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

[Micah Sweet]

I don't accept this double standard.

If players are subject to guaranteed automatic limitations, so should GMs be.

Nobody gets a free pass. Either I have limits and so do you, or you don't and neither do I. Anything else is "I get power and you get nothing."

Do you just flat out disagree with the trad division of power? If so, please just say that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the umpire doesn't make all the calls. They make some calls--and they are subject to review and dispute. Further, the players have advocates. It isn't absolute authority. The umpire doesn't have the ability, for example, to tell a particular player they're forbidden from pitching in this specific game because they said something rude to the umpire's mother. The umpire doesn't have the ability to force the batter to use a pool noodle instead of a proper baseball bat.

The analogy doesn't hold, very specifically because the umpire neither has nor claims the kind of authority you are asserting here. The umpire doesn't claim the ability to remove a player's skill at baseball.

That sounds like union talk mister .

 

[Remathilis]

The GM does yield what one could feasibly call absolute power, and that power can only be curtailed by self-imposed temperance and good judgment. Should the GM want, he could take away all the powers of the all PCs via some magical curse, or have a Tarrasque burst through the floor and eat them, or have a portal to the Abyss swallow them, or have the Death Star blow up the planet they are currently on, or have a particular NPC appear and best them, etc. All of that would be horrible GM-ing, obviously, because the GM's role is to foster story, narrative and adventure, not to best the PCs on some equally-matched game.

And that finds the crux of my argument.

Sure, a DM could have Asmodeus remove a rebellious warlocks powers, but the DM could just have him show up in all his CR 30 glory and slaughter the warlock and anyone who gets in his way just as easily. To me, there is no difference in these two outcomes except collateral damage. They are both a heavy handed DM using his unlimited power to dominate the PC.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then we simply disagree. I think (and this perspective predates my GM-ing days) that the power asymmetry between GMs and players is built into the game.

The GM does yield what one could feasibly call absolute power, and that power can only be curtailed by self-imposed temperance and good judgment. Should the GM want, he could take away all the powers of the all PCs via some magical curse, or have a Tarrasque burst through the floor and eat them, or have a portal to the Abyss swallow them, or have the Death Star blow up the planet they are currently on, or have a particular NPC appear and best them, etc. All of that would be horrible GM-ing, obviously, because the GM's role is to foster story, narrative and adventure, not to best the PCs on some equally-matched game.

When I play, I accept that I am trusting the GM to yield his unlimited powers responsibly in the interest of the shared narrative and fun adventuring. When I GM, I expect players to offer me that trust as well. I struggle to imagine a game in which this isn’t the starting point. This also isn’t too different from the trust a collaborator would place on another in other creative activities.

It's not a matter of asymmetry. I'm fine with asymmetry. Different kinds of powers, different kinds of limits.

I'm not fine with one person being given absolute total autonomy zero accountability zero responsibility zero expectations, and the other being "here are your choices: submit, or disrupt everyone else's fun by leaving." That's straight-up holding people hostage with social expectations, which is a thing I have dealt with more than once in my life and is not some strange, weird out-there thing.

Asymmetry doesn't mean one side has no limits and the other has all the limits. It means one side has its limits, and the other side has its own. There are lines, and whatever those lines are, crossing them is observable and genuinely something that people can say "hey, that's not cool, please fix this", rather than the only permitted states being completely accepting absolutely everything done, or blowing up.

Do you just flat out disagree with the trad division of power? If so, please just say that.

I mean, I don't actually know what "the trad division of power" means, so I cannot say either way.

Does it mean one side is unlimited in what it is permitted to do, while the other is beholden to both social expectations and hard rules? Because if that's what it means, then absolutely I oppose that division of power.

Does it mean that one side has limits, and the other side also has limits, even if those limits are different? Does it mean that both social expectations and actual rules, processes, procedures, govern each person's participation, even if those processes turn differently? Then I'm completely fine with it.

I don't expect the rules that apply to players to always apply to GMs and vice versa. But I absolutely expect that there ARE rules that apply to GMs, just as there are rules that apply to players--and that players can call it out when a GM breaks those rules, just as GMs can (and should!) call out players when players break rules.

