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

[Bae'zel]

Yes, I am 100% against DMs making players have a role to play. That is, generally, something I don't enjoy. (There are always exceptions for special games with unique play parameters.)

The DM is already the director and cinematographer; I don't want them to be the screenwriter and casting agent also.

Is this a common sentiment in the D&D community? That if you're using the D&D game system, the setting should never place constraints on the "realities" of Class, Background or Species?

I'm against the DM dictating the role ahead of time, by pre-building a bunch of specific roles that a player can slot into. That, to me, should be the job of the player, even if that means the player is doing some loose "setting authorship".

As an example, if you want to come up with five knightly orders for a starting kingdom, that's totally fine. Lots of players will gravitate towards a defined list to just be able to pick an option. But your setting should be flexible enough to allow for a sixth order (or a replacement fifth) if a player has a differing idea for their PC knight.

I feel that there should be some collaboration and compromise between DM and player if the campaign setting is already very detailed, whether a pre-made setting or one of the DM's. Many times through dialogue, the DM may find out what exactly the player wants and find some solution.

I say this after experiencing endless variations of "can I be a cat girl cyber ninja" in a Ancient Greek Heroes campaign, or "can I be a wisecracking, cigar smoking duck detective" in a grimdark 40K campaign. We found common ground eventually, thankfully.

EDIT: what is it with people insisting on being cartoon (western or anime) animal people regardless of campaign setting?

 

[TwoSix]

Is this a common sentiment in the D&D community? That if you're using the D&D game system, the setting should never place constraints on the "realities" of Class, Background or Species?

No idea. Could take a poll, I guess.

I say this after experiencing endless variations of "can I be a cat girl cyber ninja" in a Ancient Greek Heroes campaign, or "can I be a wisecracking, cigar smoking duck detective" in a grimdark 40K campaign.

I haven't really had to deal with that in a long time. If it seems like multiple players aren't onboard with the premise, then I drop the premise.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Even the non-god clerics get their power from something outside themselves to which they are devoted. That's what a cleric is.

Not really imho.

Cleric is a complicated set of fictional, mythohistorical, and mostly-Abrahamic religious concepts rolled into one. "Power from the outside" is not what defined the class at creation. Further, I would suggest that's never been at the core of the Cleric, never been definitional to the Cleric. If you're just saying "that's my opinion, man", okay, sure fine, that's a valid opinion, but it's not supported by the facts imo, so that's all it is, an unsupported opinion.

Specifically, the Cleric class was created as a foil to the Vampire class (for that was a thing in the days of yore). The very peculiar traits it possesses are because the Cleric is a mixture of the mythohistoric version of Bishop Odo (this is where we get the armour + shield, the fact the Cleric is a battlefield fighter, and the aversion to edged weapons, which is a mythohistorical attribute of Bishop Odo), Hammer Horror-type takes on Van Helsing (this is where we get stuff like Turn Undead, and the general notion of Clerics as the fighters/destroyers of undead, as well as some Cleric spells), and Abrahamic religious stuff, particularly Biblical miracles is responsible for a lot of the other spells (including some weirdly hyper-specific ones like Sticks to Snakes). This isn't my opinion note, this is accounts from the people involved (particularly Gygax).

Religion has always been a part of Clerics, but I don't think the "that's what a cleric is" is actually supportable beyond just a floating opinion, any more than "turn undead" is "what a cleric is" or weird Abrahamic-vibes spells (which have increasingly changed/vanished from D&D) is "what a cleric is".

Further to support my point, whilst I'm talking outside of D&D, cleric-types, whilst incredibly rare in Western fantasy fiction aside from Van Helsing-types (who often have no supernatural powers), are pretty common in Japanese manga/anime/videogames, and a lot of those don't even pray or rely on an outside force at all, but just do "white magic" or the like, and honestly it ends up in pretty exactly the same place as the Cleric.

Now I would differentiate the Cleric from a later D&D concept - the Speciality Priest - since 2E, the Cleric has increasingly evolved towards being the same as the Speciality Priest, which is to say a priest dedicated to a specific god. In 3E this was even more encouraged. 4E kind of moved away from that a bit, but then 5E 2014 finally made all Clerics into speciality priests and was the first edition to not allow you to not select a god ("As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody."), but 2024 once more makes the Cleric origin flexible enough that whilst you're accessing "divine magic", there's not necessarily any specific god involved, possibly not even a specific pantheon.

