EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Voted my preferred stance, "someone comes to hunt you down," though as always, context matters and should be accounted for.
I find "your powers are just instantly gone!" stories...really boring. They don't really do anything. Either you retire the character entirely, at which point there's hardly any difference between power loss and perma-death (which I don't care for either), or you find a replacement patron (or patch up your relationship with your current one) so all your powers come back, or the DM throws you a bone and you rebuild as something else. There's...really not much at stake there, because the player won't actually have their ability to participate removed, and most DMs won't even ask for the character to be retired and will instead find some other solution. Further, the narrative risks being a cul-de-sac rather than an unexpected fork in the road, especially if you resolve the differences with your patron.
If I'm going to give my players challenging situations, ones they actually will struggle with, stakes like these won't cut it. In the game I run, I pit the values or objectives of a character against one another: "Do you set aside your antipathy for your slimy-businessman grandfather, who MIGHT be turning over a new leaf, or do you snub him like he deserves, but risk letting someone you dislike even more gaining power instead of your grandfather, who might at least listen?" Or, "Do you take an evil power into yourself so someone else doesn't have to carry that burden, or do you keep yourself 'clean,' at the cost of not helping a person you care about?" Those challenges are way more interesting, because no matter what you choose, the choice will linger on, having consequences and echoes perhaps for the entire campaign. Choices like these can't just be revoked.
And maybe that's the problem I have with most of these "my powers are gone" stories. The power, the control, is so one-sided that it has no real drama to it. You know the house always wins. Patrons have unilateral control. I'm much more interested in character challenges where the players are the ones in control, but still must agonize over what to do. That, in part, is why I favor the "patron police squad" approach: because a squad sent to hunt you down can be evaded, persuaded, blockaded, or eliminated--or maybe they succeed and now you have to escape from a prison of your patron's making or the like. It's not clear who has the power in these situations. The player may actually have to choose between retaining their freedom and avoiding immoral actions, that sort of thing. That's much more vibrant and memorable.
I find "your powers are just instantly gone!" stories...really boring. They don't really do anything. Either you retire the character entirely, at which point there's hardly any difference between power loss and perma-death (which I don't care for either), or you find a replacement patron (or patch up your relationship with your current one) so all your powers come back, or the DM throws you a bone and you rebuild as something else. There's...really not much at stake there, because the player won't actually have their ability to participate removed, and most DMs won't even ask for the character to be retired and will instead find some other solution. Further, the narrative risks being a cul-de-sac rather than an unexpected fork in the road, especially if you resolve the differences with your patron.
If I'm going to give my players challenging situations, ones they actually will struggle with, stakes like these won't cut it. In the game I run, I pit the values or objectives of a character against one another: "Do you set aside your antipathy for your slimy-businessman grandfather, who MIGHT be turning over a new leaf, or do you snub him like he deserves, but risk letting someone you dislike even more gaining power instead of your grandfather, who might at least listen?" Or, "Do you take an evil power into yourself so someone else doesn't have to carry that burden, or do you keep yourself 'clean,' at the cost of not helping a person you care about?" Those challenges are way more interesting, because no matter what you choose, the choice will linger on, having consequences and echoes perhaps for the entire campaign. Choices like these can't just be revoked.
And maybe that's the problem I have with most of these "my powers are gone" stories. The power, the control, is so one-sided that it has no real drama to it. You know the house always wins. Patrons have unilateral control. I'm much more interested in character challenges where the players are the ones in control, but still must agonize over what to do. That, in part, is why I favor the "patron police squad" approach: because a squad sent to hunt you down can be evaded, persuaded, blockaded, or eliminated--or maybe they succeed and now you have to escape from a prison of your patron's making or the like. It's not clear who has the power in these situations. The player may actually have to choose between retaining their freedom and avoiding immoral actions, that sort of thing. That's much more vibrant and memorable.