GMs have power. A lot of it! I expect that, with that power, comes limitations. People are so fond of talking about how limitations breed creativity. Surely that must, then, mean that a GM with unlimited power is sacrificing their creativity? Surely GM limitations must actually force them to be creative? It can't be the case that sitting behind the GM screen magically makes limitations bad for creativity....right?

 

[Seramus]

GMs have power. A lot of it! I expect that, with that power, comes limitations. People are so fond of talking about how limitations breed creativity. Surely that must, then, mean that a GM with unlimited power is sacrificing their creativity? Surely GM limitations must actually force them to be creative? It can't be the case that sitting behind the GM screen magically makes limitations bad for creativity....right?

The realistic answer is that GM's don't have any limitations, beyond the players choosing to abandon the table. But the overwhelming majority of GMs submit themselves to the illusion of limitations, both in the service of using game mechanics to generate results instead of freeforming the outcome, and in the service of making their players feel empowered and safe in their game.

Some actions by a GM can shatterer the social contract (prompting people to leave the table) so fast your head can spin. Most probably fall in the middle ground where their GMing preferences are not quite aligned perfectly with their players, some frictions happen now and then that require discussion, and hopefully a happy and enjoyable night is had most of the time.

As for creativity, I've never found that limitations help me personally. But I have found that random results do. That is to say, I have a background in freeform roleplaying where I controlled every outcome in the game, and that grew very dull. Introducing the randomness of dice forced me to improvise wildly and rapidly in a way that absolute power didn't - I loved it! Of course, you could say randomness is a form of limitation, and you probably aren't wrong.

 

[Older Beholder]

I find I have seen the opposite issue more often compared to what most people are complaining about here.
In my experience it's more that the DM treats the warlock like any other character and the player gets upset that the DM isn't writing more Patron based plot for them specifically.

As a DM I try to reward players who followed their patrons wishes rather than punish those that ignored them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And that finds the crux of my argument.

Sure, a DM could have Asmodeus remove a rebellious warlocks powers, but the DM could just have him show up in all his CR 30 glory and slaughter the warlock and anyone who gets in his way just as easily. To me, there is no difference in these two outcomes except collateral damage. They are both a heavy handed DM using his unlimited power to dominate the PC.

Yes, very much this.

"I made an exchange with a powerful being in order to have power myself" does not justify heavy-handed GMing, and all this "making patrons matter" constantly dances around what exactly it means for them to "matter", hence why I've asked. @Micah Sweet has made clear that it "mattering" has some significant limits. They'll come up, they'll communicate, they'll possibly even ask for favors, services, or demanded acts. Only in fairly extreme circumstances would anything like being cut off occur, and if it did, the player should expect options to proceed from there, such as alternative patrons expressing interest. These things need to take time, so that the player actually gets a chance to respond.

In other words: the GM agreeing to limitations. Openly. Specifically. Not just relying on some nebulous "social contract" to handle absolutely all concerns, meaning you never have any idea where you stand and expectations are airy-fairy right up until they're ironclad and you should've known them from the beginning. But this, just...communicating, setting some boundaries, providing room for give and take? That's all I really ask for. But doing so, rather than relying on the "social contract" to handle absolutely everything, is like pulling teeth--or so you'd think given the discourse around here.

 

[Aldarc]

Anyway, I think Daggerheart, or any game that leans more into the narrative is going to handle this obviously better than 5e/5.5, because its systems have a built in mechanism which is just woefully underdeveloped in D&D if it exists at all.

Agreed. This also gets to the point that I was making earlier with @Micah Sweet. I wasn't sure how I would necessarily go about creating my ideal Warlock in the framework of D&D 5e. It's not really a game for exploring the relationship between a Warlock and their patron. To be somewhat glib, it's a game about a PC watching their Warlock do cool things in combat with their Eldritch Blast DPR build while playing this adventure path that needs to stay on pace.

I can, however, more easily imagine how a more narrative-focused game could handle something like the Warlock constantly summoning and bargaining with extra-dimensional beings for pacts because these games are more interested in dramatic consequences for failure. Moreover, these more narrative-focused games tend to be less "Press Button A to do X magical effect" like D&D 5e tends to be.

Ironically, I will gladly note that you can also do this more easily in a game like Shadowdark, because displeasure from a cleric/warlock's god/patron could be a possible consequence of a casting mishap. While I am not the biggest fan of casting mishap tables, I do at least like how this design choice creates space to explore the god/patron relationship of these classes.

