Last week’s post was (technically*) the 1000th here at Campaign Mastery. Appropriately for such a number, it dealt with big-picture abstractions and the fundamental principle upon which the blog is founded – having more fun at the gaming table. That make’s this post (again, technically*) the 1001st – a number that itself both the seeds and burden of inspiration.

* for various reasons, there are any number of posts that shouldn’t get counted, in my opinion, like being forced by the technology to publish an article in three simultaneous posts because of its length – which happened early on. Depending on which posts you consider eligible for counting, the “True” 1000th will fall in December… or January… or possibly March…

I don’t know about anyone else, but my first thought upon encountering the number 1001 is to remember Scheherazade’s stories, and that leads me to think about Arabian stories in general, which leads me to Genies, which leads me to Wishes. So that’s the potted history that’s in back of this article.

GM Role

Nothing reveals the GM’s role in an RPG as “the arbiter of reality” more sharply than the sudden intrusion into the game as a Wish. Depending on how old-school your campaign style is, this could quite literally change everything.

More recent incarnations of game mechanics have tightened the reigns, to the point that a Wish seems underwhelming and over-sold, promising big things and unable to deliver. Starting from 3e D&D onward, the spell – whether granted by an item or by the spell-caster’s own abilities – increasingly seems unworthy of the name.

Such “Wishes” are detrimental to the sense of wonder, of fantasy, that should be inherent in the genre, at least in my opinion.

And yet, this whole question is inextricably entwined in one of the oldest complaints about the D&D game mechanics, that of the game imbalance between Mages and everyone else at higher character levels. Part of the assorted attempts at resolving that complaint, both official and unofficial, that have been instituted through the years, inevitably involves a catastrophic neutering of the power of a Wish.

My general inclination is to reject this neutering, at least in part. It’s my contention that since the GM dictates the availability of wishes in items, a better solution is to divide the problem in two – “Wishes”, as per the spell, can be as constrained and limited as the needs of game balance dictate, while rarity and difficulty of creation can be used to constrain the impact of more powerful “Wish” items.

The name “Wish” for a Mage Spell is thus revealed to be a matter of Wishful Thinking, a pun that sealed this attitude to the subject in stone as soon as I conceived it.

But, at the same time, this is – potentially – letting the genie out of the bottle. Some constraint and restraint is required, or a Wish is the equivalent of giving a monkey a buzz-saw and inviting them to “do their worst”.

Three Primary Considerations

When a Wish is made in one of my campaigns, there are three questions that have to be answered before any adjudication of the results can be possible. These are Campaign Damage, Hubris, and Balance.

1. Campaign Damage

Will granting the wish inherently damage the campaign, for example by providing an easy answer to one of the central dilemmas that the entire campaign is intended to resolve?

The more “high fantasy” the campaign is, the more this becomes a problem, an irony that is not lost on me!

2. Hubris

Will granting the wish inherently elevate the PCs to a position greater than that of the Gods? Or, to rephrase the point, if all it took was a wish to solve the problem then don’t the PCs think the Gods would have thought of that already?

No problem defined as being too great for the Gods to solve with a wave of their hands is subject to direct solution through a Wish.

3. Balance

Will granting the wish inherently elevate one individual PC above his peers in deliverable game power to an excessive extent?

“I want +20 Armor and Sword!” – No, no, no, no, no. Not going to happen.

“I want +10 Armor and Sword!” – will happen ten minutes before the first.

“I want +50 to my Hide In Shadows!” – getting closer to the mark, but still – no.

“I want my sword to have 1 inch per character level range so that I can hit targets at a distance.” – Hmm, interesting, let’s talk….

Ways Of Saying No

There are lots of ways of refusing an unreasonable request. At the GM’s discretion, any or all of these may also burn a “charge”, i.e. a Wish – too bad if you only have one!