TLDR: That's on the list of things a Cleric is, but it's not really #1.

 

[Remathilis]

Is this a common sentiment in the D&D community? That if you're using the D&D game system, the setting should never place constraints on the "realities" of Class, Background or Species?

Never is a strong term, but IMHO the less restraints you place, the better.

Highly curated campaigns (like Dark Sun or Dragonlance) burn out quickly because you have so few options. For example, in Dragonlance, every wizard is a part of giant fraternal order of mages regardless of alignment or origin OR you're hunted as a rogue. I won't argue that isn't flavorful, but sometimes I don't want to play a wizard who is involved in the orders, the tests, the moons, or the robes. (Or contrary, one who will be hunted for refusing to join their order). I just want to play a mage. Krynn doesn't offer any options for an arcane caster not affiliated with the order. (In fact, it doesn't offer an option to play a caster whose magic isn't controlled by the Gods, even bards are druids. I guess that's one way to solve the supernatural patron disparity problem). Your options are join or be hunted.

There is strong flavor with that, but sometimes that strong flavor gets in the way. If the Order was an option a PC could interact with if they want or ignore if they didn't, that would be perfect. But I've always understood it you must interact by either playing their game or being their enemy. There is no third way. (If their is please someone correct me!)

 

[Bae'zel]

Well I believe that there's definitely some middle ground between "no D&D setting should impose contraints on PC concepts ever" and "the DM has absolute authority over what roles PCs must fit into or else".

I come from the viewpoint that the player's handbook offers a menu of options to create a custom setting; ideally DM and players discuss before diving in. For example, rational, socially competent adults should be able to find a compromise between "there are no Dragonborn or lizard people in my setting, no way snowflake" vs. "If I can't play a Dragonborn I'm not joining your campaign, you fascist".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Never is a strong term, but IMHO the less restraints you place, the better.

Highly curated campaigns (like Dark Sun or Dragonlance) burn out quickly because you have so few options. For example, in Dragonlance, every wizard is a part of giant fraternal order of mages regardless of alignment or origin OR you're hunted as a rogue. I won't argue that isn't flavorful, but sometimes I don't want to play a wizard who is involved in the orders, the tests, the moons, or the robes. (Or contrary, one who will be hunted for refusing to join their order). I just want to play a mage. Krynn doesn't offer any options for an arcane caster not affiliated with the order. (In fact, it doesn't offer an option to play a caster whose magic isn't controlled by the Gods, even bards are druids. I guess that's one way to solve the supernatural patron disparity problem). Your options are join or be hunted.

There is strong flavor with that, but sometimes that strong flavor gets in the way. If the Order was an option a PC could interact with if they want or ignore if they didn't, that would be perfect. But I've always understood it you must interact by either playing their game or being their enemy. There is no third way. (If their is please someone correct me!)

The answer to that IMO is to play in another setting occasionally if you want a PC that doesn't fit.

 

[Scribe]

Never is a strong term, but IMHO the less restraints you place, the better.

Highly curated campaigns (like Dark Sun or Dragonlance) burn out quickly because you have so few options. For example, in Dragonlance, every wizard is a part of giant fraternal order of mages regardless of alignment or origin OR you're hunted as a rogue. I won't argue that isn't flavorful, but sometimes I don't want to play a wizard who is involved in the orders, the tests, the moons, or the robes. (Or contrary, one who will be hunted for refusing to join their order). I just want to play a mage. Krynn doesn't offer any options for an arcane caster not affiliated with the order. (In fact, it doesn't offer an option to play a caster whose magic isn't controlled by the Gods, even bards are druids. I guess that's one way to solve the supernatural patron disparity problem). Your options are join or be hunted.

There is strong flavor with that, but sometimes that strong flavor gets in the way. If the Order was an option a PC could interact with if they want or ignore if they didn't, that would be perfect. But I've always understood it you must interact by either playing their game or being their enemy. There is no third way. (If their is please someone correct me!)

Great post that outlines the difference in perspectives here.

To me, Dragonlance is my favourite setting (today) as I was looking things up and reading about it last night. The Robes matter. The Test matters. The Knighthood, matters. The Gods matter.

If you want to play a mage, but dont want to play into those things, then really you just dont want to play Dragonlance. Which is fine, totally, but its just not a fit.