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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9476577" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with [USER=48965]@Imaro[/USER] - where is the premise coming from that the patron is an opponent of the warlock?Also, [USER=6747251]@Micah Sweet[/USER] upthread mentions the feeling of reality of the fiction. So here's an actual play report from 1990 (the system was Rolemaster, but I don't think there's any reason why D&D couldn't play out the same way):The paladin PC had killed someone in circumstances that, in the view of the PC as played by the player, amounted to wrongdoing. Therefore, the player (again playing his PC) had the paladin go out into the wilderness to pray for forgiveness. I (as GM) therefore made a roll for a wilderness encounter, on the appropriate encounter chart. The resulting encounter was with a (relatively minor) demon. The demon appeared in the vicinity of the praying paladin, and started taunting him about his conduct and his faith. I had assumed that the player would have his PC fight the demon (my first thought was that the sound inference was demons are liars, and therefore the demon's denigration of the PC's faith and conduct must be a sign that the paladin in fact remains in good standing). But the player (as his character) interpreted the demon as a sort of tempter, trying to lure him into more unjustified violence. And so even when the demon started beating up on the paladin, the paladin (as played by his player) did not resist. After a bit of un-resisted pounding of the paladin had taken place, I (as the demon) decided that it had become boring, and the demon left the bruised and bloodied paladin alone.That scene, as it played out, felt vividly real. The way the paladin responded to the taunting by the demon - his rejection of it by way of his determination to avoid violence - was utterly unexpected (by me at least). The emotions were intense; the demon beating the paladin up was gruelling . At that point in time, it was the most powerful play of a religiously devoted character that I had ever seen in RPGing. It showed me that it was possible for FRPGing to be moving in a way that I hadn't experienced before.If we look at how that moment of play worked, we can see that it was the player who initiated the scene - I (as my PC) go out into the wilderness to pray. It was the GM who framed the basic antagonism in the scene - As you are praying, a demon appears and says <stuff that constitutes the taunting of the paladin about his faith>. And it was the player who decided what that antagonism meant, in moral and thematic terms, by adopting a certain interpretation of it from the perspective of his PC.This shows that it is quite possible for a religious character to experience the demands of their faith, to suffer for it, to do penance for their wrongs, to experience crisis, etc, without the GM having to take the part of the divinity and present those considerations to the player in some external, third party fashion. And so far from undermining realism, letting the player take the lead can be a foundation for vivid, compelling and realistic fiction.As a result of this RPGing experience, and many others I've had since, I'm quite confident that similar considerations can apply in the play of a warlock PC, and that character's relationship to their patron and the patron's temptations, demands, etc.</blockquote>

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