D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[pemerton]

To me its simple, both sides have to be able to say no without being painted as wrong or bad people or dicks or bad gms or there really is not an honest negotiation or collaboration going on.

GM: I don't like running a game with warlocks - it offends my sense of the setting/my sense of decency/I think they're broken/etc.

I think that GM is perhaps a bit precious - though, as per [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s game, there's a difference here between a pickup game at a club and a serious game which is expecting a high degree of commitment from all participants.

But the case that has been discussed in this thread isn't that sort of saying "no". It's you can play a warlock, but only if I get to muck around with your patron. Which is not actually saying "no" at all! It's about insisting on a certain power to author and muck around with the player's backstory that s/he would like to keep purely in the background, or perhpas would like to use as his/her own colour for the play of his/her PC.

I think it's misdescription to characterise that as "saying 'no'", and I think it's bad GMing.

 

[TwoSix]

But if (as in the examples that have been discussed) the X is something that only comes into the game because it's an element of the new player's PC - a motorcycle, dear old dad, the Lord of Battle as divine patron, etc - then I stand by my view. The game was proceeding swimmingly without the GM having anything to say about the Lord of Battle, so why does that have to change? What is wrong with a game where Vlad's motorcycle never gets stolen?

That I agree with. Even in a game predicated on a DM driven storyline, I don't see the reason to interrupt the game to focus on one aspect of a player's concept, unless the player has been pushing that storyline through their actions. "You chose to play warlock, so it's time for your side quest that your patron needs you to do" has way too much of a "it's time to eat your vegetables" feel to it.

 

[pemerton]

From PHB
Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.

That doesn't say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of the setting. In fact, by describing the GM as the "ultimate authority" it implies the opposite! (ie that there are lesser, non-ultimate authorities - who presumably must be the players).

If the GM says "No, you can't have dear dad waiting at home because in my setting all the dads are horrible" well OK, again I think I'd give that GM a wide berth but it takes all sorts and whatever floats your boat and all that.

If the GM lets me have my PC with dear dad waiting at home, and then unilaterally decides that dear dad is a serial killer that's a completely different thing, and if you think that's what the PHB passage is warning players about I think we read it very differently.

 

[5ekyu]

GM: I don't like running a game with warlocks - it offends my sense of the setting/my sense of decency/I think they're broken/etc.

I think that GM is perhaps a bit precious - though, as per [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s game, there's a difference here between a pickup game at a club and a serious game which is expecting a high degree of commitment from all participants.

But the case that has been discussed in this thread isn't that sort of saying "no". It's you can play a warlock, but only if I get to muck around with your patron. Which is not actually saying "no" at all! It's about insisting on a certain power to author and muck around with the player's backstory that s/he would like to keep purely in the background, or perhpas would like to use as his/her own colour for the play of his/her PC.

I think it's misdescription to characterise that as "saying 'no'", and I think it's bad GMing.

See this is the place where we really go off at different perspectives.

I see a gm saying "no warlocks period" as a case of a gm making a setting detetmination. Its rsther restrictive.

I see a gm saying "i will not allow warlocks where we do not reach agreement on the pact and bargain sworn and beholden details and "insert examples" are definite no" as a gm making a setting decision - one not as restrictive as the one above.

Both are the GM saying no, the former just says no to more.

Same with GM who also lets it be know up front that he wont accept clerics where the god and church are not NPCs controlled by the GM vs GM saying "no clerics"

I make no bones about it - at my tables some classes, some backgrounds etc come with baked in NPC baggage and the details of those will need to reach agreement before those charscters are accepted as PCs.

Straight up i say there are options in the other classes and other backgrounds if you want to play a character without NPC entanglements.

If a player hears all that an decides to avoid warlocks, great!!!! Thats a win.

If a player hears that and decides to go find another game, again, great!!! We have a win.

I say that because part of running a successful game in my experience is getting the irreconcilable differences out of the way before play when there is less collateral damage.

 

[5ekyu]

That I agree with. Even in a game predicated on a DM driven storyline, I don't see the reason to interrupt the game to focus on one aspect of a player's concept, unless the player has been pushing that storyline through their actions. "You chose to play warlock, so it's time for your side quest that your patron needs you to do" has way too much of a "it's time to eat your vegetables" feel to it.

If the GM is going to make the patron thing a part of the game, it should imo be worked into the game not made an interruption by either the GM or the player.

That said, eveey pc in my game gets their share of personal stuff in play so a scene between warlock and patron is no different than many other scenes the other characters get - a private offer to the wizard, a request fir the cleric to provide an npc a restoration or cure disease, a thief spotting guild markings that indicate a need to check in etc etc etc.

We can broad brush all sorts of bad play on either side or we can choose to go with assumption of competence and decency.

 

[Maxperson]

That clarification does little to better your argument. So the DM would enjoy the game less if they did not have the power to murder the character's family? The DM would enjoy the game less if they could not steal/destroy/sabotage a character's motorcycle? The DM would enjoy the game less if they left a character's deity/patron/cultus untouched as a foreground story element? How does this DM sound even remotely like a reasonable person and not a massive Richard? Can you please elucidate how would these things could possibly impact the DM's enjoyment of the game in a manner greater than or equal to the player's impacted enjoyment?

