D&D General Warlocks' patrons vs. Paladin Oaths and Cleric Deities

[Necropolitan]

But it can not enable them.

If the DM wants to set up the paladin in the Kobayashi Maru to strip him of his paladinhood, he can do so. However, the 5e DM has to create the mechanism to strip him of his status and state that exists as a house rule at session zero. In AD&D, the DM need only say "hey man, the rules say X is an evil act, and I'm just playing by the rules." In both situations, the DM is being a jerk. In the former, the DM is saying "I am going to sit in judgement of your paladin'* actions" while the latter is saying "hey, the rules say you are losing your power, I'm just being an arbiter of what the rules say."

You want to be a micromanaging DM who keeps your PCs on a short leash? Own it. Put it in your house rules how whipped your clerics, warlocks and paladins (and possibly others) are going to be. Don't hide behind "but the rulebook says..." When you put those characters in "role playing situations" that screw over their class features...

Nope.

The DM's the one doing all the work, if a player's so entitled that the possibility of their character facing consequences for their actions in the rules is a dealbreaker then there's no loss in them not being part of the campaign.

And if a DM's a jerk then don't play in their campaign.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Look at the Stanford Prison Experiment

That’s pretty much the opposite of what actually happened. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that pretty much everyone becomes a jerk when given power over others.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

the 5.5e guidance is bizarre. The PC makes the pact with the patron at 1st level without knowing who it is. Then at 3rd level they find out.

"LEVEL 1: PACT MAGIC
Through occult ceremony, you have formed a pact with a mysterious entity to gain magical powers. The entity is a voice in the shadows-its identity unclear-but its boon to you is concrete."

Apparently all warlocks have a wisdom and intelligence of 3.

As for the rest, there's no further guidance at all. It doesn't say the player does it. It doesn't say the DM does it. It doesn't say to collaborate.

As I said, class fluff is suggestions, not rules, which is why so much of it is contradictory, and there are a great many different ways to fluff a warlock.

But the 2024 rules also say (slightly paraphrased) "If you are not a new player you should start at level 3".

 

[Maxperson]

As I said, class fluff is suggestions, not rules, which is why so much of it is contradictory, and there are a great many different ways to fluff a warlock.

But the 2024 rules also say (slightly paraphrased) "If you are not a new player you should start at level 3".

All that does is jump him to the level where he finds out who he made the deal with at 1st level.

I don't understand what WotC was thinking when it wrote that all warlocks are initially ignorant of who they made their pact with. Now I of course would not run it that way unless the player wanted a pact with the unknown. generally the warlock would know at 1st level who he was dealing with.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All that does is jump him to the level where he finds out who he made the deal with at 1st level.

1st level is a game construct, not part of the world. There is no reason to suppose a 3rd level character was ever 1st.

I don't understand what WotC was thinking when it wrote that all warlocks

It doesn't. Because it's a suggestion, and one specifically aimed at new players who have no experience in writing character backstories.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That’s pretty much the opposite of what actually happened. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that pretty much everyone becomes a jerk when given power over others.

There was both power and a push in the setup of Stanford due to its setup and the closest thing we have to reproducing it (due to ethical concerns), the 2002 BBC Prison Experiment worked to avoid the push and produced very different results.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There was both power and a push in the setup of Stanford due to its setup and the closest thing we have to reproducing it (due to ethical concerns), the 2002 BBC Prison Experiment worked to avoid the push and produced very different results.

And D&D has had push factors since 1st edition (since the original creator was a classic jerk DM). A lot of the changes in 5e have been aimed at removing push factors.

 

[tetrasodium]

That’s pretty much the opposite of what actually happened. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that pretty much everyone becomes a jerk when given power over others.

To a degree yes, but it was more about the impact of putting people into groups and having one group in power with the minimal rules over the other second group carrying a negatively charged term like prisoners. The prisoners who were under power also developed notably in less interesting ways. There are other studies that cover that whole power without rules/responsibility bwith bon group context like the milgram experiment where acting as the will of an authority figure left nearly every participant willing to execute the lone unseen test taker who was begging for their life over a speaker was analyzed & Bonhoeffer's theory of stupidity where the how/why a charismatic leader with an us vrs them agenda unlocks crowds was explained

More importantly wrt Stanford prison experiment and the other two in the context ttrpgs like d&d 5e: the players at the table are part of a group and the gm at the table is there as a group of one. In all three, the group of players have a role and entire forests of text about player agency good railroading bad etc while the gm without a group has a Job rather than role. You could link the erosion of barriers in rest/recovery and removal of magic item churn as a need into a couple in various ways to give a removal of authority for the player group too.

TL;DR: Stanford prison experiment is more about groups set above other groups, players have and benefit from a group in ways that only need a group member to stand up with conviction and authority or charisma while slinging an us vrs that guy cause.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It’s really a classic “nature versus nurture” debate. And as usual, the truth is “a bit of both”.

 

[tetrasodium]

All that does is jump him to the level where he finds out who he made the deal with at 1st level.

I don't understand what WotC was thinking when it wrote that all warlocks are initially ignorant of who they made their pact with. Now I of course would not run it that way unless the player wanted a pact with the unknown. generally the warlock would know at 1st level who he was dealing with.

It's pretty simple but I can fill in a what for that bold bit. Don't think too hard on it, there probably wasn't too much thinking involved. Back before this call for a survey brigade killed the long rest warlock one of the 5.24 goals was to normalize class/subclass level contributions so subclass was always at 3 and you could just make a level X feature and know what kinda thing it was swapping out regardless of class.

Among those discussions there was a common exchange that went something like "what would that look like" -> "probably a lot like a drug dealer where the first hit's free". Sometimes that was a question about fluff with a bad answer about fluff and often it was question about fluff or mechanics with answer about mechanics. Crawford even mentioned something along that first taste is free in one of the many 5.24 warlock videos. That exchange spotlights a solution for your "what were they thinking" question that makes it easily answered with something dismissive like "context of the retort is irrelevant and there's no meaningful distinction between discussion of mechanics and fluff and talk about mechanics is totally 1:1 transferrable to fluff because rulings not rules & flavor is free". .