How common were wishes in AD&D1?

[T. Foster]

See! And now everybody mocks the idea of savepoints in D&D.

But they were always there!

I actually agree with this. I think the idea of common wishes in OD&D was not that different than the "Fate Points" or "Hero Points" that a lot of games have, or RuneQuest's Divine Intervention -- essentially a one-use "get out of jail free" card in case the player really screws something up. Wish a dead companion back to life, wish yourself back home if you get hopelessly lost/stuck somewhere, etc. The idea of wishes as The Ultimate Game-Breaking Magic (and thus by consequence the Rarest Magic -- no DM in his right mind would let the players have this much power, no player who managed to get it would dare use it because he'd know the DM wouldn't give him this much power unless he was planning to screw him over) came later and is, at least IMO, a lot less fun.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

See! And now everybody mocks the idea of savepoints in D&D.

But they were always there!

But, only a SPELLCASTER can make a save point. So it's OK. If a FIGHTER could do it, without a magic item made by a caster or a spellcasting creature, then it would be videogamey.

Actually, I wonder if this is the origin for the *concept* of save points in video games? Anybody know what the first game to have save points was?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I've never seen a wish in AD&D.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Wishes were much more common in AD&D1e.

For one, they were assumed. A large number of magic items were created by using them.

For two - there were present in modules - generally something you just don't come across these days.

For three, they popped up on the old random item rolls more often than was ever wise. Which was, of course, the problem with random treasure drops.

Four - as was commented on above, the Deck of Many Things was still in the midst of wrecking all of our campaigns with reasonable frequency - and so d4 wishes is just a matter of time.

Back then - (1e for me was 1979 to 1982), it was high school. We gamed and gamed and gamed. Sessions would sometimes go 24 hours. We had no responsibility and we played so much that campaigns would be born, live and die off and another would start again every 3-5 months. With 2 DMs, that meant there was always a campaign wrecking event just around the corner it seemed.

Every other campaign probably had some wishes show up. We were kids and we thought it was fun.

Then, somehow, the seriousness and simulationist impulse took over and wishes were unrealistic, random and destructive RPG chaos that had to be placed back in the toy box. I banned wishes, banned raised dead/resurrection/reincarnation for that matter, and went on a 24 year spree of being a rat-bastard, hard-ass GM.

Lately though...I don't know if its nostalgia or what's going on. But for all the silly stuff and campaign wrecking events those d4 wishes from the Deck threw at you - you have to admit it was fun.

Anyways, after refusing to allow a Deck of Many Things for fine, upstanding, oh-so-mature, campaign-preserving-reasons for the past 24 years, I intend to place the Deck in one of the final modules in my AoW campaign.

Green Ronin put one out you see, and for ten bucks, I just to had to have one...

So the PCs will find it and then we shall see what fate shall bring...

 

[Aaron L]

We got a few, but not many. That is until we got to the levels where the Magic-Users could cast it, and then they all usually had one saved as a backup for really bad situations.

 

[Rothe]

As spells, never encountered them. When my MU got to the level he could cast 9th level spells he was retired.

As items or boons, it was fairly common to have 1 with the party. Our general rule was if you didn't "tempt fate" you were pretty safe from having the wish twisted. If you got very greedy, unbalanced the status quo, vastly changed the natural world, etc. the powers that granted such things (whatever they may be) would twist your wish. If you were very clever, but still upset the balance of things, some god-like power would undo your wish with one of their own; and then might hold you accountable for your rash actions.

So we had a list of failry safe things to wish for, maybe a level, a +1 in a stat, and all importantly the undo death/very bad thing of a commrade, use them to emulate a lower level spell etc.

 

[diaglo]

And now we finally learn the real reason diaglo prefers OD&D!

never had a wish used in my OD&D campaign.

actually at the time the umm... players weren't very demanding. the kind of things they would Wish for would be things like a potion of healing, but more potent. like a full heal spell worth

edit: or if you used the Blackmoor hit locations stuff... then they might wish for a reattached limb or use of their vision or hearing again.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

I never understood the whole thing with twisitng wishes into someting bad for the players, wether as a player or as a DM. In playing 85 or 86 era in 1e I had a Fighter and a MU who both got wishes. Both came from rings. Can't recall if I ever used them. I gave them out once adn awhile in a dragonlance 2e campagin. I wasn't twisted so never made them bad, but the players didn't use them for game breaking things either. Again nothing really comes to mind as for what was wished for mostly just minor things or a specific magic item.

In a later 2e campagin we got a Deck of Many things and one guy got a couple wishes. We knew the DM was going to screw us so they were written in legalise and were relatively minor.

If fun is the whole part of the game and players want to have fun and not unbalance the game I never thought that trying to twist the wishes into something the PCs would regret was fun. Weather as a player or a DM. It was out of character for a fighter to come up with leaglise but he didn't want his character screwed, and I always kind of thought of the DM as like in the cartoon where he would try to help the PC's not screw them over.

 

[XO]

Uncommonly Lots...

Uncommon, but the instances of tricks made wishes more common.

Within my campaign, one PC owned a VERY powerful sword, and that egotistic item got a Wish/year. The PC soon learned to be wary since the sword would use the wish to make itself more powerful (new powers, power improvement, etc) if the PC did not use it as soon as it became available.

A Wish from an efreet or similar was often used be groups as insurance policy. The "Should we ever say that word, we all fnd ourselves each in our own bed and this was all a bad dream" type thing.

In other people's campaigns, we got one off a pit fiend once.

One lad ended up tapping serious magic and wished for a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. He got it!

My fighter had reached a Str of 19.3 due to crossing a Well of Wishes... It was powered by the presence of a +5 sword. The elf got the sword.

A Wish is not nearly as powerful as one might think, and a DM should attempt to distort to some degree, depending on the wish's sources, but not deliberaly "thumbscrew" adventurers.

As per casting, both my own PCs and others' cast many Limited Wishes into the mix to midly alter to correct various situations. Even a Limited one, in our sense, could alter events just minutes passed.

 

[Evilhalfling]

In all the AD&D games I have played there were no wishes used.
The highest level we ever got to was about 10th.

In 2nd Ed 14th lvl - 0 wishes

In 3rd, 19th lvl - 1 wish (although the players had it for 3 sessions it was actually used in the epilogue)