Druid Court
I think maybe druid court is wise in it’s dispensation of justice. Snowflake super needs a break from the dating scene. I just hope that the entire horse/elf/unicorn love triangle came to light in discovery. I mean, if characters would only take a moment to calm down and explain things rationally… But then again, Snowflake doesn’t seem to have much “rational” to spare.
This is part of the problem with irreconcilable differences in RPGs. You might have a Charisma jacked through the roof. Your arguments may be persuasive. But sometimes the other fellow refuses to see reason. This is, I think, why the phrase “roll initiative” was invented. You’d be surprised how often I’ve seen players try to hash things out though.
Take my paladin buddy. Dude once tried to talk a werewolf out of lycanthropy. That’s not bad in and of itself. “You’ve got to fight it!” is a trope after all. But this particular attempt went on for nearly 20 minutes.
“Just come with us! The priest in town can help you!”
“It’s too dangerous. I might hurt someone. Snarl.”
Wash, rinse, repeat. In retrospect, this was not my finest moment of GMing. I should have called for a definitive roll and said the words, “You don’t think he’s going to listen. You’ll have to change tactics.” But by the same token, my buddy the paladin is an IT guy IRL. He deals with obstinate, pigheaded people all day long, which means that his version of “the power fantasy” looks like “explain things clearly such that the other person changes their mind.” In that way, I believe he’s a fine specimens of Rational Modern Man.
As inhabitants of the 21st century, we like to believe that logic and discourse can win the day. But sometimes illogical people appear. Sometimes they just won’t listen. And rather than repeating the same old arguments at them ad nauseum, sometimes it’s best practice to cut your losses and get on with some alternate approach.
Question of the day then! Have you ever run into an NPC with unshakable beliefs? What was the argument, and why wouldn’t they listen to you despite your excellent Persuasion roll? Tell is all about the crazy clingy horses in your life down in the comments!
GEEKY GREETING CARDS For a limited time only this holiday this season, we’re bringing back our dice ornament X-mas cards over on Laurel’s Etsy store. We’re also rocking our ever-popular d20 Class prints, now updated to include designs for the Artificer, Warlock, and GM. So come one come all! Whether their alignment is Naughty or Nice, give a geek in your life a happy holiday.
ARE YOU AN IMPATIENT GAMER? If so, you should check out the “Henchman” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. For just one buck a month, you can get each and every Handbook of Heroes comic a day earlier than the rest of your party members. That’s bragging rights right there!
Snowflake is still here?
…
Did she sacrifice her horn to break through to the Prime Material Plane?
Snowflake isn’t and never was a Unicorn. She’s, as per the rules of a called mount, a regular (if fancy) horse of questionable alignment.
Though Paladin falling doesn’t seem to have done her good in the looks or sanity department…
Ack. >_< My memory failed me…
Paladin’s falling? Yeah that… uh… that’s definitely having an effect on her! Well spotted! >_>
Someone seriously needs a spa day
Getting cut off from Paladins funds doesn’t help her fancy grooming habits. She might have to do farm labor just to keep her dye-job intact.
As long as the farm isn’t run by a bunch of pigs, she’ll probably be okay…
Thanks for noticing, man. It’s the end of the semester. I need some pampering in the worst way.
Man, Snowflake is gonna need a villainous name change soon with how frayed and ‘sanity slippage’ she’s turning. She’s starting to look like Yzma.
Hmm, I wonder if she can take Antipaladin levels…
I wonder if the knacker’s yard minds crazy in its raw materials…
Sovereign Glue! Now with chaos magic!
No, no… “Snowflake” is perfectly fine name for a sanity slipped individual who thinks everything revolves around them…
IIRc there are horse fighters. So I think so.
Damn, Druid. You didn’t need to diss Elf Princess and Snowflake THAT hard.
Hang on, what’s the mating cycle/season of an elf? Is it measured in years, centuries or eons? Is Lumberjack Explosion in danger of a crazed Elf Princess?
