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Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion / Any anecdotes of PCs accidentally starting wars?
« on: August 12, 2014, 02:45:36 PM »
While reading the thread on magic and the implied D&D setting I came across this post:
which led to the idea that a band of adventurers (say the PCs) could easily kick off a local war raiding a humanoid settlement, who would then retaliate against the local (demi)human communties.
So the question is, what incidents have you seen that involved the PCs inadvertently setting off a war, whether due to an "adventure" resulting in a punitive raid, or something else entirely?
Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;778373
When it comes to the overlap of races, I've usually taken the assumption that the relationship between humans and orcs (for example) is like the relationship between Britons and Vikings.
In other words, I don't assume that humans treat the humanoid races as "kill on sight" enemies. The human towns will be aware of the various humanoid tribes that live in the hills and most of the time there will be an uneasy truce between them with a modicum of trade and communication.
There will even be cooperation in the face of an outside threat - although such cooperation can quickly lead to one side taking advantage of the other side.
Of course, raids from both sides against the other (human adventurers raiding the orc lands and orc warbands raiding humand lands) strain such a relationship, sometimes to breaking point, but in my campaigns the default relationship between the competing species is one of tense peace and distrust rather than that of all-genocide-all-the-time.
A bunch of goblins attacking a human town to steal food will be met with a lethal response, but a couple of goblins coming into town to sell some silks or gems of unknown provenance or to buy some barrels of ale will probably treated as suspicious but the odds are someone will be willing to trade with them and they won't be simply chased out of town or killed.
which led to the idea that a band of adventurers (say the PCs) could easily kick off a local war raiding a humanoid settlement, who would then retaliate against the local (demi)human communties.
So the question is, what incidents have you seen that involved the PCs inadvertently setting off a war, whether due to an "adventure" resulting in a punitive raid, or something else entirely?