How would you do a wish?

[Chris Goodwin]

Pulled from the WDYWTS thread for the Grimoire.

 

At any rate' date=' I would like to see some alternative builds for Wish, that don't involve "you travel to a reality where your wish comes true", which always, imho, seemed like a bit of lame dodge to avoid a tricky spell writeup. No offense, Steve.[/quote']

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The EDM take on Wishes has generally seemed rather lame to me. Personally' date=' I strongly prefer a VPP, with EDM being an option of last resort (and my impression, though possibly mistaken, is that most Herophiles agree).[/quote']

 

Me, I prefer EDM to VPP, but my personal preference from many years ago is Transform; about 95% of all "I wish I..." wishes could be handled by Transforming the target. ("...were better looking" ...to target with Striking Appearance. "...were rich"? ...to target with Wealth.) But my preference above both of those is GM fiat.

 

The HERO System doesn't really have a "grant your wish" Power. Does it really need one? Do most GMs really want PCs in their campaigns to be able to grant wishes?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

In my Vancian Magic System, which is VPP based and works off of the familiar "known spell list" and "preperation" model, a "Wish" spell basically unlocks the limitations on the VPP turning it into a straight up Cosmic pool (use the VPP's points for whatever you can think of) for 1 effect.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

In my Vancian Magic System' date=' which is VPP based and works off of the familiar "known spell list" and "preperation" model, a "Wish" spell basically unlocks the limitations on the VPP turning it into a straight up Cosmic pool (use the VPP's points for whatever you can think of) for 1 effect.[/quote']

 

That's... actually quite elegant.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

That's... actually quite elegant.

 

Elegant and me are tight like that. We go way back.

 

Er...I mean, thanks!

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Pure plot device/justification for spending experience points.

 

"I wish I was beautiful! Now I can spend 5 points and have a 20 Comeliness."

"I wish I was rich! Now I can spend those 15 points on Wealth."

"I wish I had superpowers! Okay, that's my origin story."

 

Overly simplified, of course.

[prestidigitator]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Elegant and me are tight like that. We go way back.

 

Er...I mean, thanks!

LOL. Whereas humility has been fighting out a long and messy divorce.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

LOL. Whereas humility has been fighting out a long and messy divorce.

 

Yeah, me and humility never hit it off. Hubris, on the other hand, is a real reighteous dude and we get on just fine.

[Lucius]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

I nominate Favor (from a cosmically powerful being.)

 

Like a Favor, a Wish is non-specific and one-use.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I wish I had a palindromedary

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Another way I've done "wish" type magic is by basing it on Luck. Here is an example:

 

Intervention

 

 

I've also done some custom mechanics which could be thought of as wish-like as well, though the context was a little different:

 

Invocation

[prestidigitator]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

I've simulated god-like beings who can GRANT wishes using humongous Transforms before. Basically a, "change anything into anything," plus Physical, Psychological and Social Complications that restrict what they can, will, and must do. Simplistic, perhaps, but a good start.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

When it comes to beneficial Wishes that don't actually change the wishing character physically -- e.g. granting various Perks like Wealth, Followers, positive Reputation, etc. -- I typically employ Spiritual Transform. My most common Special Effect is that the Wish "edits" the character's "timeline," "karmic path," or the like, changing his or her relationship to the rest of society and the world. That seems sufficiently "spiritual" to me.

 

I also use the same Power to inflict non-physical curses, like negative Reputation, Social Disadvantages/Complications, Hunteds, or Rivalries.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Ahhh... hmmm. Why do we have Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Transform but not Social Transform?

[Markdoc]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

In general, I think wishes are best handled as "GM fiat" because the whole point of a wish is that it breaks "reality" - in this case, the game system. In D&D - the game that introduced wishes as a game element - they have with every edition reduced what you can wish for, until they did away with them entirely. The reason, of course being that you can use them to break the game. Many of the effects of wishes can be modeled simply (I wish I was Handsome! = +20 COM - yeah, COM is still around in 6E . That's a whole 10 points), others can be modeled less simply, but still fairly straightforwardly (I wish I was invulnerable! = a good chunk of points on defences). Many wishes can be handled by transform. But modeling things like "I want to go back in time and prevent the evil bad being released by killing arch-mage Tuneval when he was 2 years old" ..... that's an adventure hook and possibly a campaign destroyer, not something you can simulate with a mechanic (well, other than EDM, which I agree is a bit lame).

 

But it's lame simply because no system can model a power whose definition is "Gives the ability to go outside the system".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Waiting for Godel..