1. Outright Denial

The simplest and most direct is simply to say “no”. But, having gone to all this trouble to inculcate a sense of wonder into the campaign, an arbitrary and outright denial that punctures that bubble of suspended disbelief seems counter-productive; an argument that I have heard advanced for adopting the “weak Wish” proposals from the outset.

2. Temporary Change

It’s far more satisfying to reinforce that sense of wonder by having the transformation requested occur – for a while. And to remind the PCs that sauce for the goose is also good for the gander – if the PCs use this as a temporary power-up, so will their enemies.

Of course, it won’t be necessarily obvious that the change is only temporary…

3. Delusion

In one campaign that I ran, making a wish that was beyond the power of the Wish to deliver simply caused the character making the wish to be subject to the delusion that their wish had been granted – Monkeying with the character’s sanity being the only way for the Wish to actually deliver the request.

My thought is divided on the question of whether or not the players should be informed of this in advance. It would largely depend on the social attitude towards those who were “strange in the head” in the culture, and whether or not the PCs would have had the opportunity at some past time to observe such an individual. “Old Frederick, he got one of them wish thingies, and wished to be King Of The World. Hasn’t been quite right since, going around in finery and issuing meaningless orders and imagining that people fall over themselves to obey.”

At a metagame level, players should be aware that attempts to rort the system risks bringing the wrath of the GM down upon their heads, and that this is not a good idea. But some people just can’t help themselves.

4. The Rules Lawyer

I normally eschew “rules lawyer” approaches to problems. But if a player asks for it, I’ll unleash both barrels. On one occasion, a player who was granted a wish submitted his request in writing, with 16 typed pages of detailed specifics of the request’s fulfillment that would not constitute the granting of the Wish in the opinion of the character making the wish.

This for a request that, if presented in a straightforward manner, I would have had no problem fulfilling.

You see, there was a movement in the 70s and 80s that cast the players and GM into adversarial roles; a notion that the GM should be doing his level best at all times to kill off the PCs, and anything was fair game if it avoided this fate. The rules, and in particular a strict interpretation thereof, was the player’s only defense. This, despite an outright statement in the GM’s Guide that the rules as published were only guidelines and suggestions, and the GM was free to interpret or rewrite them as they saw necessary.

Of course, abuse of that authority led to greater demands by players to control their own destinies, for the GMs to be forced to adhere to the rules, and for the rules to be sufficiently comprehensive that the GM would not be required to make arbitrary decisions.

I don’t hold to that principle at all. Instead, I adhere to a variation on the original old-school approach – “the GM is free to interpret or rewrite the rules as they see necessary for the betterment of the game.” The game is not served by denying players the ability to do anything not explicitly permitted by the rules; it is not served by capricious or hostile rules interpretations. The purpose of the game is not to “win” – it’s to have fun, and the players and GM are engaged in a cooperative effort to that end.

Three pages of legalese is a violation of that principle. It was certainly no fun to read it, and would have set an unwanted precedent to let the player get away with it. Nor was it appropriate for the INT 14 character to have submitted such a wish!

Almost immediately, I spotted a major hole in the reasoning of the player. Putting it on paper took no more than 1/4 of a page. I then handed it to the player in question and gave him a choice: submit a simple request that didn’t assume that the GM was an enemy power, or I would rule based on that 1/4 page response (to the character’s severe detriment), and to go away and think about his choices for a week or so.

These days, I am even less tolerant. In essence, if you act as a rules lawyer, on the basis that you will not only ruin my fun but that of everyone else at the table, you are asking for it with both barrels.

5. The Monkey’s Paw

The nastiest way to say no – and what I mean by “with both barrels” – is to go full-blown Monkey’s Paw on the PC. And then run a mini-adventure in which the crippled and maimed PCs quest for another Wish with which to undo the first.

As a general Rule Of Thumb

If a wish doesn’t violate one or more of the three Primary Considerations, I won’t reject it. Even if it does, I may use one of the alternative rejection methods, depending on the results of considering a fourth issue: How Much Fun Will It Be To Grant The Wish?

