The wish spell. Genies. Deals with devils. Even lower-ranked abilities like suggestion-type spells, depending on how they’re used. It’s a classic trope of RPGs that someone will use some sort of magic or magic-like ability to force someone else to do or believe something, or cause something to happen, but for that thing to not necessarily go in the way the person who did it intended.
What’s your favourite story in a game you’ve been in where something like this happened?
In a campaign I’m in, my party had to investigate a region outside of a city that was giving off malicious vibes. We ended up finding the source of the vibes and discovered that a member of the city’s 5 person ruling council is collaborating with mindflayers to sacrifice the city. The party makes its way back to the city and wants to figure out how to present that information while still remaining credible. It really didn’t help that we accidentally killed the captain of the guard who was sent with us to investigate (some of us rolled critical failures on attack rolls while fighting earth elementals and ended up hitting him for a lot of damage instead, and then he got crushed by a rolling boulder trap).
When we went in front of the council and other townfolk to present our findings, we hit an additional snag when we discovered that we need to present our findings while standing in a circle that allows the compromised council member to read our minds. Our paladin had a bright idea; she put the thought of the treachery we uncovered at the front of her mind and cast Command at the evil council member with the word “confess”. The councilor failed his saving throw, but the DM didn’t want us to get out of it that easily. The dramatic order captured everyone’s attention and someone asked the council member what he had to say. “I… I… I… sometimes wear women’s underwear”. While surprising to the townsfolk, it was ultimately irrelevant to the them, and the council quickly (albeit not incorrectly) pinned the death of the guard captain on us.
The evil council member got to cover his ass while putting heat on the party and guards started swarming the room to arrest us. All but one of the party members managed to get away, and there was a several week period of time where the one who got caught was separated from the party and had to roleplay a jailbreak.
“I… I… I… sometimes wear women’s underwear”. While surprising to the townsfolk, it was ultimately irrelevant to the them
Ha! I can imagine, if I were making that scene into a movie, I’d have had not just indifference, but radical acceptance from everyone else in the room. Turn what the players had wanted to be a moment of shame for the traitor into a moment where he is unexpectedly emboldened in more ways than one.
My players had spent months finding the combination for a fortified vault door, and finally return to the cave they orignally found the door. Just as the champion begins entering the combination, the wizard realized the party had since leveled a few times, and disintegrate was in her exploration shortlist of prepared spells
nobody was happy about that in the moment, hehe
I once made a jinn appear who couldn’t read and was deaf - it constantly started talking when players tried to say something “Oh! I know yoU wAnt to tAlk TO me, but I cAn’t HeAr You. A WISH went wrOng and nOw I have nO EARS.”. It was fun to be its voice. You could draw him images and he would do his best. The person who wanted to get lucky drew a four-leaf clover with some magic highlight lines. They received a glowing-in-the-dark four-leaf clover. Not too bad :P
Oh that’s clever. Did you have any idea what the wish that led to the jinn being like that was, or was it an un-fleshed-out background detail?
it was a very weird one shot campaign in the style of magicthenoah (if that rings a bell); so very hastly written and not very serious.
In my mind it had to do something with someone getting angry and wishing for something unclear regarding him never listening and it ended badly; but this is of course super vague ^^
Mine is not in an RPG per se, but in God Emperor, a megagame (a closely-related genre of game). I managed to get myself elected as God Emperor, but shortly afterwards, someone used an ability they had to force another player to “believe any one thing you say”. They told me I had to believe “it would be good for the empire if you stepped down as emperor”. I paused to think for a second, before replying “yes, it might be good for the empire, but not for me.”
I then proceeded to be taken out by a military coup orchestrated by the military general of my own House. (Because everything was happening all at once and there was no communication between the Council and the War Table.) But for that brief moment it felt really cool.
Part is still waiting to happen
Our characters were hired in the past to extract the country-level head of security of one of AAA corps. After they did that, in “wishes and stars”, one of the players expressed that it would be cool if things they get in contact with would come back later
So in close future they will be hired to extract him from a secure train and in doing so they most probably will (unless the decide to fail that mission) antagonize their fixer, which just so happens to be Lofwyr - a great dragon that is the owner of another AAA corp
And the plan is that in beat climax run the samurai will meet a heavy modified clone of the guy, that is bodyguard of continent-level CEO of the first corp
The further plan is, that after that beat, this arch will try to explore the reality when cloning is possible.
I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to meet the first guy again :)
