D&D 5E The good, bad, and ugly of the Wish spell

[Winterfell]

So I have been DM'ing a campaign for a few weeks and as our party wasn't it's full strength another member DM'ed a side adventure so I could get a little playtime in.

End of the night we end up fighting a demonic jester who threw empowered cards where if struck you had to draw from the Deck of Many Things. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, we got out of the fight only letting the Jester get one attack off. The 7th level Warlock got struck and happened to draw The Moon (acquiring 1d3 Wish spells) and he came away with one wish (DM might have auto-1'ed him from the unseen roll). The player was unfamiliar with the abilities/ramifications of this spell and was slightly in awe of now being able to cast the most powerful spell possible by a mortal.

So, being a new DM as I am, can you please regale me with tales of times you have had to DM a Wish spell.

How much leeway do you give the player?

In the end does the DM have just as much power over the spell as the player?

For something I may feel is excessive, can I add in a potential negative consequence for a non-standard spell copy?

I did not set up nor ask for the spell to be introduced to our middling level game, but I am going to have to deal with it moving forward. Any feedback or interesting stories are welcomed.

Regards,
The DM who wished he didn't have to deal with Wish

 

[AriochQ]

Haven't dealt with it in 5th edition but you can basically go one of two ways...

1) Keep it simple. No attempts to short change wisher, they basically get what they want. A good rule of thumb is that a wish can recreate any spell in terms of power/effects. Feel free to scale down their wish if it seems too powerful. I usually let them know beforehand the spell is not powerful enough to fulfill their request.
2) Screw the player. Make them word the wish very specifically and then look for any loophole you can find to make them miserable.

I have played it both ways in the past. I usually reserve #2 in cases where a malevolent being is involved. For a deck of many things wish, I would just go with option 1.

 

[MarkB]

Compared to some previous editions, the 5e version of Wish is a doddle to adjudicate. It has a set of very specific things it can definitely be used to perform, and while it's possible to push beyond those limits, the physical cost of doing so is very high, especially for a spellcaster.

Personally, while twisting Wishes can be fun, my own attitude to such things is to remember Wheaton's Law and not set out to screw the party over.

• If the effect the player asks for is not significantly more powerful than those listed in the spell description, and isn't something that'll snap your carefully-crafted campaign like a dry reed, just let it work pretty much exactly as asked for. If it's less powerful than one of the listed effects, don't even impose the spell-damage and strength penalty.
• If the player just uses normal conversational language to describe what he wants, don't try to trip him up on technicalities. Only stoop to that level if they try to get seriously lawyery about it.
• If they ask for something they know is well beyond the normal scope of a Wish, have it fail in some spectacularly humorous fashion, as embarrassingly as possible, but not in a way that massively disadvantages the party. Leave them humiliated and battered, but still in a position to pick up where they left off.

Not really what you're asking for, I know, but I've never encountered any really epic examples of Wish misuse - the only ones I remember were from a DM who liked having the party pick up wish-granting items without realising it, in which case whatever desire they next verbalised (i.e. "I'd really like a sandwich about now") would be fulfilled in the most literal fashion and they'd know they'd just lost the most powerful spell in the game. It felt cheap and punitive rather than clever and inventive.

 

[jrowland]

I agree with the above. Keep it simple and on the scale as outlined in the spell description.

However, I've always used "legendary" wishes as more powerful versions of the wish spell. Deck of Many Things wishes fall into that category. In that case, Decks are random and chaotic, the results of the wish should reflect that.

Rather than "I wish for a castle" resulting in a mysterious rider suddenly showing up bearing the deed to castle...many miles away...besieged and being battered, it instead drops a a "White Castle" from the sky, landing nearby, crushing anything underneath, but relatively intact. It is a normal castle, but has immense cooking facilities designed for producing small hamburgers.

A wish from a noble efreeti might give you a castle he once owned. Right on the edge of a volcano, with all the cooling problems you can imagine.

In short, think of who/what is granting the legendary wish and adjudicate accordingly. i.e ask "How can the grantor of the wish comply? What do they have? What can they do?"

If you ask me to grant you a wish for a castle, I can draw one for you...poorly. But a legendary artifact or Being can probably do better, but there are limits. And baggage.

So, yes, follow Wheaton's Law, but don't be afraid to add baggage.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

1) Keep it simple. No attempts to short change wisher, they basically get what they want. A good rule of thumb is that a wish can recreate any spell in terms of power/effects. Feel free to scale down their wish if it seems too powerful. I usually let them know beforehand the spell is not powerful enough to fulfill their request.
2) Screw the player. Make them word the wish very specifically and then look for any loophole you can find to make them miserable.

My rule of thumb: if it's reasonable and falls into your category #1, I grant the wish as intended. If it's unreasonable or overpowered, I fall into #2 and the wish gets distorted. Magic is just unpredictable that way.

