Handling a wish

[Dark Ass4ssin 1]

So whether a mysterious ring found in a dungeon, a genie makes an offer, or a high level wizard says "what do you mean by logic?" how should a DM go about ruling this. And by "this" I mean a not stated in the spell description kind of wish.

On one hand I would like to say it is case by case, like a genie or a ring made by a jerk would intentionally try to screw you with ironic twists or whatever. However a wizard doing so for himself or a friend might have more control over the adverse effects. On the other the effects that come after the wish are in fates hand leaving the "side effects" up to the DM.

I would also like to think that the wish itself is relevant, and as long as the player isn't trying to do something that would ruin the game the adverse effect would be small or nonexistent. Whereas if the player asks for something outrageous, the effects are much more noticeable and possibly even dangerous... or funny... or dangerously funny... Point is, how would you guys handle it and thanks for any feedback.

[manny2510]

Think of the cheapest way to make the words of the wish happen. That way "Make me a sandwich" puts the player between two pieces of white bread.

[RickAllison]

To me, there are two kinds of Wish-granters: the old and experienced with control and the new or non-sentient without.

Powerful NPCs who grant wishes may very well have control. They can choose (to some extent) the method by which the wish is granted. For those without control, the Wizards and Luck Blades, the exact path will follow the laws of the universe while fulfilling the wish.

In the example of the second poster, making a sandwich, creating one out of the caster makes no sense according to the universe because it required making giant bread or teleporting it into the correct place. There are far lower energy ways to make a sandwich. A regular sandwich would require far less changing of the universe to make appear, and the sandwich materials of a Sprite even less so. Thus, a sandwich request would be justified in summoning a sprite's sandwich, as that is the lowest energy state.

[pwykersotz]

My general policy is that:
A) A wish should always lead to more adventure.
B) The player should either get what he wants or be able to fight for it.

As you mention, this is contingent on the Wish being appropriate, but I would handle that out of game. Wishing for a pet Tarrasque would be a DM veto, not a wish screw.

My game's flavor of wish involves the Weave. Ordinarily, casters cannot see it by any means, because that would mean you could do literally anything. Wish allows you to glimpse it for the barest of seconds. During that time, you can pluck what threads you will, and you can get what you need, but you don't always know the connecting threads which can lead to problems. So a wish granter with experience would have more control since he knows what to look for.

[SharkForce]

my rules:

- in general, if a wish is within the power level of what it can do safely (that is, if you think a level 8 or lower custom designed spell could cause the desired effect and be balanced), the spell will just do it with little or no problems.
- if the wish is too powerful, it will attempt to take shortcuts until the spell is not too powerful. it will generally stop when it is about where it would reasonably happen without drawbacks. if the effect is simply too powerful to the point where the wish cannot be fulfilled even with level 8 spells designed to cause that effect, that's when weird drawbacks begin to occur.
- the exception to the above is when you're getting a wish from a hostile creature. if you have impressed a djinn and earned a wish, expect them to do their best to keep it the way you would like it to be. if you imprisoned an efreeti and only let them free on condition that they grant you one wish, expect even the simplest wish to screw you over as much as the efreeti can interpret it to do so within the terms of the agreement you made.

[Atalas]

my policy the few times I handled a Wish was "how to make the player regret this". Got a wish things to a Deck of Many Things? Wanna know how to get inside the mysterious locked tower that has been there many years and what was inside it? To make them regret it, I told them what was (and had always been planned to be) inside the tower: a brotherhood of liches who were using their phylactories as the keys to the door, which were hidden throughout the world. Knowing where they were woul cut down on adventuring and gaining much-needed levels to deal with this threat. The look on the wish-makers face, priceless.

so, make them regret it while still giving them what they want. find any loophole possible that makes it regrettable without utterly screwing them over. You don't have to monkey's paw it, follow the letter of the wish while making all sorts of unintended consequences, but like the sandwish model, instead of creating giant pieces of bread to tick the wisher in between, shrink them and put them between two slices of bread.

[SharkForce]

or you could also not be a ****. that's an option too.

[Laserlight]

It's intended to be a powerful spell, not "here's a great way to screw the PC". If they pick something that is a reasonable result for a spell of that power level, why not just give it to them? If their wish exceeds what you think is a reasonable power level, I'd tell them "you can do it, but there will be a commensurate cost."

It's not the first time anyone has ever cast the spell, so the PCs who can cast it should have some idea what the limits and dangers are. Surely tales are told of what happened when Tad the Mad said "I want to be unquestioned emperor of the civilized world" or when Barbara the Imprudent said "I want a trillion gold pieces" --whether those tales end "and he as emperor for three weeks, until his concubine knifed him" or "the ghosts tell us a ten million ton gold asteroid plunged down from the heavens, which is why the whole northeastern corner of the world broke off", or "and so they got what they wanted and lived reasonably happily ever after."

