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

[Bae'zel]

To me, it just shows missed opportunities for the other classes. Why not create an obligations table for each class or subclass that you can use to give all of them greater responsibilities in the setting? It’s not that I have a problem with restrictions or abilities with strings attached; it’s the “restrictions for thee but not for me” design.

Agreed. Again I recommend video game RPGs as setting a good example. Fighters Guilds!

Think about it: in a reasonably lawful society, outside of the military or police, why should anyone walk around as a human armoury without any checks and balances? Answer: Mercenary / Figthters' Guilds.

This does a lot: gives the Fighter a network to connect with in every settlement and plenty of potential NPC allies. As long as they fulfil their membership dues (whether in literal in-game costs or roleplaying oaths etc.). This would add so much world-building.

It is a wasted opportunity. This is why I think that "class" and "background" shouldn't be totally hand waved or trivialized by the DM. Don't FORCE players to do anything that they don't want to, but you can bet that I'd start my campaign elevator pitch with an explanation and hopes of player engagement with these ideas.

Edit: Guilds, cults, etc could be presented as an optional aspect of the setting that players can engage with at their leisure. The benefits are clear and you can even make them more substantial (once you reach Figther Level 5, the Guild rewards you with a Badge of Rank (advantage to relevant charisma checks with the military), discounts at Weapon and Armor smiths, and a ceremonial +1 Longsword or other weapon of choice) etc.

 

[Bae'zel]

And another thing: providing Class and Background-based in-game organizations is instant plot hooks.

Hey Druid: the Circle needs your help, please go to the Cave of Mushroom Terrors and calm the Owlbears there before they go nuts.

Hey Rogue: the Guild needs help cooling off the local Captain of Guard; he's too persistent. Please distract him by doing Quest X in the Docks...

Hey Barbarian: one of your Blood Brothers/Sisters has arrived in the village, looking for you. Your shaman's soul has been stolen by a coven of hags. They need your help with blah bah blah

 

[CreamCloud0]

To be a little honest, it's still annoying that two classes get class-exclusive languages (thieves cant and Druidic) which implies a connection with a group large enough to have a secret language to learn. Luckily, neither class requires you to remain a member in good standing in a thieves guild or druidic order to continue to level up in the class.

while i'm fine with dropping them being exclusive think i would rather languages moved to being things more like Thieves Cant, to represent more of a knowledge of the vocabulary and implications of expected etiquette of a social sphere(so if you know Highspeech you also know how to act in high society), rather than being species catchall tongues, a hypothetical shortlist of Thieves Cant(combination sign language and for lawbenders), Druidic(mapmakers and wilderness signage), Highspeech(royals, nobles and officials), Military(soldiers and encoded messages) Mercantile(for traders and trading agreements), Runic(for recording magical knowledge) Celestial/Demonic/Sylvan/Deep Speech(languages of divine/demonic/fey/eldritch beings).

 

[Horwath]

And another thing: providing Class and Background-based in-game organizations is instant plot hooks.

Hey Druid: the Circle needs your help, please go to the Cave of Mushroom Terrors and calm the Owlbears there before they go nuts.

Hey Rogue: the Guild needs help cooling off the local Captain of Guard; he's too persistent. Please distract him by doing Quest X in the Docks...

Hey Barbarian: one of your Blood Brothers/Sisters has arrived in the village, looking for you. Your shaman's soul has been stolen by a coven of hags. They need your help with blah bah blah

that is all great 100%, unless the refusal to take the quest results in Druid Circle start treating your druid abilities as switches on a board....
Day 1 of not questing; no wild shape,
Day 2: no spells
Day 3: no cantrips

 

[Bae'zel]

that is all great 100%, unless the refusal to take the quest results in Druid Circle start treating your druid abilities as switches on a board....
Day 1 of not questing; no wild shape,
Day 2: no spells
Day 3: no cantrips

Well in the spirit of the current trend of this thread, that wasn't what I was implying, but I acknowledge that this is a concern that is shared here already.

I'd rather class and background hook for quests be more of a carrot than a stick. "Hey players, your Paladin may be especially interested in taking on this next dungeon because his Knightly Order has expressed interest in protecting the tomb of Lady Knightperson the III"

OR

"Hey Druid, if you complete this quest, your social ranking within the Circle will improve, you'll get a promotion... but if you refuse... well you won't get that reward but otherwise whatever, someone else will"

 

[Bae'zel]

As a forever DM, I'll look for whatever positive incentives that I can to get players more engaged beyond "let's go and kill stuff if it's worth the cash, I guess".

 

[Maxperson]

Then everyone should have built-in obligations, because these classes do not get anything anyone else doesn't.

It's flatly unfair punishment for them otherwise.

That's not true unless you are forced to play classes with obligations. You can choose not to play them, so there is ZERO punishment happening. And since everyone who plays them has the obligation(unless the DM agrees otherwise), it's fair. Fair = everyone has the same thing.

....then what is the problem here??? You literally just responded to my suggestion of NOT singling the Warlock out by telling me I should get used to Warlocks (etc.) getting singled out!

No I'm saying that 1) opt to play a class without obligations, or 2) get your DM to change it for you. The class isn't forced on you, so there's nothing unfair or punishing about the nature of the patron.

