A lot of you GMing this are being jerks. Most GMs have a number one rule of not being a jerk. The number one rule for a GM is that you are to be neutral. At spell level nine a wish spell should not be permanent. Wish spell should not be unfair nor break the game.
Making a wish that exceeds the normal limits of the spell and would blatantly break the game if it were granted as asked is being a jerk. A player's actions have consequences: making a wish that exceeds will have repercussions just as surely as deciding that mocking Baphomet to his face would.
At a time like that maybe you could say in your best Shenron voice that the wish cannot be granted.
Nobody in a game I run would be ignorant of the fact that getting greedy with a Wish is going to invite serious repercussions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If I were a DM, and a character made that Wish, with that exact wording, I would tell them....
"At the end of your next long rest you wake up to find yourself in an unfamiliar place. You have no idea where you are or how you got here. The room appears to be a well-appointed hunting lodge of some sort. One big room, roughly 60 feet square, with a massive wide fireplace at one end that provides a warm comfort throughout. The walls are heavy timbers, with similar rafters, and an enormous chandelier made of horns and antlers hanging in the center, whose dozens of candles offer sufficient light for the whole room. On the walls are an assortment of paintings of landscapes and the stuffed and mounted heads of various animals. One wall is lined with shelves containing hundreds of books on dozens of subjects. In one corner is a large copper tub full of hot fragrant water and flower petals. Comfortable robes and slippers lay across the overstuffed bed. You see no one. There are no windows in the room, and only one door. A simple wooden door with no lock. If you leave, you'll find the cabin is surrounded by open fields of wildflowers stretching for miles in every direction. On the surrounding horizon you see the shadows of forests leading up to mountains ringing the lands. If you travel, you will spend hours - even days - traversing through fields of wildflowers, yet the forests and mountains in the distance never seem any closer. You never encounter a soul - no people, no animals, no one. Returning to the cabin, as soon as you shut the door you find a sumptuous buffet of fine foods laid out for you on the long dining table, and the copper tub is again filled with hot water and flower petals. The food fills you, the fire comforts you, the bath refreshes you, the books entertain you.... but you are utterly alone. There is no one. No one to talk to, no one to fight with, no one to threaten you, no one to defeat you. No one. Every time you sleep you will awaken to find a buffet of fine foods prepared for you on the dining table, and a hot bath awaiting you. Every time you leave the cabin for a walk you return to find a buffet of fine foods prepared for you on the dining table, and a hot bath awaiting you. As the days pass, you occasionally notice new books on the shelves that have replaced those you have already read. The food is different each day, but always delicious and filling. But you are - and you shall remain - utterly alone. There is no one to endanger you. No one to fight you. No one to defeat you. Your wish has come true."
They are never defeated, but it doesn't extend to party members. There is a TPK except him and everyone else at the table rolls new characters.
That seems like it is making the consequence of the player's troll-wish land on everyone BUT the person who made the wish.
Depends on the table whether it's a good idea. Did the PC consult with the party abouf how to use the Wish? If the player is a team player, they should, and then the party bears equal guilt. But a strong team player will probably feel even more guilt if they survive. On the other hand, if the player is kind of a stage hog, then the other players will resent his selfishness.
Anyway, I'm not saying you have to TPK them as punishment. Just if there's a scenario where they would have TPKed, they all die except one. Maybe because they believe they're protected by a Wish, they go in over their head. Then also the party shares in the guilt.
Another option for if they are intent on continuing with their character would be to let them "load save" each time they die. If they drop to 0hp, they reset to just before the fight. This could lead to them living an endless hell of being repeatedly killed by an excessively powerful foe, kind of like... (marvel movie spoiler ahead!)
Like in Dr. Strange where he is repeatedly killed in a time loop at the end of the film
And then if they die 2 times in a row, you can probably just say "at this point it becomes clear you're trapped, forever looping those last minutes before you are defeated.", and request that they roll a new character. Lets the wish be of use (they get to retry their final battle, rather than just dying) but not game breaking.
Honestly, much as I've enjoyed coming up with different ideas, I should mention that the actual right thing to do in this situation is just to tell the player "no." Some wishes are impossible. Don't break the game, don't screw them over, just let them know that that wish is not an option, and if they insist upon wishing it, the universe can't cooperate. Let them choose something else, and move on.
