I have a player in my game who's playing a GOO Warlock. They are enjoying it, and are a valuable, contributing member to the party, and the game as a whole. HOWEVER. They are not, in any way, shape, or form, actually paying any homage to the Great Old Ones. They're not even playing to theme. We're not obsessing over alignments here, but they're functionally chaotic good, and nothing in their history or played experience is driven by the Great Old Ones. Their back-story makes the most throw-away reference to "once I was in trouble, and I made a pact with the Great Old Ones to get out of it." It's literally that thin.
I don't want to punish a player for not being a grimdark eldritch horror or anything. They're a good player, and their character is fun and functional. But I think their profane masters would be kind of underwhelmed by their service so far, and frankly, I think it's just an aspect of the character class that the player has kind of forgotten is there. So I'd like to have a little fun with the player.
My plan is, in a future session, possibly when there is a really clutch roll on the table or something, to basically freeze time, and have a Herald of the Great Masters appear. The Herald will tell the players that the Great Masters are displeased with their lack of piety, and that they expect in the future that the character will fall in line. If the player refuses, then... you know... torture, or whatever. I doubt they'll refuse. When they eventually agree to do better, I'm going to expect the player to do more, but I also, frankly, expect them to forget pretty quick. So I want your help coming up with ways to "encourage" the player to be more obedient.
I want to start with small things. Things like, when they cast eldritch blast, before it actually goes off, a voice in their head reminding them to say "please" and "thank you." Then, as they get used to the small sacrifices, expect larger things. A cat crosses their path on the street, and as it makes eye contact with them, they hear a voice say "kill something." No expectation what, just start with that.
Anybody have any big thoughts? I'm not trying to make the player into a BBEG. I'm more trying to do little things to drive them just a little crazy. You know, give them that slightly fevered look that a true believer in the Great Old Ones has in their eyes. Any thoughts of what these could be?
One thing I like to do to represent eldritch madness is to tell the affected character that they notice things the rest of the party doesn't. A black goat's head staring at them from the floor, a yellow book open on the cobwebby table, a great eye spying from the dark corner, etc. They can inspect, physically interact with, and even pick up these things, but to the rest of the party, it seems like they're just interacting with air. Which they are...but never present it to the players as such. As far as your narration is concerned, the visions are real, but only the warlock can see them. On occasion, they might even provide a vital clue or some such. They might ultimately weave a story, a darker thread through the adventures, that leads to the warlock doing terrible things...
I don't think that most GOO's care about people being piteous to them; rather, they want their warlocks to advance their goals. Unlike Gods, they don't derive their power from piety, and are wholly alien so don't care about manners (save maybe Hastur/The King in Yellow). A GOO would instead want them to perform actions that help the Old One, like breaking Elder Signs, summoning abominations, and feeding and caring for cats.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I don't think that most GOO's care about people being piteous to them; rather, they want their warlocks to advance their goals. Unlike Gods, they don't derive their power from piety, and are wholly alien so don't care about manners (save maybe Hastur/The King in Yellow). A GOO would instead want them to perform actions that help the Old One, like breaking Elder Signs, summoning abominations, and feeding and caring for cats.
I agree with this completely. It's up to you as the DM to bring that aspect of the Warlock class into the game. With a Great Old One, who may or may not even be aware of the Warlock's existence, you can do pretty much anything that you want to do. You can have the patron become aware of the Warlock and send it on a completely random mission, you can send the warlock visions of something in his sleep until he finds and destroys that item, you can even have another extra-planar being use the Warlock by giving him orders and pretending that the being is an emissary of the Warlock's patron. Which will give you a lot of role playing fun when the patron finds out and has the Warlock undo what he did at the behest of the imposter.
I'm DM'ing a Celestial Pact Warlock right now and I'm using the Norse mythology. She's a "sunshine and light" type of PC and her patron is a Pegasus. In Norse mythology the Valkyrie ride winged horses. The Patron's goal is for the Warlock to grow and die in a glorious battle and become the Pegasus's Valkyrie rider since the Pegasus is currently riderless. Which is where the conflict comes in because a PC who is more of a pacifist than a warrior is being encouraged to seek glory in battle.
