We'll Have No Trouble 'Ere
As a side-quest, our slightly smaller than usual group is hired to stop the attacks on a local people, caused by a tribe of savages who live in a cave system. There is no overall reward to speak of, but we are offered a bounty for each ear of the enemy's we bring back. Our first question, 'Do the enemy actually have ears?', was answered positively, so off we trotted on our merry way to commit yet another act of minor genocide.
On getting to the cave system and taking the ears from the lone guard outside, which he initially quarrelled about, we headed in and soon found the leader of the small tribe. Coming up with the cunning plan of talking to the leader, instead of rushing in to fight, we find out that his tribe is not responsible for the crimes they have supposedly committed, and in fact it seems like a third party is involved in pitting both sides against each other.
Killing off this tribe no longer seems like the right thing to do, and the hostilities won't stop if this third faction keeps on aggravating issues behind the scenes. We volunteer to disprupt the other faction and bring a truce to both of the fighting peoples, with the hopes that some better reward would be forthcoming from both sides than if we just completed our normal mission. Of course, if we hadn't tried using diplomacy we wouldn't have created all this extra work. We could have just killed of a few tribesman and been on our way. There's a lesson here somewhere.
Before we head off to start our new mission to bring peace to the two tribes, the head of this tribe shows his gratitude for both sparing their lives and helping to end hostilities. 'We are but a poor tribe', he starts, 'but I can offer you a true treasure, one that will bring you more happiness than you could get from gold or other trinkets. I offer you my daughter's hand'.
A shared look reveals that we're all thinking the same thing, 'That's great, but we'd rather have her ears'. Realising that wouldn't be the best diplomatic start to the new truce, we made excuses about being adventurers, always on the road, and don't want to be tied down, and head out to save the day once more.