The town's mayor refuses to pay your party for defeating the bandits because, when he first asked you to do so, he said he would CONSIDER rewarding you.>Mayor: Isn't that right, people? That's what I said! Your mayor is a man of his word!>Townsman: Yeah! That's right! That's what he said!>Mayor: Will you threaten us now? Will you let your guns take the place of your honor? Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!
Not my problem, I always get my contracts in writing, with witnesses and notaries.
This doesn't feel like a mindset that's conducive to achieving a position of power
"Well I guess we'll have to recoup our fee some other way!"The party then sets up shop on a local street corner panhandling for spare change. Begging is a legally protected profession, after all. We've got tents, goodberry and conjured fresh water so we can do it indefinitely if needed.
>>97674359just remove the mayor for being a dumbass, it'll improve the lives of the town's people dramatically
Wait for a second group of bandits and demand twice as much money.
>>97674359especially in a pre-industrial society, refusing to pay ones debts is considered an extreme breach of social contractif the bandits were such an extreme problem that the town had to hire outside help to end it, then its fairly obvious that>everyone in town knows that the bandits couldnt be handled on its own>everyone in town knows that their newfound safety is now contingent on the party>the party must drastically exceed the strength of arms available to the town for their hiring to be necessaryat best, the players could easily show the rest of the town that the mayor is ungrateful and stingy but its also obvious to everyone but the mayor that theres nothing actually stopping rhe players from re-imbersing themselves one way or another, making the mayor look monumentally stupid on top of being a tightwadits a different situation entirely if you go the route of the three amigos, where the town never had any money to pay the party in the first place and only put out the reward in the first place because nothing else would attract the players in the first placebut this would require a setup where the players look around the town and realize that theres no way the town could afford what was promisedand the town fully disclosing that they cant actually pay the party before the climaxand an alternative payment, such as a fiesta dedicated to the players, be offered up instead
>>97674359>Mayor: Will you threaten us now? Will you let your guns take the place of your honor? Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!>man, why are you suddenly talking like god damn shakespear?>we just want our goddamn money, not your freakin theatrics
>>97674359>Will you let your guns take the place of your honor?What an odd thing to say to a band of mercenaries.
>>97674507I looked them up in a dictionary, several in fact. Turns out "mercenary" doesn't mean the opposite of "honourable". Except on tumblr anon.
>>97674544Seems like the problem is that you're trying to use a dictionary as a substitute for a brain.
>>97674359It's fine. We already got loot from the bandits, including goods and money they stole from you, which we lay claim to under right of battlefield salvage - you wouldn't begrudge us keeping that as compensation would you? We already gave the heirloom amulet to Old Lady Smithers, now she can cherish the memory of her late husband in peace. The rest is ours. The bandits steal from you, we steal from the bandits - it's the circle of life.However- we won't forget this. Should you ever require our services again, we must insist on half up front, with the remainder paid upon completion, all laid out in a binding contract. We'll also be telling other mercenaries we meet to spread the word about this place- that it's a stingy little town that doesn't reward those who help it. What? What's your problem with that? We just plan to tell people the truth about you so they don't waste their time, blood and money being strung along by you. If you don't like that, you can always buy our silence.
>>97674585Billy. Just shoot him. Jesus fuck.
>>97674596What? No! I thought we agreed no murderhoboing this campaign!
>>97674615We agreed to consider it.
>>97674359>Mayor: Will you threaten us now? Will you let your guns take the place of your....>BANG
>>97674359>Will you threaten us now? Will you let your guns take the place of your honor? Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!"Of course not. But you should consider that we know where your wife and daughter live, and we were going to spend that money in whores anyway..."
>>97674359Maxim 49.
>>97674359>town wealthy enough to be preyed upon>too cheap to pay their mercs>not enough guards/muscle to enforce local law>lets the mercs back inside the walls after they've done the task they screwed them over for.Simply loot the wealthy town yourself. There is no greater body to enforce a greater law if the town is begging mercs for help.
