How common were wishes in AD&D1?

[RFisher]

I only clearly remember one use of a wish in my AD&D days. I was against it. The party was going to sacrifice a magic-item to a wishing well to get me my hand back. No, it wasn't a critical hit table; just my own stupidity combined with a trap. (^_^) I didn't think my hand was worth a magic item.

There may have been two or three others, but that's the only one I clearly remember.

(I think that was the last of my losing hand trilogy.)

 

[Henry]

How common were wishes available and used in AD&D1?

I never saw a single wish available or used in my AD&D1 experience. But I get the impression they were pretty common.

Quasqueton

Usually about once a campaign, as a campaign-ending "great reward." It was a hallmark of one particular DM we used to have. The only time I ever saw wishes destroy an AD&D campaign was when I allowed a Deck of Many things, and misplayed the rules (they got as many draws as they wanted). One guy, the luckiest of the group, drew the (STARS?) about 7 or 8 times running, in addition to the throne, the sun, etc. etc. He had something like 15 wishes available, and used them to gain levels, top up ability scores, etc. He ended up 10 levels above the rest of the party, with a staff of the archmagi, a robe of the archmagi, and no stat below a 16. It was the last time I allowed a Deck of Many things in my games for many years. I only allowed it one time after that point, and the deck disappeared "magically" after everyone got their named draws. It was a good experience, and the last time I used one (going on 8 years now).

 

[BryonD]

I remember them being pretty common.

BUT
a) They probably stick out in my mind more than other stuff
AND
b) If I were that age now and playing 3E, wishes would probably be just as common.

I've probably seen 3 or 4 in 3E. But that is ignoring a single one shot L20 game with about 8. There were two (!!) rings of three wishes and a couple scrolls and everyone knew it was a one shot. I think it is fair to say that it was not representative. (Fun though )

 

[Voadam]

For 3e Banewarrens had a bad guy running around with a wish in it. Lord of the Iron Fortress has an efreeti with some guidelines for him to use a wish in combat.

Our 2e game had one, a player wished for a storm giant strength belt and got it, but it turned out to have been teleported from somebody very rich who sent NPC assassins after the PC, one of whom succesfully infiltrated the party and adventured with us for a while.

I played in a high level 1e Moorcock type game where a Lord of Chaos lent my PC an artefact that could do unlimited wishes. I rolled back the walls of chaos to create a new land and royally screwed myself over empowering myself with all sorts of things that went horribly wrong. The rest of the party fixed my insane chaos warped character but the lands stuck and eventually turned out to be a fairly cool addition to the world.

 

[kenobi65]

I wouldn't say "common", but my recollection is that we encountered a fair number of wish-granting magic items in our 1E days.

My biggest recollection is somewhere in the Underdark / Drow series of modules. There's a lich encounter (he's just hanging out there in the caverns), and he killed us all. Fortunately, our cleric had 2 rings on...a Ring of Regeneration, and a Ring of Three Wishes. The lich was pretty beat-up by the encounter, and went off to "sleep it off", instead of looting our bodies immediately. When the cleric regenerated back to consciousness, he used the ring to wish the party back to full health. We then went after Mr. Lich, and cleaned his clock.

Wishes seemed to backfire more often than not. We had one player use a Ring of Wishes when the party got tired of getting beat up in a dungeon. He said, "I wish that we, and all the treasure, and everything in this dungeon, were all back in my room in the inn." The DM interpreted that one literally, and, for a moment, Falzar's room at the inn contained the party, and the treasure...and a tribe of orcs, and a purple worm. The entire inn burst at the seams, and the town guards never did figure out who inflicted all those monsters on the city.

In all of our 3E/3.5 play, I don't think I've ever seen Wish used, and I've seen Miracle used once. We had a 3.5 campaign that started at 1st level (with Sunless Citadel), and went all the way to 20th (with Bastion of Broken Souls); in that campaign, my fire genasi wizard had Wish when she got to 17th or 18th level, but never used it.

 

[Umbran]

As others have noted - several Wish-containing items are scattered through the standard AD&D modules. They could also be gotten out of certain creatures, and cast by powerful wizards. We saw a wish or three in just about every campaign we ran. We only ended up with one PC wizard of high enough level to cast it, though we had a few scrolls that got used...