The answer falls into three categories:

  • None or minimal – rejection if a violation, shrug and say OK if not. But try to persuade the player to make a different choice.
  • Fun for a while, but not in the long term – rejection via method 2 if a violation, shrug and say OK if not. When it stops being fun, I can give the player the chance to rescind his wish, or provide another Wish to undo the effect.
  • Fun, fun, fun – rejection via method 2 if a violation, evil grin and ready agreement if not.

The Scale Of A Wish

Because I always think about the scale in terms of answering the question of just what can be done with a Wish, especially an item-borne wish, long experience has shown me that the scale of the wish has a big bearing on all four considerations. When I aggregate all the possibilities into a master list, I end up with a 12-step scale.

1. The Cosmic Wish

The most likely to violate Principles one and/or two, this is a substantial reordering of the game universe. But it’s also an invitation to the GM to be at his most creative, so there’s always an off-chance that I’ll say ‘yes’ – though that “yes” might bear an uncanny resemblance to a “Monkey’s Paw” refusal, at least at first.

There is a fairly predictable pattern to the way events would unfold. First, the player would achieve whatever his direct intent was (a good thing, from his point of view). Second, negative consequences and ramifications would begin to be observed, leading others to discover the reordering of nature. Third (if it hadn’t been undone already), positives would be discovered, showing that the change isn’t uniformly good or bad, just different.

It’s a key element of human nature to notice the negatives first, unless blinded by optimism, but it’s dangerous to reject a policy simply because some negatives have been observed; the question has to be whether or not the change on the whole is better, worse, or neutral, and that can’t be done without identifying the positives. Most people won’t wait, and substitute an ideological bias one way or the other, leading to a false appraisal.

Often, this is because the negative effects will happen more or less automatically, with no need for action, while the positives will require some effort to achieve. The benefits are potential, in other words – and manifesting/achieving them thus becomes another thread within the campaign, potentially unveiling a whole new opposition force, upending established alliances, and – in general – upsetting the apple-cart of predictability.

BUT – and it’s a big one – you always have to ask the question of why someone else doesn’t use a Wish to restore the status quo. That leads into complicated issues of Destiny and Causality that might not be everyone’s cup of tea to contemplate. The simplest answer is simply to state that no Wish can ever completely undo the effects of another, and that resistance to change increases with each attempt to rewrite reality – and don’t worry about why.

2. The Divine Wish

In my campaigns, the Gods are limited in some respect. Omnipotence and omniscience don’t work well as campaign premises – something that I wrote about back in 2010, in A Monkey Wrench In The Deus-Ex-Machina: Limiting Divine Power (and don’t miss the discussion in the comments!)

That means that it might be at least theoretically possible for a Wish to impact at a Divine level – replacing one Deity with another, for example, or elevating a PC to Divine status. Assuming that you can skirt any problems with the three Principles, this simply opens new cans of worms for any PC who didn’t realize that in some respects, Gods in my campaigns are going to be as circumscribed as humans, if not more-so!

Indeed, one of the driving factors throughout the history and in-play time of my Fumanor campaign was Lolth’s attempts to ascend to True Godhood, because she had never made this discovery, and the PCs recognized it as a consequence of opposing some of the machinations she had set in motion.

In the Rings Of Time campaign, this was also true – but this time, it was the PCs, having been used by “The Gods” to do their “dirty work”, who determined to claim the rewards of Divinity. After all, they had done the work of the Gods already.

But it’s more difficult to evade the Principles at this scale. Not impossible, though.

3. The Planar Wish

A wish that affects just one plane? Theoretically possible, but there would be domino effects and repercussions that would need careful study before you could be sure that one of the three Principles would not raise a veto. If inspired, though, this is the sort of thing that I had in my with rejection method number 2.

4. The Civilization Wish

Wishing a change to an entire specific race? Again, possible – but this is quite likely to impact on Principle number 1, or simply not be fun, at least after a while. So it’s something that I would have to think very carefully about before granting.