Well guess who will have his house raided at night very soon
>>97674359so if the mayor cares so much about honor, why doesnt he just pay the party back?if the mayor doesnt actually care about honor, then you arent obligated to show him honor eitherif the mayor literally cant pay the party back because they lack money, why cant they work out alternative payment with the party?is there just jerkassium in the water that is poisoning the mayor?
>>97674359Considering the story has the mayor repeatedly called out in his moral cowardice and selfishness, that particular speech is meant to show the man’s callous and selfish mindset for the fact he treats the people who showed him such kindness in such an openly despicable manner. Which makes Brenner’s subsequent lecture on the man’s lack of integrity far more impactful and serve as the setup for the story’s on-going theme of keeping one’s humanity even in such horrendous conditions like the end of the world.>”No, Mayor. I won't threaten you. I won't do anything to unnerve these people that you pretend to care for.”>“I remember you. I remember how you were. Scared. Alone. On the verge of death. Do you remember your words to me when my men gave you food and shelter? "I will save others as you have saved me, Brenner." "I will construct a village where all can live in peace and rebuild their lives." Do you remember that? Or did I misunderstand your words again?”Granted, if I tried this stunt at my table (which I wouldn’t, but I’ll pretend I will for the sake of this hypothetical), I’d have to acknowledge that this isn’t a video game cutscene, and thus shouldn’t be surprised if the players do not even pretend to suffer someone either attempting to double cross them in so blatant a manner, nor his subsequent attempt to invoke their own moral leanings as a shield from the consequences of taking advantage of their trust. Nine times out of ten, that bastard is going to get his shit kicked in for antagonizing the wrong group of murderhobos, and his words would only really teach my players to demand payment upfront in the future.
>>97674359Mayor? These people are voting?
>>97674359Literally the plot of Pied Piper
>>97674359I liked the "autistic inability to understand human interactions and social situations" meme better when it was about the Local Lord and his men-at-arms
>>97674801Brenner was too soft and he died for it.
>>97674359>Will you threaten us now?Ahahahaha. My players are gangsters trapped in a huge Escape from New York scenario. There will not be threats, this dude is just fucked.
Torch the village
>>97674829You’re not wrong, but saving his men from a nuke strike at least input a bad way to go. Plus, Lin at least wasn’t nearly as soft where it mattered.
>>97674359>Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!Thank you for your admission of guilt, I will take it just as seriously as your "promise" of payment. *BLAM*
>>97674359>Will you threaten us now?Kind of stupid to do that at this point isnt it? After all, i entered my rage when i rolled initiative.
>Uhmm, well, TECHNICALLY I never saidKill the mayor.Pedants piss me off.
You have an ENTIRE BOARD for these shitty prompts>>>/qst/
>>97674585This is actually the correct way to go about this; the money you get from mercenary contracts is trivial when dealing with “modern” DnD*. The wealth from looting and hoards is much more useful.And if the mayor is being a piece of shit than the DM is either setting him up to be a villain, will give him a later comeuppance where the PCs swoop in to save the day, or it’s an establishing moment for the campaign’s tone. Regardless, the PCs being upset yet peaceful is there to help reinforce the heroics and “superhuman” nature of the characters, which will help them later.*Things get very different if we’re working in old-school DnD or an OSR, as questing contracts are in fact very important as a source of income - and, more critically, access to the town is vital for restock, resale and resupply. I once made a character in HackMaster who was racist towards Dwarves, and because of that I lost access to the only blacksmith in 20 miles. I was effectively barred from getting new weapons. It sucked.
>>97675491>the money you get from mercenary contracts is trivial when dealing with “modern” DnD*. The wealth from looting and hoards is much more useful."Modern" D&D modules give out about a tenth the gold value that comparable OSR modules do *and* most of the mundane shit you can buy is more expensive. Magical items might not even be up for purchase, depending on the GM.