But then, there wasn't a "safe zone" for wishes. All wishes were subject to perverse interpretations.

I am reasonably certain a great many DMs wanted to give out wishes, for this very reason. By comparison, these days wishes are not any particular fun for the DM, so there's little incentive.

As an example - playing the original Castle Ravenloft, on our first attempt, Stradh handed our party's butts to us on a silver platter. Nearly a TPK, with only my wizard and the party's svirfneblin illusionist surviving. Two characters, with an 18 and 17 Int, respectively. We knew well the perverse nature of wishes, so we thought as carefully as we could - because our DM was known to not allow lots of legalistic riders and conditions - the request had to be simple and bulletproof.

"I wish all my adventuring compatriots were alive, well, and in <nearby village>!"

The DM thought for five minutes...

*Poof!* - the deep gnome disappears a good sign, as the wish would have to move him to the village. I quickly read my scroll of teleport to get to the village myself...

... and arrive to find a town fully of brawling, naked aventurers! 22 of them, as I recall. The wish had transported (and occasionally ressurected) every single character the wizard had ever worked with. Many of them had left or died because they didn't get along well - with each other, or with the wizard.

I had to haul out our campaign's "Rogue's Gallery" - the DM had done it this way because expected that it would be a pugilistic bloodbath of epic proportions, and he hoped to see several PVP kills. He didn't count on one thing - the wizard and gnome still had their equipment, and they cooperated well. Nobody died, but we spent four sessions hashing out each other's respective bacon, getting everyone's equipment back, and so on.

We did, eventually, hand Stradh his own butt on a platter. But that's another story...

 

[howandwhy99]

I've seen 3 wishes come up while playing D&D. One was an overcast scroll. The other two were unknowns where the DM waited for the players to say "I wish..." Dastardly evil DMs those.

 

[billd91]

I never understood the whole thing with twisitng wishes into someting bad for the players, wether as a player or as a DM.

Well, wish is VERY powerful magic and has to be kept in check somehow. Simple wishes for relatively minor boons and recovery from death and injury were OK. I didn't mess with them. But ones that broke the plot or asked for gobs of power just asked to be messed with.

 

[tzor]

Wishes were infrequent in the 1E games I played in, and more frequent in the 2E games I played in. I once had a dwarf with a sword of wishes in a 2E campaign, but with his int of 6 at the time he didn't go for the complex wishes. (Later on through a series of random rolls as a result of a magic fountain his int doubled to 12. Since one of those rolls was a 50/50 for plus minus he could have just as easily turned into a vegtable.)

I don't recall all wishes being twisted. The idea of twisting wishes comes from all those Arabian nights tales. I never saw a DM twist a simple wish. (I wish joe was resurrected was pretty much untwisted from what I recall.) One problem that was more annoying than twisting was no OOC knowledge.

 

[Roadkill101]

Wishes being common from a cast spell, nope, never saw a wish spell cast once in 25 years worth of gaming. Wishes being common from an item (ring, scroll, weapon, etc.), nope again for the same reason, though I remember owning some modules having these types of wish-granting treasures (I never used my modules, except maybe the map portion).

My Freshman year (1984), the teacher who ran my high-school D&D Club introduced the members of the Club to a mechanic that would grant wishes to characters though. It went like this; At the start of the session, every player rolls a 1d20 for their character(s). A result of 1 grants that character a wish. The player then writes down the wish for his character in 20 words or less and passes it on to the DM, who then interprets the wish on the spot.

I used this mechanic later on during a 2 1/2 year campaign in the mid 90's. Only I changed to a result of 1 or 20 granted a wish (upping the chances from 5% to 10%). By the time the campaign ended (and we played 2-3 times a week) most characters (from 5 to 8) recieved maybe a total of 3 wishes give or take 1.

I actually had one player start a wish of with "I wish I had a magic sword...." which I interpreted as "you have come to the realization that old battered sword you carried in your early adventuring career was magical."

Fortunately my players didn't abuse any wishes too badly. I remember one was used to restore a dead pc, and several others for healing potions, the rest were for things so minor I no longer remember them.