The bard class has music and song baked into it. I hate playing a class that includes music and song. Should I demand that music and song be removed so that I can play a bard that is based on knowledge and story only? Is it unfair and punishing that it includes music and song? Or should I just not play a bard and play the every other class out there that doesn't have music and song, leaving bards to those who like it as is?

Er...other than the whole "evil being getting one over on a mortal" thing that nearly all of them have. The Great Old One intentionally forcing you to become more and more like itself. The Devil, frankly doing the same thing but in a personality kind of way rather than a "literally making your brain tentacular" or whatever. The Fey, I mean have you read any stories where the fey are involved? It's literally their jam to do things like screwing people over because they broke rules they didn't know existed.

This is D&D. The fey are not like they are in the stories, or at least most of them are not. And you are leaving out genies, freaking angels(those try to screw you over), the hexblade(could be done with a war god or some other patron). The two undead pacts could be done with a Baelnorn or other good undead.

You have choices. The only way a Great Old One forces you to become like it is if you CHOOSE to play that and have it done to you, in which case it isn't forced.

So...yeah I feel pretty comfortable saying that in D&D fiction specifically, patrons are frequently characterized as actively malicious and trying to harm the people they pact with, but the fiction in the rulebooks says absolutely none of that. Hence the problem. Making the patron "matter" very, very, very frequently means....bringing in all of those thematic things, things used by the fiction of D&D itself, that are actively malicious and punitive.

Um, again. Demon, devil and Cthulhu. If you can choose those patrons and you don't realize that they are going to be malicious...

Oh, you can throw in efreeti into that as well. If you choose genie, select something that isn't efreeti.

Again, I want to stress how significant a difference it is to be told what @Micah Sweet said upthread. No instant-character-imploding. Primarily means communication. Probably will include requests now and then--likely, ones designed to be achievable and not obviously horrendous, but which still make me uncomfortable. If a true pact-negation event occurred, and it may or may not ever do so, it would not be a sudden or surprising turn of events, and any such loss would either be temporary (with the pact restored, or a new patron stepping in to take the old one's place), or permanent but with some alternative pathway opening in its place.

That's all I need to know to be comfortable moving forward. I don't need to know the frequency of the requests (we can talk about it if it's excessive). I don't need to know the content. I don't need to know everything about the patron--mysteries can be fun, even in your cosmic "employer". With the above, I feel quite confident that the situation will be one of developing intrigue and interest. I understand where Micah is coming from, and can work within those parameters, while trusting that he will also work within those parameters.

It always, always comes down to not knowing the parameters I'm operating within. Leaving things up to the unspoken, mercurial "social contract", where I cannot ever know what the rules or limits are until after it is (far) too late to do anything, where the presumption of common agreement far too easily traps me into "well I didn't actually agree to that" "then why did you START" type stuff. It doesn't take much--I mean it was literally like a one-paragraph, off-the-cuff thing from Micah!--to break free of that situation. But constantly saying "the social contract" as though it were magic words that eliminated all concerns or issues ain't it.

Write up the pact with the DM. Get the obligations from both sides down on paper. Not only would that be awesome, and something that I think most DMs would not only allow, but be happy to do, but it would be better for roleplaying both the patron and warlock, AND put your mind at ease even more than what @Micah Sweet is suggesting.

 

[Remathilis]

To me, it just shows missed opportunities for the other classes. Why not create an obligations table for each class or subclass that you can use to give all of them greater responsibilities in the setting? It’s not that I have a problem with restrictions or abilities with strings attached; it’s the “restrictions for thee but not for me” design.

I think you could do that IF D&D had a default setting (like Pathfinder) where you could add Mage Orders, Bard Colleges, Fighter Companies, Ranger Lodges, Thieves Guilds, and the like. But D&D has to remain suitably generic that you can support post-apocalyptic, pulp-noir, gothic horror, Tolkien fantasy, sword-and-sorcery and high gonzo boats-in-space. There is simply no room for organizational obligations. Hell, there is barely room for detailed religions in most settings and if not for the multiverse holding everything together, there wouldn't be any consistency with patrons.

 

[Scribe]

I think you could do that IF D&D had a default setting (like Pathfinder) where you could add Mage Orders, Bard Colleges, Fighter Companies, Ranger Lodges, Thieves Guilds, and the like. But D&D has to remain suitably generic that you can support post-apocalyptic, pulp-noir, gothic horror, Tolkien fantasy, sword-and-sorcery and high gonzo boats-in-space. There is simply no room for organizational obligations. Hell, there is barely room for detailed religions in most settings and if not for the multiverse holding everything together, there wouldn't be any consistency with patrons.

We have gone 10 years without them really going into the Gods in detail, its crazy at this point.

 

[Remathilis]

A thought as I was typing my last comment. Basic D&D (BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia) clerics do not serve Gods. They serve a belief system that is most often their alignment (Law, Chaos or Neutrality). Immortals (Basics answer to the a Gods) do have churches but clerics are not assumed to be connected with them by default. In Basic, you are a cleric as long as you serve your alignment faithfully.

And somehow, this little world building tidbit is ignored by plenty of people who believe Basic is the best OS version of D&D (judging by the sheer number of clones it has). So if you want a good example of a beloved version of D&D that doesn't shackle clerics to a God for power, look no further than the Known World.