Like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], you are choosing piss poor examples designed to make one side look bad, rather than use the examples people have been giving. That's uncool.

Earlier in the thread my example of having the warlock make a side trip to the Old Man of the Woods as the party goes through the forest. People thought small things were okay. One tried to tell me that even though the DM was bringing the patron directly into play to require a task, that it was still somehow background. Those sorts of things are okay. The other example mentioned where the patron becomes an villain would not be okay in my opinion, at least not without player approval. The former is part of the class obligations, the latter is not.

There are many, many ways to enact these obligations. Do us all a favor and don't jump to the horrible ones as an attempt to prove your side of the issue. It doesn't work.

If all the other players support the player in question wanting the warlock's patron background and find that reasonable, then who should get the new table? The player or the GM? Who is being the unreasonable one? The player or the GM?

If the player(s) and DM are not compatible, the incompatible ones should find a compatible table. No good will come from forcing one side into doing something.

Dragonborn really, REALLY irritate me as a race and don't exist in my game. If one player knowing that still wanted to play one, that person would be a jerk. If all the other players supported him, they would all be jerks. You don't try to make someone do something that is not fun. Your Appeal to Popularity falls flat.

 

[Maxperson]

For obvious reasons - if I want to play a motorcycle guy, then I want to play a motorcycle guy! Not a guy whose bike got stolen.

I get what your saying. I was in a game once where we were playing pirates. The problem? The DM started us without a boat and not even near the water. Several sessions later and we never did mange to get a boat for the pirates campaign. However, there's a world of difference between having your bike stolen, and running out of gas and being inconvenienced. Jumping to the horrible DM example that almost never actually happens, doesn't give you a win in the discussion.

 

[5ekyu]

That doesn't say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of the setting. In fact, by describing the GM as the "ultimate authority" it implies the opposite! (ie that there are lesser, non-ultimate authorities - who presumably must be the players).

If the GM says "No, you can't have dear dad waiting at home because in my setting all the dads are horrible" well OK, again I think I'd give that GM a wide berth but it takes all sorts and whatever floats your boat and all that.

If the GM lets me have my PC with dear dad waiting at home, and then unilaterally decides that dear dad is a serial killer that's a completely different thing, and if you think that's what the PHB passage is warning players about I think we read it very differently.

I think it defines where the final authority lies as to campaign and setting elements - by default in the rules.

Like every other case of authority, it can be applied well or badly.

No matter how many times you wsnt to make it seem otherwise, nobody here is arguing in favor of the gm using their authority to abuse the trust their players placed in them.

Really, we are not evil folks in favor of bad gming.

Honest.

Trust me.

 

[Maxperson]

I unsurprisingly disagree, and in no small part due to how you are just perpetuating your prescriptive flavor text fallacy here.

So something isn't a fallacy simply because you disagree with it. It has to a logically invalid argument form, which has nothing to do with the actual content of the argument. A fallacious argument can still result in a correct answer, and a logically sound argument form could be filled with crazy talk. My argument isn't either of those. You are I simply have two different subjective views on fluff.

You have not communicated well or demonstrated how the DM's enjoyment would be negatively impacted in a meaningful way. You have only stated the obvious: the DM would have less control over certain aspects of the player character and one less NPC. What has been lost seems comparatively marginal in comparison with what is gained. "I'm going to saw your hand off in a manner you would find painful, because the alternative is that I experience mild discomfort from being pricked by a needle."

Nobody has yet proven that the player being asked to do a task by his patron is as painful as sawing off a hand, as opposed to also being a mild discomfort like being pricked by a needle.

The Sworn and Beholden section states that "A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being." A player backgrounding the prominence of their patron or its in-game control by the DM does not somehow erase that. The rest of the paragraph consists fundamentally flavor text suggestions meant for the player to consider the nature of the relationship. It does not even say in this section that the occasional services are determined by the DM. It's determined by their patron. "But the DM does serve as their patron!" Not necessarily. Working with the DM about the pact does not mean that the DM dictates the terms of that pact to the player. The player can easily determine the nature and frequency of those occasional services without requiring the DM to roleplay that patron as an in-game taskmaster.

Pretty much everyone(including me) on my side of things has said repeatedly that if the player and DM agree, things can change. This is a fact, though, without such an agreement, only the DM controls the patron as the patron is an NPC and the rules give NPCs to the DM.

What does it serve this discussion to keep repeating statements like the above? Are you arguing that the player can determine the nature and frequency of those services and the DM has no choice but to accept it? If so, you need to provide some rules support for that position, as everything I've seen in the rules says the opposite. If you aren't making that claim, then it seems like we are in agreement that the fluff can change with DM approval.

