Orc Killing Pattern

(With apologies to Monte Cook. See http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos11.html if YouJustDontGetIt.)

A minimal example of the use of CanonicalForm for a pattern, based on another (fairly well-known) minimal example.

Name: Orc Killing Pattern

Problem: You're a hungry adventurer and a pie would really hit the spot right about now.

Context: You are in a 10'x10' room, with your companions. Each of you is armed. The room also contains an orc. The orc has a pie.

Forces:

The orc is "obviously" an evil creature, by convention.
The orc stands between you and the pie, which you would like to have.
The orc looks like more than a match for you, but you have the advantage of numbers.

Solution: Draw your weapons and attack the orc physically, in a cooperative effort. Take the pie once the orc is dead.

Resulting Context: The party is now in possession of a pie, which tastes good. The pie must be shared among surviving party members, which may lead to intra-party conflict. The pie may be poisoned, requiring saving throws from all who partake of it.

Known Uses: Several adventurers have "survived Orc and Pie", and have a T-shirt (size XXL) proclaiming the fact.

Related Patterns: BakeryAmbushPattern. The source of the pie is probably some sort of Bakery, which might be guarded by more orcs. In the spirit of OnceAndOnlyOnce, it makes sense to search for the bakery rather than relying on the DungeonMaster to find oneself inside more 10'x10' orc-with-pie rooms (something which is difficult to arrange deliberately, especially since the canonical example of such a room has no door or other obvious means of entrance).

--KarlKnechtel

I Just Don't Get It®. Why is everybody so hot to kill these Orcs? Can't you just make a deal? Buy pies off of them? Maybe make a trade? And who deals with all the Orc corpses left lying around after the slaughter? I certainly don't want to go slogging through Orc guts after eating a nice piece of pie. And what's all this noise about poison? What idiot would want to ruin a perfectly good pie by poisoning it? If Orks are that dorky then they couldn't be capable of making a really good pie, could they?

CategoryJoke, CategoryPatternForm