All these wish-threads semi-prove to me that wishing for anything that's not a spell cast is good for little else than creative suicide.
I think it's more about getting greedy or uninventive with a wish.
If you say "I wish for 10,000 platinum pieces" then the DM will probably make them stolen by someone who looked just like your character.
If you say "I wish that this magical armour that's cursed so it screams all the time was not cursed so that it screams all the time" then a DM is probably just going to grant you the wish.
The player character's ego becomes so high they believe that they have not been defeated even when they have. Thus from their point of view, they never have been defeated. Boom. This isn't brutal, and allows for some fun roleplaying moments, and it doesn't break the game.
I actually had a friend like that. Every time he lost, he found some convoluted reason why he actually could claim victory. For example, you could beat him at tennis 7-6, 7-6, but he would say, "Yes, but you never broke my serve, and I was just trying to hold serve, so I win."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Depends, if they are at the end of the campaign, like at the end end as in they will not play anything else, grant his wish by making it so that if he takes a hit bringing him to 0, he is instantly teleported to the last place he slept at (and if someone trapped that place or camps his spawnpoint so he would take damage there, to the next place he slept at etc. etc.) so that he does not get defeated. This way his wish is granted, but in an impractical way, but that can still be worked around in cool ways.
Most of the examples given in the big 3 (PHB, DMG, MM) regarding Wish involve undoing something that is otherwise irreversible. Replacing a consumed brain. Undoing a high-level curse. Returning alignment after being "permanently" altered. Removing insanity. Restoring limbs.
In my games, I allow the standard spell-casting and rewinding the clock with Wish, but if the player gets greedy and permanently wants something for nothing, Wish will backfire if they insist. Otherwise, the player should simply accept the "yeah.... no" response and try again.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
All these wish-threads semi-prove to me that wishing for anything that's not a spell cast is good for little else than creative suicide.
I think it's more about getting greedy or uninventive with a wish.
If you say "I wish for 10,000 platinum pieces" then the DM will probably make them stolen by someone who looked just like your character.
If you say "I wish that this magical armour that's cursed so it screams all the time was not cursed so that it screams all the time" then a DM is probably just going to grant you the wish.
Using Wish for... Actual wishes (not spells) carries an inherent risk anyway: making you unable to cast Wish ever again. Most people wouldn't use it for something minor because of that risk. So if you make it so that only minor wishes are immune to your evil DM scheming, you should recognize that you're not really extending the olive branch that you think you are.
Everybody's having fun inventing poetic-justice Bad Endings for this player where they have to roll a new character, or where it has no real impact at all (de-feet-ing protection? Really?) but OP did say this was already at the end of the campaign. So I hope they understand that this isn't actually necessary -- or probably appropriate -- for their situation. Imagine how much of a sour note it would be to end your campaign on, for your DM to rob you of your happy ending and put your character in some kind of endless inescapable torment just because the internet told them to.
Anyway, carry on. Maybe the character just instantly gets erased from the timeline and no one can remember he ever existed! Hard to get defeated then!
Honestly, much as I've enjoyed coming up with different ideas, I should mention that the actual right thing to do in this situation is just to tell the player "no." Some wishes are impossible. Don't break the game, don't screw them over, just let them know that that wish is not an option, and if they insist upon wishing it, the universe can't cooperate. Let them choose something else, and move on.
That in some ways leads to attempting multiple wishes.
"Oh, I can't get never defeated? I'll wish for Immunity to Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. I can't have that? I'll wish for..."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
It's up to the DM to handle that behavior and explain the limits of Wish in the campaign.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I mean, first of all, Wish is typically a pretty endgame-specific spell, so your next campaign isn't gonna have to deal with it for a long, long time. But it's been my experience that most players don't actually like to do the same thing twice when it comes to character concepts. You're pretty unlikely to encounter this wish again on any character in any of your games. Because that was Player A's idea, and Player A already did it once, and nobody else wants to rip them off. And there are better wishes you can make anyway, if what you're trying to do is alter the narrative to fit your character's goals. And most of those wouldn't even be considered icky by most people.
