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

[5ekyu]

And, that's perfectly fair.

Me, I'd hand you a blank character sheet and ask you to make a character for me.

Naw, that's not true. I would simply find another group because I know I would not be a good fit here.

A player who does not accept that a gm can say no enough to leave a game over it is one I will hold the door for.

 

[pemerton]

If warlocks, paladins and clerics in this world can choose to have any conflict or blow back or de facto obligation from those "agreements" locked away, why do all those who fo have those restrictions accept them? Are the rest of the warlocks, clerics and such in the world just dolts who got suffered in by a flim flam man?

You seem to be equating the player and the PC.

No one (as far as I'm aware) is saying that the PC decides what the patron wants.

I (at least, but maybe [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is sympathetic?) am saying that, as a player and as a GM, I expect the player of a cleric or warlock or whatever to establish the requirements imposed by his/her god/patron/etc. I've never found this to be a problem: eg if a player wants to play an assassin or freebooter then they simply choose not to play a cleric of Bahamut (much as [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] suggested upthread).

 

[pemerton]

I don't think your comparison with Cthulhu Dark is appropriate. You've got it backwards. It's not like the PCs chose longshoreman, legal secretary, etc. in order to get specific bonuses. That would be an appropriate comparison if the Paladin player had said, "Hey, I love the whole thing about the Oath and stuff, but I don't want all the Paladin powers. Can I just be a 0-level commoner who has this really strict Oath?"

If the player had said, "The whole Oath thing doesn't float my boat, but how about...." and proceeded to offer a totally different story from the one offered in the PHB, that would be ok, too. But the example wasn't given that way. It sounded like the (imaginary) player just wanted to have the cool buttons to mash with no story around it.

And to be clear, I don't think there's a balance issue with that at all. It's not that I think the Paladin is overpowered and needs to be reined in via Oaths and roleplaying. It's just that when I imagine somebody wanting to discard the inconvenient bits, with nothing offered in its place, I assume (perhaps unfairly) that he/she is being a pure powergamer with no interest in storytelling.

I don't see an oath as an "inconvenient bit". I tend to see it as - within the fiction - a source of strength; and within the play of the game, a likely source of compelling fiction. Beyond that, I basically agree with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s reply to this. We don't assume that the player of a fighter has "no interest in storytelling" because s/he doesn't write into his/her backstory a psychological condition (a la The Manchurian Candidate) that enables the GM to take control of his/her PC; or an oath of loyalty that enables the GM to tell him/her what s/he must do if s/he is not to break the oath.

In fact, the game allows someone to play a fighter without establishing any significant amount of backstory at all - but playing a "man with no name" fighter is surely not per se a sign of powergaming, is it?

As it happens, nearly all the characters I've played in the bast 25 years are paladins or clerics in some form or other. And every fantasy campaign that I've GMed in that time has included paladins, clerics, and other PCs with loyalties and relationships that are tested during play. But it's never occurred to me as a player or a GM that it is the GM's job to tell the player what these aspects of the character require. A GM who did that would be doing the sort of thing that would cause me to leave a game!

 

[S'mon]

The framing as loyalty or fidelity to a person or a value as a cost is interesting, especially in the context of a FRPG. It's hypermodernist, even more so than REH - Conan often acts out of a sense of honour or justice or interpersonal obligation without that being presented as a cost.

And of course in the other fantasy genre that heavily informs D&D (especially paladins) - Tolkienseque/Arthurian fantasy - loyalty and fidelity are frequently a source of strength rather than a cost.

I agree(!!) with you. It's notable that this loyalty/fidelity cost based calculus seems to have figured prominently in Gygax's design of the Greyhawk/1e Paladin, and have gone in from there, without much precedent in the source material. If anything it fits closer to pagan ideas of worship-as-bargain - I give you 100 cows, you give me the power to sack Troy - than to any of the Paladin's Christian roots. So in 5e terms it seems to fit a lot easier with the pact-based Warlock than the oath-based Paladin. But Warlocks don't get any superpowers not comparable to what other 5e PCs get, so it doesn't seem fair to me to have patrons be very exacting in play.

 

[Hussar]

If warlocks, paladins and clerics in this world can choose to have any conflict or blow back or de facto obligation from those "agreements" locked away, why do all those who fo have those restrictions accept them? Are the rest of the warlocks, clerics and such in the world just dolts who got suffered in by a flim flam man?

You are equating player with character. It's got nothing to do with what's going on in the game. The character STILL has those obligations, just that the DM will not make those obligations the focus of play.

