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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7489484" data-attributes="member: 6799649">Well...allow me to elaborate....<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Let's break it down:-* a game where multiclassing is banned. In such a game, the Pal/War isn't an issue that will arise. In that game, none of the classes is banned. Who gets to choose which class each player plays, DM or player? That's right, the player. Yes, the player is entitled to play any (allowed) class they want to play. It's not okay for the DM to say that Tom, Dick and Harry can play whatever class they want, but Jane is not allowed to play ANY class without my prior permission because I assume that whatever class she plays she will abuse it!* a game where multiclassing is allowed. In such a game, just like a single class game, it's the player who gets to choose their own character class or classes Each class is a set of game mechanics. Each class is also presented with several examples of fluff, but the fluff bits are not 'rules', they are suggestions. Players are expected and encouraged to make their own fluff. No-one can seriously look at the fluff in the Warlock description and assert that ALL warlock patrons WILL take away your hard-earned mechanical abilities if you choose to do something they don't like.Sure, ideally, it makes for a much, much better game if there is collaboration between player and DM, but it must be the player who makes the choices. Otherwise, the DM is just playing Magic Story Time and the players are just pushing the DM's pawns around the table at the DM's whim.Which brings us to.... Absolutely!Both sides of this debate can envision the extreme, but in one side's minds the 'extreme' is the tyrannical DM, while in the other side's minds the 'extreme' is players who totally ignore their own fluff or make up nonsensical fluff just so they can be murderhobos without consequence.So my complaints are specific, and it would be helpful if I were more precise in my objections:-* the DM tells us what rules we're using. Fine. I make a PC accordingly. He THEN makes up a spurious excuse and alters the rules for me in order that I can't play what I want* I look at the god I worship, or the Oath I'm keeping, or the patron who's the other side of my Pact. I read what the books say, and I imagine what my PC will be like. Sure, there are wrong ways to play, say, the Oath of the Ancients, but there are plenty of different right ways to play it. After all, the Oaths (and gods and Pacts) are intentionally vague. 'Be the light' is one of the clauses in the Oath of the Ancients. What? Oh, be courageous and positive and so forth. Great, I can get my head around that kind of personality and play that honestly.So I play my Ancients paladin honestly, according to my honest ideas about the kind of personality that would take that Oath. But, it has to be admitted, that there is not just one single possible personality that EVERY Ancients paladin has! That would be absurd! No, there are MANY ways that personality could manifest and still be an honest portrayal of that Oath. Yes, there are many wrong ways too, but as long as the player plays the PC in one of the many right ways, everything is kosher.Or it should be!My specific complaint is the kind of DM behaviour that boils down to, "No! I play Ancients paladins this way, therefore ANY other way of playing them is wrong and I will take your powers away unless you play YOUR paladin (or cleric or warlock or whatever) the exact same way I would play it if I were playing that class/Oath/Pact/god!"So the idea that ANY multiclass of paladin and warlock is impossible because the god/patron would not allow it is demonstrably flawed, simply by explaining how this particular character/god/patron works. It all makes sense.So how can you pre-ban it before you've even heard about this specific character? How can you just ASSUME that I'm a jerk power-gaming munchkin as soon as the words 'paladin/warlock' escape my lips and refuse to even hear about my character?That's not respectful. Assuming the lowest of motives and refusing to listen to what's actually going on shows that this DM is not worthy of respect since this DM shows such disrespect.So these DMs take away class abilities (using Rule zero as a pathetic excuse) not because the player is ignoring the relationship between PC and god/patron/Oath, but because the DM would have made a different decision if HE were playing a PC with that god/patron/Oath. When HE is playing such a PC he can make those choices, but when I am playing such a PC those choices are MINE to make!THAT is 'player agency'. Without it there is no point in playing the game at all. Taking that agency away is the greatest RPG crime a DM can commit!</blockquote>

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