Wishes in D&D

Wrein the Unfortunate rubbed against the lamp, and just as he hoped, smoke poured from its spout and coalesced into the shape of a genie. It towered over him and as it solidified; it talked to him in a deep, reverberating voice. “What is your wish?” Wrein smiled. Finally, he could get rid of the stupid nickname that had followed him around for years. With a deep breath, he straightened his back and said in a slightly croaky voice. “I wish for you to make me a great knight.”

The genie nodded… “I will make you a great night”.. Clapping its huge hands, the genie transported Wrein with a loud bang to a city across the world where night had fallen. There, he found himself sitting on a couch, beer in hand, surrounded by beautiful people celebrating, eating a lavish meal. Music and laughter filled the air, and spirits were high.

When you wish upon a spell

Wishes have been a part of fairytales and fantasy stories since the beginning of time. Not to mention everyday life. The difference about those and wishes in Dungeons and Dragons is of course, that in D&D, you get what you wish for… ish.

There are two basically two ways to get a wish in D&D. First of is casting the spell wish, and following the rules for that spell. If you find a magic item that grant one or more wishes – like a ring of wishes, they function as if you had cast the spell. The other way to gain a wish is that a genie, a fae, a devil, or a god can grant you a wish. Or any other creature with the powers to do the required “magic.”

Let’s start with the spell version of a wish. The rules describe what you can do with that, either recreating a lower level spell, or going for some named effects, the last one being the true wish – reshaping reality.

All the spell replications are, of course, not dangerous to cast, but a few spells might need a little adjustment as their casting time or duration needs to fit the wishes duration of instantaneous.

The rest of the suggestions in the spell are well described, so they are also easy to handle. But from there we’re moving out into the maybe-this-is-your-last-wish territory. And every wish cast with a free-form wish stresses the magic user so much they might never be able to cast wish again. Roleplay wise, that gives you lots of opportunities to find cool stories, rule wise, it’s just a percentile roll.

Where it gets a little more complicated is the reality altering wishes. Here, the Game Master has more leeway to interpret what the wish-caster wants. As the genie in the example above, they can play with the words uttered and twist the result of the wish to something unexpected. However, no matter how much fun that is, a character shouldn’t need to hire a lawyer to make his wish. It is a fantasy story, after all.

I would normally say that a wish, cast by a spell, goes pretty much as wished for (pun intended). There is no second party to mess it up for the caster. Also, casting wish like this might make a caster lose the spell forever, so it should reward them with what they want.

However, that said, I would also rule that a wish takes the simplest route to fulfillment; therefore, if someone wishes for something complex and strange, the outcome might not be what they desire. I’d say, the bigger the wish, the bigger the chance of something going wrong. I would also rule that a wish cast for someone else’s benefit will have a greater chance of succeeding than a selfish wish. And here the GM definitely knows the intent of the character/player, so they should feel free to change up the result of the wish if there are bad intentions behind it.

Your wish is my command

With spell wishes out of the way, we will take a look at creatures and gods granting wishes. These wishes can most definitely end up being twisted and turned, depending on the casters’ will. So, have you saved a creature, and it grants you a wish? You’ll probably get what you wish for. Are you “forcing” the wish from the creature, or is it casting wishes under contract or duress? Then you might risk your words getting turned upside down before the wish is cast.

Also, I would allow for the creature to be limited in what they are able to grant, depending on the story. Maybe the creature granting the wish isn’t all powerful, and can only fulfill small things. Maybe the creature is bound by rules of behaviour, like the genie in Aladdin.

And when you suddenly not have pure magic, but a creature in between you and the wish granted, strange things might happen. And depending on the relationship, a wish can often be twisted quite dangerously. If the relationship is really antagonistic, even simple wishes can be corrupted. “I want a sword” can end up you getting the sword – in your guts.

And also here, the bigger the wish, the bigger the chance that something will go wrong, maybe terribly so. Wishing that there was no more war could eradicate millions of people. Or the result of gaining the wish could set other things in motion. Wishing for the strongest magical armor might send you to the vault it is kept in, or even have you suddenly stand wearing it, in front of a charging army, the man who was just wearing it looking at you with an angry sneer.

Then again, if the wish-giver isn’t opposed to your wishing, then you might just get what you actually asked for. But even that can maybe be twisted a little. A fae is often mischievous, so a wish granted by one could get an amusing little extra added.

“I wish my pockets were full of gold.”
”Certainly,” the fay said with a smile. With a wave of its hand two big pocket sized lumps of gold filled the mans pockets fully. Pants drop from the weight, leaving him standing, in the middle of the town square, pants down to his ankles. But rich.

I hope this have given you some thoughts about how to handle wishes in your game. If you already fulfilled wishes for your players, tell me in the comments.

PS: And for anyone who hasn’t watched Bedazzled (From 2000 with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley), go do that now. It’s a great and fun lesson in wishes twisted.

Also check out this article about fudging your dice.
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