Problem a Level 2 Bard could solve, but not a Hill Giant? (Help with writer's block!)

[Brendanicus]

Hey, playgrounders, I'm having a bit of writer's block and you guys seem to be a collective idea encyclopedia.

I'm trying my hand at DMing for the first time for a solo campaign for a 2nd level Bard, who himself is a first time player. I have part of a scenario thought out but need help for the second part.

So my last session ended with the player staying at an inn at the behest of a paladin to see the town's annual festival commemorating the town being saved by a legendary traveling bard, and will be unveiling a recently unearthed lost work by said bard-savior.

The problem arises when, the morning of the festival, a hill giant is blocking the couriers delivering the lost book to the town and refuses to move, threatening to kill any who pass. The paladin petitions the player to talk to the giant, as the player has diplomacy, and this particular giant hates the local church (They called a crusade on his clan a while back) and the only NPC's in town with class levels are the paladin and the local cleric.

The pally does not want to spill unneccessary blood (This hill giant is CN, evil), so he urges the player not to resolve this peacefully.

Since I don't want the whole situation to be solved with a few diplomacy checks, I want the giant to request a favor of the player to get the giant to return to the forest. Any ideas as to what a level 2 Bard could help him with?

Looking forward to any and all suggestions.

[(Un)Inspired]

Hey, playgrounders, I'm having a bit of writer's block and you guys seem to be a colletive idea encyclopedia.

I'm trying my hand at DMing for the first time for a solo campaign for a 2nd level Bard, who himself is a first time player. I have part of a scenario thought out but need help for the second part.

So my last session ended with the player staying at an inn at the behest of a paladin to see the town's annual festival commemorating the town being saved by a legendary traveling bard, and will be unveiling a recently unearthed lost work by said bard-savior.

The problem arises when, the morning of the festival, a hill giant is blocking the couriers delivering the lost book to the town and refuses to move, threatening to kill any who pass. The paladin petitions the player to talk to the giant, as the player has diplomacy, and this particular giant hates the local church (They called a crusade on his clan a while back) and the only NPC's in town with class levels are the paladin and the local cleric.

The pally does not want to spill unneccessary blood (This hill giant is CN, not evil), so he urges the player not to resolve this peacefully.

Since I don't want the whole situation to be solved with a few diplomacy checks, I want the giant to request a favor of the player to get the giant to return to the forest. Any ideas as to what a level 2 Bard could help him with?

Looking forward to any and all suggestions.

The hill giant is a horrible insomniac. If the bard can find a way to let him get a good nights sleep then maybe he'll stop bothering the town.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Anything that involves socializing with little people.
Something in a dungeon he's too small to fit inside of.
Talk to a rival tribe of giants to help win the hand of a fair giantess.
Negotiate with his own tribe to lift his sentence of exile.

[Brendanicus]

These ideas are all fantastic! Keep them coming!

[Slipperychicken]

During the crusade, the church looted something of tremendous value to him (perhaps a well-decorated heirloom necklace passed down through many generations of his family), which is to be auctioned off in the festival. The giant must reclaim this necklace to restore his family's honor. Unfortunately for him, it's being held in a facility too well-guarded for the giant to breach alone (perhaps this is the church itself), but if our cunning hero can retrieve it, the giant will leave the road in peace. The giant may have some gold to trade for the necklace, but the church will not do business with its hated enemy.

Two non-violent solutions quickly come to mind, although others may be possible: The bard can steal the necklace back, buy it himself before delivering it to the giant, or come up with some other plan like forging a copy of the necklace (although the giant is quite familiar with this necklace, and will be furious if he is played for a fool).

There are other non-violent ways to bypass the giant too, like gaining his trust via social skills, then sharing drinks spiked with Drow knockout poison. Afterward, he can bind the giant and drag him to town. That would give the Bard ever greater glory, coming to town woth both a book and a giant in tow.

[Grek]

The Giant wishes to read the book first, but has difficulty with the difficult words. Alternatively, the book is a play and the Giant has been imprisoning couriers to force them to act out the performance for him.

The Giant is hungry and demands that an entire cow be cooked to his (arbitrary and complicated) specifications.

The Giant is in love with the author of the book and demands that the player help him compose and deliver a fan letter to the Bardic Savior.

