Making Friends
This is the dream scenario for every bard. (Well… one of the dream scenarios.) When you’ve got more than one monster, you’ve got more than one personality. That means there are multiple agendas. Potential points of leverage. And being a naturally gifted instigator, you’ve got the gods-given Charisma to drive a wedge between your foes.
In the classic setup, you’re looking for the scheming lieutenant. This ambitious peon chafes under the command of an unworthy chieftain, and dreams of the day he can Starscream his boss. All he’s waiting for is a devilishly handsome adventurer willing to create an opportunity.
“Alright Glimgot the Unscrupulous. We’re going to storm the throne room and kick the shit out of your boss. All you’ve got to do is NOT ring the alarm gong.”
“Hmmm… Chief Phatlootz is mighty. And you rolled, like, really high. You maybe want goblin infantry to help with stabbing?”
It’s the same deal if you’re working with devious dragons, conniving nobles, or quarreling ettin heads. Your first step is to discover motivations. You second is to dangle your potential ally’s desires in front of them. The third is to ask a simple favor.
And so, for today’s discussion, what do you say we compare our experiences pitting monsters against one another? When it happens, do you find that you’re working without the motivation > instigation > favor paradigm? What are some ways to spice up this classic social encounter? And how can you signal to your players that this particular path is open? Sound off with all your cheating spouses, ancient clan grudges, and duplicitous social climbers down in the comments!
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Not exactly the same, but we had the scheming lieutenant as a (temporary) PC, once. A pragmatic sort, whom, anticipating his own inevitable betrayal, decided to preempt it by letting the main-cast PCs out of the dungeon, and teaming up with / using them to get rid of his boss.
In this case, the timing worked out perfectly, with a guest player joining in for a session that just happened to start with the party in need of a rescue. Had we not had that guest player, I suspect a situation like yours would have been on the cards… an NPC lieutenant receptive to doing a deal.
That’s a great way to feature a guest player, how fun!
That’s a hell of a way to signal the opportunity. Guest players get the “team up with me aura” class feature regardless of class, so these kinds of moves work well to cue PCs to the possibility.
we saved a troll from an abusive relationship and as a result she helped us kill all her kin that were terrorizing the local farms.
she is now our door greeter at out tavern inn 🙂
While bard high persuasion was a factor in gaining more help than we probably deserved, her situation alone also aided in her getting the other female trolls of their tribe to help in setting fire to the caves and she chopped off the head of the chief herself… her former husband 0.0
That’s fantastic! I’m now picturing an Inn staffed fully by NPC’s that the party has rescued/helped over the years, and it’s adorable.
we… actually are doing that XD
– we have a barmaid that is a doppelganger
– our Inn (rooms) are run by the parents of two of our players that were working shitty jobs before
– and we have a kitchen helper (and foster son for two of our other players including myself) that we took in after his parents were killed by a fireball 0.0
I never thought of it as an NPC inn, but it seems like that is what it’s becoming.
We also have gathered a few regulars that are NPCs we’ve encountered and aided along our journey so far 🙂
If it hasn’t already been named, might I suggest “The Innpc”?
Or “The Four NPSeasons”?
I begrudgingly award you +50 XP.
Bardic persuasion is key when asking trolls to do ANYTHING fire related. Good show!
The only thing that ever came close was when our group found a “broken” helm of opposite alignment. It didn’t stop working after the first time worn. So it ended up on the heads of any enemies that ended up unconscious at end of a battle (homebrew). That’s how we ended up with a female ogre character that lead us back to her home “cave” to clear it out. We also ended up with two lawful good type 3 demons that are now training for paladinhood (Tyr has a warped sense of humor). After that episode I made the decision (over much whining) to turn the helm into the temple. That was just a bit to much chaos even for my chaotic good character.
That is a lot to handle, but it sounds awesome!
I had a similar experience with a bag of devouring. Any time you introduce a “broken” item to players, it seems like they’ll go out of their way to find a use for it.
Also of note, I believe there is some precedent for demon paladins: https://www.succubus.net/wiki/Eludecia
It occurs to me I’ve never had the possibility of pulling a Doom here. A real shame.
I am in a play by post where one of my characters is threatening a guard into accepting she’s peaceful though, so that’s interesting.
How exactly do you threaten someone into believing you’re peaceful? I’m intrigued.
