How do you settle petty disputes with NPCs

[NecroDancer]

Currently my character has a petty dispute with a no-name village preist who didn't let me kill his vampirized son and upcharged me 5gp for spell ingredients after he learned I was a warlock. My current revenge plan (when I reach level 7) is to summon an earth elemental, kill his son, and punch the priest with said elemental (the more spells I waste on this the better).

My question is what petty disputes have your characters had with NPCs and what did you do/waste to get revenge?

[Deophaun]

Had a little... um... dispute with a gold dragon. See, I was murdering halflings and burning down human towns and enslaving elvish children, and this dragon didn't like that. So, we discussed our grievances with each other like civilized people do. During a particularly heated debate, where breath weapons and enervations were exchanged, I magic jarred him, flew his body down to the nearby city where his daughter was acting as its guardian, crushed her neck with daddy's big, powerful jaws, cursed her soul so it was frozen down in the lower planes, and--as the blood was running over his tongue--dismissed the magic jar to return to my proper body.

Unfortunately, we never did finish negotiations. The locals most definitely did not appreciate the presence of a dragon that smashed into their largest temple and murdered their precious chosen one. And, as he was still working off those enervations, he didn't stand much of a chance against the battle mages. But, I like to think that, just before the end, he saw reason and came round to my side of thinking. Still, he did make a mighty fine flying zombie carriage.

[Knaight]

Currently my character has a petty dispute with a no-name village preist who didn't let me kill his vampirized son and upcharged me 5gp for spell ingredients after he learned I was a warlock. My current revenge plan (when I reach level 7) is to summon an earth elemental, kill his son, and punch the priest with said elemental (the more spells I waste on this the better).

My question is what petty disputes have your characters had with NPCs and what did you do/waste to get revenge?

Were I deliberately playing a sociopathic villain protagonist this might make sense for a character. As a rule though the worst characters I play are anti-heroes with very significant flaws, and this is a bit beyond the pale. Petty disputes are more likely to be handled with petty hostility in return.

[Lacuna Caster]

Yeesh. Does nobody here resort to diplomacy?

[NecroDancer]

Were I deliberately playing a sociopathic villain protagonist this might make sense for a character. As a rule though the worst characters I play are anti-heroes with very significant flaws, and this is a bit beyond the pale. Petty disputes are more likely to be handled with petty hostility in return.

I'm not going to kill the priest, it's more about sending a message

[Draconi Redfir]

it wasn't so much a mutual dispute, as the NPC in question wasnèt aware of it himself, but it was still pretty fun.

I was playing an evil bugbear character, currently disguised as a human and working undercover as a guard in a small castle. The captain i worked under had a nasty habbit of reffering to my people as "Rugskins" or something of the like, while standing right next to me no less. this was basically intentional from the DM.

Fast forward a few weeks, and my human disguise barges into his room after killing his guard, tossing the decapitated head of his beloved brother onto the ground in front of him. Battle ensues, and near the end of the battle, i pause the fight to have my character lock blades with him, uttering the words "you fight well sir, no wonder this keep is so hard to take down. Then again, what would i know? i'm just a no-good rugskin now, aren't i?" slowly removing the disguise as i did so and revealing my bugbear self.

DM let me not only hit on a low roll, but i actually wound up killing the guy with that

[Jay R]

Currently my character has a petty dispute with a no-name village preist who didn't let me kill his vampirized son and upcharged me 5gp for spell ingredients after he learned I was a warlock. My current revenge plan (when I reach level 7) is to summon an earth elemental, kill his son, and punch the priest with said elemental (the more spells I waste on this the better).

Let me get this straight. You tried to kill his son, he overcharged you by 5 gp, and you think you're the injured party here?

I recommend that you sympathize with him about his son, pay his prices without a quiver, and make a long-term ally.

My question is what petty disputes have your characters had with NPCs and what did you do/waste to get revenge?

Potential friends and allies are resources in the game. I don't throw away resources out of pique.

[RickAllison]

There was a capital ship full of pirates, and we very clearly expressed that we wanted it. In fact, we wanted it more than they did. Unfortunately, they didn't believe we wanted it that much. So I hacked their systems, sealed their bulkheads from the outside, diverted the environmental support from the chambers they were locked in, and announced our takeover of the vessel while playing "Staying Alive" and watching them slowly die off from oxygen deprivation. Their droids I then wiped the memory from, later overriding their will with specialty software so they were totally beholden to me and me alone.

I really wanted their ship.

Still better than some of the other party members. One decided that any grievances he had were best dealt with by hacking apart the NPC. In a non-Star Wars example, we had a warlock who decided that any snide comments about Cthulhu, his patron, were to be met with lethal force. Tried this on my monk, he got beat up. Tried this on a crowd, got beat up by the party. Tried this on a disguised ancient silver dragon, got insta-gibbed by ice breath.

