Classic druids and their reasons to join a party

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

ever since my first druid - Bear Cavalry, being a bear, riding a bear with a bear companion riding into battle - was killed in an epic siege for a Dwarven stronghold I was wondering how to get druids to join the adventuring groups without much hassle for the DM. You know, what motivates them to join a band of murderhobos, what makes them mostly be on the side of the players when half of the time they don't give two cents about nature.

My first druid was motivated by a rather strong and very classic (other would say cliché) reason. His hometown was destroyed, by a falling airship during war no less and he wants to find the one responsible for it. The reason was solid, entirely in sync with the main plot (war brews on the continent) and generally everyone was still quite happy with it.

But I have struggled to introduce a Druid into another campaign to the point where I chose an (PF) Alchemist instead. I just couldn't see a druid joining a band of expert mercenaries who are paid in order to do things. These things are mostly good aligned (since the leader is CG) but there's no reason for a druid to be there. Part of the reason is that the headquarters is a huge demiplane - albeit nature themed - not even on the plane of nature you're trying to protect.

Therefore I ask in generality and in specialty for the mercenary group how you would introduce a Druid to the or how you had (have had?) introduced a Druid to your party?

[tadkins]

I'm thinking the easiest way to go would be an "enemy of my enemy" type deal.

Unless your druid is joining a party of Captain Planet villains I don't see why them having too many issues cooperating with them.

[eggynack]

My thinking is that something related to nature has to be a motivation that fits into the character somewhere, but it doesn't need to be only motivation. You can really want to save this forest over here, and find your truest self with regards to the balance of something or another, and you also just happen to want to help out this group of friends, or save random goblins from random other goblins. A good character is multifaceted, so making things all nature all the time seems potentially reductive. Or you could always give a percentage of your earnings to a group of like minded folk back on your home plane, earnings that you'd never even come close to just naturing about. Or he could just want the power that comes with being an adventurer, such that he can return to nature with enough juice to make sure it never comes to harm. There are some definite indirect nature goals, in other words, though I definitely don't think you should be beholden to them.

[Seto]

My thinking is that something related to nature has to be a motivation that fits into the character somewhere, but it doesn't need to be only motivation. ... There are some definite indirect nature goals, in other words, though I definitely don't think you should be beholden to them.

This. A player is joining my group with a Druid character. First of all, the reason he's a Druid is not because he's decided that Nature was his alpha and omega (although of course he adheres to the druidic tenets), it's because as a teenager lost in the Frostfell he was taken in and initiated by a Druid NPC. And the reason he's joining the party and taking sides in a war, no less, is that, besides being a Druid, he's also a member of an anti-slavery group (convictions rooted in his personal history), which gives him a political agenda.

[Spore]

I believe we should distinct between "guy who has druidic powers" and "actual druid" in this discussion. I'm aiming for the latter. I know the difference is like a slider but between my storm druid who was awakened because a major war was to destroy the nature of his homeland and some "druid" who fights a personal war against some slavers is a very different idea.

Let's just say that you don't have to go as far as Captain Planet kind of stereotyping but I like some sort of nature theme in my druids. In the case of my druid it was some kind of shamanism combined with the "Law of the Jungle". You make it sound like some guy who wants to hunt slavers and just happens to have druidic powers which ... kind of feels silly. This very much feels like a ranger and nothing like a druid to me. Maybe even Fighter/Cleric of Nature god but not really a druid.

[Seto]

Let's just say that you don't have to go as far as Captain Planet kind of stereotyping but I like some sort of nature theme in my druids. In the case of my druid it was some kind of shamanism combined with the "Law of the Jungle". You make it sound like some guy who wants to hunt slavers and just happens to have druidic powers which ... kind of feels silly. This very much feels like a ranger and nothing like a druid to me. Maybe even Fighter/Cleric of Nature god but not really a druid.

I'd look at it the opposite way : he's a Druid who just happens to have a personal agenda on the side. Of course, the call of nature is central to such a character, and the most part of characterization derives from it, much like a Cleric is defined primarily as the servant of some deity/concept. That does not mean that every single thing he does has to be about nature. (It can if you want it to be : it's easy enough, and makes sense, to say that he perceives nature as the free, wild state of all creatures, and slavery as an unnatural state imposed by corrupt civilization. I feel it's somewhat forced to "naturalize" every aspect of a Druid in this way, but that's a matter of personal taste).
Of course, it helps that in my setting, there are officially (as approved by the Druidic council) two kinds of Druids : fixed Druids that protect some specific place in the wilderness, and traveling Druids who serve as agents of nature where they go, even in an urban context. These guys, even when they're not actively protecting a forest from fire-wielding invaders, stand for something. They represent an outlook, a tradition, a take on things. That's also what being a Druid means. Adventuring Druids fall into the latter category.

The point is, not every quest the Druid undertakes has to be explained by the fact that he's a Druid. Although, for important and long-lasting ones, you might want to tie that into Nature somehow, and with some reflexion it's very often doable. That does not diminish his Druidicness in the least. Which is incidentally the easiest and most natural answer to the question you're asking : why would a Druid join a party ?