[Mjolnirbear]

I like the Weave thing.

I'd probably invoke a Law of Conservation of Reality. The reason Wishes that duplicate spells are safe is because reality is used to these forms of spell constructs. Something dangerous would be, say, something paradoxical--time travel, say--or something that alters the structure of the world--killing a semi-divine being for instance.

When the reality objects to something that hurts it too much, it attempts to balance the wish in a more real fashion. Ejecting the Wisher and it's Wish outside reality, for instance.

Forcing a djinn to Wish for you, hell yes the djinn will twist it. But it does so by twisting the wording to something as un-Real as possible.

[gooddragon1]

Think of the cheapest way to make the words of the wish happen. That way "Make me a sandwich" puts the player between two pieces of white bread.

What if they want "nautical nonsense"?

[Pex]

A wish is not supposed to be an excuse for a DM to screw over a PC. Likewise, a wish is not supposed to be a way for a PC to win D&D. Both sides and the game designers need to cut it out with the extremes and be reasonable already.

A PC should get what he wants as intended using a wish in the following ways, including a PC spellcaster casting the spell without any drawbacks or penalties whatsoever I don't give a Hoover what the spell description actually says:

1) Duplicating any spell of 8th level or lower.
2) Asking for any of the options in the book such as curing all party members of an affliction, giving everyone resistance to an energy for a time, etc.
3) Redo the previous round with the knowledge of what happened and can act upon it.
4) Ending a condition that specifically calls out wish can end it.
5) Giving everyone a buff for a short time that's not listed in the spell description but has specific statistics elsewhere. For example, everyone is Hasted (no concentration) for a minute, everyone has a particular feat that does not itself grant spellcasting for a minute, the party's weapons bypass all resistances and immunities of the BBEG they're fighting.

[Laserlight]

What if they want "nautical nonsense"?

They get Monty Python and the Pirates of Penzance.

[Mr.Moron]

No hard and fast rules at all. It depends entirely on what is granting the wish.


Let's say the players are in the depths of the lair of the long ancient dread wizard Malicious Harm. Deceased for 2,000 years this horrible scourge once blighted the land after trading his souls to demons for power. Inside they find a mysterious red and black box inscribed with pentagrams, goat skulls, and images of wailing women in a field of swords. Upon touching it the box opens, and the lock (shaped like viper's head with 1000 teeth) begins to laugh. Dark purple smoke erupts from inside as a pair of glowing red eyes light up somewhere in the impossibly-deep looking innards.
A raspy voice proclaims: "Morrrrrtalssss. I thank you for releasing meeeeeeeeee. I wishhhhhhh to expresssss my gratitude. Name your wisshhhhhh and you shalll have it" That wish even if it does not immediately screw them over, probably not going to turn out well for anyone in the long run.

That said if the players should rescue the son of a powerful djinn noble from an powerful magic trap, and he offers them 1 wish as reward: Probably going to turn out OK.

If the players find an ancient powerful dog spirit that likes them, but is constantly depicted as clumsy and the locals tell a legend of well-meaning but incompetent god that once cared for their lands but was banished after causing too many disasters? That wish will be carried out in spirit, but with some unintended side effects caused by the spirit's stupidity.


I'm not a huge fan of wishes generally. However like anything else they're just an element of the game world and will play out as they do. They're not about screwing the player over and they're not about giving the player what they want. They're just about playing things out in a way that's faithful to the world. If that screws over a PC or goes beyond their wildest dreams is merely a side effect of doing that.

I think when they do come up I tend prefer to good-faith agents, but that has to do more with what I like as general tone of a campaign more than thinking that's the best option, or that's what they payers are owed.

[BrianDavion]

indeed, a DM shouldn't haul out a group of ******* lawyers for every wish, but he should certainly consider the context etc.

[gooddragon1]

They get Monty Python and the Pirates of Penzance.

You'd just give them that wish? Would you at least make the somatic components require them to lay flat on the deck of a ship and flop around (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He-LBIyBUz8&t=0m22s)?

[manny2510]

To me, there are two kinds of Wish-granters: the old and experienced with control and the new or non-sentient without.

Powerful NPCs who grant wishes may very well have control. They can choose (to some extent) the method by which the wish is granted. For those without control, the Wizards and Luck Blades, the exact path will follow the laws of the universe while fulfilling the wish.

