D&D General What Happens if a Cleric/Warlock/etc PC Gravely Offends Their Supernatural Patron?

[Vaalingrade]

It's not about punishing players or judging them.

It all still boils down to doing that and coming up with an excuse for doing so.

It doesn't matter why I punched that dude in the face, his face was still punched. Regardless of whatever justification is used, the result is 'you character is useless now. drive through.'

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It all still boils down to doing that and coming up with an excuse for doing so.

It doesn't matter why I punched that dude in the face, his face was still punched. Regardless of whatever justification is used, the result is 'you character is useless now. drive through.'

Logical consequences of actions are not 'punishment', they're a requirement for the game making any sense. If a third level character decides to attack an adult dragon, the character ending up as charcoal and ash is not the GM punishing the player.

 

[Oofta]

It all still boils down to doing that and coming up with an excuse for doing so.

It doesn't matter why I punched that dude in the face, his face was still punched. Regardless of whatever justification is used, the result is 'you character is useless now. drive through.'

If a PC decides to randomly attack someone on the street in my campaign, I will consider possible consequences. NPCs are not powerless to act, the response has been everything from nothing happens, you get a reputation. At the most extreme the PC is arrested and given a choice of indentured servitude or hanging, create a new PC.

Actions have consequences.

 

[Cadence]

It all still boils down to doing that and coming up with an excuse for doing so.

It doesn't matter why I punched that dude in the face, his face was still punched. Regardless of whatever justification is used, the result is 'you character is useless now. drive through.'

It feels kind of like in some game worlds:

The PCs can go punch NPCs in the face and if the players don't tell the DM they're looking for a fight the DM says ok, the NPC looks hurt.

and in others:

The DM lays out a world of PCs that feels like it consistently goes with what the players said they were looking for their players to be able to pursue. And if the PCs punch a random peasant not much happens, if they punch a guard in a small town there's a bit of a tussle, and if they're interviewing with the princess and punch her they probably end up in trouble.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's the deal with attempts to balance via RP restrictions: What if the player is just a naturally obedient person who would never think to step a single toe out of Daddy Patron's line and who will completely willingly derail the game trying to muddle out all the moral traps a DM who thinks RP is a balance will inevitably throw out (because otherwise, how is the issue even coming into play?)

Why is dealing with in-character moral questions equated with derailing the game?

 

[Lanefan]

The DM lays out a world of PCs that feels like it consistently goes with what the players said they were looking for their players to be able to pursue. And if the PCs punch a random peasant not much happens, if they punch a guard in a small town there's a bit of a tussle, and if they're interviewing with the princess and punch her they probably end up in trouble.

<<raised eyebrow>> Probably?

 

[Umbran]

Why is dealing with in-character moral questions equated with derailing the game?

That'd depend on the table agreement.

If the bunch had agreed they were looking to be murderhobos looking to kill things and take their stuff, moral questions could well count as derailing the game as intended.

 

[Jer]

<<raised eyebrow>> Probably?

I mean, if after punching her it turns out she was actually a doppelganger, nobody's going to complain overmuch I think. So you have to leave the wiggle room.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why is dealing with in-character moral questions equated with derailing the game?

Because eventually they get trained via the magic of operant conditioning to expect the DM to punch them mechanically whenever they make the 'wrong' choice, so they start agonizing over every choice.

Or they're the 3e Paladin and don't let the party make choices they don't like and also can't make their own choices because the DM is lurking around the corner with a collapsible baton and a pamphlet entitled 'kneecaps and you'.

 

[Minigiant]

Personally diminishing the distinction between gods and non-deity powers really destroys the distinction of between clerics and warlocks and creates untold ripple effects on the very logic between the separation of D&D's spellcasting classes.

If some random archfey princeling can create clerics and uncreate them then the whole class system falls apart like a house of cards.