“If I wasn’t peaceful you wouldn’t be alive to question me”
> I’ve never had the possibility of pulling a Doom here
It’s all about varying up your monster motivations. “Will attack until killed” is the most common behavior, but it doesn’t have to be the only one! Every grumbling goblin muckraker complaining about poor treatment is an opportunity for, “Hey there, buddy. Could you do us a favor?”
What’s the Firefly quote? “Fight when your should run and talk when you should fight?” Something like that. That’s my PCs. In my 2E Al-Qadim campaign, the following have happened:
A priest PC decided to evangelize to the bound dao (earth genie) enemy, instead of fighting it. Successful roles and brilliant roleplaying started a religious revival that is still playing out.
The party treated with a power necromancer for access to an artifact necessary to cure their mentor. They negotiated in good faith, submitted to a binding geas, successfully used and returned the artifact.
For a Christmas special, the party used a helm of opposite alignment to turn the simulacrum of a fire mage sent to assassinate them. Then, rather than abandon her to the order of assassins they were beholden too, the party hard ball negotiated safe passage and guest status for the simulacrum while the assassins debriefed her.
Finally we recently ran a module in the stronghold of the assassins. The wily PCs managed to:
1. Not become involved in the factional struggles. In fact, I had a hard time getting them to engage the NPCs at all; they remained strongly mission-oriented.
2. The simulacrum from the example above was rescued by the party after they discovered she was changing from a construct to a mortal.
3. The priest/thief, who usually focuses on the thief part, decided to preach for some co-religionists as a nice side roleplaying opportunity. She ended up recruiting the entire order of warriors and how has a holy guard. Back in civilization, the elf priestess is figuring out what to do with a cadre of dedicated hobgoblins…
Your party sounds like they’re having a blast! I especially in awe of protecting the simulacrum like that, most PCs would just abandon them to their fate.
My players are awesome. And since we round-robin DM, sometimes I get to be the awesome player, too.
I’m always impressed when GMs can wrangle all these consequences. That’s because the big problem with “turn enemies into allied NPCs” strat is dealing with the small army of friendly NPCs now occupying your campaign. Keeping those plates spinning isn’t easy, but it sounds like you’ve managed the trick. Good show!
It helps that the group has been together for decades, even through I’ve only been with them 22-ish yearts. Another part of that success is railroading the PCs.
But then, the comment was, “We’re old. We’re tired. Railroad us already.”
I’m a little surprised the phrase “quarreling ettin heads” in the blurb wasn’t accompanied by a link to that scene from Holy Grail
But it is linked to that scene…?
Furthermore, it’s always been spelled “Berenstain.”
I’m currently starting a short campaign of this. We’re playing bandit scouts posing as adventurers. We’re in a town that’s hired a mercenary troop for protection, making a direct attack too risky. But there is some friction in town we can try to grow into full-on discord.
Specific example: The head of the mercenaries is hitting on the major’s daughter. Her mother can see he’s just looking for a good lay, and has asked me to tell him to back off. What I’m actually going to do is disguise self as the mercenary leader, act drunk, then get boorish and grabby with her. I should be able to get him disgraced in her eyes. And even if she tells him why she no longer wants to see him, if I time it right he can’t be sure he didn’t do that.
Mom will have to admit it’s a much more effective deterrent, I get credit for solving the problem, and getting the guy’s frustration up will only increase tension.
Very nice!
Just a quick piece of advice. The trick in these situations is to make sure your GM is aware of your machinations. It’s harder to get the narrative to follow your desired trajectory when I as the GM don’t know where you’re trying to go.
Now good luck, and happy pot stirring!
My friends and I are relatively early into “Wild Beyond the Witchlight” (spoilers ahead). Two carnival owners asked us to go into the Feywild to look out for their Archfey patron, who has been kidnapped and replaced by three hags. Since the hags have ‘stolen’ important parts of ourselves (which the DM has homebrewed to be much more debilitating than in the original module), our characters understandably want to destroy the hags. We made it into the Feywild just three sessions ago, and we already heard a rumor that one of the hags is making plans to backstab her two sisters. That seems like the clearest message from the DM to make the hags fight each other, but I feel it won’t be as easy as our bard and our sorcerer stirring shit with good charisma rolls. First things first though, we have to not get our asses handed to us by a bunch of wascally wabbit brigands.
How so?
1. I heard you wanna off your sisters. Why?
2. That aligns with our interests. We can help!
3. Aid us in the coming fight and we’ll get you your maguffin.