Originally Posted by Darth_Trethon
Originally Posted by FrostyFardragon
I'm not going by PnP. In PnP it's generally left to the player to play the patron, so long as the do so in a reasonable fashion. And paladins are the same in 5e PnP. There are no rules for a paladin breaking their oath - it's left to the player to role play.

But in BG3, it's a matter of game balance. If there where two horrible patrons and one nice one, everyone would play the nice one because it makes the game easier.

So, whilst benevolent warlock patrons exist, they will not be available to PCs in Baldur's Gate 3.
I actually suspect one will be more hands off, leaves you to your own devices, one will encourage good behavior, and one will encourage evil. But I also think you are looking at this all wrong...just because one encourages good does not mean all players will just flock to that one...not at all. Good is just a preference for style of play. I actually suspect that once the game is out and people start seeing reviews and such of how fun the evil path will be many will shift to that. Because let's be real here...in most games you are forced to be good and the evil paths are not fleshed out and unsatisfying. Good endings have grown tired, stale, generic, and overall just beaten to death. Press this button to receive praise and better loot, yay, you are a winner. Congratulations on knowing how to follow simple orders. Until the end of the game when it's "press this button to get nothing and die", yay victory!

I think the standout there is the hands off one. The Evil and Good one could easily be different flavours of horrible boss, the neutral one being hands off makes them a bit too appealing, as long as its not the "no content" one.

The assumption players will flock towards evil options seems on shaky ground to me. First of all its assuming the evil options actually are well written and appealing, the way the druid grove was written in EA suggests its just stupid evil all over again. The other is that people are tired of playing as good characters, maybe you are but I'm unconvinced its universal. I think it's people who both have played enough games to get fatigued by being the hero and don't put themselves in their characters shoes or can suppress empathy for digital people. That seems intrinsically a minority of a minority.