D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[Crimson Longinus]

More to the point, I have yet to hear anyone state that if their Paladin player or Cleric player stopped following their god or ethos, they'd allow them to take another god instead, and continue getting their powers from THAT god. Instead, the punishment appears to be the point. The removal of class abilities. The DM's story must override the fact that the players are playing a game and are having their abilities removed versus other players who have no similar restriction.

I explicitly said that they could. And I have not heard anyone say they couldn't. It is not about punishment at all, it is about having the fiction to matter.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've reminded me of one of my favourite discussions of GMing techniques from Paul Czege:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​

So the moral status and true convictions of the pope-who-is-possibly-an-anti-pope can be kept unfixed/ambiguous initially, and allowed to unfold in a way that supports the play.

It is funny and illustrative of why we disagree so often. To me that is utterly terrible advice. Like literally the exact opposite what one should do! I would say the GM should know the personalities, convictions and weaknesses of NPCs, and play those NPCs with honesty and integrity based on those.

 

[Nefermandias]

You are talking about the fiction.

But the issue of fairness is about * the play of the game*. If the player thinks that their PC has betrayed their beliefs and should lose their powers, then the player can act on that in some appropriate fashion. They don't need the GM to police it.

Fiction and system should feed back from and support each other. Also, I strongly disagree that losing the powers should be an unilateral player choice.

You and I apparently play very differently. This is the same problem I have when people argue about "fluff" Vs "crunch". The game doesn't need to become any more generic than it is right now. Things are what the text say that are, unless the DM explicitly changes something.

In my table, flavour is not free.

 

[TiQuinn]

Fairness is a construct

One which I’m sure everyone aspires to, I would hope.

I'm sure there are many more cool stories out there, and I'd hate for them to get shut down by a rule in the DMG. Good thing Rule Zero doesn't care about rules!

I think it’s just as easy to bend the story in the DMs head to the rules as it is to bend the rules to the DMs story. A shift in the character’s allegiance does not need to come with mechanical penalties.

 

[TiQuinn]

I explicitly said that they could.

Then we have no real disagreement.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is funny and illustrative of why we disagree so often. To me that is utterly terrible advice. Like literally the exact opposite what one should do! I would say the GM should know the personalities, convictions and weaknesses of NPCs, and play those NPCs with honesty and integrity based on those.

Have to agree with this. Changing NPCs' personalities to support a narrative is blatant cheating in my book. NPC personalities should be established before the players meet them, then they react to the players' actions in accordance with their established personalities. It needs to be that way to be fair.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But that's not unfair, within the fiction. Within the fiction heresy is wrong, and the divinity is punishing the heretic!

The issue of fairness seems to me to be a feature of gameplay in the real world, not the imagined circumstances of imaginary people in the fictional world.

It's not unfair. It's just boring. It's the old "One of the Paladins is a traitor? You all know the drill. Everyone down into the courtyard and we'll see who can no longer Lay On Hands." issue. It's boring and controlling and therefore a symptom of bad DMing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure.

I think it provides setting flavor to have priests and holy warriors need to adhere to their religion or oaths.

There should be consequences to breaking covenants.

This doesn't mean that we should use the blandest option possible and an option that is simply so harsh no one would ever take it willingly. In 5e I've, by agreement, changed a character's Subclass. From Oath of Valour to Oath of Vengeance to Oath of Redemption as they realised what they'd done. And in what started life as my 4e retroclone the cleric, paladin, and blackguard are all the same class - and the player can change what aspect they wish to embody up to once per level. (In my longest playtest it happened twice in a campaign).

"Bam, your powers are gone" is a boring and terrible consequence and encourages turtling and characters with iron rods up their rectums to avoid it. "You are changed but still have power" on the other hand is interesting.

I have rule of no evil player characters in my games. Violating that would turn you into an npc. I did allow it once for a player who wanted to roll a new character and his old one became a villain.

Now this makes sense.

 

[Emerikol]

I think there are many ways to play it and some of you have really given some interesting ideas on how it could work. Definitely fodder for a campaign. But we are talking about the default rule in the DMG. Maybe the DMG should teach their DMs to have a well done session 0 which is a great way to avoid many types of players.

I personally think the default should be dieties that the character is answerable to in some way. The DM though can handle it any of a variety of ways. I could even see an x.p. penalty instead of an outright blocking of powers. But a DMG should be a book about ways to do things so if it provided a bunch of ideas that would be great. The PHB should say "Talk to your DM about his campaign settings".

 

[Emerikol]

This doesn't mean that we should use the blandest option possible and an option that is simply so harsh no one would ever take it willingly. In 5e I've, by agreement, changed a character's Subclass. From Oath of Valour to Oath of Vengeance to Oath of Redemption as they realised what they'd done. And in what started life as my 4e retroclone the cleric, paladin, and blackguard are all the same class - and the player can change what aspect they wish to embody up to once per level. (In my longest playtest it happened twice in a campaign).

"Bam, your powers are gone" is a boring and terrible consequence and encourages turtling and characters with iron rods up their rectums to avoid it. "You are changed but still have power" on the other hand is interesting.

Now this makes sense.

I think in fairness the plan is not permanent banning of powers unless the offense is something so obvious the player should have known better and been warned about repeatedly. The idea would be the powers stop working, are lessened (meaning maybe a higher level spell isn't usable), or any number of things. Even an XP penalty or a ban on leveling until atonement is made. The idea though would be atonement.