Pacafist Merchants

[Fantasyfiend]

I\'ve been thinking of this since I started drawing out ideas for my MUD. The thing is this. Warriors are obviously meant for combat. Wizards are caple of combat and healing. Merchants aren\'t really meant for combat against monsters, are they? I mean they spend all their time studying money and bartering there\'s no skill room left for fighting so my  idea is this.

What if mosters weren\'t just stupid creatures that attacked you on sight? What if you could put that High IQ to work? Let\'s say your a merchant travelling through a mountain pass. On the way through, you meet a goblin. Well you know goblins are greedy, and for a few gold pieces, he would change his mind about attacking you. Just because they\'re monsters doesn\'t mean they\'re out to kill everyone. Could it even be possible to hire trolls as packhorses? This is an interesting idea. If a monster was extremely stupid, you could confuse it long enough to escape.

[windwalker]

good idea
but would a pack troll pack or eat you outside of the town and then rob you?... or rob you first and then rob your life

[Fanomatic2000]

Good point.
Trolls really IS stupid, so I\'m not sure that they will listen at all, (however you should still be able to talk to them) but since trolls is different from game to game there should of course be a possibiltiy to hire them as merchants and/or packhorses.
We usually see trolls and goblins being slaughtered at the battlefield just because they\'re too stupid to realize when they should give up.
How about this scenario?
\"Imir is exploring the fields of Yrasor (For example) when all of a sudden he hear somebody yelling. All of a sudden 9-10 goblins are attacking him with swords and bows. Imir is pretty good at dodging and when the goblins try to hit him with their arrows he just split the arrows in midair.
He makes a rush and kills a goblin with one single blow. The goblins seems impressed by the hero and they scream for mercy and throw their weapons to the ground.
One of the goblins (propably the leader) bows before Imir and begs him to stop.

-we fight no moore, you very strong! You are us leader.

Imir knows that the goblins isn\'t thrustworthy, but since they are cowardly wretches and wouldn\'t dare to kill him, Imir decides to let them fight on his side.\"

Well, you get my point.
Monsters should also have a trust-meter which judges how much the monster rely on you. You should even be able to make friends with a hostile race so that they respect you and won\'t attack you.
Monsters is also important if you\'re evil and wanna have an army of goblins and/or orcs.

 

[Grey]

Back to merchants.  I love this, and as a real life pacifist, I know how important words are to the outcome of conflict.  Merchants could have uncanny powers of persuasion that a knowledge of certain races likes and dislikes could lead them to have control over.  Keep something shiney involved when dealing with goblins, use superstition on the trolls.  Another ability would be the training of these guards and followers, which could be under another merchant skill.

[Fantasyfiend]

Exactly. If you were fighting Banshees or Harpies, they could have a vanity problem that you could use against them. Like you could enquire about that mole on their face, then they take off at full speed to the nearest source of water to check their reflextion. Some monsters would obviously be to smart to fall for tricks, but maybe their arrogance could be used against them. Ghosts probably couldn\'t be swayed by bribes though, since money is useless to them. If you saw an imp, you could promise it rulership of a small nation, since they\'re stupid and they have no strength so they would probably jump at the offer of power.

[Grey]

Other than that all of your scenarios are completely backward... sounds good.  Banshees are spirits, Harpies are ugly and dirty birds (woman birds, you know what I mean), and imps in most fantastic settings are very smart and conniving, though you have it right that they are greedy.

[Fantasyfiend]

I thought in most fantasy settings harpies were fair to look at, but born killers. I did get on a tangent when I mentioned banshees, but I got my point across. If your not smart, you live by the sword. This would just make it easier for players to become merchants, since they wouldn\'t constantly be dying. Some creatures would be unable to communicate (or just don\'t care) and would just kill you anyway (Kraikens, zombies, Demons, Wraiths, etc.).