Quite a way upthread I contrasted actions with do or don't put the motorcycle at stake.
So...we are in agreement?
I'm just guessing, but it's probably because of the mechanical features of the class. One consequence of having a mechanically crunchy system with a largely arbitrary overlay of flavour over those mechanics (eg there's no reason why a class with the them of a warlock couldn't be mechanically structured as a wizard, and vice versa) is that you will have players who care for the mechanics but are less excited by the flavour.
I disagree... does a wizard have mechanics that are structured to support the fiction of having made a pact with a powerful being (Invocations, pact boons, etc.)? The warlock does. I can certainly understand a player wanting to use mechanics without any pre-attached fluff (or a GM wanting to run a game in that vein)... but that isn't how my group plays D&D, we have generic systems for that particular type of play when we get the itch for it.
But, assuming it's not compulsory for the player to play a warlock, then it seems you could have enjoyed the game without that relationship. So what harm does it do to have the player play the mechanics of a warlock but not add any more flavour than a "man with no name" fighter?
I thought that was self evident in my post... my group and I enjoy a style of play where the tropes, archetypes and thematic hooks of a class influence and, for the most part, are front and center in the fiction. Though I'm a little unclear on how choosing to have no name is the same as disregarding the major themes & genre tropes of a particular archetype/class... you seem to be comparing apples and oranges here.
But what if the player wanted to play a "man with no name" fighter instead? Would you and/or your other players forbid that because it's too boring?
Ok I'm going to assume you are speaking to the "Man With no N
ame" archetype which in and of itself adds thematic hooks, and genre tropes to a class which even the developers have admitted is sort of lacking in them out of the box... if so I have no problem with it since he is not disregarding the major tropes of the fighter class and is in fact adding more in that department to the class. One is reductive the other is additive.
TO clarify further I have no problem with you playing a "Man with no Name" themed warlock... but you are still a warlock with the genre tropes and themes that entails as well.
How? How is the player (eg) declaiming, at the table, "This is what my patron wants from me - mwahahhaha!" playing lone theatre?
And if the player never says such things, so that everyone is left guessing what the PC's motivation and relationship to the patron was, well how is that any different from the relationship between the wizard and his/her mentor which never comes up in play?[/QUOTE]
Why would the wizard's mentor not come up in play and why would that have anything to do with the genre tropes of a warlock being discarded by a player in my game? I'm not really following your point here?
Let's consider a different example which doesn't bring any game book text with it: I decide that, at home in the village, my PC's dear old dad is waiting for my return at the end of my quest. (Like Samwise Gamgee's Gaffer.) If the GM decides that my dad is in fact a serial killer, that is playing an NPC in a way that brutally treads on the concept of my character.
Putting aside the fact that you are now not only creating backstory but dictating the future state of an NPC at the campaigns end (which just doesn't gel with the style of my group)... What about your character were you unable to do, act on, think or whatever because while you were off adventuring your PC's dear old dad was killing people? In fact how do you even know what he was doing while you were gone and why does him being a serial killer preclude him being there at home in the village when you return? This makes no sense nothing about your character would change because of this.
Now let's go to a cleric example. If I decide to play a follower of the Lord of Battle (true example - I'm playing such a character in an active campaign) and my conception of the Lord of Battle is noble knights, honour, defend the innocent, uphold the right, blah blah blah; and if the GM decides that the Lord of Battle directs my PC to enter an inn under cover of darkness and assassinate the innocent innkeeper sleeping in her bed; then the GM is brutally treading on my character concept.
You have a choice to make, either stick to your concept of what the Lord of Battle stands for or follow the edicts you received. This is exactly how different sects, heresies, etc. start. Truthfully though this example seems absurd since the Lord of Battle (like most any deity in a campaign for D&D) should have been defined, including his/her tenets, before you picked him as your deity. I mean I rarely say I've never seen something happen in a game of D&D but this feels like an absurd situation specifically constructed to prove a point as opposed to something that would actually happen in a real game.
I don't think these sorts of examples are very hard to understand.
I think unless you pre-suppose a jerk DM... they kind of are.