The attitude of the archbishop has nothing to do with WotC. It's the GM in your example who has decided that the archbishop cannot be influenced.
This topic was discussed (in the context of Traveller, but the principle is the same) in
this thread at the end of last year. My view is very similar to the one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] stated in that thread:
There's a recurring notion in this thread - whether pertaining to NPC attitudes, or players' desires for their PC flavour/backstory etc - that the GM can't enjoy the game unless s/he is deciding what the story is. That is exactly what caused me to leave/end three games as per my first post in this thread.
Does the player of the cleric get told in advance that his/her PC is going to lose his/her class abilities during the course of the campaign?
That was in the context of someone thinking a player is wrecking the game. But no one's offered a reason why a player playing a cleric or warlock whose god/patron is happy with what s/he does, or playing a motorcycle-riding vampire, would wreck the game.
I haven't played very much V:tM, but my impression is that it's not a game of hard-knock scrabbling for the fare for a bus! If my PC's flavour is that I get about on my bike, and yours is that you caught the bus, what difference is that making in play? Is the GM going to say to you "No, you have to sit out this encounter because the bus was late!"?
D&D has almost no rules for "collateral damage" to surrounding objects. I'm not sure about V:tM, but I'd be surpised if it's rules in this respect are significantly richer.
I don't get the interest in suddenly activating such things
precisely because a player's PC has a bike parked outside.
Whether an argument with someone at the bar puts the bike at stake would be highly contextual. How does the NPC even know which bike is the PC's? That seems pretty contextual too.
Why? What's wrong with colour?
Why?
A fighter's default core concept, according to the 5e Basic PDF, is a master of deadly combat. Does that mean that a signficant focus of play should be whether or not the fighter loses his/her abilities (eg by being permanently maimed)? That's not been a traditional focus of D&D play. I don't see why a warlock or cleric should be different. To me, all this just smacks of GMs looking for handles to steer the players' play of their PCs.
In the Marvel Heroic RP, Captain America can't lose his shield permanently. The referee can spend a GM side resource to shut down the shield ability; the player can shut it down to gain a player-side resource. If shut down, the player can take an action to recover it; otherwise at the end of the encounter it is recovered automatically.
In the same RPG, the Punisher's Battle Van is (in mechanical terms) an ability that allows the player to step up combat or vehicle-related resources generated by spending player-side resources. The Punisher doesn't lose access to it - although in play certain adverse effects might be narrated as some temporary Battle Van-related setback.
Likewise if it was Fate. Likewise for Captain America in MHRP, as I just explained. I don't know how recovery works in M&M, but does that system really allow Captain America's shield to be stolen so that the player just doesn't have access to it anynmore in the campaign?
There's a traditional mechanic for this in D&D - the reaction roll. On a bad roll, maybe the reason the villager's are unhappy would be the dinosaur. On a good roll, maybe the villagers have heard of this heroic dino-rider and welcome her/him!
That's all uncontentious. What's being discussed in this thread is who gets to decide what counts as
directly working againt that ethos/interst?
100% this.