There's just a huge gulf here that my imagination can hardly bridge. Maybe more than one.
(1) Clerics and warlocks aren't balanced against the risk that the GM will tell the player what to do. How would that balancing even work?
(2) The rules of the game aren't a break on bad faith, in D&D or other RPGs any more than in chess or backgammon. The rules are a framework for mediating the creation, over time and in the course of play, of a shared fiction.
(3) As far as "good faith" players are concerned - who plays with non-good-faith players? Do the people you play with cheat at cards too? Steal candy from babies when they get the chance? I don't get it.
(4) If players can't be relied upon to play in good faith, why would GMs be any different?
The gulf you can't seem to bridge perhaps comes down to this: in almost any situation, RPGs included, if you give people the opportunity to gain an advantage without penalty they're almost always going to take it. It's simple human nature.
Cheating at cards (or at D&D, for that matter) carries a penalty or potential penalty, that being social rejection; and so most people don't do it. Contrast this with making a particularly bad move in chess that gives your opponent a big opening - of course she's going to take it if she sees it; you've handed her an advantage without penalty.
And here, if a player can - for example - simply ask for the drawbacks of a class be ignored or backgrounded and expect 'yes' as an answer then boom: advantage without penalty, similar to the chess move example (the 'yes' answer from the DM is analagous to the bad chess move).
The trend I see is that some people don't like railroading GMs and others don't mind it, or even advocate for it.
If a player says "I'm not interested in story XYZ involving patron/oath/whatever ABC" and the GM nevertheless tries to make the game about that, what is that other than a railroad?
It's a GM exercising her right to enforce the rules and spirit of the game, which in this case means that if you're going to play a class that comes with potential baggage then you'd better be ready to deal with that baggage now and then.
How is the game better if all the players who don't like railroading play wizards, fighters and thieves instead of clerics, paladins and warlocks? What is actually achieved by insisting that the GM is free to tell the latter set of players what they have to do with their PCs?
The players of clerics, paladins and warlocks (and cavaliers serving a liege, and some other examples) have
intentionally chosen to play a character whose freedom may from time to time be restricted by orders from above and-or by their own internal morality or alignment. Having intentionally made that choice, they're in no real position to complain if and when orders from above arrive now and then or if their morality gets in the way while adventuring.
And always with the extreme examples, you are. Few if any GMs are going to make the whole game revolve around any of this; instead they're going to have it come up every once in a while as one of:
- a secondary plot hook
- a reminder of the character's obligations
- fluff and flavour
For example, if there's a cleric or paladin of Thor in the party then I-as-DM will likely be more conscientious about narrating Thor-related scene elements - e.g. whether he has a temple in this town - than if there was not. A hammer in a dungeon room might be just a hammer...or a clue. His fellow clerics might approach him in town and take him and his party for a beer or ten, meanwhile asking why he hasn't made his offerings this year. And so forth.
And yes, the rules of any game in part define what bad faith represents within that game. In many games it's obvious - you're either playing unfairly or you're not. But in RPGs it's not always so obvious; the rules are often a bit fuzzy, and not everyone defines 'co-operation' the same way or even plays the game as a co-operative venture at all.
Lan-"and I haven't even touched on the old sports maxim that goes
if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'"-efan