Regardless, I doubt this verdict is a big problem for Elf Princess.
If she does select a mate, it’ll be more likely to be a political arrangement, which requires lots of legal wrangling. Not to mention the whole medieval chastity issue…
She did select a mate, actually. The problem is, uh, biological as much as it is legal.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/powers-of-perception
Well, she says she’ll marry him one day … but will she get permission to from parliament?
I doubt it’s ‘illegal’, I mean Lumberjack Explosion can actually give consent. Against various religions, maybe (but then that would be illegal if those churches are the law, so I’ll give you that one).
The real question is would he? I don’t think he’s into Elf Princess.
Elves are likely to have anti-miscegenation laws. With a low fertility rate and an extremely inflated sense of their species’ worth, they’d naturally tend to want to make sure all their females are giving birth to more elves instead of those pesky annoying half-elves.
About the question at hand, I once had the opposite problem. A stubborn-yet-convinceable NPC that would take three successful argumentation to be swayed. The PCs got discouraged after the second and didn’t make the third attempt.
Looks like it’s time for predictions on how Snowflakes increasing sanity slippage will manifest as she deals with Paladins fall, a sudden lack of funds/grooming, and an increasing amount of denial:
Twigs, leaves and birds in her mane, dirty, muddy hooves, or other ‘natural’ cosmetics.
A hoof-painted saddle on her fur, or a makeshift saddle made out of crude materials.
Carrying a scarecrow on her back, painted/dressed to look like Paladin or someone fancier. Treating it like it’s alive, or giving it tea parties.
A Voodoo doll of Elf Princess (non-functional, as Witch made it).
A shrine to Lumberjack Explosion. Possibly with a few infernal effigies.
A Smeagol-like personality talking to her in reflective surfaces.
Partnering up with Gunslinger (whether he wants to or not).
Increasing amount of running mascara.
Losing weight till she’s skin and bones, or gaining weight (via Haaagen Dasz) till she qualifies for the Bloatmage archetype.
Twitching eyes or facial/neck ticks, bloodshot eyes.
Contemplating whether she’s a bad horse and dismissing the silly idea with blood-covered hooves.
Eating small woodland critters (something RL horses are perfectly capable of doing).
LOL I like those ideas a lot.
As long as Snowflake doesn’t go all ‘cupcakes’ I think Handbook world will be okay…
Gunslinger would not bode well in Druid Court.
Druid court should totally be a recurring feature. With such a plentiful animal cast (some of which are criminal outright), another such recurring court with Cleric, and ‘case file’ gazetteer opportunities, there’s plenty of gags to go about with the venerable judge/jury/executioner Druid.
Seconded! ^_^ It’d be fun to see.
What you are about to witness is real. The participants are not actors. They are the actual creatures who have already either made a Profession (barrister) check or were magically summoned to appear in a Handbook-World sylvan court. Both parties in the suit have agreed to dismiss their court cases and have their disputes settled here, in our forum: The Druid’s Court.
I’m an IT guy IRL too. And that’s why my “power fantasy” doesn’t involve explaining things clearly… it involves beating things into people’s thick skulls. With a hammer.
This makes me think a little Aqua Teen episode where the trees put Shake on trial for illegal dumping
typo in that last response. Was supposed to say “…a little OF THE…”
“Question of the day the! Have you ever run into an NPC with unshakable beliefs?”
Yes, but to be honest it’s usually PCs who get so wrapped up in their own delusions that their belief in “the way something is” becomes unshakable. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen groups ‘split’† because one Player/Character refused to accept they couldn’t ‘get their way’ on a matter.
.† Does it count as a split if it’s one person being left behind as the party continues on without them?
Also, I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen PCs drive off a cliff because they stubbornly refused to believe the GM would let them drive off a cliff…
Heh, reminds of of https://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0009.html
Though in that case, the fictional players got away with it.