I'm a fan of patrons expressing their displeasure in the form of new encounters/situations/compliications, rather than by revoking class features. The warlock is tapped into the source, that isn't going to change.... but does the power start to make them unwell (CON save for exhaustion levels after long rests, or special solo dream encounters)? Are they starting to see horrifying eldritch enemies in combat that aren't there (or are there, but no one else can see them)? Are other cultists, or eldritch monsters, drawn to seek them out and correct/consume/sacrifice them?
Through this sort of stuff, you can prompt the player to think more about what the Great Old Ones mean to their continued existence, as well as invite the rest of the party to notice what's up and start having conversations with them about their backstory and plans for the future. Could be a good opportunity for the cleric to offer to introduce them to their god (paladin levels?), the wizard to help them break their curse, or for them to just commit themself to ramming the Old Ones powers right up their own gibbering throats, like some sort of Spawn-wannabe.
Warlocks are not priests. The patron doesn't want worship or piety or prayers; they want *something*. What is that something? Well that is determined by the warlock's pact.
Maybe the Great Old One wants to be feared? In this case, the warlock has to do things to increase the amount of fear in the world. Horrible things, maybe even unspeakable things.
Maybe they just want to watch the world through the eyes of the warlock? In this case, the warlock has to keep their eyes open 24 hours a day. What's that? Sleep? Exhaustion? You should have thought about that before you made a pact, foolish little mortal.
Maybe they want something completely inexplicable to mortal brains (like "purple" or "neoclassical dimorphism")? In which case, just give the player something and see what they make of it. :-)
Whatever it is, it should be mysterious, strange, and maddening for the warlock character (and maybe also for the player).
Remember this - Mortal brains just aren't capable of dealing with Elder Things.
A GOO needn't even know that a warlock is leeching power from it. Some of them are basically giant brainless...I don't know abominations? If you want a warlock to feel consequences, horrible dreams of sunken cities full of non-euclidean geometry from which they awaken with a level of exhaustion would work. The Hounds of Tindalos may catch his scent and hunt him down, stuff like that. Probably the worst circumstance, which would make a good story, would be other cultists showing up because someone is tapping their power source and defiling their deity.
Theros has a rule set for Piety where doing things that your god would agree with gets them rewards but those can be raking away for acting against the gods interests
so it’s basically a scale of 0-50 you keep track off, when the PC acts to the patrons interests they get a point, when they act against it they lose a point. At certain scores they get perks.
if you are dead set on taking away features you could make it -50 to 50 and have the scores where perks awarded be reflected as places the Warlock loses features, the lower the score the bigger the loss.
Why dont you have a sit down with the player and ask for some more detail on the GOO his warlock is patron of. Let them know what types of things you have in mind and see what they think about it. They might not be that into the flavor, and might find it distasteful if their patron asks for murder. Perhaps their idea of GOO is something less dark than what you have in mind.
in my opinion,based on what l know about "GOO" is that they don't really give a frack about their warlocks or what they do (and might not even know they exist). GOO are just cosmic beings who somehow have a sliver of their power transferred to some mortal,and then when that mortal dies they get that sliver back,but bigger then when it was removed.
in short,they don't care what you do,cause they (likely) barely/don't know you even exist,let alone care what some "ant"/"speck of cosmic dust" does with 1/1 trillionth of their power. (*In my opinion*)
but if you insist on haveing SOMETHING happen to the GOOlock,make them see "CoLoRs UnLiKe AnY SeEn On EaRtH"
Theros has a rule set for Piety where doing things that your god would agree with gets them rewards but those can be raking away for acting against the gods interests
so it’s basically a scale of 0-50 you keep track off, when the PC acts to the patrons interests they get a point, when they act against it they lose a point. At certain scores they get perks.
if you are dead set on taking away features you could make it -50 to 50 and have the scores where perks awarded be reflected as places the Warlock loses features, the lower the score the bigger the loss.
with -50 makeing them have to find and climb the neared Fjord,or ride a kracken into a Fjord,or something else Fjord related (Not the dnd character,that would be as crazy as throwing your only sword into lava while in the middle of a frozen wasteland filled with monsters lol.)
Just Go with It. Pull the Evil Master mind scheme. Whatever the Warlock does, have it turn out to benefit the GOO. Think Moriarty type stuff. Warlock kills a cult of Great Old Ones? Have their bodies turn into some strange aberration on the next moon and rise up. Killed a dragon? In the treasure of the dragon find a threat from a GOO Cult to bow down to them or die.
Punishment. As you desired, have him punished - but not by taking away his powers. That is less fun. Instead have other Warlocks put out a hit on him.