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is going to go eat a dictionary

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Ahhh... hmmm. Why do we have Physical' date=' Mental, and Spiritual Transform but not Social Transform?[/quote']

 

Dean Shomshak actually came up with a "Social Transform" for his 4E sourcebook Ultimate Super Mage, usable in the manner I described for Spiritual Transform. So I can't claim to have originated the idea. Of course in 4E the different classes of Transform hadn't been defined yet. Since the published examples of uses for Spiritual Transform are quite limited, this seemed like a fertile area in which to expand it.

 

BTW I once asked Steve Long about this, and he agreed it seemed like a reasonable use of Spiritual Transform. So I now consider it quasi-official.

[megaplayboy]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

For a one-time only thing, you can either have a Favor from a powerful being(worth up to, I dunno, 10-15 points?), which can be converted by use to the appropriate benefit, or a VPP with the 1 Charge, Never Recovers, Incantations(instant) and Interpretation subject to GM discretion limitations--with the pool points as appropriate(between 100 and 500 active points seems like the right ballpark). If it's more often than that, then it's just a VPP operating at the highest point level permissible. Yes, it can break a campaign, but lots of things can do that(an unerring ability to tell whether an NPC is lying; precognitive ability; attacks which bypass defenses for 90% of targets; attacks which hit targets 90% of the time; attacks which hit 90% of the targets each time; etc.).

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

In general' date=' I think wishes are best handled as "GM fiat" because the whole point of a wish is that it breaks "reality" - in this case, the game system. In D&D - the game that introduced wishes as a game element - they have with every edition reduced what you can wish for, until they did away with them entirely. The reason, of course being that you can use them to break the game. Many of the effects of wishes can be modeled simply ([i']I wish I was Handsome![/i] = +20 COM - yeah, COM is still around in 6E . That's a whole 10 points), others can be modeled less simply, but still fairly straightforwardly (I wish I was invulnerable! = a good chunk of points on defences). Many wishes can be handled by transform. But modeling things like "I want to go back in time and prevent the evil bad being released by killing arch-mage Tuneval when he was 2 years old" ..... that's an adventure hook and possibly a campaign destroyer, not something you can simulate with a mechanic (well, other than EDM, which I agree is a bit lame).

 

But it's lame simply because no system can model a power whose definition is "Gives the ability to go outside the system".

 

cheers, Mark

 

You make an excellent point. In D&D wishes were thrown in (I believe) simply because they existed in the source material. But if you look at those stories, human wizards never granted wishes, it was always djinn and other supernatural creatures who did the granting, and sometimes the wish couldn't be granted because the djinn wasn't powerful enough. So really it wasn't an open-ended "anything-you-want" wish, it was a "your-wish-is-my-command" sort of thing, to the best of the djinn's ability.

 

With that in mind, my favored method for modeling a wish is Summon 1000pt djinn (who has a big VPP) and he will do whatever you ask of him within his power set (which is big, but not infinite). A lesser wish might only get you a 500pt djinn. That said, I am still curious to see the official write-up.

[megaplayboy]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

It would be mildly amusing to do a variant of that, where you summon a caped man in a blue and red leotard who performs any impossible task you need done.

[Tech]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

In any genre, the GM granting the character(s) a wish must realize the inherent problems with granting that wish. If it's a more limited wish, then that helps cut down on the possible collateral campaign damage that can occur if the character wishes for something big. If it's the biggy wish, the GM had best take into account what his players are like - and if they'll use it to wish for something that will abuse the game and campaign. It's effectively giving a player a shot at taking over being GM for that wish. If the GM introduces a wish, the GM had best know what his players will probably do with it.

[Utech]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

I imagine something along the lines of Transform, Mind Control, Luck, or a VPP but since it's a bit of an odd duck I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to write up a power called Wish.

 

 

• Set up some break points to distinguish among basically insignificant wishes, minor wishes, major wishes, and epic wishes.
  
• Decide if you should pay a flat rate to automatically be able to wish for things at each break point or if you want to have to roll dice to get a target number in order to have a wish succeed.
  
• Allow players to take Limitations (Charges, Focus, Gestures, etc.) and Advantages (Reduced END, Usable as Attack, etc.)
  

[Hyper-Man]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Did anyone see the recent episode of Fringe on FOX with the genius who could predict and alter future event with the simple placement of a pen in the street?

 

Maybe a "wish" could work in a similar manner with a Rube Goldberg-esq series of events that all fall into place due to a single definable "change". This way, the scope and difficulty of the final outcome could be reflected as a penalty to what boils down to a Precognition & Change roll.

[prestidigitator]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

You can do pretty much anything with a VPP. A sufficiently powerful one will probably come sufficiently close do doing anything you could, "wish for." Alternately, a powerful and flexible enough Summon could probably call forth something to do whatever it is you currently, "wish to happen." Finally, a flexible enough Transform can perform similar miraculous feats. There are many valid ways of doing it. Unlike in some other systems, we don't have to constrain ourselves to, "one RIGHT way." GM common sense and setting restrictions should also be enough of a control mechanism for keeping things from getting out of hand IMO.

