D&D General The Player's Quantum Ogre: Warlock Pacts

[cranberry]

But you are 100% knowing what the things that affect the Warlock are, when WotC doesn't say?

Do you not see how this is a double standard?

All I did was explain my opinion and reasoning in my first post.

If you're interpreting that as me saying that you are having bad wrong fun, that's on you.

Play the way you want.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wait, wait, wait. So because every class doesn't have a built in storytelling tool, no class should? Do we all of a sudden feel like storytelling tools that allow DM and player interplay are negatives to a class? Are we that jaded with DMs that we just want them out of our lives?

This is a crazy idea, I know. But in a game about cooperative story telling, as 5e is advertised, story telling tools should be expected. DM involvement should be expected. Cooperation should be expected. Instead we seem to lament their inclusion, as if involving the DM is punishment. An adversarial relationship we are forced into by poor design. Silly WotC for putting story telling tools into their story telling game.

It all feels like a continuation of this idea that is mirrored in multiple threads currently. The idea that many around here are so jaded that they want rule-reciting robots for DMs, because it's a horrifying reality if we actually have to engage with other people at the table. It's a horrifying reality if we have to cooperate with those we choose to play with. It's a horrifying reality that we can't just bulldoze our way through the other players on mechanics alone.

But maybe I'm naive and an empty chair would be better than a human.

The horrifying reality is that people keep talking about all the things that get done that will hurt the players. We've had all of ONE person in this thread talking about carrots. Everyone else is talking sticks.

How am I supposed to have an upbeat attitude about things when time after time after time after time it's "okay, now here's how you'll get specially screwed over if you play X class instead of anything else".

Maybe if folks spent a quarter of the time they spent talking about the bad, instead choosing to talk about what good things they do with these "story hooks", it would be easier to buy that this isn't just special extra punishment heaped on players who dared to choose a class they thought sounded fun?

 

[Remathilis]

No, the answer is that different classes have different requirements.

Lords, thieves guilds, and managers are not the same as gods They are not equivalent.

And I have played games where rogues had obligations to the local thieves guild, and fighters to their Lords.

My issue is that a cleric (warlock, paladin, druid, ranger, etc) gets a supernatural sugar daddy who the DM can use to bludgeon you with by destroying your character. For example:

Fiend patron: warlock! The paladin in your party has insulted me. Kill him!
Warlock: what? I won't do that!
Patron: For your insolence, all your class features are now gone. You are now a commoner! Deal with it!

Show me where a fighter or a sorcerer or a monk suffers the same threat to their class features. A fighter who tells his lord to pike it still keeps his action surge and second wind. A monk who leaves his temple still can gain levels in monk. A sorcerer who hates the dragon who aired his bloodline keeps his spellcasting. The temple can't make a monk lose his martial arts and focus and reduce him to a commoner, the dragon ancestors don't monitor every action the PC does and removes his dragon blood until he's suitably atoned to.

If you want to make patrons or deities (or nature, fey spirits, etc) a spigot that the DM can turn on or off, you better chuck balance out the window and ramp those class powers up a factor or three. You want higher risk? I want higher reward.

 

[Scribe]

Is it narrow?

For real. Is it?

Saying that the only relationship in a Cleric/God is based on love? Yeah, that is a singular narrow view on what could be possible.

Not to say we have a multitude of positve examples from old faiths, but when I think of Clerics and certainly dont think of the possible Gods as one of a Parent/Child 'what troubles you' with some loving God.

As Arthur said 'I'm Old Testament.'

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why would a priest be treated like garbage by the being they have devoted their life to?

You could ask that about a lot of relationships in this world.

 

[Scribe]

You could ask that about a lot of relationships in this world.

Exactly. Imagine if the only stories told or pushed where ones of loving relationships, heroic hero's doing heroic deeds with good in their hearts, and the cheering of the morally correct.

...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Saying that the only relationship in a Cleric/God is based on love? Yeah, that is a singular narrow view on what could be possible.

Not to say we have a multitude of positve examples from old faiths, but when I think of Clerics and certainly dont think of the possible Gods as one of a Parent/Child 'what troubles you' with some loving God.

As Arthur said 'I'm Old Testament.'

You....do realize that the Old Testament also includes the Psalms, right?

 

[Scribe]

You....do realize that the Old Testament also includes the Psalms, right?

I realize that religion, relationships, Gods, and the totality of human history is messy and a lot more nuanced then one singular view.

 

[Remathilis]

Wait, wait, wait. So because every class doesn't have a built in storytelling tool, no class should? Do we all of a sudden feel like storytelling tools that allow DM and player interplay are negatives to a class? Are we that jaded with DMs that we just want them out of our lives?

This is a crazy idea, I know. But in a game about cooperative story telling, as 5e is advertised, story telling tools should be expected. DM involvement should be expected. Cooperation should be expected. Instead we seem to lament their inclusion, as if involving the DM is punishment. An adversarial relationship we are forced into by poor design. Silly WotC for putting story telling tools into their story telling game.

It all feels like a continuation of this idea that is mirrored in multiple threads currently. The idea that many around here are so jaded that they want rule-reciting robots for DMs, because it's a horrifying reality if we actually have to engage with other people at the table. It's a horrifying reality if we have to cooperate with those we choose to play with. It's a horrifying reality that we can't just bulldoze our way through the other players on mechanics alone.

But maybe I'm naive and an empty chair would be better than a human.

No. I have a simple credo about my PCs: I control what they say and do. Not the DM. I dislike abilities that force my PC to act in ways contrary to how they would otherwise (barring literal mind control) and I don't like DMs who threaten to remove my class if I don't behave the way they think I should behave. You want to punish my disobedient warlock? Send minions to harass him, use omens to spoil his tea and have horses whinny when he's near. But don't you DARE take away his class abilities when the sorcerer can wave his willy in Asmodeus's face and keeps his spellcasting features just fine.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You could ask that about a lot of relationships in this world.

The point is that the deity can see what most can't, and they have every reason to want engaged, enthusiastic, proselytizing shepherds.

I'm not saying relationships can never be dysfunctional. I'm saying that the idea that ABSOLUTELY EVERY deity is just gleefully waiting to pull the plug the moment a cleric acts in even the slightest out of line way is goddamn ridiculous. It is stupid. It is self-defeating.

Gods who do this would not have worshipers.