Carrot method. (As above) Give the Warlock information about great treasures - held by the GOO's enemies. Or have him the GOO's enemies steal something/someone from him. Got to rescue mommy from the enemies of the GOO.
I have just started a game with a Warlock in and I gave them a custom homebrew weapon (a bloodbournesque threaded cane) that was a gift from their patron. So when they kill an enemy with it I add in some extra flare in the description and describe an effect inspired by the patron.
mechanically I have changed zero things, it’s all narrative and flare. Maybe find a way to add little touches that mean you don’t have to change anything.
In a different game I have rogue that has a sword that contains an evil spirit and there was a period where the rogue and the spirit were arguing over dominance. Coincidentally they rolled a lot if 1’s and 2’s with the rapier around this time, so I made each miss part of the story and the argument.
as before, I made zero mechanical changes to the game, I took advantage of the outcomes presented. You don’t need to nerf Eldritch blast to have every time they miss with it be a consequence of their lack of adherence to GOO.
It’s easy to think the first thing you need to do to get a point across is make a mechanical change but as a DM your most effective and versatile tool will always be narrative.
also to echo the sentiment “Talk to your player!!” Ultimately its their character and their relationship with their patron, it’s your job to facilitate a world and provide them choices, story and interactions for the warlock to make. It’s not your job to decide for them the who, what & why of their PC.
I have just started a game with a Warlock in and I gave them a custom homebrew weapon (a bloodbournesque threaded cane) that was a gift from their patron. So when they kill an enemy with it I add in some extra flare in the description and describe an effect inspired by the patron.
mechanically I have changed zero things, it’s all narrative and flare. Maybe find a way to add little touches that mean you don’t have to change anything.
In a different game I have rogue that has a sword that contains an evil spirit and there was a period where the rogue and the spirit were arguing over dominance. Coincidentally they rolled a lot if 1’s and 2’s with the rapier around this time, so I made each miss part of the story and the argument.
as before, I made zero mechanical changes to the game, I took advantage of the outcomes presented. You don’t need to nerf Eldritch blast to have every time they miss with it be a consequence of their lack of adherence to GOO.
It’s easy to think the first thing you need to do to get a point across is make a mechanical change but as a DM your most effective and versatile tool will always be narrative.
also to echo the sentiment “Talk to your player!!” Ultimately its their character and their relationship with their patron, it’s your job to facilitate a world and provide them choices, story and interactions for the warlock to make. It’s not your job to decide for them the who, what & why of their PC.
You could go the other way in that instead of limiting powers, they enhance. A GOO lock has telepathy, so turn it up so that he starts hearing everyone's conversations and thoughts so loudly that he can't concentrate and has to yell to characters to be able to actually hear them. The character could then delve deeper into his pact to be able to control his powers better.
I think that if the player is having fun you shouldn't try to force them into whatever you think a GOO warlock pact means. There are a very large range of ideas in terms of what a GOO is.
GOO is great old one. There is no council of GOOs unless you have created one for your world and have explained this to your player. There is no Herald of the Great Masters unless you have also explained this to your player, ideally before character creation.
Here is what the PHB says:
"Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Entities of this type include Ghaunadar, called That Which Lurks; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Zargon, the Returner: Great Cthulhu; and other unfathomable beings."
1) GOOs are not a council - they are singular mysterious entities - utterly foreign to the fabric of reality.
2) Their motives are incomprehensible to mortals. A pact with a GOO could be satisfied simply by creating the pact and having the character believe in the existence of the GOO. The GOO could just want believers and is happy to share some miniscule amount of knowledge to ensure that belief.
3) The GOO might be completely unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you.
A GOO does NOT mean a fevered half-mad Cthulhu worshipper though that is certainly one option. If YOU as DM want to make your world only have edge lord half-mad GOO warlocks then feel free, but let the player know in advance so if they don't want to play that kind of character they can just say NO.
From your description, the player read the description in the PHB and chose to be associated with a GOO that is more hands off, where they leach power from some power that pays little or no attention to them. If you want to fundamentally change their character to conform to some preconceived notion you have of how a GOO should behave then I'd suggest you have a chat with the player before fundamentally changing their character ... especially if they are already enjoying it as is ... why would you want to wreck someone else's fun?
