Are we really advocating for "spare the rod, spoil the child" as a means of player interaction?
Really? THIS is the way you see an idea that the world should be more than just decoration and the NPCs should be actual people with personalities and actions hsould have consequences, to let the players be immersed in the game? It looks to me like you are viewing relationship between GM and players as inherently hostile and you describe any game where you cannot just murder and steal everything and never face a slightest pushback as if it was railroaded to hell and back.
If the players want to play murder hobos, then you have no right to stop them. They are there to enjoy themselves, not be your puppets. If you don't like playing a game with players who like murderhoboing, play with different players.
But what is stopping murdhoboing to do with warlock patrons? Many patrons are quite keen to encourage that sort of thing.
I have all right to stop a murderhobo player, but if a player acts like this it usually means I have to take things above the table and kick them out. Making a world they care about and get immersed in, in which they have responsibilities, ambitions, favorite places and people, serves to prevent that kind of behavior. And I hate how 2024 Warlock pretty much banned making the patron be the part of that.
And I really don't see a patron that would make a Warlock JUST to send them on a murder sphree and it's an extremly lazy way to use a patron.
You can argue, but you would be wrong. I did it in my last campaign, with a warlock whose patron was very active from the beginning at level one, although still not fully determined.
Their identity became clearer at level 3, as expected. It was a blast.
And there are thousands of other way to deal with that, like choosing the kind of patron you want from the get go. Nothing in the rules prevent it, you can choose your sublcass at any time. In fact, many players do, not especially warlocks. This choice won't have any mechanical effect before level 3, but all the juicy RP you like so much will be there, promise.
Again, my issue is not that it's not something you cannot fix, you can fix with homebrew anything. But RAW has very intentional way to play Warlock and how DM is supposed to use the patron and it is to never use the patron, since the rules actively go out of their way to make it harder for the DM.
I have no problem with that kind of relationship. I hate it when it's forced on me. When the DM says, "oh you're a fiend warlock? Meet astaroth your patron. He's got a quest for you and you are going to want to stay in his good graces...."
I've seen warlocks who struck a deal with the Dark Powers of Ravenloft. I've seen warlocks who rebelled a seek to kill their patron. I've seen one guy who wanted a patron but didn't like the warlock class and asked to have a patron awaken his shadow sorcery instead. I don't want just one type of relationship with a patron. I want to coffee to have a cordial, antagonistic, or none at all.
None of the ways your warlocks played are legal by 2024 RAW rules because in 2024 RAW the patron is not supposed to be an entity that you can get quests from or rebel against, just impotent, meaningless source of "big number go up" for the game's poorly-designed combat.
I mean, the fighter can kill everyone they meet, the rogue can steal from every business in Waterdeep and the wizard can use fireball as his favorite negotiation tactic, but the warlock having to answer to Big Daddy will keep him in check!
As someone else pointed out, if a player acted like that you would expect consequences for their actions - gallows, assassins, jail. Why Warlock should just be allowed to run around with no consequences for their actions? If Warlock did something that upset their patron, the patron should get mad at them. If Rogue robs a store and DM says the store owner called city guard on them, how is that different from the Patron calling out the Warlock? It's an NPC like any other.
I think that if you're designing a game and put rules in one class (but only one!) to hinder players from being murderhobos get them invested in the world, you're making terrible design decisions. It just doesn't make sense - if you think such rules are needed, every class should have them, not just one. Plus really clunky rules that absolutely contradict the narrative are generally bad - like Paul pointed out, if you're really roleplaying the patrons, quite a few patron choices should be happy to empower murderhobos and require them to go on a murdering spree, rather than 'stop players from being murderhobos'.
Who said that I want it only for Warlock? By all means there should be such things for all classes. Why shouldn't a Knight (which if I were to redesign D&D I would replace Fighter with) for example carry a family crest that obligates them to certain actions? Why shouldn't Rogue have connections to a criminal underground that require them to perform certain tasks? And if a Druid decides to help colonizers cut down ancient forest why shouldn't they get a visit from this guy?
(I once honestly saw a DM complaining about a Druid who did that and used this meme to argue against what the DM wanted to do - take away their powers).
And also, idea that even an evil Patron would just want a murdering sphree from a Warlock is weaksauce. Even an entity that may want slaughter and carnage would have many better ways to do it than making a Warlock.
Also in my experience running a lot of organized play style games (so one shot or one-shot-ish games with a shifting player pool), players who want to just be murder hobos are pretty rare even though it's an environment that really supports that. The 'I just try to kill everyone' players seem to me much rarer in practice than online DM discourse would indicate, the vast majority of players are actually happy to interact with the world as a world if they're given a chance and the world isn't set up in a 'screw the PCs' way.
And in my experience power-hungry DMs that will use connections to the world as form of railroading or a way to "gotcha' the players are extremly rare and the rules do not need to become DM hostile to counterbalance them. DMs are already doing a lot of heavy work, why are we making their lives harder?
It's supposed to be impossible RAW, because if it was RAW it would give the DM the power to impose their style of play irrespective of if the player wanted it or not. But the player is free to make their patron as much as an evil lawyer* as they want. It just can't be imposed on them anginst their will, just as a fighter can't be stripped of their class abilities for failing to obey their evil king.
So imposing a Patron who is impotent, powerless and never allowed to interfere or even speak out is somehow an improvement? How is this not as bad or worse, just in other direction?
And a fighter would certainly face consequences for disobeying orders of a king they swore loyalty to or who is their liege. Losing lands or titles, being exiles or arrested. I cannot imagine a king could just let an act of open disobedience go unpunished. Why should Warlock face no consequences for disobeying the patron?
Also you all seem to think only way patron can punish a Warlock is by stripping away their powers, and that is pretty wrong. You can see in Baldur's Gate 3 what happens when Wyll disobeys his patron pretty early on, it's a very good scene.
It's not fluff, it's mechanics. You make the pact at level 1, you choose the patron at level 3. Pact magic very clearly says you do now know who is the patron when you make the pact.
When you learn who your patron is really should have been something DMs work out with players, not the default state of an entire class of idiots who make pacts blindly.
Exactly, it really pretty much insulted the entire class and reduced them to "dumped INT and WIS LOL" stereotype.
