Bring Someone Who Can Die

 A 5E party is a closed shop. Four special people, maybe five, each with a novel’s worth of backstory and a subclass that wants camera time. If one of them drops, the table flinches. The story was built around that face.

ACKS does not run that way unless you force it to.

Henchmen are not comic relief and they are not pack mules with hit points. They are how a campaign grows a population. You hire them because you are first level and the dark is larger than you. You pay them. You split treasure. You watch loyalty move when you are greedy, cowardly, or lucky. Some of them die in a hallway you do not remember the name of. Some of them live long enough to become the next problem.

That is the part the so-so games sand off. They want every figure on the map to be precious. ACKS wants the world to have spare people. A fighter with two retainers is already a small company. A thief with a hideout is already a rumor. A mage who can afford specialists is already touching the economy. None of that requires a domain turn. It requires wages, a reaction roll, and the nerve to send someone else through the door.

I used to skip this and call it speed. It was fear. If only the player characters matter, the dungeon is a ride. If the hireling with the lantern has a name and a morale score, the ride can go wrong in a way the story has to keep.

You do not need a kingdom on Monday.

You need one more person who can die for the gold, and a table willing to remember whether you treated them like loot or like a future rival.