I would encourage the player to go on a quest in game to switch his patron from Cthulhu or whoever to a more suitable patron (maybe the spirit of an ancient metallic dragon of the appropriate alignment).
I want to clarify, because I think a lot of people misunderstand my intentions here. First off, the player that is playing this character is a close friend with whom I have a strong, trusting relationship. They are also, as I said, an excellent player who is valuable to the table, and to the game as a whole. My intention is not to punish the player for not playing up the Great Old Ones side of things. This was, by all accounts, an intentional decision by both the player and the character they're playing - they are playing a grifter who made a pact to get out of a bind, and now they just use the powers the pact gave them without really giving any thought to their source. This is fine. As a character decision, it's a perfectly good one. "I am a user. I got a new tool. I am using it. It never occurred to me that this particular tool is not to be trifled with."
I also understand that the Great Old Ones aren't gods, and that they don't expect prayers and rituals. However, with the pact being made, there was some expectation of reciprocity, and there clearly hasn't been any. I want to create opportunities to remind the character that their power was not a freely-given gift, and that they need to start earning their keep. I don't want to turn them into a mindless servant of the Great Masters, I just want to constantly needle them with reminders of their debt, so I can create situations where they have to choose between living their lives the way they want to and repaying their debt to the Great Old Ones. I want to make the character regret their pact without making the player regret their decision to play a warlock.
I have some leeway here. As I said, this is a good player, and they'll be on board with (and in fact, appreciate) a certain amount of emotional manipulation and torture of their character in the cause of creating a more interesting story. But I don't want a deus-ex-machina solution that has no ACTUAL cost ("Here's a magic weapon, use it to kill a bunch of creatures you were going to kill anyway"), or a cost that makes gameplay less fun (revoking powers, weakening the character, etc.). If anybody is familiar with 7th Sea 2nd Edition, I'm thinking about something similar to the dievas. The Great Old Ones will continue to grant the character power, but will make progressively more sinister demands. Little things at first, just to normalize the behavior (asking the player to say "please" and "thank you" whenever they cast a spell), then progressively more extreme requests ("kill something" becomes "desecrate that altar" becomes "destroy a thinking mind"), until the requests become the kind of thing that the player has to decide between the pact and their allegiance to the team/goodness/their humanity.
I think there are tools already in the system such as piety to manage this sort of thing. But if you don’t have an end goal in mind for it I would ask what’s the point? If it’s just flavour then you don’t need mechanics for this just add the flavour.
I am not entirely sure what you asking the first time if the answers we gave did to hit the mark, even less so the follow up.
personally as a player I would find having to say please and thank you every time I wanted to use a cantrip tedious, as a DM I wouldn’t find it fun to manage. It also doesn’t really fit with the GOO
It would be like me giving a crumb to an ant and then shouting at it “a thank you would be nice”
I want to clarify, because I think a lot of people misunderstand my intentions here. First off, the player that is playing this character is a close friend with whom I have a strong, trusting relationship. They are also, as I said, an excellent player who is valuable to the table, and to the game as a whole. My intention is not to punish the player for not playing up the Great Old Ones side of things. This was, by all accounts, an intentional decision by both the player and the character they're playing - they are playing a grifter who made a pact to get out of a bind, and now they just use the powers the pact gave them without really giving any thought to their source. This is fine. As a character decision, it's a perfectly good one. "I am a user. I got a new tool. I am using it. It never occurred to me that this particular tool is not to be trifled with."
Then why do you want to change the fabric of the game and the character to force the player/character to respond to a GOO NPC that isn't needed and isn't the type of GOO the character made a pact with?
I also understand that the Great Old Ones aren't gods, and that they don't expect prayers and rituals. However, with the pact being made, there was some expectation of reciprocity, and there clearly hasn't been any. I want to create opportunities to remind the character that their power was not a freely-given gift, and that they need to start earning their keep. I don't want to turn them into a mindless servant of the Great Masters, I just want to constantly needle them with reminders of their debt, so I can create situations where they have to choose between living their lives the way they want to and repaying their debt to the Great Old Ones. I want to make the character regret their pact without making the player regret their decision to play a warlock.