[Sean Waters]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

There are always going to be some problems with a 'wish' power for several reasons:Hero powers aren't permanent and hero powers have specific effects. A transform that makes someone richer is fine - you can add character points for wealth - but there has to be a way (healing or trigger) to get rid of that transform - healing doesn't make sense and the only triggers that do (stock market crash etc) would apply equally to rich characters who bought their wealth the first time out at character creation.

 

The issue is one of balance - a wish is not 'a' power - it is the ability to do anything you can imagine. Even cosmic VPPs can't necessarily do that, although they potentially come closest.

 

Ultimately I'd steer clear of wishes except as a game device to allow character points to be spent, as a figure of speech (when the King said he'd grant you each a wish, he wasn't talking magic - just 'any reasonable request within his power') or as a way to justify a re-write of the character sheet.

 

Bear in mind that there isn't a system out there that does wishes and doesn't place massive restrictions on them. The problem comes because some people hear 'grant a wish' and think that it means, literally, anything. Read the small print.

 

Now whilst I am rabidly against the EDM fix on the basis that, well, EDM is a movement power*, I'm not necessarily against the idea of wishes as such. I just think that we need to be clear what we want them to do (and 'anything' doesn't cut it). This is Hero - we need to reason from effect - so what effect are we after? Probably everyone has a different view on what a 'wish' constitutes.

 

If we can say what a wish can or should accomplish as part of the game, then we can work on sorting it out.

 

 

*If you want to buy enough EDM to move the whole universe to another reality, fine, I'll withdraw my objections, otherwise you go there, to your happy place, but HERE, where everyone else is, all that happens is you vanish in a puff of cinnamon smoke.

[Sean Waters]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

Did anyone see the recent episode of Fringe on FOX with the genius who could predict and alter future event with the simple placement of a pen in the street?

 

Maybe a "wish" could work in a similar manner with a Rube Goldberg-esq series of events that all fall into place due to a single definable "change". This way, the scope and difficulty of the final outcome could be reflected as a penalty to what boils down to a Precognition & Change roll.

 

 

I saw that. Good one. Although that potentially could be done as a wish, it is more like the ability to take over scripting - a sort of metapower. It is one of those things that probably only works well for an NPC, and then you don't need to build a power - it is just scriptwriting.

 

Precognition is an interesting one - potentially you could look until you found a sequence of events that you could influence with a tipping point, but given that every event is essentially chaotic - the permutations are innumerable - you'd spend so long looking for what you wanted you'd die of old age first. Well, unless you spend about 1000 points on 'rapid sense' for that....

 

One more thing, while we are at it - ever notice when someone gets granted a wish in stories there is usually a sting in the tail? You know someone says 'make me rich' and the genie says, 'OK, Richard'? So wishes come with complications and abilities.

 

Maybe a wish - hear me out - is a freestanding character, just not based on a human template - and a wish in fact Summons one of these beasties. The Summon can have variable effects allowing you to summon a wish that is suitable for your desires. OK, perhaps a little over esoteric, and functionally similar to a Cosmic VPP in some ways - but not in others - a wish could, literally have a mind of its own. It also means that a wish remains in a fundamental way, an NPC, rather than being under the complete control of the player.

[megaplayboy]

Re: How would you do a wish?

 

I generally think of the parameters of a wish as "anything one of the most powerful entities in the campaign setting could accomplish in a relatively brief time frame". Generally, that would equate either to a brief summon, or to collecting a favor from a given entity, or to a one-shot VPP(or VPP on charges if you're emulating a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition AD&D 20-40th level wizard). EDM to a location where the wish comes true seems like it would remove the character(s) from the campaign setting.

I do like the "Summon Wish" option, which I think is basically a variation on "summon Genie".

 

To recap:

1. Favor, extremely powerful entity(10-15 points), blowing the roll means the wish got construed against you

2. Bucketloads of luck, one charge never recovers, the more points you get the better the wish comes out--if you want to simulate that wishes have that scorpion sting, then toss in a SE: 5d6 Unluck

3. Summon (wish-granting entity), appropriate limitations, how faithful the wish is may depend on the attitude of the summoned being towards the wish-maker.

4. VPP, Cosmic, appropriate limitations, possible side effects as well

5. Unspent character points converted to whatever benefit you wished for

6. Transform, mind control, tk or other individual power on a one-shot basis to fulfill a specific wish

7. Follower (wish granting entity), invisible, has a decent VPP/TK/Transform/whatever, fulfills your wish as specified but has some limits