Paizo, why force our patron to be mysterious? Why limit what our patron can be? And why does the reason have to be secretive too?

[Unicore]

What strikes as ironic about this thread after I have sat with it for a while, is that the game itself is never actually going to tell you "your power absolutely must come from this surprise new source, regardless of what you or your table have to say about it!" Like we all get attached to our characters and create much bigger stories for them than will ever appear in the game, but if a player of a witch ever gets "gatcha!'d" about the source of their power, it is going to be a GM doing it.

Regardless of class, I think it should be pretty clearly stated that, if you want to be a good GM, you don't really just change parts of your player's characters back stories without talking to them about it and seeing what would make them excited to play out and what would make them uncomfortable. That feels like very session 0, rule 1: you are playing a game with people who either are your friends, or could be. The point is to have fun with your friends, not lose a friend over the flavor and lore description of a character class.

Like I think it is really cool to encourage players of witch characters to at least consider the possibility that they do not have complete certainty about who their patron is, and consider playing with that (and especially talking it through with a GM) before trying to force a character concept that might be more fitting to another class on to their witch character...but that stuff is just a generator for ideas and character concepts, and it is also very much expected in PF2 that GMs don't push players to accept backstory changes they find gross, inappropriate or against their own vision of the character.

[Ascalaphus]

Yeah, there should be some push and pull between player and GM, not only push or only pull.

The GM can't steamroll over the player's backstory, but the player also can't write an "unlimited" backstory that doesn't jive with the rest of the campaign.

[Ravingdork]

Ascalaphus wrote:

...the player also can't write an "unlimited" backstory that doesn't jive with the rest of the campaign.

Anyone going to tell Old Man Henderson that? XD

[Errenor]

Unicore wrote:

Regardless of class, I think it should be pretty clearly stated that, if you want to be a good GM, you don't really just change parts of your player's characters back stories without talking to them about it and seeing what would make them excited to play out and what would make them uncomfortable.

Great point. I had the basis of one my changeling character's backstory changed by a GM almost completely. He probably thought it was a cool surprise and a way to tie two PCs together at the same time. It really wasn't a cool surprise.

[Keirine, Human Rogue]

One thing I haven't seen pointed out, mysterious doesn't necessarily mean unknown. My wife will occasionally have a mysterious air about her. Doesn't mean that I suddenly don't know who my wife is, just that she is planning something and I don't know what that is.

Arazni is the mysterious patron for my Exemplar. She has no idea why Arazni gave her this power, or how the power works, or if there's some goal to it other than my character's innate ability to annoy Iomedaeians. You can easily have a mysterious patron where the identity is known but the purpose is not.