No. With a fiend patron, maybe a fey patron there might be some expectation of reciprocity. However, with GOO patron specifically states otherwise. The warlock makes a pact with them. Their reasons are inscrutable. The GOO may not even be aware of the existence of the warlock or that he is gaining knowledge from the GOO. This is what the rules specifically state (unless you have modified them for your game and let everyone know beforehand). Why are you reminding them of their "debt" when with a GOO there is a very good chance there there is NO debt? Why do you want to make the character regret their pact? This is the DM forcing the player to play the character a certain way by modifying the world to make the character less fun to play so the character and the player regret ever playing that character in the first place (as a worst case scenario).
I have some leeway here. As I said, this is a good player, and they'll be on board with (and in fact, appreciate) a certain amount of emotional manipulation and torture of their character in the cause of creating a more interesting story. But I don't want a deus-ex-machina solution that has no ACTUAL cost ("Here's a magic weapon, use it to kill a bunch of creatures you were going to kill anyway"), or a cost that makes gameplay less fun (revoking powers, weakening the character, etc.). If anybody is familiar with 7th Sea 2nd Edition, I'm thinking about something similar to the dievas. The Great Old Ones will continue to grant the character power, but will make progressively more sinister demands. Little things at first, just to normalize the behavior (asking the player to say "please" and "thank you" whenever they cast a spell), then progressively more extreme requests ("kill something" becomes "desecrate that altar" becomes "destroy a thinking mind"), until the requests become the kind of thing that the player has to decide between the pact and their allegiance to the team/goodness/their humanity.
So you want to force the player into such a moral quandry that they have to decide whether the character continues with their GOO patron or quits their profession and tries to switch classes? Have you even thought this out? As a player, if a DM tried to manipulate one of my characters to this extent without my knowing in advance and buying into it for plot line reasons ... I would just walk out. It is an atrocious example of railroading targeted at one specific character for no good reason I can identify.
Here is what the PHB says about GOO patrons. Your concept is NOTHING like what is described ... it is far more like a fiend pact that a GOO pact.
""Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
There is NO indication in the PHB that a pact has to have ANY form or reciprocity whatsoever in the case of a GOO. FIEND pacts are often described this way. GOO pacts are NOT. Your entire description above is the DM trying to force some preconceived notion of what a GOO is onto a player who appears to have read the PHB and decided that drawing on an unknown power after making a pact is perfectly ok. If you, as the DM, want to make the story more interesting by having the GOO step in and start making requests then that is a plot device that you want to force on the player ... but do it for the story ... don't do it because you have some vision of GOO behaviour that significantly diverges from that described in the PHB.
I have a player in my game who's playing a GOO Warlock. They are enjoying it, and are a valuable, contributing member to the party, and the game as a whole. HOWEVER. They are not, in any way, shape, or form, actually paying any homage to the Great Old Ones. They're not even playing to theme. We're not obsessing over alignments here, but they're functionally chaotic good, and nothing in their history or played experience is driven by the Great Old Ones. Their back-story makes the most throw-away reference to "once I was in trouble, and I made a pact with the Great Old Ones to get out of it." It's literally that thin.
I don't want to punish a player for not being a grimdark eldritch horror or anything. They're a good player, and their character is fun and functional. But I think their profane masters would be kind of underwhelmed by their service so far, and frankly, I think it's just an aspect of the character class that the player has kind of forgotten is there. So I'd like to have a little fun with the player.
My plan is, in a future session, possibly when there is a really clutch roll on the table or something, to basically freeze time, and have a Herald of the Great Masters appear. The Herald will tell the players that the Great Masters are displeased with their lack of piety, and that they expect in the future that the character will fall in line. If the player refuses, then... you know... torture, or whatever. I doubt they'll refuse. When they eventually agree to do better, I'm going to expect the player to do more, but I also, frankly, expect them to forget pretty quick. So I want your help coming up with ways to "encourage" the player to be more obedient.
I want to start with small things. Things like, when they cast eldritch blast, before it actually goes off, a voice in their head reminding them to say "please" and "thank you." Then, as they get used to the small sacrifices, expect larger things. A cat crosses their path on the street, and as it makes eye contact with them, they hear a voice say "kill something." No expectation what, just start with that.
Anybody have any big thoughts? I'm not trying to make the player into a BBEG. I'm more trying to do little things to drive them just a little crazy. You know, give them that slightly fevered look that a true believer in the Great Old Ones has in their eyes. Any thoughts of what these could be?