>>97675491>Things get very different if we’re working in old-school DnD or an OSRyou got paid a pittance for doing anything in keep on the borderlands, all meaningful treasure came from the caves of chaosyour payment was almost always in the form of loot you are never even formally paid by anyone in village of hommelet, you are just signposted to go to the moathouse and then loot the place for paymenthalf the villagers have jack and shit to pay you with and the other half are working for the bad guys
"Pay me, and I'll consider not skinning and raping you on the front steps of your town hall, you vapid baboon."
>>97675520>>97675518Consider me re-educated, then. My experience with OSR was entirely a DM’s Points of Light campaign ran in HackMaster 5e. I guess the point then is that the Mayor telling you about the goblin infestation is more valuable than the payment he promises. Hell, that’s a good way to frame it.
>>97675538You are too edgy.
as a side note, the mines of phandelver in 5e did pay you per quest like you would expect, but it was dwarfed by what you got from lootyou were paid a few hundred gold for clearing out the redbrands and less than a hundred gold from other sidequeststhe dungeon loot in the same module easily exceeded that amount of gold in vendor trashbut also rather powerful loot for low level characters like a scroll of lightning bolt and a sword of +1 so even in 5e, the quest reward was more of a GP floor to give your characters spending power during the module whereas loot rewards were the actual star of the show
>>97674624/thread
>i-if y-you kill me y-you'll be as b-bad as I am>I can live with that *BANG*>ACK!Based
>>97675578I'm less edgy when I get paid. Ask my last boss.
>>97674359>So you're not going to pay us? Well, it's a shame that this town won't have any means of defense in the future.. and word travels quickly. Maybe when bandits rape and pillage their way through this town and drag you through the streets by your entrails as they loot your riches you'll regret this disrespect.
>>97674771Iirc, all parties involved are in a tight spot, post-post Apocalypse.
First off we wouldn't have accepted to help for a "considered" reward.But depending on the party comp, we'd either>Kick the shit out of the mayor, demand payment, then leave>Sneak into the mayor's house, steal everything possible>Let bandits know that the town doesn't have a good security force and offer advice on how to raid the town
>>97674359Kill them all, loot the corpses.Mercenaries get paid.
>>97674359Had a GM pull this once. Immediately shot the character in the head and asked his deputy to pay us according to our agreement.He paid us.
>>97674359Dude, we literally kill people for money. Honor? No one cares about that in this group. >*BANG!*
>>97674359Why would the townspeople take the Mayor's side when he's obviously endangering them and instigating pointless conflict?
>>97676729>I shot the Sheriiiiif>But I didn't shoot the depu~ty>Oh No no~
>>97676757Same reason most Marvel citizens feel safe in publicly taunting and harassing superheroes like the X-men despite also fearing them for their powers. Aka they’re assholes.
>>97674359Just leave the rest of the town alone and rob the mayor specifically. Maybe rob anyone else who supported him and wronged him. Remember to avoid casualties.
>>97674359> Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!If you insist.*Leaves them to fend for themselves.*
>>97674359>Will you threaten us now? Yes.>Will you let your guns take the place of your honor?We never agreed to that.>Perhaps we should have taken our chances with the savages!Perhaps you should have.
>>97676332even then, there are ways to say "we cant afford it" in a less assholeish mannerthe fact that the entire world has suffered a collapse should probably make the everyone far more sympathetic to that excuse they could have just said "sorry this is all we have, we cant afford to pay you the full price we agreed upon" and everyone would have been "yeah nah, we totally get you, its a hard world out there"
>>97678776>cant afford to pay you the full priceAnd that's why pre industrial society was a trade economy. Money was primarily used for travellers and merchants, locals would be given things they needed in exchange for services.Food is given freely to the lumberer, in exchange he is expected to provide you firewood when needed. Milk is given by the herder on the expectation that you can thatch his roof. etc etc etc
>>97678776>"yeah nah, we totally get you, its a hard world out there"Realistically, the answer is actually "Don't care, raiding your food stores anyway."