There's, like, this idea that the player in this instance is trying to "not play the game anymore" or something, but I really don't think they'd have made it to Wish-casting level if they didn't want to play the game, you know? That takes some time.
And to close off my argument, you can still challenge a player whose character can't be defeated. A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory, but it can feel like a defeat. And not every problem can be solved by initiating a victory-or-defeat scenario. Here are some ideas, and remember, there are only 4 levels at which a character can cast Wish, so you don't need a huge number of challenges. 1. The enemy strikes other characters, not The PC, and it's up to The PC to somehow put themselves in the way. Ex: a hit-and-run-tactics dragon, invisible foes, or long-distance strike teams that teleport across the world. 2. The enemy is more difficult to reach than he is to kill. Ex: a fire elemental that lives in an active volcano, or a lich in a trapped dungeon, or a killer with hostages. 3. A curse or disease is spreading, and the party needs to track and contain it. Ex: wizards refuse to stop teleporting to other towers just because they might be sick, or dragons won't accept a loss of tribute income from quarantined subjects, or carrier insects are nearly impossible to track and too important to eradicate. 4. The enemy also can't be defeated. Ex: an evil clone of The PC, or a god, or an imagined enemy who exists only within the PC's mind, or a copycat. 5. The PC needs to be seen losing a fight. Ex: the rightful heir to the throne the PC was keeping warm emerges and can only legally claim it by defeating the PC, or a beloved hero of the people and friend of the party bears a grudge, or a plan involves faking the PC's death. 6. The problem requires expert assistance, but the experts don't want to assist. Ex: a portal to the Nine Hells requires the demonologist who opened it to close it, or the ruler whose command can open the divine gates has been replaced by an impostor. 7. Another character needs to take on the challenge instead. Ex: help the less-capable prince reach the summit, or allow the Barbarian ally to prove her worth against the chief while keeping the tribesman from piling on, or teach the Chosen One how to fulfill their own destiny.
And again, that's assuming you even need to worry about that, which I'm not gonna agree that you do.
“Your character immediately feels an irresistible urge to avoid confrontation, contests, or conflicts. The day after making their Wish, they sell all of their gear and retire. Their adventuring days afforded them more than enough to live comfortably as a common person. They eventually settle down and get married. Not to their first choice, or their second, or even third. They could have probably gotten any of them, but they had other suitors as well, and they chose to find someone they could get with without competition.
Your character lives a long and comfortable life, but they’re never quite satisfied. In the back of their head, they know that they could have had more, more of anything it is that they wanted. They were more than capable of achieving it. But they couldn’t bring themself to attempt anything with opposition.
Many decades later, your character passes away peacefully in their sleep, having never suffered a single defeat since making their wish.
“Your character immediately feels an irresistible urge to avoid confrontation, contests, or conflicts. The day after making their Wish, they sell all of their gear and retire. Their adventuring days afforded them more than enough to live comfortably as a common person. They eventually settle down and get married. Not to their first choice, or their second, or even third. They could have probably gotten any of them, but they had other suitors as well, and they chose to find someone they could get with without competition.
Your character lives a long and comfortable life, but they’re never quite satisfied. In the back of their head, they know that they could have had more, more of anything it is that they wanted. They were more than capable of achieving it. But they couldn’t bring themself to attempt anything with opposition.
Many decades later, your character passes away peacefully in their sleep, having never suffered a single defeat since making their wish.
Go ahead and roll up a new character.”
You could say no and railroad the party any time they tried to enter a difficult combat. Rule that they are Frightened. So they never face defeat, but never become heroes either.
Kind of an It's a Wonderful Life monkey's paw. I like it.
The player character's ego becomes so high they believe that they have not been defeated even when they have. Thus from their point of view, they never have been defeated. Boom. This isn't brutal, and allows for some fun roleplaying moments, and it doesn't break the game.
Nobody in a game I run would be ignorant of the fact that getting greedy with a Wish is going to invite serious repercussions.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If I were a DM, and a character made that Wish, with that exact wording, I would tell them....