One thing I like to do to represent eldritch madness is to tell the affected character that they notice things the rest of the party doesn't. A black goat's head staring at them from the floor, a yellow book open on the cobwebby table, a great eye spying from the dark corner, etc. They can inspect, physically interact with, and even pick up these things, but to the rest of the party, it seems like they're just interacting with air. Which they are...but never present it to the players as such. As far as your narration is concerned, the visions are real, but only the warlock can see them. On occasion, they might even provide a vital clue or some such. They might ultimately weave a story, a darker thread through the adventures, that leads to the warlock doing terrible things...
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I don't think that most GOO's care about people being piteous to them; rather, they want their warlocks to advance their goals. Unlike Gods, they don't derive their power from piety, and are wholly alien so don't care about manners (save maybe Hastur/The King in Yellow). A GOO would instead want them to perform actions that help the Old One, like breaking Elder Signs, summoning abominations, and feeding and caring for cats.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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I agree with this completely. It's up to you as the DM to bring that aspect of the Warlock class into the game. With a Great Old One, who may or may not even be aware of the Warlock's existence, you can do pretty much anything that you want to do. You can have the patron become aware of the Warlock and send it on a completely random mission, you can send the warlock visions of something in his sleep until he finds and destroys that item, you can even have another extra-planar being use the Warlock by giving him orders and pretending that the being is an emissary of the Warlock's patron. Which will give you a lot of role playing fun when the patron finds out and has the Warlock undo what he did at the behest of the imposter.
I'm DM'ing a Celestial Pact Warlock right now and I'm using the Norse mythology. She's a "sunshine and light" type of PC and her patron is a Pegasus. In Norse mythology the Valkyrie ride winged horses. The Patron's goal is for the Warlock to grow and die in a glorious battle and become the Pegasus's Valkyrie rider since the Pegasus is currently riderless. Which is where the conflict comes in because a PC who is more of a pacifist than a warrior is being encouraged to seek glory in battle.
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I'm a fan of patrons expressing their displeasure in the form of new encounters/situations/compliications, rather than by revoking class features. The warlock is tapped into the source, that isn't going to change.... but does the power start to make them unwell (CON save for exhaustion levels after long rests, or special solo dream encounters)? Are they starting to see horrifying eldritch enemies in combat that aren't there (or are there, but no one else can see them)? Are other cultists, or eldritch monsters, drawn to seek them out and correct/consume/sacrifice them?
Through this sort of stuff, you can prompt the player to think more about what the Great Old Ones mean to their continued existence, as well as invite the rest of the party to notice what's up and start having conversations with them about their backstory and plans for the future. Could be a good opportunity for the cleric to offer to introduce them to their god (paladin levels?), the wizard to help them break their curse, or for them to just commit themself to ramming the Old Ones powers right up their own gibbering throats, like some sort of Spawn-wannabe.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Warlocks are not priests. The patron doesn't want worship or piety or prayers; they want *something*. What is that something? Well that is determined by the warlock's pact.
Maybe the Great Old One wants to be feared? In this case, the warlock has to do things to increase the amount of fear in the world. Horrible things, maybe even unspeakable things.
Maybe they just want to watch the world through the eyes of the warlock? In this case, the warlock has to keep their eyes open 24 hours a day. What's that? Sleep? Exhaustion? You should have thought about that before you made a pact, foolish little mortal.
Maybe they want something completely inexplicable to mortal brains (like "purple" or "neoclassical dimorphism")? In which case, just give the player something and see what they make of it. :-)
Whatever it is, it should be mysterious, strange, and maddening for the warlock character (and maybe also for the player).
Remember this - Mortal brains just aren't capable of dealing with Elder Things.
A GOO needn't even know that a warlock is leeching power from it. Some of them are basically giant brainless...I don't know abominations? If you want a warlock to feel consequences, horrible dreams of sunken cities full of non-euclidean geometry from which they awaken with a level of exhaustion would work. The Hounds of Tindalos may catch his scent and hunt him down, stuff like that. Probably the worst circumstance, which would make a good story, would be other cultists showing up because someone is tapping their power source and defiling their deity.
Why not use a carrot instead of a stick?
Theros has a rule set for Piety where doing things that your god would agree with gets them rewards but those can be raking away for acting against the gods interests
so it’s basically a scale of 0-50 you keep track off, when the PC acts to the patrons interests they get a point, when they act against it they lose a point. At certain scores they get perks.
if you are dead set on taking away features you could make it -50 to 50 and have the scores where perks awarded be reflected as places the Warlock loses features, the lower the score the bigger the loss.