I mean ... it's pretty trivial to find lots of examples, in holy books in use today, as well as those of religions no longer practiced, where the central divine figure does terrible, terrible things to his worshipers when they cross a line, sometimes without realizing it. And they still do have worshipers.

(Trying to avoid real world specificities here, obviously.)

To the worshippers. As in, any random person, or a random person who did something the deity specifically doesn't like.

Not to their dedicated clergy actively trying to do said deity's will in the world.

Biiiiiiig difference.

There aren't really stories of priests being punished because priests aren't generally the protagonists of the stories. They aren't the heroes or tragic figures. Priests in most stories generally aren't misbehaving, having tragic falls, or acting against the will of the gods. Priests are tending the temple. Priests are providing advice for the heroes. Priests are interpreting the will of the gods and telling the heroes how they can atone for their misdeeds. Most priests in stories aren't really anything like D&D's crusading clerics.

However, I will note that the siege of Jerusalem and the later destruction of the Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians were interpreted by prophets like Ezekiel as punishment by God for the various wrong-doings surrounding the temple cult.

But if you do read Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, there are definitely side-characters who are priests we meet who have been punished by their gods/patron, so now they find themselves exiled or on hard times. However, most priests in these stories generally don't have divine powers like a D&D cleric either.

That said, @EzekielRaiden, I think that part of the problem is that I believe that you have a fairly Christian perspective on clerics, framing them in terms of worship, belief, and proselytizing. Arguably D&D has this problem as well. A lot of cultic veneration outside of Christianity, especially pre-Christian cults, tends to be less about orthodoxy or dogma and more about orthopraxy and practical knowledge. A priest doesn't necessarily even need to be all that much of a "believer." The responsibility of the priest is orthopraxy surrounding the divine cultus. This is to say, the priest wants to make sure that their cult is doing the right things, properly performing the rites, maintaining the temple/shrine, etc. Probably these series of blog entries on Practical Polytheism is one of the most accessible breakdowns of what D&D gets wrong about polytheistic religion.

But this is an aside from your conversation about whether the GM has the right or authority to be heavy-handed in matters of a cleric's god or a warlock's patron. I'm choosing to stay out of that particular conversation, which I feel is becoming a little too heated for my tastes.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That said, @EzekielRaiden, I think that part of the problem is that I believe that you have a fairly Christian perspective on clerics, framing them in terms of worship, belief, and proselytizing. Arguably D&D has this problem as well. A lot of cultic veneration outside of Christianity, especially pre-Christian cults, tends to be less about orthodoxy or dogma and more about orthopraxy and practical knowledge. A priest doesn't necessarily even need to be all that much of a "believer."

I do see the Cleric as being pretty openly "Christian priest in armor with the serial numbers filed off", and having universal abilities like Channel Divinity seems to me to fit into that structure. So...yeah. I kinda do think that D&D as it is currently written does that.

Whether there are other ways to go about this? I mean probably. But not with the Cleric class as it exists in 5e, nor how it existed in 4e nor 3.x.

 

[Aldarc]

I do see the Cleric as being pretty openly "Christian priest in armor with the serial numbers filed off", and having universal abilities like Channel Divinity seems to me to fit into that structure. So...yeah. I kinda do think that D&D as it is currently written does that.

Whether there are other ways to go about this? I mean probably. But not with the Cleric class as it exists in 5e, nor how it existed in 4e nor 3.x.

Agreed, but acknowledging that also opens up some other potential can of worms when it comes to what is appropriate action for the GM roleplaying as the cleric's deity, particularly when the player chooses to roleplay in a way that goes against the edicts or will of their god. Different settings handle this differently. The gods are pretty hands-off in Eberron, for example.

So here is my next hot take in my quest to share opinions that will undoubtedly make @CreamCloud0 sad:

Considering the sort of game that D&D has become, it should potentially move away from the Cleric as the god class; instead, maybe something more akin to the White Mage from Final Fantasy or the Priest from WoW would arguably be more conducive for modern D&D. This is not to say that the game should move away from gods and religion.

And I say this as someone who plays mostly clerics, druids, and paladins in D&D.