[Twilightwyrm]

Well that's the thing about a diplomacy check, it only increases the person's attitude in the creature's eyes, it does not (barring insane amounts of diplomacy optimization) force them to do anything. So, the Bard succeeds on getting the giant to neutral or friendly towards, him, and because he decided he likes this little man (or at least dislikes him less than the rest of the town), he will offer him the chance to make a deal with him (Chaotic Neutral, remember). This then leads into your side-quest. The benefit of this is, it lets the player feel like they earned the side-quest through their own skill, rather than being handed it.
As for what a 2nd level Bard can do to help him out, many of the suggestions here are good, and should work fine. One idea however, if you want a very bard specific task would be this. Go with the idea of the stolen artifact, except in this case, said artifact is possibly the last surviving manuscript of some epic poem, story, or other piece of oral history that pertains to the Hill Giant's clan. Since, for your campaign purposes, the Hill Giants have a largely Oral history tradition, and their last storekeeper was killed during the crusade, the Hill Giant needs both this manuscript, and if the giant itself does not actually know how to read, needs the bard to perform the piece for him, so this important part of his people's history might be kept alive.

[Vhaidara]

Anything that involves thinking. Remember, giants (especially hill giants) have a reputation for not being all that bright. I just checked, and it has an Int of 6. Int is the secondary stat for bard (Cha is primary, Dex can be secondary depending on build). So let's say he has a 14. He's more than twice as smart as the giant.

So, you could go with any number of things that require thinking through a solution rather than a skill check. Sadly, I am terrible at thinking of thinking problems.

Other ideas, depending on how in-depth you want it to be and how serious the tone of the campaign is (remember, none of these change that the giant is REALLY stupid):

1. The hill giant's love interest doesn't notice him. The bard has to help him seduce her. Massive potential for comedy gold

2. The giant's favorite toy rolled into a cave that the giant can't fit in. Nice and simple, and slightly endearing.

3. The giant is being bullied by a bigger giant. He lack the courage (*hinthintnudgenudge*) to stand up for himself. Classic tale, and has the potential to lead to a lifelong friendship between the bard and his new giant cohort companion

4. He was framed for killing another member of his tribe, and needs the bard's help to prove his innocence. Much more for the serious campaign, but you could reduce the severity of the offense for a more light-hearted story. Also has the potential for a trial scene with an Int 8 (he's the smart one) judge.

Big thing to remember is that the giants are around Thog's level of intelligence. And vocabulary. And grammar. Gods forgive you for what you must do to our language.

[eastmabl]

The Giant wishes to read the book first, but has difficulty with the difficult words. Alternatively, the book is a play and the Giant has been imprisoning couriers to force them to act out the performance for him.

Building off of this, the hill giant is reading the book, but the writing is bland history of the world, part 1. The hill giant gets violent whenever he reads the terrible writing, which contributes to his badgering the locals. The bard, who has a way with words, reads him the story, spicing up the language to make the hill giant happy - all while making sure the story doesn't confuse him with too many big words. Once he has heard the whole story, he promises to leave the town alone.

The bard gets to roleplay, and not roll-play, his bardic awesomeness and swagger - and if you want, you can let him use his bardic knowledge at certain times to spice up the story. All you have to do is write a very bland story that the bard must work off of.

(I may be stealing this, with a tip of the hap to Grek).

[Brendanicus]

Building off of this, the hill giant is reading the book, but the writing is bland history of the world, part 1. The hill giant gets violent whenever he reads the terrible writing, which contributes to his badgering the locals. The bard, who has a way with words, reads him the story, spicing up the language to make the hill giant happy - all while making sure the story doesn't confuse him with too many big words. Once he has heard the whole story, he promises to leave the town alone.

The bard gets to roleplay, and not roll-play, his bardic awesomeness and swagger - and if you want, you can let him use his bardic knowledge at certain times to spice up the story. All you have to do is write a very bland story that the bard must work off of.

(I may be stealing this, with a tip of the hap to Grek).Out of all the awesome ideas given to me, this one is the best. Though, I'm still going to modify it. Marv the roadblock Hill Giant hasn't seen another giant in years, as he is the only survivor of the crusade. Therefore, he wants to hear a story about giants in order to assuage his lonliness. Endearing, role-play-eriffic, and simple.

Also, I'm totally going to pillage other ideas from this thread if Marv the Giant becomes a reoccurring NPC.

[Pickford]

Bard oriented skill set: Bardic knowledge, Performance skills.
1) The Bard is able to help the Giant by tracking down some lost muckity muck, in return the Giant leaves.
2) The Bard soothes the savage beast by a heroic performance. (Perhaps a rousing speech, appealing to the Giant's nature/heritage; Or a gentle song reminding the Giant of its youth, etc...; This would be highly influenced by the imagination of the player)


and the only NPC's in town with class levels are the paladin and the local cleric.

Why are these NPCs thinking in terms of levels, an artificial game construct?