Conjuration and the act of

[Stormtrooper666]

I was wondering in general if when it comes to summoning are the creatures slaves? Or do any games talk bout them coming to help willingly once they are summoned?

[Anymage]

Most of the time there's some assumed level of magical compulsion, to prevent a player ability that they presumably sunk resources into from becoming useless when the creature decides to do something else.

Sometimes it's easy to spin the creature as being happy to help (like a heavenly creature summoned by a good aligned cleric), or at least willingly entering into a contract for services instead of being hit by a compulsion whammy right out the gate. Other times, usually ones involving demons and other creatures of not-niceness, summons without compulsions are a remarkably stupid idea.

[Darth Ultron]

In the general sense conjured creatures are forced to come and obey, and can be seen as a form of forced service or even slavery.

The Classic Idea is that you'd be forcing something like a demon, spirit or fey that is ''evil'' to do an act that is ''good''..assuming your good yourself.

And note a lot of demons, spirits, fey, genies and the like want to be conjured and summoned. It is a chance for them to get to the ''real world'' and ''do something''...maybe even make a deal, steal a soul or whatever else they want to do.

Also lots of creatures will willing, more or less, come to the call of someone on their side. A good deva will answer the conjured call of a good priest. A demon will come to an evil cultist. And elemental will come to a druid. And so on.

There is the idea that being on the Conjure List is a punishment. When a demon, fey or such does something wrong or offends someone they get put on the list. Then when called they are forced to answer that call. This could be a bit of unwilling servitude, but it does follow the law of their society.

[rs2excelsior]

You could also fluff it as the summoned creature must follow the summoner's orders, but still chooses to answer the summon. So an angel, as mentioned upthread, might answer a summons willingly to do good for a good-aligned summoner. A demon might answer a summon because it's bored, and figures it might be able to "creatively" interpret the summoner's instructions to get some evil done. Maybe it's even playing the long game--get a reputation as a helpful creature and the summoner might come to the same demon for other things. Like soul-selling shenanigans.

[KillianHawkeye]

I know I've heard it theorized before that the creatures that you get from the basic, short-term summoning spells aren't even real creatures. Rather, that the summoner is conjuring a copy of some creature or bringing forth a cosmic instantiation of some platonic ideal of an imagined creature. Creatures such as these would come pre-programmed with certain instincts and skills, but have no will of their own.

[ATHATH]

Shadowrun deals with/mentions the morality of summoning.

[JeenLeen]

Depends on the system, of course, but what I've usually seen...

Most D&D: summons are beings from another plane, forced into servitude, but any harm or damage vanishes when they die/spell ends and they return. Celestial beings from a heaven, demons/devils from a hell, and fey from some arcadian realm (I guess). Some spells that open gateways for beings to enter are different and involve bargaining to make a deal. I think 3.5's subschool descriptors go into some detail, such as is Conjuration (Calling) vs. Conjuration (???)--I forget the terms. 5e may have gone with somewhat different fluff.
I like the idea of summoning some copy/ideal version of a being, instead of an actual critter.

In old World of Darkness, some Mage spells can call spirits. They aren't forced to come, but the idea is that you call your allies and they help you. I think likewise with ghosts, though vampiric Necromancy probably has stuff to control ghosts.

In Exalted (at least 2nd edition), summoned beings are magically forced to be loyal to the summoner.* Although the rules don't mention it, I could see an Exalt becoming friendly with an elemental (or demon, possibly) that it has summoned and talked with and them becoming friends and allies.
*there is a contested roll to bind the thing summoned which, if failed, means the summoned thing is fully free to act as it would, but generally when talking of using summons you assume the summoning and binding were successful

---
On a side note, unless the rules explicitly state it and the player understands it, I would think it poor form to have a summoned creature act against its summoner, such as by interpreting things literally but against the spirit of loyalty. That's cool if the player is aware, but the player should be aware that summoning isn't completely loyal ally if that's the case.

[Tinkerer]

Palladium didn't really have much in the way of rapid summoning spells aside from animals but it had a class or 5 dedicated to longer summoning rituals where it was made very clear that it was a form of mental domination (you either had to engage in a battle of wills with the summoned creature or try and bargain with it for it's services). And they are actively encouraged to mess with the caster if the casters goals were not aligned with their own. Additionally if you weren't careful it was entirely possible for your PC to wind up getting summoned, although summoning earthly creatures was far more difficult than summoning supernatural entities.

I usually tend to fluff the summoning in several other systems as summoning the essence of a creature rather than an actual creature. This helps to explain why it always summons a creature with identical stats at full health who is willing to help. Because otherwise the level of mind-control inherent in a summoning spells tends to vastly outstrip the type of magic used to summon it.

[Mordaedil]

Summon spells don't really seem to do much harm to whatever they conjure in, so you might even go as far as to imagine it is an astral copy of the subject you are summoning, and it goes away after a short bit.

Calling spells are a far more intricate task and requires binds and deals to be made to sort things out.

[Kaptin Keen]

You can fluff it precisely as you like. In an infinite universe, somewhere there's a badger, abishai or archon who wants nothing more than to help you kill ... whatever.

Or, if you prefer, you deliberately go for one that doesn't want to help you, and force it to, because you're just that guy.

[Hellpyre]

In an infinite universe, somewhere there's a badger, abishai or archon who wants nothing more than to help you kill ... whatever.

I'm like, 90% sure that's all any badger wamts.

[RazorChain]

I know I've heard it theorized before that the creatures that you get from the basic, short-term summoning spells aren't even real creatures. Rather, that the summoner is conjuring a copy of some creature or bringing forth a cosmic instantiation of some platonic ideal of an imagined creature. Creatures such as these would come pre-programmed with certain instincts and skills, but have no will of their own.

I can just envision this; I'm doing the dishes when suddenly I get teleported into a middle of fight in some danky dungeon, forced to fight for my life with only a fork. Then just as suddenly I'm back in my kitchen with my fork and a goblins eye impaled on it and get told off by my wife for not have done the dishes.

[Kaptin Keen]

I'm like, 90% sure that's all any badger wants.

Yea, badgers are cool like that.

[JeenLeen]

I can just envision this; I'm doing the dishes when suddenly I get teleported into a middle of fight in some danky dungeon, forced to fight for my life with only a fork. Then just as suddenly I'm back in my kitchen with my fork and a goblins eye impaled on it and get told off by my wife for not have done the dishes.

Summon Primal Champion I
Summons an average human from the prime material plane. The human will have 1 level in an NPC class of the caster's choice, with equipment fitting for the chosen class.

[LibraryOgre]

Summon Primal Champion I
Summons an average human from the prime material plane. The human will have 1 level in an NPC class of the caster's choice, with equipment fitting for the chosen class.

Hmmm... specify profession instead of class, and make part of the summoning be a day's wage.

[Kaptin Keen]

Hmmm... specify profession instead of class, and make part of the summoning be a day's wage.

Heheh! Material component: 1 days standard guild wage (~1 copper/level)

=)

You can summon without the material component, but then the guild will go on strike, and you cannot summon that profession again for a week.