Wishing that all Gnomes grew an extra inch in height? No problem. Wishing that the Drow reformed? Big problems. Wishing that Elves respected human leadership? Hmm, maybe. Wishing that Dwarves were less stubborn? Maybe. Wishing that humans discovered gunpowder? That’s more problematic – how do you know what Gunpowder is or can do, to wish for that? Wishing for humans to have an additional racial advantage to bring them more in-line with the Demi-human races? Assuming that potential problems with Principle 3 can be avoided, that might be possible.

The devil is in the detail.

5. The National Wish

Instead of an entire race, how about one particular Kingdom or Tribe? For example, if one Tribe of Orcs is known to be more willing to negotiate in good faith or be opposed to war, Wishing for that Tribe to be ascendant over the others might be completely reasonable – and raises an entirely new question for a GM to ponder: “How long does it take?”

A wish may not be able to get there directly, but may be able to start a domino chain of events that leads to the desired result. Directly elevating that Orcish Tribe, for example, might be beyond the power of a Wish, but starting a Civil War that would eventually have the same result might not be.

Of course, should such a Tribe discover – after gaining that ascendancy – that it was the result of PC interference in internal Orcish Politics would not only fracture the tribe, politically, but probably start the War that the PCs were trying to avoid. But the temporary respite might be worth it.

It’s in putting such options on the table that Wishes achieve their ultimate value in an RPG – providing they haven’t been neutered.

6. The Regional Wish

With each reduction in scope, the likelihood of a Principle 2 violation recedes, while the likelihood of a Principle 3 violation grows. A wish that affects only one geographic region, such as a bountiful harvest, or a Gold Rush, brings this point into sharp relief. In fact, it’s fairly difficult to imagine a Hubris violation at this small a scale. If the Wish were limited in duration, I would be even more strongly inclined to grant it – for example, “I wish for good weather for the next two weeks”, or “I wish for it to rain on your city for a year and a day”.

7. The Local Wish

Actually, I would regard that last one as a “Local Wish” – one affecting just part of a geographic region. These rarely have much impact beyond flavor, and that makes them eminently grantable for the most part. One still needs to keep a weather eye out for domino effects, especially if affecting a Capital City or vital Trade corridor.

One can also strike trouble with overreaching in some other respect – “I Wish for this fortress to be Impregnable” is asking for trouble of the Monkey’s Paw variety – some virulent disease that devastates the population would lead most invaders to bypass such a fortress without attacking, for example.

8. The Family Wish

With the Family Wish, the danger of a Principle 3 violation becomes ascendant, though targeting the wrong family might still incur Principle 1 problems, and I can still envisage potential overreaches – wishing that your family was the Royal Family, or that you were Heir to the Throne, for example. On the other hand, if I can think of enough additional burdens and consequences of interest – if I can see ways of making it fun, in other words – there might only be Principle 3 dangers to consider.

This brings up an important principle that hasn’t been mentioned so far (and note the lack of capitalization): balance can sometimes be achieved in the face of an overreaching wish that would otherwise produce a Principle 3 violation through the imposition of additional life complications for the character. This, in essence, plays Principles 3 and 4 off of each other. The key to resolving such possibilities is whether or not they would result in one character receiving a disproportionate share of Spotlight Time.

9. The Personal Wish

With the downsizing of a wish to this scale, Principle 2 violations (Hubris) largely fall away, but the potential for Principle 3 problems (Imbalance) becomes acute. Nevertheless, this can be a viable solution for some campaign problems – a player takes multiple levels of a particular class with laboring under a misinterpretation of the class mechanics, for example, and wants to trade them all in for levels in a completely different character class. Provided that power levels are equitable, this would be a perfectly satisfactory application of a Wish.

Class and Ability synergies have to be carefully watched, however – if one class permits a character to always attempt a Reflex Check for half damage, and another grants the ability to always take no more than half damage after a Reflex Check, the combination represents a significant power upgrade for the Character.