To be fair that’s also the Players offering a hastily constructed bridge over an unexpected chasm… I’m more in the mind of when Players stare down that ever approaching chasm and expect the GM to blink a bridge in for them…
I don’t do that. The know the chasm is coming, they chose to drive off it.
My friend I must warn
as this day be forlorn
this path is most feral
for this way lays peril.
“And rather than repeating the same old arguments at them ad nauseum, sometimes it’s best practice to cut your losses and get on with some alternate approach.”
This is some Puss In Boots territory right here (literary, not Shrek). I don’t know about you, but I’m always encouraging my players to try things. To the chagrin of a newer group I’ve been playing with that’s tried to sell me on HERO (I remain impressed with the system’s depth and deeply angry at how it’s rules are all over the heckin’ place), I try things when playing that my character sheet doesn’t say I can or can’t do. These are all things that may have a roll component (‘Roll your Indiana Jones Whip Tricks check!’) but are largely not covered by the rules. They are the exact territory of ‘trying a third option.’
As for the QotD… Yes I have. My adventuring archeologist/meddling kid ran face to giant slimey eyeball and tentacles to an actually proper eldritch horror in Rifts. I appealed to his greed and vanity-I challenged him to a duel for our freedom in the grand arena. He scoffed of course, but I explained that if he let me take the first shot and then tore me to pieces in front of the monster crowd, they’d just eat that up. He accepted.
On the way to the arena, I dropped off my character’s mp3 player and had the monster announcer play Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ as my intro theme. Playing fast and loose with the ritual rules (my character was one of those ‘knows just enough to possibly succeed at really dangerous mystic hijinks’ sorts), I told the GM that I was trying to whip up the crowd into cheering for me and use their energy to blast the horror from beyond back to whence it came.
GM “…ok, uh… give me… three percent rolls…”
Rolls: 98, 43, 100
GM “Ermok… give me a strike roll?”
Roll: N20
GM “…uh…huh… Ok, we need to do some math here… Based on how I’m reading this and what you did, you were able to convert 674,000 PPE into that blast… and we’re converting it at 5 PPE to 2D6 damage, so… roll 2D6 and multiply it by whatever that is.”
And lo, on the third ‘We will ROCK YOU’ was fired a beam of blue magical energy which didst cause yon eldritch horror’s giant eye to get very small with what must have been an ‘oh no’ moment as did this beam of coherent magic(k)al energy did blaze through his horror body, through the back wall of the arena, and thus did Atlantis sink.
Our lives and freedom were saved! …unfortunately the load bearing boss had been killed and we now had the Metroid bomb timer set and needed to get out fast.
This… is about typical for this character. He usually wins! …if you call that winning.
huh here was me thinking the law of the jungle was “Beat up anyone who disagrees with you”
You sure it’s not ‘eat anyone who disagrees with you?’
“we like to believe that logic and discourse can win the day.” Thanks that was very funny 😛
I don’t believe that. I rather believe that on any argument both persons cant, non want, to change their mind. So we play our games that way. Insisting with thing will not lead but to a “Several hour later…” time-skip. Neither just by rolling a nat20 you will convincing a king to give you his throne. We don’t get bonus but our DM roleplays and set difficulties according to how the situation is and how we approach arguments, roleplaying them gets a bonus, but just saying: “I tell this dude why his argument is bullshit and will get himself killed at the hands of a coven of angry sun worshiper sectarian grannies” is also okay if only to move things forward and not loose time with roleplaying 🙂
I actually have a Druid Court story. In the Churlwood forest in Varisia lives an elven druid named Formia Tellis. Tasked long ago with guarding an elven portal there, Formia has few companions beyond some leshies and an occasional druid visitor. Over the years, tales of her powerful magical abilities have brought desperate people before her, searching for a way to resurrect loved ones, cure diseases and curses, or regain limbs. Sometimes, she takes gold to spend on her forest, but her prices are hundreds or thousands of gp. For those who cannot afford such things, she will sometimes waive the fee, if they can demonstrate determination, sacrifice and purity of purpose. (Don’t want her magics used for evil purposes, after all.) Sometimes, this means taking care of her animals for months or years. Sometimes, it means becoming one of her animals.
