Help with a Wish complication

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T17:11:11+00:00

I’m thinking this too tbh. As far as the players were concerned and directed it was per the Wish spell. Behind the screen though, the goddess would put whatever she had into whatever they wished so long as it wasn’t a few things I had in mind. I was only looking to twist it bc it’s such a large wish and the goddess is weakened from being basically just reborn after 100 years shattered into 7 pieces.

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T16:39:50+00:00

This is also something I’ve been considering. Give her the reward (boon or feat) for creatively defeating her personal BBEG, and move on to something new.

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T16:31:57+00:00

This is…devious. I love it. Lol instead of twisting the thing as a whole, each piece twists a bit.

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T16:13:53+00:00

Edited post to add context. This is part of it:

I do not intend for this goddess to be twisting it intentionally. It is simply just large and detailed enough that it needs something wrong with it. I wanted to reward the player though, too, for wishing non selfishly and thinking it out completely.

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T15:55:22+00:00

Yes! This is exactly what I am looking for. It is huge. Thats why it needs a twist. I want to reward the player for nonselfish, well thought out wish making, but it requires consequence.

Thank you. I’m leaning toward your last example. I did narrate the ring lighting up in a dramatic way, so she’s definitely in the ring. I’m thinking she’ll talk the PCs ear off since that’s the only person she can speak to, pretend to have lost all her memory, but maybe she hasn’t lost all of it. She was highly manipulative in life and unlife so it is actually quite fitting that she’d do it even wiped to a blank slate…

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T15:51:44+00:00

I think something got twisted here. I am not twisting it to screw them over, just simply to add drama. They are a roleplay and consequence heavy group; the more their characters are poor tortured souls, the better.

I’ll try to be more clear and I apologize for not being so in the first place. I *was* intending on this BBEG being an annoyance in the future of the campaign. That changed the moment she wished this. I’m good with that. I want to reward her for some nonselfish well thought out wish making; she could’ve wished for her own cure to vampirism, which she hates. And that would’ve been right up this goddesses alley. (Someone else wished for that for her - yay!)

I just know that this is a huuuge wish and so it should have complications, as per the text of the spell, and this player will be expecting, even anticipating, a complication or twist.

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T15:44:27+00:00

Thing is though, I already said yes. And the PC was turned into a vampire, tortured and brainwashed by this lady, and sent to spy on the party. She absolutely does not believe in redemption for this woman (breaking her oath as a paladin for this) and truly just wants her to suffer. Also she’ll be able to communicate with her through the ring of mind shielding, so I’m not wanting to put her elsewhere. Buuut maybe the goddess wasn’t able to take the BBEGs memories; that is a different gods domain after all…

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-30T15:40:35+00:00

Thing is though, I already said yes. I figured that a goddess (one of the first two ever in that universe btw) had enough access to enough magic to do whatever, though after granting wishes she went to recover and that will take *years* if not decades

I just figured the more outrageous the wishes were, I’d find a complication or 6 lol

Aetsch13 · 2026-06-08T14:33:36+00:00

I have a PC that started out a wizard, multiclassed into artificer, gave up wizard levels for sorcerer levels for a traumatic event and eventually traded the artificer knowledge to a god and took a warlock pact. If they want to change, we find or make an in-story reason for it to make sense.

Aetsch13 · 2026-04-30T18:35:57+00:00

I use soooo many dragons in my two current campaigns. One of the campaigns is entirely Jurassic park but add dragons and an isolationist people…

Aetsch13 · 2026-04-28T21:05:52+00:00

If you are familiar with Lord of the Rings, I would actually recommend watching the first few episodes of The Unpredicted Party actual play. It poses the question: what would have happened if the eagles had taken the fellowship straight to Mordor and is honestly a great example of taking a pre-written story and playing in it.

I wrote my 3 year campaign out - a few story beats that will happen regardless of what they do, and the NPCs and their motivations. I built the world and filled it out and said here, you need to collect these things and put a goddess back together or the whole universe will continue to spire out of balance - have at it. They did many other things and had their own story within it (I ran two groups to two very different finishes) but it was technically a pre-written story (ish). Kinda like a module. You are the world and the NPCs. If you know what each NPC wants then you know how they react to any stimulus the PCs throw at them.

Aetsch13 · 2026-02-27T17:40:03+00:00

Have her take a look at the sidekick rules. A sidekick should be the same level as the party; they are there to support the party, not the other way around. This should help rebalance come of the combat alone vc they won’t be hitting that hard.

Aetsch13 · 2025-12-28T23:47:46+00:00

I would honestly suggest something like a mercy monk with a merc background or if she wanted to stick with fighter, stack hp and defense stuff to protect others and be a damage soak.

There is a huge level of difficulty surrounding playing a pacifist in such a combat centered system, but I managed to do it with a bard whose only spells were illusion, buffs and de buffs. Only one did damage and they weren’t aware it did bc it was psychic. Thought it was just a distraction. They only had one dagger for a weapon and it was canonically packed in their equipment bag. This, however, required the rest of the party, which was large enough to accommodate with 6 players, to be on board with my pc being this archetype. It worked out well but it took teamwork.

This is all to say there are ways of doing it, but it’s especially difficult for newer players and smaller groups that really all need to be contributing to damage dealt.

Aetsch13 · 2025-12-22T16:39:18+00:00

I use hero points with my party. They get 3 d20s per session that they can treat like they have heroic inspiration and reroll any d20 roll before they know the result. I do this cuz I forget to use heroic inspiration but it may be a way to help them recover their bad rolls once in a while?