"At the end of your next long rest you wake up to find yourself in an unfamiliar place. You have no idea where you are or how you got here. The room appears to be a well-appointed hunting lodge of some sort. One big room, roughly 60 feet square, with a massive wide fireplace at one end that provides a warm comfort throughout. The walls are heavy timbers, with similar rafters, and an enormous chandelier made of horns and antlers hanging in the center, whose dozens of candles offer sufficient light for the whole room. On the walls are an assortment of paintings of landscapes and the stuffed and mounted heads of various animals. One wall is lined with shelves containing hundreds of books on dozens of subjects. In one corner is a large copper tub full of hot fragrant water and flower petals. Comfortable robes and slippers lay across the overstuffed bed. You see no one. There are no windows in the room, and only one door. A simple wooden door with no lock. If you leave, you'll find the cabin is surrounded by open fields of wildflowers stretching for miles in every direction. On the surrounding horizon you see the shadows of forests leading up to mountains ringing the lands. If you travel, you will spend hours - even days - traversing through fields of wildflowers, yet the forests and mountains in the distance never seem any closer. You never encounter a soul - no people, no animals, no one. Returning to the cabin, as soon as you shut the door you find a sumptuous buffet of fine foods laid out for you on the long dining table, and the copper tub is again filled with hot water and flower petals. The food fills you, the fire comforts you, the bath refreshes you, the books entertain you.... but you are utterly alone. There is no one. No one to talk to, no one to fight with, no one to threaten you, no one to defeat you. No one. Every time you sleep you will awaken to find a buffet of fine foods prepared for you on the dining table, and a hot bath awaiting you. Every time you leave the cabin for a walk you return to find a buffet of fine foods prepared for you on the dining table, and a hot bath awaiting you. As the days pass, you occasionally notice new books on the shelves that have replaced those you have already read. The food is different each day, but always delicious and filling. But you are - and you shall remain - utterly alone. There is no one to endanger you. No one to fight you. No one to defeat you. Your wish has come true."
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Depends on the table whether it's a good idea. Did the PC consult with the party abouf how to use the Wish? If the player is a team player, they should, and then the party bears equal guilt. But a strong team player will probably feel even more guilt if they survive. On the other hand, if the player is kind of a stage hog, then the other players will resent his selfishness.
Anyway, I'm not saying you have to TPK them as punishment. Just if there's a scenario where they would have TPKed, they all die except one. Maybe because they believe they're protected by a Wish, they go in over their head. Then also the party shares in the guilt.
Another option for if they are intent on continuing with their character would be to let them "load save" each time they die. If they drop to 0hp, they reset to just before the fight. This could lead to them living an endless hell of being repeatedly killed by an excessively powerful foe, kind of like... (marvel movie spoiler ahead!)
Like in Dr. Strange where he is repeatedly killed in a time loop at the end of the film
And then if they die 2 times in a row, you can probably just say "at this point it becomes clear you're trapped, forever looping those last minutes before you are defeated.", and request that they roll a new character. Lets the wish be of use (they get to retry their final battle, rather than just dying) but not game breaking.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Honestly, much as I've enjoyed coming up with different ideas, I should mention that the actual right thing to do in this situation is just to tell the player "no." Some wishes are impossible. Don't break the game, don't screw them over, just let them know that that wish is not an option, and if they insist upon wishing it, the universe can't cooperate. Let them choose something else, and move on.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
All these wish-threads semi-prove to me that wishing for anything that's not a spell cast is good for little else than creative suicide.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I think it's more about getting greedy or uninventive with a wish.
If you say "I wish for 10,000 platinum pieces" then the DM will probably make them stolen by someone who looked just like your character.
If you say "I wish that this magical armour that's cursed so it screams all the time was not cursed so that it screams all the time" then a DM is probably just going to grant you the wish.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
The player character's ego becomes so high they believe that they have not been defeated even when they have. Thus from their point of view, they never have been defeated. Boom. This isn't brutal, and allows for some fun roleplaying moments, and it doesn't break the game.
That... is not bad. Not bad at all.