In the example of the second poster, making a sandwich, creating one out of the caster makes no sense according to the universe because it required making giant bread or teleporting it into the correct place. There are far lower energy ways to make a sandwich. A regular sandwich would require far less changing of the universe to make appear, and the sandwich materials of a Sprite even less so. Thus, a sandwich request would be justified in summoning a sprite's sandwich, as that is the lowest energy state.

or I just teleport the caster lying down in the middle of a Storm Giants carefully crafted sandwich, which actually satisfies the lower level spell clause of wish so...

[pwykersotz]

No hard and fast rules at all. It depends entirely on what is granting the wish.


Let's say the players are in the depths of the lair of the long ancient dread wizard Malicious Harm. Deceased for 2,000 years this horrible scourge once blighted the land after trading his souls to demons for power. Inside they find a mysterious red and black box inscribed with pentagrams, goat skulls, and images of wailing women in a field of swords. Upon touching it the box opens, and the lock (shaped like viper's head with 1000 teeth) begins to laugh. Dark purple smoke erupts from inside as a pair of glowing red eyes light up somewhere in the impossibly-deep looking innards.
A raspy voice proclaims: "Morrrrrtalssss. I thank you for releasing meeeeeeeeee. I wishhhhhhh to expresssss my gratitude. Name your wisshhhhhh and you shalll have it" That wish even if it does not immediately screw them over, probably not going to turn out well for anyone in the long run.

That said if the players should rescue the son of a powerful djinn noble from an powerful magic trap, and he offers them 1 wish as reward: Probably going to turn out OK.

If the players find an ancient powerful dog spirit that likes them, but is constantly depicted as clumsy and the locals tell a legend of well-meaning but incompetent god that once cared for their lands but was banished after causing too many disasters? That wish will be carried out in spirit, but with some unintended side effects caused by the spirit's stupidity.


I'm not a huge fan of wishes generally. However like anything else they're just an element of the game world and will play out as they do. They're not about screwing the player over and they're not about giving the player what they want. They're just about playing things out in a way that's faithful to the world. If that screws over a PC or goes beyond their wildest dreams is merely a side effect of doing that.

I think when they do come up I tend prefer to good-faith agents, but that has to do more with what I like as general tone of a campaign more than thinking that's the best option, or that's what they payers are owed.

As usual Mr. Moron, you are a font of wisdom and your descriptions make me want to play in your game. Well said. :smallsmile:

[RickAllison]

or I just teleport the caster lying down in the middle of a Storm Giants carefully crafted sandwich, which actually satisfies the lower level spell clause of wish so...

That could work!

[Telesto]

This all depends on the source of the wish. While spirit has been brought up, there is also a power level in play as well as the type of wish.

Type
-Intent based wishes are as intended by the wisher.
-Lawyered wishes are as worded by the wisher
-Understood wishes are as understood by the granter

Power
-Universal wishes can remake reality. This is how PCs think True Wish would opperate. Almost never will this come up because the thing granting the wish is almost always limited in power. However, wishes granted can seem as if they are in this grouping. These wishes can unmake deities, and can fully unravel the universe from the multiverse. Anything, even something completely unreasonable, can be made to happen. An even higher level exists where you can alter the multiverse, however with that structured as it is, it isn't actually altering the whole of the multiverse so it's an easily ignored tier.
-Divine wishes are the first set of limitations that can be placed on wishes, this is limited by the powers of the divine being/s granting the wish.
-Limited wishes are the next step down, not the old spell but limited by things like a cost or set of rules. This encompasses the Wish spell, and down to very limited versions of that spell. It also covers things like wishing from the Dragon in the Dragon Ball series
-False wishes are mundane versions of wishes. This is often a type of hospitality by those of great wealth, but other situations can lead to people offering these wishes.
-Hogwash wishes are nothing and nothing comes of them, usually the one offering these wishes is just trying to trick you somehow.

Spirit
-Benevolent beings are either friendly or positively indifferent to the wisher. These wishes are usually the most positive for the wisher
-Impartial beings don't favor or disfavor the wisher, granting wishes as such. A great variety of wishes exist here, negative outcomes are usually not related to the spirit of the granter, but intrinsic to the wish or mistakenly associated by the wisher
-Chaotic/Evil/Hostile beings range in how they grant the wish. Chaotic ones may grant the wish but set you on fire because you didn't say not to set you on fire, or they may leave it to chance, or they may not fulfil the wish at all. Evil ones will use wishes to further their own agendas, universally. That agenda may be as simple as causing pain in others, to as complex as increasing their rank in some group. Hostile beings will try to thwart the wisher in some way, using the wish as a means of harming the wisher

This leads to about 45 variations of wishes, which have subgroupings and vast ranges within each. Some are far more prevalent than others, while others (Universal, Intent, Hostile for instance) will likely never occur.

[danpit2991]

What if they want "nautical nonsense"?

then they polymorph into a fish and flop around and at 1 hp they convert back