I had another incident of this in our supers game last weekend, actually. The grandmaster of the so-called Shadow Force, a rather inept but sinister group devoted to covering the Earth in shadow, refused my offer of creating an alternate Earth with identical resources so they could have everything they wanted. He then backpedaled to say he now also wants to eradicate life for the evulz. So I left. I came back outside his infinitely-tall fortress, in a ship that looked like a 777 with the fuselage replaced by one really big-looking gun. It was a black hole generator. I sucked up his entire fortress, killing any inhabitants and eliminating any resources it had, while he only lived because another PC saved him.

He shouldn't have rejected my offer.

[Quertus]

I had another incident of this in our supers game last weekend, actually. The grandmaster of the so-called Shadow Force, a rather inept but sinister group devoted to covering the Earth in shadow, refused my offer of creating an alternate Earth with identical resources so they could have everything they wanted. He then backpedaled to say he now also wants to eradicate life for the evulz. So I left. I came back outside his infinitely-tall fortress, in a ship that looked like a 777 with the fuselage replaced by one really big-looking gun. It was a black hole generator. I sucked up his entire fortress, killing any inhabitants and eliminating any resources it had, while he only lived because another PC saved him.

He shouldn't have rejected my offer.

So... An infinitely tall fortress... Was consumed by a black hole... Thereby creating a black hole of infinite mass... Which would destroy the whole universe.

And you called the Shadow Force inept.

[Segev]

So... An infinitely tall fortress... Was consumed by a black hole... Thereby creating a black hole of infinite mass... Which would destroy the whole universe.

And you called the Shadow Force inept.

I like to think the fortress was a Dirac function, so despite being infinitely tall, it was sufficiently skinny that it actually only has a finite mass.

[Quertus]

I like to think the fortress was a Dirac function, so despite being infinitely tall, it was sufficiently skinny that it actually only has a finite mass.

Since matter has defined, non-zero width, one cannot create such a thing out of matter.

Of course, if the fortress isn't created out of matter, it need not add to the mass of the black hole in the first place.

[TheFurith]

So... An infinitely tall fortress... Was consumed by a black hole... Thereby creating a black hole of infinite mass... Which would destroy the whole universe.

An infinitely tall fortress that has mass is a threat to the universe to begin with. At the very least the planet it's on. If it has no mass, then the black hole in unaffected and of no threat to the universe.

[Red Fel]

In answer to the thread title directly, "How do you settle petty disputes with NPCs[?]"

With finality.

[Draconi Redfir]

step 1: Kill NPC.
Step 2: Take their head and carve it into a skull.
Step 3: Use "speak with dead" regularly to wretch their souls from the afterlife and force them to awnser stupid questions like "How many steps did i just take before bringing you here?" for a good five or so hours.
Step 4: Repeat
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Depends on the character but -generally- I don't. Petty vengeance is a waste of time and energy when there are better things to do with my (nevermind the group's) time and my daily resources.

On the odd chaotic evil character I may just quietly murder them but that's about it.

Now some -other- NPC's petty vengeance against this one... Well, the customer is always right, eh

[Captain Gervis]

I had a Halfling Barbarian who became very annoyed by an "NPC" (in quotation marks because he was more like a DMPC) who was a Gnome Bard. This guy also found some wizard girlfriend with him that was also unlikable. My Halfling convinced these two to stay at our camp while we explored the area. During our exploration a blizzard started and I got lost and separated from the group. However, I did manage to find my way back to the camp. After becoming extremely fed up with these two NPCs, I decided to take the tarp which was their only shelter. I took this tarp and gleefully ran away, leaving them in the freezing storm with no protection. I found may back to the group and saved them from the storm with the stolen tarp.


To my disappointment, they showed up the next day. They weren't happy.

[Quertus]

An infinitely tall fortress that has mass is a threat to the universe to begin with. At the very least the planet it's on. If it has no mass, then the black hole in unaffected and of no threat to the universe.

I see no reason why an infinite amount of matter spread over an infinite amount of space should be a threat to the universe.

And they never specified that the tower was on a planet. Were that the case, there are several issues.

First, the infinite momentum necessary to rotate and revolve. Also, depending on the speed of rotation, past a certain distance from the planet's surface core (how far varies based on the length of the planet's day), the tower would be moving at faster than the speed of light.

[Quertus]

An infinitely tall fortress that has mass is a threat to the universe to begin with. At the very least the planet it's on. If it has no mass, then the black hole in unaffected and of no threat to the universe.

I see no reason why an infinite amount of matter spread over an infinite amount of space should be a threat to the universe.

And they never specified that the tower was on a planet. Were that the case, there are several issues.

First, the infinite momentum necessary to rotate and revolve. And, depending on the speed of rotation, at a certain distance from the planet's surface core, the tower would be moving at faster than the speed of light. Also, the black hole probably ate the planet. Before eating the rest of the universe, if the tower was made of matter.

[RickAllison]

It was in a "Shadow Dimension" that seemed devoid of anything besides this tower. If I could have destroyed the rest of that world, I probably would have.

