A Short Wish List

 

Wishes are an extremely powerful and extremely iconic part of RPGs. They have the stigma of being campaign destroying or GM trust ruining. However I think they are awesome, fun, and essential to the OSR and NSR in that they get the players and GM thinking outside of the box and engaging in the fantasy of the game. 

Wishes, in a way, are a distillation to the essence of role playing. What is role playing besides a communal wishing to bring into existence a world that exists in the minds of the players? The earlier you can bring wishes into your game the earlier your players start trying to exploit the game in weird, emergent, and fun ways you could never have foreseen. Or maybe they will just use them to wish the enemy they are fighting suddenly has a giant tree burst out of their stomach, your mileage may vary.

Inspired by Electric Bastionland by Chris McDowall and how the Gutter Minder class can start the game with three wishes that last only as "the bracing of the liquor," I got to thinking about other ways to limit wishes and introduce them earlier into games I GM. With that in mind here is a table of wish limitations to spice up your game and get everyone thinking about how to exploit and misuse one of the most powerful things in RPGs. What is the worst that could happen?

The wish lasts for as long as the character can...

1. Hold their breath.
2. Hop on one foot
3. Not use the word "the."
4. Keep their eyes closed.
5. Remain seated.
6. Bleed.
7. Not eat.
8. Remain stooped or crawling below a certain height.
9. Constantly knit.
10. Not speak.
11. Walk backwards.
12. Constantly write.
13. Remain nude.
14. Stay unarmed.
15. Never read.
16. Enthusiastically introduce themselves to everyone (I mean everyone) that they meet.
17. Attack everyone they meet for the first time.
18. Dance.
19. Be in total darkness.
20. Give a gold coin to everyone they meet.

Note I said character not player, but feel free to apply these to your actual players if you want... that could definitely be pretty interesting (well maybe not the bleed, being nude, or attacking everyone). Just realize that that sort of metagame may not be to everybody's taste.

Be prepared to explain exactly what they need to do for the wish to remain active and have a reason for it being that way. Some sort of sadistic wizard, god, or jinn created the rules, or it is the nature of that specific form of the wish magic. The player needs to know that their character needs to do that thing to keep the wish working. 

Force the characters into situations that challenge the continuation of the limitation. Do so when it is inconvenient and creates consequences and interesting choices for the players. Be ready for the ending of the wish to create messy results, new problems, and more challenges for the players.

Reward clever uses of the wishes and especially ones that go beyond things that have immediate results that will not matter when the wish ends. Punish those uses of the wishes that the players think will not have consequences because they have gotten what they want already: give them what they want in the immediate now, but when the wish ends have unforeseen but logical consequences that leads to interesting player choices. If the players logic their way into something seemingly foolproof let them have it, but if you see a flaw, exploit it if you can make it fun or funny.

I play RPGs to see the fun, crazy, insane crap that my players want to do and wishes can provide an avenue to get at that weird creative juice.