>>97678789if this were an episode of a TV show, then the party would pretend to be angry at the lack of payment and the mayor would pretend to be sorry that he has to pay them back in an alternate mannerand both of them agree to just have a party in the partys honor insteadand we end the episode on the town sharing what they have in a celebration over our heroes and its all-but-stated that the villagers getting to live another day free of brigands is more than enough of a reward, and getting plastered in a night of revelry helps too
>>97678808You are being sarcastic but that could be accurate.They a possible realistic solution would have been to offer free lodging for a period of time, or essentially a service credit offer (yes it was a thing).Essentially>Hey, any time you return to the area for the next year you can have free lodging, we can sign any paperwork you need, and the smith will refurbish your gearMechanically, temporary hub town
>>97678803just mentioning that in a world of scarcity, then people would fully understand and be sympathetic to people just not having enough to pay youand in a world where everyone is struggling to get by, choosing to stiff someone who has helped you would be even less excusable because everyone in the town would be keenly aware that they only survive another day because of random well armed strangers who thought it was a better idea to help people than be a second round of brigands
>>97674359I get an even worse bandit group to attack the city and leave it to it's fate.
>>97678875No John, YOU are the bandits.
>>97678820>then people would fully understand and be sympathetic to people just not having enough to pay youWhat post-apoc series have you seen where this is actually true?
>>97674359Sounds like a job for the bard. If they wont pay, their children will.
>>97674544That doesn'r mean they're inherently mutually inclusive concepts.
>>97678808>>97678816The thing is the mercenaries in question aren't even asking for payment. They're asking for the mayor to take in the civilians that their band has been escorting through the post-apoc wasteland.In tabletop terms, the party is just trying to drop off some NPCs they rescued in the first safe town they find.
>>97679358In post-apocalypta, this is literally ALWAYS too big a ask, it's literally more mouths to feed.
>>97674359Ok, well if we're not being paid, then we're not finishing the job.>I say as I start untying the bonds on the bandits while we're right in the middle of the village, making it clear we're just going to turn around and leave as soon as the bandits are untied.
>>97679358OP was explicitly asking for a reward >The town's mayor refuses to pay your party for defeating the bandits because, when he first asked you to do so, he said he would CONSIDER rewarding you.
>>97679457then he should have said so before baiting the players alongonce youve made deal, you honor itif you dont plan on honoring it, then you shouldnt appeal to the players honor to weasel out
>>97674359I tune him out with a blank mercenary stare while he makes allusions to honor
>>97674544>mercenary>: one that serves merely for wages >tumblr-webster
>>97679486OP is explicitly a faggot.
>>97674359>Character: What were your arguments against paying us?>Mayor: I just told you, weren't you listening? I only said I would CONSIDER paying you, not that I would actually do so.>Character: Right, that's what I'm asking. What considerations did you take into account? Because the more you speak, the more it sounds like you didn't put any consideration into our payment at all. You aren't lying when you say you gave it proper consideration, are you? Cleric, get over here, we need a Zone of Truth. Now, answer carefully. Did you ever have any intention of paying us at all?
>>97679490Yeah, the changed context doesn’t quite get just how blatantly ridiculous the behavior is. In Days if Ruin proper, the actual first meeting involved the man outright refusing entry to his village to two scared teenagers, claiming that they have too many mouths to feed as it is despite being visibly fat and well-fed himself. Only to immediately turn around once bandits show up, begging the heroic mercenaries for help, and baiting them with the idea they repay them by letting the kids in. And then turning on them the exact moment feels safe, pleading that they’re civilians who want no trouble and can’t defend themselves…despite claiming to the good guy mercenaries a few cutscenes earlier they have snipers if they won’t leave.It basically exists to establish a pattern for all the villains of the game, that they ever honor any deals with the good guys but easily accept dealings with the story’s overarching antagonist despite every indication he’s going to screw them over, because they are ultimately selfish morons who expect others to play by the rules while they won’t. And it always screws them over, whether it’s a greedy mayor selling out an innocent girl for a false cure to a plague that turns out to be a lethal poison, or a power mad dictator failing to dissuade a spy from shooting him dead by claiming she would be “just like him”.That kind of buildup is hard to do in a ttrpg though, and not many parties would have the patience to allow for that kind of build up, especially when they’re still weak enough that a denied quest award is a setback rather than a cutscene inconvenience. So seeing the players enact immediate violent reprisal, rather than waiting for the DM to enact karmic justice upon the NPC, seems fairly understandable all things considered.
