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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9858773" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Think of it like this:Do you forbid your employees from learning new skills and becoming more effective employees, simply because they haven't met 100% of their stated goals prior to learning such skills? I would assume probably not, at least if you want to keep any actually good employees for more than one pay period. Do you fire employees on the spot if they happen to be having a bad week and thus have gotten fewer tasks done than usual? Again, I would assume probably not.Warlocks are independent contractors working for an employer. That means, generally speaking, there is some lenience in the specific details of the task completion, because of the whole "independent" thing. You don't go auditing your books every day to make perfectly sure every independent contractor has spent exactly eight hours working and paid not one penny more than necessary and (etc., etc., etc.)--you give them the space to work and you check in on them from time to time for progress reports and updates.Now, in the case of the warlock patron, there's a teensy bit more than that: what you specifically want from them probably changes over time, and (often) you're trying to change who they are to make them more like you. That means you want them to think your way, to think like you think, to work like you work. So, generally speaking, I think your problem is one of putting the cart before the horse.You should be starting with "What demands did the patron make of you before you got your first taste of Real Power? And how did that Real Power feel? It felt good, didn't it? Great, even. You felt like a million bucks. And then it was gone--but you were promised all that and more, if you'd just go strangle Mrs. Ketterley's prized geese." Oh, and you'll get even more if you just pour this little bottle of "oil" into the village well--don't worry, nobody will die from it...no, I, your loving patron, wouldn't want to harm anyone in the village.Etc. That's what you want in your Warlocks. You want them hungry for the deal. You want them like junkies. "I can quit at any time!" That's what the typical Warlock patron wants. Not a fervent believer. They want a proud skeptic who is oh-so-confident that they've never, ever been their patron's puppet.And all the while, the patron's machinations advance. In all likelihood, they're being honest! No one in the village will be harmed--but the children who grow up drinking the water from that well will grow into Aberrant Sorcerers, and one of them will open a door that should have stayed closed. Or, someone will turn to dark forces to deal with the "threat" looming over the town because the forces of good can't find the source of the problem. Or, or, or--the world is your oyster.Just remember: Think like an abusive manipulator, like a loan shark for superheroes. You don't want their soul. That's a lame consolation prize. You want their labor. Because with it...you can change the world. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f608.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":devilish:" title="Devil    :devilish:"  data-smilie="29"data-shortname=":devilish:" /></blockquote>

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