Why dont you have a sit down with the player and ask for some more detail on the GOO his warlock is patron of. Let them know what types of things you have in mind and see what they think about it. They might not be that into the flavor, and might find it distasteful if their patron asks for murder. Perhaps their idea of GOO is something less dark than what you have in mind.
in my opinion,based on what l know about "GOO" is that they don't really give a frack about their warlocks or what they do (and might not even know they exist). GOO are just cosmic beings who somehow have a sliver of their power transferred to some mortal,and then when that mortal dies they get that sliver back,but bigger then when it was removed.
in short,they don't care what you do,cause they (likely) barely/don't know you even exist,let alone care what some "ant"/"speck of cosmic dust" does with 1/1 trillionth of their power. (*In my opinion*)
but if you insist on haveing SOMETHING happen to the GOOlock,make them see "CoLoRs UnLiKe AnY SeEn On EaRtH"
with -50 makeing them have to find and climb the neared Fjord,or ride a kracken into a Fjord,or something else Fjord related (Not the dnd character,that would be as crazy as throwing your only sword into lava while in the middle of a frozen wasteland filled with monsters lol.)
Three things to consider trying.
I have just started a game with a Warlock in and I gave them a custom homebrew weapon (a bloodbournesque threaded cane) that was a gift from their patron. So when they kill an enemy with it I add in some extra flare in the description and describe an effect inspired by the patron.
mechanically I have changed zero things, it’s all narrative and flare. Maybe find a way to add little touches that mean you don’t have to change anything.
In a different game I have rogue that has a sword that contains an evil spirit and there was a period where the rogue and the spirit were arguing over dominance. Coincidentally they rolled a lot if 1’s and 2’s with the rapier around this time, so I made each miss part of the story and the argument.
as before, I made zero mechanical changes to the game, I took advantage of the outcomes presented. You don’t need to nerf Eldritch blast to have every time they miss with it be a consequence of their lack of adherence to GOO.
It’s easy to think the first thing you need to do to get a point across is make a mechanical change but as a DM your most effective and versatile tool will always be narrative.
also to echo the sentiment “Talk to your player!!” Ultimately its their character and their relationship with their patron, it’s your job to facilitate a world and provide them choices, story and interactions for the warlock to make. It’s not your job to decide for them the who, what & why of their PC.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You could go the other way in that instead of limiting powers, they enhance. A GOO lock has telepathy, so turn it up so that he starts hearing everyone's conversations and thoughts so loudly that he can't concentrate and has to yell to characters to be able to actually hear them. The character could then delve deeper into his pact to be able to control his powers better.
I think that if the player is having fun you shouldn't try to force them into whatever you think a GOO warlock pact means. There are a very large range of ideas in terms of what a GOO is.
GOO is great old one. There is no council of GOOs unless you have created one for your world and have explained this to your player. There is no Herald of the Great Masters unless you have also explained this to your player, ideally before character creation.
Here is what the PHB says:
"Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Entities of this type include Ghaunadar, called That Which Lurks; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Zargon, the Returner: Great Cthulhu; and other unfathomable beings."
1) GOOs are not a council - they are singular mysterious entities - utterly foreign to the fabric of reality.
2) Their motives are incomprehensible to mortals. A pact with a GOO could be satisfied simply by creating the pact and having the character believe in the existence of the GOO. The GOO could just want believers and is happy to share some miniscule amount of knowledge to ensure that belief.
3) The GOO might be completely unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you.
A GOO does NOT mean a fevered half-mad Cthulhu worshipper though that is certainly one option. If YOU as DM want to make your world only have edge lord half-mad GOO warlocks then feel free, but let the player know in advance so if they don't want to play that kind of character they can just say NO.
From your description, the player read the description in the PHB and chose to be associated with a GOO that is more hands off, where they leach power from some power that pays little or no attention to them. If you want to fundamentally change their character to conform to some preconceived notion you have of how a GOO should behave then I'd suggest you have a chat with the player before fundamentally changing their character ... especially if they are already enjoying it as is ... why would you want to wreck someone else's fun?
I would encourage the player to go on a quest in game to switch his patron from Cthulhu or whoever to a more suitable patron (maybe the spirit of an ancient metallic dragon of the appropriate alignment).