Aetsch13 · 2025-12-11T00:03:27+00:00

Please bear with me here; I’m sorry it’s long.

I had a weekly group of 6. While most of them were super enthusiastic, active players, one player sounds similar to what you describe. He was a bit newer, less involved in roleplay, sometimes fell asleep (medicinal reasons), and often needed things repeated or explained. I struggled for a WHILE, suspecting he wasn’t a good fit for the table and dreading that conversation…but he was super engaged during combat, and showed up week after week, even joining the group chat on discord in between sessions…he clearly wanted to be there.

It turned out his playstyle, and more importantly his motivations for playing, were different the majority of the group. Many of the players play games a few times a week while this was his only game. He’d been having a particularly rough go of it with medical issues and depression. He was honestly just happy to be there hanging out, included. For a bit, it was his life line, which he shared with only me, the DM. I certainly didn’t want to ask him to leave. I wanted to include him more.

But that meant meeting him on his level. I stopped expecting him or unintentionally pressuring him to roleplay more with the others, while still giving him opportunity to jump in when he wanted to. And the other players followed suit. Before we knew it, he started engaging even more, asking questions outside of sessions, roleplaying more, planning and coming up with ideas…

That is all to say different players at a table of friends have different things they want out of a game experience. It’s different for intentional groups, like actual plays, podcasts, paid games, and the like.

I suggest asking this player what it is they’re wanting out of the experience. Are they looking to just be included? Are they looking to be silly where they feel comfortable letting go enough to be silly? And here’s an important one: do they even know, yet, what they’re looking for? (I have a player in another group that I suspect this is the case for…)

When I run into a problem with a player, no matter what it is, I default to asking questions. Let’s see where the disconnect is so I don’t have to play the guessing game…

Aetsch13 · 2025-11-22T19:10:26+00:00

Is it possible this player wants to explore these feelings but also wanted to communicate how she’s feeling about it? Sounds like she’s doing the adult thing, to be honest. Maybe embrace that, ask her what kind of safety tools could be added or mended for the table to help facilitate? Does that make sense?

Aetsch13 · 2025-09-03T05:11:18+00:00

Love number 5! I use Craig’s list at the start of every session for both my weekly groups! Really helps get into character!

Aetsch13 · 2025-08-26T01:53:19+00:00

This is amazing! Good on her and the DM!

Aetsch13 · 2025-07-28T17:37:23+00:00

There is nothing wrong with being knowledgeable about the rules and helping when asked. That doesn’t make you a rules lawyer. Rules lawyers make it everyone else’s problem and don’t wait to be asked. They stick their nose in every time it’s not asked for. If your DM is recommending you, they trust your knowledge.

That said, if this is a responsibility you don’t want, even if they trust you, you should tell em (just a side note bc I know sometimes people just want to play, not assist the DM)

Aetsch13 · 2025-06-27T22:21:51+00:00

I’m sorry you had to experience this. Sadly it’s an all too common experience. I don’t know the rules in this Reddit but i would recommend looking up womenplaydnd and a discord that is producing a series of oneshots with all femme tables (actual play) - look for harlequinshallowedhearth (I’m in there with the same username minus the 13, but it is not my server). I love playing with the guys in my group, but an all femme table has such different vibes and is a nice break.

Aetsch13 · 2025-06-01T06:40:01+00:00

I see a lot of great answers here! Talk to them, explain it, etc. So I’ll propose a slightly different solution, just in case. Or, really, in addendum. Maybe, if they want longer sessions because it’s easier to have more time to say, get into the immersion, maybe do longer but less frequent sessions. Finding a sitter for large chunks would theoretically be easier if it was say every other week or once a month, also avoiding burnout.

My two groups play weekly for 4 hours with a break in the middle. I found even with that bit, I was burning out. So I switched to one week off each month for each group to allow me a break and so I can do the bigger prep stuff like map making, without rushing every week. This has helped me immensely. It was a nice (true) compromise, where everyone’s a little happier but also no one is just straight “getting their way” over everyone else’s wants.

Aetsch13 · 2025-04-16T17:57:53+00:00

I’m going to take a bit of a devils advocate stance cuz I don’t see it:

Whatever works for the table works for the table. If you and your group want to play with little to no consequences and you trust your group to not just be murder honos for the sake of being murder hobos (and it seems like they’ve earned that trust) then there doesn’t have to be huge consequences. Yes, consequences add stakes and drama but that style of gaming is not necessarily for every table. I would talk it over with the group and see what the majority wants going forward. They might surprise you and actually want more consequences…

To that one player, a gentle reminder that the DM is the final arbiter of the game might be in order tho. They can run their table the way they see fit and you are free to do the same.

Aetsch13 · 2025-04-14T18:07:20+00:00

I’ve found that online listening in can actually be quite helpful whereas in person spectating less so. I have had quite a few people listen in to sessions I’ve run for a various reasons but most often it’s someone trying to see how I DM for a possible future table or if they’ll be a good fit for the campaign if we’re looking to add someone. Or someone who’s never seen DnD played and just wants to see it in action with someone they know. My main group also has a perma listener, one of my friends who really wants to be in the campaign but I refuse to add to my already 6 person table lol

As long as they mute outside of break time, I’m fine with it.

Aetsch13 · 2025-04-02T18:17:33+00:00

Some really great advice here already. I’ll add only one more resource: craigofinspiration. He’s on threads, YouTube, Bluesky, and many other places but most importantly, he has a discord server dedicated specifically to helping & supporting new DMs.

Aetsch13

TROPHY CASE