intervals - once between a Leadership score of 13/14, once between 15/16, another time between a score of 17/18, and so on.  This will leave less first level followers and will build on established characters.  The one time I have offered this option, the player opted to level up some first level followers.  I have a feeling that most of my players will choose to reinforce their current followers rather than gain more first level folks.  If they don't, I'll happily send more first level people their way - but at least they have a choice.  Additionally, I have ruled that leader can only have one cohort apiece.  We typically have two characters with Leadership in our group of three to four PCs; more than one cohort apiece would take too much away from the PCs.

Character Races

      I've found that using different races can add a sense of variety and excitement to followers.  I've been happy to use one follower with a level adjustment (a tiefling), some followers from "half" races (a half-drow, a half-orc, some half-elves), as well as two followers with +0 level adjustments.  My players have been pleased too.  At the same time, however, I've never wanted a leader to have a zoo, nor have I wanted them to "collect" rare races with little rhyme or reason.  I've done my best to make the variety of characters reasonable; since my PCs have traveled often and far, however, they've had more chances to meet exotic people.  In my main campaign, the majority of followers are generally going to be from the most prevalent races and classes.  If I ever get around to doing a Planescape campaign, I plan to use monster levels and to foster much more variety to play up the exotic quality of the setting.

Leadership Modifiers

      I have kept the default modifiers intact, for the most part.  I am willing to give up to a +2 modifier for truly outstanding generosity on a leader's part, but I am also willing to impose a -2 penalty depending on the type and measure of a failure.  I feel that a penalty should be applied if leaders get their followers killed, rather like the penalty for getting a cohort killed.  Since this has not happened yet in our game, I have not had the opportunity to test this, but I have been considering a -1/2 point penalty per follower.  These penalties are not necessarily permanent, however.  A leader who takes pains to make amends can work off their penalties.  A leader who is able to outrun their reputation might be able to start fresh and avoid the penalties, at least until their old deeds are uncovered.