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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4016791" data-attributes="member: 47776">Players defeat monster X.  Players go and defeat monster Y, which hates monster X.  Players go capture creature Z, who monster X cares about.  Players say "Do the job for us, and we'll slay Y, and a bunch like him, and let you and Z go in a couple of levels when we can do the job ourselves.  Don't do the job, or get any bright ideas about clever double-crosses, and we'll feed Z to Y.  (And then kill you and probably make our best effort at killing your race/nation/clan/extended family on general principle, but we're adventures; that goes without saying.)"Houserules will not save you now; if your creatures have motivations, PCs can exploit them.  The only way to prevent this is to declare that every NPC with an exploitable ability cares more about not using their ability for the PCs gain than everything else; having this be true in an organic world is ludicrous.  The problem isn't just that there exist rule mechanisms to turn NPCs into player resources; its that if PCs interact with NPCs, and the NPCs are complex characters who respond to a variety of different interactions, then the PCs will be able to build their own mechanism, without needing to use houseruleable-away effects.</blockquote>