For borderline cases, keep your weather eye open for adventure hook opportunities. So the PC who says "I wish for a castle" might not have one fall on his head, but instead hears a rumor of a bandit-infested moathouse on the edge of civilization whose deed goes to the adventurer bold enough to clear and hold it.

 

[Umbran]

I have never myself had to deal with a player who didn't treat a Wish spell as if it were his law school final exam.

As a player, there's only one time I didn't deal with a wish as if it were my law school final exam.

In that one time, our party had gotten *pasted* by some big nasty (I think it was Stradh - he got the drop on us and it didn't go well). The only two PCs standing were my Wizard, and another player's deep gnome illusionist. I was carrying a scroll of Wish, and it seemed like the only way to save our bacon. The DM (reasonably) did not give me forever to craft a bullet-proof Wish, as Stradh was still around and going to whup our spellcasting but otherwise wimpy butts. So, I aimed for the most benign wording I could come up with in two minutes. Something to the effect of, "I wish my compatriots and I were alive and well in the Village of <whereveritwas>."

The GM couldn't find a way to screw us with that. So, he decided to screw with us. He realized that my PC was the longest surviving character in the campaign. Pretty much every PC who had lived or died with this group over the years of play that got us to 12 level or so in 1e had been a "compatriot" of my PC. So, they *all* showed up, whether they had been alive or dead, busy or retired. While almost all of them were on good enough terms with my spellcaster, they weren't all on good terms with *each other*. And some of them were a little miffed and confused at having been dragged out of their beds, or from fighting monsters elsewhere in the world, and so on. It quickly devolved into a village-wide barroom brawl until the mage and illusionist could bring order to the proceedings.

Thankfully, the two had been wondering where they were gong to get people to man their stronghold while they were away. This solved the problem.

 

[GuardianLurker]

When I last had to deal with wishes on a regular basis, back in 2e, I gave my players the following guidelines:

* The wish has to be a single, non-compound (or run-on), sentence with no conjunctions.
* Undos are almost always safe.
* I will "Monkey's Paw" the wish if it's greedy.
* (Implied from the above: Don't screw with the GM, the campaign, the adventure, or NPCs, and the wish won't screw with you.)

Now, I still had some paranoid players, and they rapidly blue-booked a number of templated "save-our-butts" wishes, but they didn't really need to. And for that matter, the wishes were never a problem.

 

[Saeviomagy]

With my DM hat on, I consider it my duty to mess with a wish from any source other than the PC casting wish within the specific guidelines of that spell.

However I also consider it unsporting twist a wish such that it is completely negative, or ends up having zero benefit.

If you wish for a castle, you'll get a castle. I will throw in plot hooks to said castle - perhaps it's built to contain some horrible evil creature and now it's your responsibility to maintain the wards, for instance.

If you wish to live forever, you'll now get a free reincarnate cast on you the morning after you die. It's possible that in the process some of your physical possessions will go missing. Or that somewhere out there is a cult dedicated to bringing you back whenever you die through whatever means they have at their disposal.

It would be easy for me to screw over wishes to the point where no one would accept a granted wish, but it's more fun if I drive story with them.

 

[Li Shenron]

• If they ask for something they know is well beyond the normal scope of a Wish, have it fail in some spectacularly humorous fashion, as embarrassingly as possible, but not in a way that massively disadvantages the party. Leave them humiliated and battered, but still in a position to pick up where they left off.

This could be a lot of fun, but for just one Wish in the game, I could actually just even let them succeed at whatever they Wish.

What is the worst thing that can happen?

PC wishes to auto-win the current adventure? Fine, there's another adventure awaiting.

PC asks to become a god? Sure, but then the PC will just retire to otherwordly matters, obviously she won't be suitable for a normal game of D&D.

PC asks for all the troubles of the world to solve themselves? Great, no need to continue questing. Start another campaign in another world.

The players should just be aware that outrageous Wishes can mean end-of-fun. Then the game is over. We start a new one of course, but then ask yourselves what are you really achiving with it?

 

[Azurewraith]

I have never had any issues with the wish spell in fact i have only seen it used once by a pc whose character had his intelligence reduced to 1 and had some sort of fascination with "kittys" he would chase them round villages just to grab them and stroke them bald so he used his wish and just said kittys so the whole world turned into cats on a world in the shape of a cat with cats for weapons and cats for buildings. They where like 18th lvl and had just defeated 2 of the BBEG lieutenants so i just ran with the idea of kittys. It ended the campaign to a whole lot of laughing.

Ill just echo what others have said if its a reasonable wish let them have. If its borderline let them have it but at a cost.If its a they wish to be a god turn them into a god whos power relies on his followers believing in him but make his name unpronounceable so he has 0 power or some other cruel vindictive way punishing their greed