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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 9747794" data-attributes="member: 5142">Agreed. This also gets to the point that I was making earlier with [USER=6747251]@Micah Sweet[/USER]. 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. 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, [USER=6790260]@EzekielRaiden[/USER], 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 <a href="https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/comment-page-1/" target="_blank">Practical Polytheism</a> 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.</blockquote>

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