Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="UngainlyTitan" data-source="post: 9747885" data-attributes="member: 28487">This has been getting heated and generating more smoke than light.To go back to the OP, having read the thread.In reverse:Both, neither and all of the above. There is more than one way to interpret the warlock pact. It may be a Faustian pact, an ongoing relationship or a one-off gift. It does not necessarily all come from the same source.In the Classic Faustian pact, the petitioner Faust bargains with Mephistopheles for power at the price of his soul. After the bargain, Mephistopheles does not really care what Faust does with the power, his soul is in the bag. In fact, imposing on Faust gives Faust the opportunity to renegotiate the terms from a position of some power. Now the player may not be interested in that kind of play.This comes back to the relationship between the players and the DM. The plain fact of the matter is that if the players is not interested in that kind of play there is no way for the DM to make them, short of throwing the player(s) from the table and getting player(s) interested in that kind of game. This is a recreational activity, most players are casual and play for fun and amusement not to explore themes or create art. Not that there are not some groups out there doing that kind of thing, more power to them. They like the mechanics? There really is no substitute to talking to the players. There really is not going to be any satisfying story of the warlock and their pact without the player(s) active and willing cooperation. A DM may reserve all the authority they like but if they remove class powers and features from a character without consultation and permission they will get pushback even to the collapse of the campaign.This is a session zero thing, which is why the rules are never likely in a game like D&D to ever again explicitly support this playstyle. I am not saying it would not be fun, but would it be fun more than once with the same players?This like the railroad vs linear adventure. A lot of groups have no issues with a linear adventure but do not want to see the rails. If you place Briarwood on the map as colour then be prepared for the party to visit Briarwood and have figured out how to make it a stop on the line. It is reasonably fair if it not on the line to tell the players that and ask for time to prepare.Similarly with pacts, oaths and the like, ask the player if this is to be fodder for the DM, same really with any backstory element. If can get tedious if every relative and neighbour of a pc gets kidnapped and/or killed by the bag guys to create stakes but it can drive players into removing backstory elements to avoid this from happening. It never hurts to ask and maybe the player may have some ideas as to where to take this that are better than anything you can come up with.</blockquote>

Verification