So, every other tiefling in the world or bear wandering thru town can get whatever reactions appropriate for the setting **except yours**.

How about instead of you want to play a race without "too harsh" reactions you choose a race that in the setting doesn't provoke those reactions?

To me this is choosing to say "I want my character my way regardless of the setting".

I could easily see having shared world elements where we as a group construct a setting where tieflings dont get reactions too harsh or where certain orders exist or where certain gods work this way etc... but the desire to insist that the setting can be locked out of this or that for **just my character** and your tiefling is not treated like others is wholly different. It's not engaging with the setting, its breaking the setting for one guy.

A request I would say no yo.

Breaking the setting? Seriously? To not spend table time futzing about with what does my druid do with his bear is "breaking the setting"? Not spending table time every single time my tiefling walks into some place futzing about with the gasps and the reactions is "breaking the setting"?

Methinks your settings are a tad too fragile.

IOW, you think it's more important that you, as DM, can impose whatever story you feel like on the player, regardless of the express wishes of the player. If the player doesn't like it, either play a different character or find another table.

Yeah, that's not ego at all. And the worst part is, even if you don't choose to impose those things, if you don't choose to invoke the warlock's patron (for whatever reason), you are still hanging that sword over the player's head every time they choose a character that has any ties to the setting. Yeah, no thanks. My players and my player's wishes are far, far more important to me than some mythical setting.

 

[pemerton]

It's notable that this loyalty/fidelity cost based calculus seems to have figured prominently in Gygax's design of the Greyhawk/1e Paladin, and have gone in from there, without much precedent in the source material.

To me it seems like a wargaming legacy, which hasn't been adjusted to fit the different context of non-wargaming RPGing. In a wargame having to conform to the laws of war might seem like a constraint/cost - though even that is open to question if one thinks about the effects on morale etc of conformity to the laws of war (eg Niall Ferguson in his book on WWI The Pity of War argues that (i) the end of the war with an Allied victory was to a significant extent the result of a greater German willingness to surrender, and (ii) that increased willingness to surrender was in part a result of a reduced apprehension on the part of German soldiers that surrendering would lead to being killed rather than taken prisoner).

 

[Maxperson]

And, again, it's not "throwing away the inconvenient bits". The character DOES still have an oath. It's just that this won't be brought to the front and center by the DM. So, the player still plays with what he views as justice, compassion, honesty and the rest. But, it just isn't something that's going to be tested by the DM. So, like I said, no orc babies questions or forcing situations on the player to test that oath. It's a very minuscule limitation on what the DM can bring to the table.

So what happens if you end up with orc babies that aren't some sort of test? Were you in my game, paladin or no paladin, if you invade an orc village there are going to be orc women and orc babies.

 

[S'mon]

double

 

[S'mon]

To me it seems like a wargaming legacy, which hasn't been adjusted to fit the different context of non-wargaming RPGing. In a wargame having to conform to the laws of war might seem like a constraint/cost - though even that is open to question if one thinks about the effects on morale etc of conformity to the laws of war (eg Niall Ferguson in his book on WWI The Pity of War argues that (i) the end of the war with an Allied victory was to a significant extent the result of a greater German willingness to surrender, and (ii) that increased willingness to surrender was in part a result of a reduced apprehension on the part of German soldiers that surrendering would lead to being killed rather than taken prisoner).

I liked how Wargames Through the Ages by Donald Featherstone assigned units both a Terror rating and a Desperation rating - so eg Soviet forces fighting Nazi Germany, the SS might inspire Terror hurting Soviet morale, but conversely the Soviets might have a Desperation morale bonus because of a feeling that surrendering would likely lead to a fate worse than death on the battlefield.

 

[billd91]

I liked how Wargames Through the Ages by Donald Featherstone assigned units both a Terror rating and a Desperation rating - so eg Soviet forces fighting Nazi Germany, the SS might inspire Terror hurting Soviet morale, but conversely the Soviets might have a Desperation morale bonus because of a feeling that surrendering would likely lead to a fate worse than death on the battlefield.

Oh, yeah. Advanced Squad Leader has been known to give units the Fanaticism trait to reflect particular scenarios such as Soviets defending factory spaces in the Red Barricades campaign game, and so on. It has significant effects on morale and the tendency for units to become pinned or cower. Other units have similar designations such as SS units that have modified morale rules when facing Soviets.

The concept is also studied in political science and international relations related to the terms deterrence and compellence.