"My archfey patron requires that I oppose both otherworldly abominations of nature and the opposing agendas of Queen Mab. As part of my pact, I can never wield cold iron nor can I knowingly speak falsehood. Everytime I increase in power [i.e., level up], I must prepare a new fey grove through which my patron can extend their influence in the world. And through this new arcane conduit, I shall gain my new power."

All of this could be established by the player (in cooperation with the DM) pre-play and without having the DM using the patron as an in-game sock-puppet.

Examples like these aren't really helpful to this discussion. My side has already let you know repeatedly that if the player and DM agree, things are different. What purpose does repeating things like this serve?

And yet we have seen a fair handful of people in this thread fearmongering about players running amok, abusing power and avoiding obligations, if they had even a modicum of control over their warlock/patron relationship? And yet you want to speak of misplaced paranoia?

I don't recall seeing a credible example of this. The ones that I've seen(and I have skipped a good number of posts) have been intentionally over the top responses to the people posting about how DMs are abusive asshats and will force the warlock to do heinous things. One begets the other, and I from what I saw, the player side started these sorts of comments.

 

[Imaro]

Quite a way upthread I contrasted actions with do or don't put the motorcycle at stake.

So...we are in agreement?

I'm just guessing, but it's probably because of the mechanical features of the class. One consequence of having a mechanically crunchy system with a largely arbitrary overlay of flavour over those mechanics (eg there's no reason why a class with the them of a warlock couldn't be mechanically structured as a wizard, and vice versa) is that you will have players who care for the mechanics but are less excited by the flavour.

I disagree... does a wizard have mechanics that are structured to support the fiction of having made a pact with a powerful being (Invocations, pact boons, etc.)? The warlock does. I can certainly understand a player wanting to use mechanics without any pre-attached fluff (or a GM wanting to run a game in that vein)... but that isn't how my group plays D&D, we have generic systems for that particular type of play when we get the itch for it.

But, assuming it's not compulsory for the player to play a warlock, then it seems you could have enjoyed the game without that relationship. So what harm does it do to have the player play the mechanics of a warlock but not add any more flavour than a "man with no name" fighter?

I thought that was self evident in my post... my group and I enjoy a style of play where the tropes, archetypes and thematic hooks of a class influence and, for the most part, are front and center in the fiction. Though I'm a little unclear on how choosing to have no name is the same as disregarding the major themes & genre tropes of a particular archetype/class... you seem to be comparing apples and oranges here.

But what if the player wanted to play a "man with no name" fighter instead? Would you and/or your other players forbid that because it's too boring?

Ok I'm going to assume you are speaking to the "Man With no Name" archetype which in and of itself adds thematic hooks, and genre tropes to a class which even the developers have admitted is sort of lacking in them out of the box... if so I have no problem with it since he is not disregarding the major tropes of the fighter class and is in fact adding more in that department to the class. One is reductive the other is additive.

TO clarify further I have no problem with you playing a "Man with no Name" themed warlock... but you are still a warlock with the genre tropes and themes that entails as well.

How? How is the player (eg) declaiming, at the table, "This is what my patron wants from me - mwahahhaha!" playing lone theatre?

And if the player never says such things, so that everyone is left guessing what the PC's motivation and relationship to the patron was, well how is that any different from the relationship between the wizard and his/her mentor which never comes up in play?[/QUOTE]

Why would the wizard's mentor not come up in play and why would that have anything to do with the genre tropes of a warlock being discarded by a player in my game? I'm not really following your point here?

Let's consider a different example which doesn't bring any game book text with it: I decide that, at home in the village, my PC's dear old dad is waiting for my return at the end of my quest. (Like Samwise Gamgee's Gaffer.) If the GM decides that my dad is in fact a serial killer, that is playing an NPC in a way that brutally treads on the concept of my character.

Putting aside the fact that you are now not only creating backstory but dictating the future state of an NPC at the campaigns end (which just doesn't gel with the style of my group)... What about your character were you unable to do, act on, think or whatever because while you were off adventuring your PC's dear old dad was killing people? In fact how do you even know what he was doing while you were gone and why does him being a serial killer preclude him being there at home in the village when you return? This makes no sense nothing about your character would change because of this.

Now let's go to a cleric example. If I decide to play a follower of the Lord of Battle (true example - I'm playing such a character in an active campaign) and my conception of the Lord of Battle is noble knights, honour, defend the innocent, uphold the right, blah blah blah; and if the GM decides that the Lord of Battle directs my PC to enter an inn under cover of darkness and assassinate the innocent innkeeper sleeping in her bed; then the GM is brutally treading on my character concept.

You have a choice to make, either stick to your concept of what the Lord of Battle stands for or follow the edicts you received. This is exactly how different sects, heresies, etc. start. Truthfully though this example seems absurd since the Lord of Battle (like most any deity in a campaign for D&D) should have been defined, including his/her tenets, before you picked him as your deity. I mean I rarely say I've never seen something happen in a game of D&D but this feels like an absurd situation specifically constructed to prove a point as opposed to something that would actually happen in a real game.

I don't think these sorts of examples are very hard to understand.

I think unless you pre-suppose a jerk DM... they kind of are.