>No problem, good luck with the next bandits, shithead>Pretend to leave town>Wait a day or three>Break into his house at night>Steal anything that isn't nailed down>Shit on the rugs>Make him watch what the half-orc does to his family>Hang him from the light fixture in his office>Leave "Blind Pete comes to collect" scrawled in his blood across one of the walls so they blame it on some rando bandit that escaped the slaughter>If anyone ever asks us about it, tell them we wouldn't even consider investigating itIf the DM protests any of this, calmly place him in a headlock and tell him I'll consider letting him out when he's had time to think about how he runs his games.
>>97674624kek
>>97674369>shafting freelancers isn't what poweful doThe fuck are they gonna do? Rob us?
>>97679669It's literally impossible to pretend to leave town.
>>97679840Oh well in that case, murder him on the spot then fight our way out. When the DM complains that we're not taking it seriously, point out that he's the one who decided we couldn't do something that'd make perfect sense in an actual realistic world.He wants to treat it like a video game then so can we.We murder everyone down to the last child, sell their gold teeth and when he throws a tantrum I return to being a foreverDM by taking over the post and kick him out.Simple.
>>97674359
>>97679864>literally one rude character and shot down idea is enough for this anon to get a meltieGlad I don't play in your campaigns.
>>97674359What's the Lawful Good action to take in this situation?
>>97680314Walk away and leave.They go low, we go high.
Does the Mayor have command over a vast number of Men-At-Arms?
>>97680411if they did, they wouldnt have a problem with brigands because they could just send their own menthere could be some tense political situation that hinders them from sending troops to where the brigands are and thus requires a third party, but in this case the players have an obvious course of action to upset the power dynamics and cause whatever they wanted to avoid in the first place
>>97679908>fuck over the mercenaries you asked to do violence for you because "umm acktually I only said id CONSIDER it">be surprised when they turn around and fuck your shit up
>>97680411They’d be nothing in the face of our mighty War Tanks anyways
>>97674359I'd ask him to take this pill right here.
>>97679003He was like a medieval Epstein
>>97674359The mayor only said that because he knew Brenner wouldn't do shit to him for it. He doesn't play that game with the people who would shoot him. Didn't help him in the end though.
>>97680314Lawful Good character would have gotten the contract in writing.
>>97680545More like one of Epstein's many procurers.
>>97676757People are irrational and this setting the world just got turbofucked by a giant meteor swarm that killed about 95% of the world’s population. They don’t really fear repercussions because there’s basically no one left except from their perspective, raiders, and this single battalion of soldiers led by an infamously moral Captain. The mayor is actively taking advantage of him and his kindness. The mayor himself is a high functioning sociopath, though not a particularly intelligent one as the story unfolds.
>>97674359>townspeople actually agree with this retardationSo, why should we save them when they stand for nothing? If they deserve life, let them stand for themselves.
>>97681902>>97681960They actually agree with him less and less every time he opens his fat mouth over the course of the story.
>>97681987But do they act? Thoughts and prayers won't cover my bandit protection fees.
>>97674359I eat the mayor.
>>97682121They'll act next election when they vote for somebody else to be in charge for a change.
>>97682121They do actually though it’s entirely narrative. The entire story arc is credit to Brenner and part of the evolution of Will as a character. The mayor is a manipulative piece of crap which works so long as everything is going nicely and to the people’s benefits, but the shortsightedness of the mayor and his sycophants very much comes back to bite them.