As it is, I am looking at developing a new weapons platform to destroy them even more! Between global surveillance specifically attuned to picking up shadow energy, shadow-seeking projectiles, and even shadow-specific nukes, my revenge for the grandmaster's rejection will be brutal...

[arrowed]

Clearly, the only logical solution is to burn down his village and kill everyone in it apart from him and a couple of young, adventurous youths brimming with potential. After that torture the priest according to taste, make a pithy one-liner about his son's vampirism, and execute him in the most humiliating way possible. When the youths who survived turn up again as powerful adventurers, make sure to explain in excruciating detail how their life-defining experience that day was based entirely on petty and ill-founded vengeance and the entire affair was largely inconsequential to you. Then give them closure by attempting to kill them.

Because that is how these things are done. (Don't know how to do Tarquin, blue text means sarcasm, yes?)

[Cernor]

Once I was playing an elf druid who was subject to some particularly racist comments by a dwarf shopkeeper... So I set up a Fog Cloud in his shop as I left.

While we were never told exactly what happened to him, I'd like to believe he stumbled into a shelf and broke his nose. Or walked into the weapons rack and contracted tetanus.

[Jay R]

There was a duke in charge of a settlement I was adventuring from. I thought he had mistreated my character, forcing him into a job I really had no use for.

Over the course of the next several games, I helped him become king, bowed to him and swore fealty, and became an earl.

[RickAllison]

There was a duke in charge of a settlement I was adventuring from. I thought he had mistreated my character, forcing him into a job I really had no use for.

Over the course of the next several games, I helped him become king, bowed to him and swore fealty, and became an earl.

The ultimate revenge: becoming successful in such a way that they can't hate you for it!

[Gallowglass]

step 1: Kill NPC.
Step 2: Take their head and carve it into a skull.
Step 3: Use "speak with dead" regularly to wretch their souls from the afterlife and force them to awnser stupid questions like "How many steps did i just take before bringing you here?" for a good five or so hours.
Step 4: Repeat
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit!

"Is the dook I just dookied in your open skull cavity larger or smaller than the last dook I dookied into your skull cavity?"

[Kelb_Panthera]

"Is the dook I just dookied in your open skull cavity larger or smaller than the last dook I dookied into your skull cavity?"

Hilarious.

[pedant]But, unfortunately, impossible. The subject of a speak with dead spell can only give you information that it had in life. Unless you "dooked" in its skull cavity before it died (more hilarious) the question is beyond its knowledge.[/pedant]

[JAL_1138]

The same thing I do to any enemy (and by challenging, questioning, hindering, inconveniencing, and/or annoying me in any way, shape, form, and/or fashion whatsoever, the NPC has rolled initiative): kill them and take their stuff, of course.

[Draconi Redfir]

Hilarious.

[pedant]But, unfortunately, impossible. The subject of a speak with dead spell can only give you information that it had in life. Unless you "dooked" in its skull cavity before it died (more hilarious) the question is beyond its knowledge.[/pedant]

Maybe just ask it the same question over and over again?

"where is Talontine from here?"
"south"
"Hey, where's Talontine?"
"South."
"Talonti-"
"SOUTH!"

[ORione]

I was playing a mage who had ordered apple juice at a tavern. Turned out, the juice was not nearly as fresh as the waitress had promised. This was upsetting for my character, because she was a recovering alcoholic, and she was worried that the juice had fermented into alcoholic cider.

So I burned down the tavern, and forced the tavern's owner and the waitress who had served the bad juice to burn inside it. Anyone else inside the building was free to leave, but I think there were a few random bystanders who didn't make it out.

[Martin Greywolf]

Oh my, the ways are many and varied. Better put them in list form:

• Included a significant "working with <insert name> tax" into the bill for hiring me
• Made up a grating nickname and made sure it sticks
• Used a princess as a projectile weapon (princess being significantly badass survived just fine - her ego, not so much)
• Invented (and immediately utilized) political cartooning
• Used accidentally created experimental whiskey-smell grenades to give someone a reputation as an alcoholic
• Stuffed two gods in a bucket - for their own good

[JAL_1138]

step 1: Kill NPC.
Step 2: Take their head and carve it into a skull.
Step 3: Use "speak with dead" regularly to wretch their souls from the afterlife and force them to awnser stupid questions like "How many steps did i just take before bringing you here?" for a good five or so hours.
Step 4: Repeat
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit!

In the Great Wheel cosmology at least, this doesn't actually inconvenience the NPC. When a being dies, its soul and awareness and what-have-you goes on to become a petitioner with little to no memory of its mortal life, while its memories coalesce into a "memory core" in the Astral plane. Speak with Dead actually contacts the memory core, not the dead person's spirit or consciousness, and could more accurately be named "Speak with Memory."<sup>1

1</sup>TSR 2623: On Hallowed Ground (Planescape supplement).