I want to clarify, because I think a lot of people misunderstand my intentions here. First off, the player that is playing this character is a close friend with whom I have a strong, trusting relationship. They are also, as I said, an excellent player who is valuable to the table, and to the game as a whole. My intention is not to punish the player for not playing up the Great Old Ones side of things. This was, by all accounts, an intentional decision by both the player and the character they're playing - they are playing a grifter who made a pact to get out of a bind, and now they just use the powers the pact gave them without really giving any thought to their source. This is fine. As a character decision, it's a perfectly good one. "I am a user. I got a new tool. I am using it. It never occurred to me that this particular tool is not to be trifled with."
I also understand that the Great Old Ones aren't gods, and that they don't expect prayers and rituals. However, with the pact being made, there was some expectation of reciprocity, and there clearly hasn't been any. I want to create opportunities to remind the character that their power was not a freely-given gift, and that they need to start earning their keep. I don't want to turn them into a mindless servant of the Great Masters, I just want to constantly needle them with reminders of their debt, so I can create situations where they have to choose between living their lives the way they want to and repaying their debt to the Great Old Ones. I want to make the character regret their pact without making the player regret their decision to play a warlock.
I have some leeway here. As I said, this is a good player, and they'll be on board with (and in fact, appreciate) a certain amount of emotional manipulation and torture of their character in the cause of creating a more interesting story. But I don't want a deus-ex-machina solution that has no ACTUAL cost ("Here's a magic weapon, use it to kill a bunch of creatures you were going to kill anyway"), or a cost that makes gameplay less fun (revoking powers, weakening the character, etc.). If anybody is familiar with 7th Sea 2nd Edition, I'm thinking about something similar to the dievas. The Great Old Ones will continue to grant the character power, but will make progressively more sinister demands. Little things at first, just to normalize the behavior (asking the player to say "please" and "thank you" whenever they cast a spell), then progressively more extreme requests ("kill something" becomes "desecrate that altar" becomes "destroy a thinking mind"), until the requests become the kind of thing that the player has to decide between the pact and their allegiance to the team/goodness/their humanity.
I think there are tools already in the system such as piety to manage this sort of thing. But if you don’t have an end goal in mind for it I would ask what’s the point? If it’s just flavour then you don’t need mechanics for this just add the flavour.
I am not entirely sure what you asking the first time if the answers we gave did to hit the mark, even less so the follow up.
personally as a player I would find having to say please and thank you every time I wanted to use a cantrip tedious, as a DM I wouldn’t find it fun to manage. It also doesn’t really fit with the GOO
It would be like me giving a crumb to an ant and then shouting at it “a thank you would be nice”
Then why do you want to change the fabric of the game and the character to force the player/character to respond to a GOO NPC that isn't needed and isn't the type of GOO the character made a pact with?
No. With a fiend patron, maybe a fey patron there might be some expectation of reciprocity. However, with GOO patron specifically states otherwise. The warlock makes a pact with them. Their reasons are inscrutable. The GOO may not even be aware of the existence of the warlock or that he is gaining knowledge from the GOO. This is what the rules specifically state (unless you have modified them for your game and let everyone know beforehand). Why are you reminding them of their "debt" when with a GOO there is a very good chance there there is NO debt? Why do you want to make the character regret their pact? This is the DM forcing the player to play the character a certain way by modifying the world to make the character less fun to play so the character and the player regret ever playing that character in the first place (as a worst case scenario).
So you want to force the player into such a moral quandry that they have to decide whether the character continues with their GOO patron or quits their profession and tries to switch classes? Have you even thought this out? As a player, if a DM tried to manipulate one of my characters to this extent without my knowing in advance and buying into it for plot line reasons ... I would just walk out. It is an atrocious example of railroading targeted at one specific character for no good reason I can identify.
Here is what the PHB says about GOO patrons. Your concept is NOTHING like what is described ... it is far more like a fiend pact that a GOO pact.
""Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it."
There is NO indication in the PHB that a pact has to have ANY form or reciprocity whatsoever in the case of a GOO. FIEND pacts are often described this way. GOO pacts are NOT. Your entire description above is the DM trying to force some preconceived notion of what a GOO is onto a player who appears to have read the PHB and decided that drawing on an unknown power after making a pact is perfectly ok. If you, as the DM, want to make the story more interesting by having the GOO step in and start making requests then that is a plot device that you want to force on the player ... but do it for the story ... don't do it because you have some vision of GOO behaviour that significantly diverges from that described in the PHB.