Often, decisions at this scale are the subject of negotiated compromises instead of outright verdicts. The guiding principle is always the 4th – more fun for everyone is the goal.

10. The Sub-personal Wish

Rather than affecting the whole of a character, Wishes at this scale affect just one attribute or aspect of the character. The considerations are very similar to those of The Personal Wish, but are less likely to result in problems.

I have a set of rough guidelines that I follow. If the character has a positive stat modifier, a single wish can raise that stat to 18 (sometimes 20, depending on the campaign); if not, it can only raise the stat to 14, and a second wish is needed to get to 18. Thereafter, a single wish increases the stat to the minimum required for the next highest stat bonus.

Similarly with magic items: if the original item is +0 or +1, it can become a +2 item. A +2 item can become a +3, a +3 can become +4, and +4 can become +5. If the game system progresses beyond that limit – Pathfinder does, from memory – so does this principle.

11. The Potentiality Wish

When you reach the top of the scale, you enter the realm of the Potentiality Wish – that is, wishing for an item or ability to have the potential to exceed that threshold. In D&D (3.x), that means +6; in Pathfinder, I think it’s +11.

The wish has two effects: it enables the item to be enchanted to that degree, and it ensures that there is someone out there, somewhere in the game world, with the skill and expertise to so enchant the item. I make no promises about who they might be (ally or enemy), or what might have to be done in the form of a quid-pro-quo to earn their cooperation, or how much it might cost the PC.

Another way to think about Potentiality is that the player has wished for an Adventure with one particular reward to be written into the campaign narrative. Every other aspect of that adventure is the province of the GM.

12. The Mechanical/Trivial Wish

Sometimes-contributor Ian Gray takes his Wishes down to an even smaller scale – he wishes for just +1 to one particular attribute or item at a time. His reasoning is that the GM is far more likely to grant such requests (while not paying attention to the total being achieved), and is far less likely to “monkey” with the outcome.

I discussed this at greater length in The Power Of Synergy: Maximizing Character Efficiency about 6 years ago (how time flies!) but that article then moved off on a different tangent to this one.

What is your default position?

Some GMs have a default position, when it comes to wishes, of saying “no” unless it can be shown that there will be no ill-effects. This reflects the woeful restriction of Wishes in the game rules, the unnecessary sacrificing of genre and flavor for practicality, and an admission that the GM either lacks the time, enthusiasm, or imagination to properly scope out the potential consequences and assess them.

Other GMs have a default position, when it comes to wishes, of saying “yes” – provided that the request is on an approved list. This is almost as bad, and for exactly the same reasons.

My default position is to say “maybe – let me think about it for a minute.” And then the actually spend that minute in deep thought about the consequences, the campaign, and the Four Principles that I have described in this article. If there’s a problem, can it be mitigated? If there’s a reason to say “no”, can it be worked around? Can fulfillment of the Wish be delayed until that objection is no longer a problem? Is there a means of saying “yes?” and coping with the consequences?

Ninety times out of a hundred, that 60-second review will produce a definitive outcome, ranging from a “yes” to one of the five ways of saying “no”. Occasionally, it will lead to a “I’m inclined to say…” either yes or no, followed by a “but,” and further discussion. On rare occasions, I may have to say, “I need to give it more thought.”

That’s the virtue of the four principles – and the flexibility provided by multiple ways of saying “no”. They cut through the fog, by posing specific questions and prompting productive lines of thought.

Ultimately, when you boil the first three Principles down, they are all reflections of a potential to reduce the amount of fun at the game table, making them specific derivatives of the fourth and final principle – and that’s why the fourth can occasionally override the others, showing a path through the valley of “no” to the signpost that reads “yes”.

Forget about saying “yes” or “no” by default. “Is it more fun?” should be the gold standard of decision-making at the game table, the question that overrides all others, and you can usually get there by compromising. This is just one example of how that can be put into practice.


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