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

[Mort]

Which is fine in my view, so long as the player actually did know that.

IME, It seems to come up with Warlocks a lot more than the other relevant classes (clerics and paladins).

With Clerics and Paladins, players, from what I've seen, just about always pick a deity that aligns with their character.

With Warlocks, I've seen players portray an adversarial relationship with their patron as often as not. But it definitely comes up more with Warlocks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

IME, It seems to come up with Warlocks a lot more than the other relevant classes (clerics and paladins).

With Clerics and Paladins, players, from what I've seen, just about always pick a deity that aligns with their character.

With Warlocks, I've seen players portray an adversarial relationship with their patron as often as not. But it definitely comes up more with Warlocks.

Yeah, a lot of warlock players seem to like the idea of the "using power from an evil source but not being evil" narrative, but IME far fewer are ok with that narrative ever affecting them negatively, especially when it might affect their cool super powers.

Not everybody of course, but I've seen it many times.

 

[npick03]

My take on this is I would just ask the warlock player how they want to handle their patron, and then I would do that. This seems like a session 0 issue.

For me playing a warlock without patron drama is like ordering spaghetti bolognese without the sauce. But some people prefer buttered noodles, and I’m not going to take that away from them.

I think the reason warlocks, clerics, and paladins get targeted for DM intrusion is because their class fantasy involves them getting power from something/someone outside of the character themself. And that, kind of by default, ends up in the DM’s playspace.

(Sidebar, I would argue that rangers and druids should be part of this group too.)

Warlocks I think get hit with this extra hard because the language of the class is more explicitly legalistic with pacts and patrons. And you aren’t just praying to god or nature, you have a relationship with an NPC who can talk and have a statblock and show up in game.

And some players don't want all that. They just want to play a cool charisma caster. And that is fine. Other players revel in the drama. And that is fine too. What if the warlock player wants just a little drama, as a treat? That is also fine! Just talk it out.

Like others have said, I don’t think 5e is the game for trying to “realistically” model faustian bargains and fey contracts. Character build and mechanics are primarily how players express themselves and have agency. Messing with that is against the spirit and intention of the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My take on this is I would just ask the warlock player how they want to handle their patron, and then I would do that. This seems like a session 0 issue.

For me playing a warlock without patron drama is like ordering spaghetti bolognese without the sauce. But some people prefer buttered noodles, and I’m not going to take that away from them.

I think the reason warlocks, clerics, and paladins get targeted for DM intrusion is because their class fantasy involves them getting power from something/someone outside of the character themself. And that, kind of by default, ends up in the DM’s playspace.

(Sidebar, I would argue that rangers and druids should be part of this group too.)

Warlocks I think get hit with this extra hard because the language of the class is more explicitly legalistic with pacts and patrons. And you aren’t just praying to god or nature, you have a relationship with an NPC who can talk and have a statblock and show up in game.

And some players don't want all that. They just want to play a cool charisma caster. And that is fine. Other players revel in the drama. And that is fine too. What if the warlock player wants just a little drama, as a treat? That is also fine! Just talk it out.

Like others have said, I don’t think 5e is the game for trying to “realistically” model faustian bargains and fey contracts. Character build and mechanics are primarily how players express themselves and have agency. Messing with that is against the spirit and intention of the game.

Well, honestly they can have their buttered noodles at another restaurant. I just don't want to run a game with a warlock where the patron is irrelevant. Or any other class with a similar narrative.

 

[JamesLFlowers]

While not a Warlock, I have been playing an Illrigger which is also a "patron/pact" based class, that patron being whichever of the ArchDevils the Illrigger has sworn a pact. The DM has used the Patron calling in my marker as an adventure hook a couple of times.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Like others have said, I don’t think 5e is the game for trying to “realistically” model faustian bargains and fey contracts. Character build and mechanics are primarily how players express themselves and have agency. Messing with that is against the spirit and intention of the game.

Maybe you misspoke. Maybe I misunderstand. As written this is a very narrow view of the game. It relegates the game to mechanical drudgery, stripping entire letters largely out of the RPG. And it appears to contrast, starkly if I may add, with the rest of your post.

For many tables, even some very famous ones, mechanics aren't the primary way players express themselves. Backstories wouldn't be so popular if mechanics told so much of the tale. We can look at the r/LFG subreddit for hints as to this folly here.

Casual glances show repeating trends in the way people frame and express the games they wish to play. One such frame is "roleplay heavy." Many such threads emphasis character. Character in a vague sense, in a person within a fantasy world sense. In a fundamental part of the game sense.

We can look to the popular youtube personalities related to 5e. They speak volumes about characters, roleplay, and, as one says, the "talky talk."

If mechanics were the only legitimate form of agency, the only form of expression, these frames, these word choices, these ideas, wouldn't be nigh-universal in the community around 5e.

I don't think we can so easily dismiss the storytelling aspects of a storytelling game as sub-servant to the mechanics. Instead we should see the game as an interplay between those aspects and the mechanics.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Well, honestly they can have their buttered noodles at another restaurant. I just don't want to run a game with a warlock where the patron is irrelevant. Or any other class with a similar narrative.

That's fair. Everyone should play at tables that support their own preferred play style. I, for example, don't want to play in a game where every warlock must hit the exact same narrative beats in every story, or where every possible plot hook must be on screen and relevant in every campaign.

I might, for example, want to play a warlock whose patron is the vestige of a dead god, sealed away in a prison beyond time and space. Through a confluence of mystical circumstances, I'm the only being in existence who can access the prison, and my patron is completely at my mercy. It teaches me ancient magical secrets so I can one day restore it to life using epic-level magic. In the mean time, a cult of the dead god wants to capture me and siphon off my mystical connection to their deity's prison.

But, of course, that narrative contradicts the flavor text some DMs require of the warlock class (Faustian bargains with patrons currently active in the world), so I can't play that character at every table.

 

[Remathilis]

Right. But it appears that at least two people in this thread have had bad experiences with some GMs. And I'm trying to emphasize, that this isn't normal.

It SHOULDN'T be normal. But personal experiences and whole subreddits full of DM horror stories that say it's less uncommon than it should be. And frankly, I feel the movement from DMs having mechanical justification to screw with their players (ie classes where role-play can have mechanical consequences) is helping disarm a lot of bad DMs and bad DMs-in-training.

I don't miss the whole "my DM took away my paladinhood again" discussions from 3e and earlier.

 

[Necropolitan]

It SHOULDN'T be normal. But personal experiences and whole subreddits full of DM horror stories that say it's less uncommon than it should be. And frankly, I feel the movement from DMs having mechanical justification to screw with their players (ie classes where role-play can have mechanical consequences) is helping disarm a lot of bad DMs and bad DMs-in-training.

I don't miss the whole "my DM took away my paladinhood again" discussions from 3e and earlier.

A bad DM would be bad regardless of if the rules supported them taking away a PC's powers or not.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Well, honestly they can have their buttered noodles at another restaurant. I just don't want to run a game with a warlock where the patron is irrelevant. Or any other class with a similar narrative.

From your other post I know this is not the case but this post seems to imply that you don't want to DM a warlock that you can't turn off their cool powers. A bunch of us are saying the patron should be relevant can even be advserial without the extreme power swiping.

If I wanted to be a jerk player (and I don't) and thought power swiping was on the table I would create a legalese document for the pact that would make the pact very relevant and hold my patron to every dot and comma in it. But I don't think that would be fun for the DM and certainly not to the other players.

I don't mean this to be as advserial as it sounds. I bet if we gamed together we would come to a quick and easy understanding that would work for both of us.