Help! Most boring 3.5 campaign yet!

[JLXC]

Ok, I have a player who is a loner, cynic is real life whose main dream was to run off in the forest and never deal with society again.

Enter the PC's character... a Ranger Neutral loner, cynic whose main goal is to stay in a small section of a realtively peaceful forest and have nothing to do with anything. Yep. Big surprise. I asked for his long term goal for his PC and I got "To watch this area grow and study the local area while avoiding dealing with people." Woo hoo!

So I am trying to figure out how to snap thing guy out of his mindset without damaging his fragile ego too much. Note: Stopping the campaign to play with real players is not the option, I am already doing that (playing with real players that is) so I am trying to help this poor fella out. This is a one on one campaign.
I would be interested in any ideas you have. Here are some of mine.
1. To full on roleplay this out. Day after day of nothing happens, a rabbit comes by, there is a snowstorm and you must stay in for several days, nothing happens, some deer come by, etc. The problem is I think that this will NOT detour him in the slightest, with him actually enjoying this and spending hours going "Ok I plant this tree, I leave some food for the deer, I watch the grass grow... how long is it? Etc."

2. To allow this farce of a game to go on kinda like Deep Space Nine. Also known as "When trouble looks for you" forcing him to take some active role and turning his little neck of the woods into a contant weirdness and encounter zone.

3. The most extreme. Burn him out. Burn down the section of forest he lives in and force him to move. Although this once again probably wont work because he will just migrate to a new area of a forest and do the same damn thing, at least he would have to get the area of forest he likes "ready" which could involve many adventures to clean it up, but once established I am right back to square one.

Any ideas on a wilderness campaign that takes place in one locale over a long period of time?

Thanks, I'm near my wits end.

 

[Wee Jas]

But the big baddie who burned down his forrest and stole all the wildlife to tortue and experiment on also has a member of your players family hostage.

(Of course he will endlessly chase this lost family member)

You'll have to tie this villan into all your plot threads or the character won't go of course.


"Why attack the dragon.. my lil sister isn't there?! thats my 1st priority"

Can't you just appeal to your player and ask.. "Why the heck would you want to adventure then?!"

He can change or roll up a new guy.

 

[der_kluge]

I don't know. I'd be inclined to go with option #1. I mean, it'd make your job as DM really easy. You could even work up a chart of random animals that he can see on a day to day basis. I would hope to god that he would eventually get tired of that.

Eventually you could just start rolling dice "5 days pass, and nothing eventful happens. What do you do? Nothing? Ok *rolls* 12 more days pass, and nothing eventful happens." You could spend an entire afternoon like that if you really wanted to be mean to him. You could even be cruel by doing something like "*gasp* oh, wait, nevermind, sorry. Nothing eventful happens."

Eventually, you could start rolling dice in years. So, *rolls* "5 years pass, and nothing eventful happens. Adjust your age by 5." Keep doing that until he dies of old age, and force him to roll up a new character.

 

[Bastoche]

Option 1 may not be so bad afterall IMO.

If it's a 3.5 campaign, have him speak with animals who just happen to have the same sort of problems that humans do. For example, an evil wolf threats the life of some deers. Different species struggle for the territory, etc. At some point, other animals from other part of the wood/country/world/universe/you name it try to find him out so he could fix their problems too. Something à la Dr. Doolitle.

Of course it's not the same as fighting demons and saving princesses but it could be fun nonetheless. And once in a while, you could throw in a deep space nine scenario where the animals' problem comes from maurauding orcs or invading barbarians and stuff like that. Too much deep space nine will make the campaign unbelievable.

At some point, druids may hear of his good doings with nature and may want to recuit him in their secret society of preservers (hint for a creative new prestige class) in at which point he may feel it's his duty to adventure for the good of nature.

 

[Aaron L]

Have a tribe of orcs move into the forest.

 

[d100]

If he becomes attached to the area, perhaps you could have him displaced by a evil druid (or perhaps a blighter from Masters of the Wild) who is too powerful for him to take on, he must go seek help from the outside world if he wants to reclaim his forest, hopefully making connections along they way who will need his help and/or friendship.

 

[JLXC]

I fear any "Kicking him out" or "Burning him out" type twists will just make him look for a new home. Interacting with local folks just cannot be forced on him, he just packs up and runs. I do have one element I forgot to add, his mother is a Ranger who lives not too far away and therefore allows me to add new things through her. Still, the whole idea of the campaign just made me bored, but through the many posts I've seen so far maybe a little mental adjustment on my part will make this kick butt after all!

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[barsoomcore]

Generally I find that when someone claims to be or acts like a loner, a cynic whose dream it is to run off into the forest and never deal with society again, what they REALLY want is for society to come deal with them so they don't have to run the risk of trying to engage with the world and getting rejected.

REAL loners are out in the woods already. They don't talk about it, they don't behave in some weird passive-agressive way, they just go off and build a log cabin and write Walden. It's not rocket science.

So your option number two is I bet what this guy REALLY wants. He wants to play a guy who just wants to sit in the forest, but can't because he's SO IMPORTANT that the world's troubles come running to him.

I would say don't bother dealing with this, but if you are determined, that's the route I reckon most likely to please him.

Keeping in mind that a guy like this is going to deliberately NOT be pleased by anything you do, anyways. I see you setting yourself up for one failure after another. But I was wrong once, so it's possible I'm wrong here...

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I think barsoomcore is 100% right.

I'd also like to add "unless he's paying you $75/hour, you're not this guy's shrink".

But hey, if this is what you want to do, then its what you want to do. Go back to the basics. Orcs invade. Orcs are great monsters. Give the nasty ones a few levels of barbarian or adept for variety.

Or throw in a dimensional rift. The rift is to the Abyss or some other nasty place. The demons are invading at this point because, except for the ranger, there's not much in the forest. The only way to shut down the rift is to go through it and handle the problem from the Abyssal end. After he does that he'll have to find a way back home. Much plane-hopping ensues.

But if it were me, I'd nuke the campaign from orbit; its the only way to be sure.

 

[Joshua Randall]

The current feature on the WotC D&D web site about the Shadow Glade could be useful. Have random weird half-shadow animals and humanoids start passing through his forest, and see how he reacts.

But I have to agree with BiggusGeekus: this guy sounds like he needs therapy, not D&D.

Edit: Also like BiggusGeekus, I am a big fan of nuking things from orbit. In fact, why aren't there more games in which you get to nuke sh-t from orbti? Huh? HUH?!