This began many decades ago when the Churlwood was the hideout of a particularly nasty set of bandits. When Formia learned of their cruel deeds and the bad name they had given her forest, she tracked them down, captured them, and turned them all into goats, leaving their minds intact. As she dislikes killing as a solution, she promised that if they were good goats for ten years, she would turn them back and set them free. The bandits’ leader quickly tired of this and tried to kill her in her sleep, so she turned herself into an anaconda and ate him in front of the others, smiling the whole time. The remaining bandits completed their sentence, and at the end about half of them chose to remain goats in Formia’s flock for the rest of their lives. Some liked the life of relative ease, while others wanted to keep relationships they’d developed with the regular goats.
Nowadays, Formia’s herd is a mix of regular animals, animal-minded polymorphees and sapient polymorphees (“penitents”), usually tended to by a few non-transformed penitents. All the animals have humanoid-like names, so it’s particularly difficult for outsiders to deduce which ones have humanoid intelligence and which do not. Especially when a visiting druid or Formia herself Wild Shapes to hang out. Travelers tend to be very polite to any animals within a wide radius of her grove, just in case.
My campaign’s PCs first encountered Formia when she was on a rare trip into a city to buy some supplies. Two PCs later contacted her to reincarnate a deceased villain (who was also one PC’s childhood friend), and they ran into her again after going through a portal and ending up at her grove, conveniently when one PC desperately needed to get some mummy rot cured. Fortunately, both times the PCs had enough gp to pay her fee upfront. (Knowing how cheap PCs are, you’d almost expect they’d take two years as a goat instead!) They also ran into a vampire spawn villain from an earlier arc, very frustratingly tending a herd of goats in an attempt to get her dead friend resurrected. The PCs stayed for dinner and it was… awkward. Humorously awkward.
…The moral of this whole story is that when a high-level True Neutral demands something, you follow instructions.
Yes. I call it “work”.
At one point, my party had been trying to convince a dangerous vigilante to stand down- since she was causing more harm than good. Unfortunately, no matter how convincing we were, she insisted on being a shitheel and attacking innocent people. Eventually we gave up, decided we’d deal with her once the situation in the area was stabilized, and move on with our lives. We deal with the situation, and the spy our party is employed by comes to give us our new orders- which is exactly when the vigilante made her next appearance. Our boss looks at us, looks at her, goes “… Really?” Draws a gun and crits her for twice her max hp, because pathfinder guns are terrifying.
Sometime you roll great, sometimes you talk great, and sometimes you just pick the wrong words.
back in Ebberon. were facing off with a renegade secret agent turned vampire who was discarded by his employer. said employer still need info from said vampire and send us to retrieve it, also dust him off.
along the way we face him and his sister off a few times, kick their ass and they run, rise and repeat. (we didn’t know about the ex-agent then)
we finally catch his sister who spill out the story. my character being Chaotic good say ‘screw this shit, im not a pawn of the MAN, next thing were the ones to get ditched” and convince her to help us get her brother reformed and hide him away somewhere. she agrees.
all goes well until we meet up with said brother, since it was my idea GM let me be the face in the negotiation. bad move, my mage dumped his cha so GM say, just RP it if you make it reasonable i might not even make you roll diplomacy.
i open with “we didn’t come to fight, we came with your sister”
gm stare at me and goes “…roll for initiative’
Was there bad blood between them? Or was the implication that you were somehow threatening the sister?
Oh my sweet summer child.
… i think you might need to have that talk just about now…
I like how Druid Court actually gave decent advice underneath the weird nature spiel.