I actually had a friend like that. Every time he lost, he found some convoluted reason why he actually could claim victory. For example, you could beat him at tennis 7-6, 7-6, but he would say, "Yes, but you never broke my serve, and I was just trying to hold serve, so I win."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Depends, if they are at the end of the campaign, like at the end end as in they will not play anything else, grant his wish by making it so that if he takes a hit bringing him to 0, he is instantly teleported to the last place he slept at (and if someone trapped that place or camps his spawnpoint so he would take damage there, to the next place he slept at etc. etc.) so that he does not get defeated. This way his wish is granted, but in an impractical way, but that can still be worked around in cool ways.
Most of the examples given in the big 3 (PHB, DMG, MM) regarding Wish involve undoing something that is otherwise irreversible. Replacing a consumed brain. Undoing a high-level curse. Returning alignment after being "permanently" altered. Removing insanity. Restoring limbs.
In my games, I allow the standard spell-casting and rewinding the clock with Wish, but if the player gets greedy and permanently wants something for nothing, Wish will backfire if they insist. Otherwise, the player should simply accept the "yeah.... no" response and try again.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Using Wish for... Actual wishes (not spells) carries an inherent risk anyway: making you unable to cast Wish ever again. Most people wouldn't use it for something minor because of that risk. So if you make it so that only minor wishes are immune to your evil DM scheming, you should recognize that you're not really extending the olive branch that you think you are.
Everybody's having fun inventing poetic-justice Bad Endings for this player where they have to roll a new character, or where it has no real impact at all (de-feet-ing protection? Really?) but OP did say this was already at the end of the campaign. So I hope they understand that this isn't actually necessary -- or probably appropriate -- for their situation. Imagine how much of a sour note it would be to end your campaign on, for your DM to rob you of your happy ending and put your character in some kind of endless inescapable torment just because the internet told them to.
Anyway, carry on. Maybe the character just instantly gets erased from the timeline and no one can remember he ever existed! Hard to get defeated then!
That in some ways leads to attempting multiple wishes.
"Oh, I can't get never defeated? I'll wish for Immunity to Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning damage. I can't have that? I'll wish for..."
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It's up to the DM to handle that behavior and explain the limits of Wish in the campaign.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I mean, first of all, Wish is typically a pretty endgame-specific spell, so your next campaign isn't gonna have to deal with it for a long, long time. But it's been my experience that most players don't actually like to do the same thing twice when it comes to character concepts. You're pretty unlikely to encounter this wish again on any character in any of your games. Because that was Player A's idea, and Player A already did it once, and nobody else wants to rip them off. And there are better wishes you can make anyway, if what you're trying to do is alter the narrative to fit your character's goals. And most of those wouldn't even be considered icky by most people.
There's, like, this idea that the player in this instance is trying to "not play the game anymore" or something, but I really don't think they'd have made it to Wish-casting level if they didn't want to play the game, you know? That takes some time.
And to close off my argument, you can still challenge a player whose character can't be defeated. A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory, but it can feel like a defeat. And not every problem can be solved by initiating a victory-or-defeat scenario. Here are some ideas, and remember, there are only 4 levels at which a character can cast Wish, so you don't need a huge number of challenges.
1. The enemy strikes other characters, not The PC, and it's up to The PC to somehow put themselves in the way. Ex: a hit-and-run-tactics dragon, invisible foes, or long-distance strike teams that teleport across the world.
2. The enemy is more difficult to reach than he is to kill. Ex: a fire elemental that lives in an active volcano, or a lich in a trapped dungeon, or a killer with hostages.
3. A curse or disease is spreading, and the party needs to track and contain it. Ex: wizards refuse to stop teleporting to other towers just because they might be sick, or dragons won't accept a loss of tribute income from quarantined subjects, or carrier insects are nearly impossible to track and too important to eradicate.
4. The enemy also can't be defeated. Ex: an evil clone of The PC, or a god, or an imagined enemy who exists only within the PC's mind, or a copycat.
5. The PC needs to be seen losing a fight. Ex: the rightful heir to the throne the PC was keeping warm emerges and can only legally claim it by defeating the PC, or a beloved hero of the people and friend of the party bears a grudge, or a plan involves faking the PC's death.
6. The problem requires expert assistance, but the experts don't want to assist. Ex: a portal to the Nine Hells requires the demonologist who opened it to close it, or the ruler whose command can open the divine gates has been replaced by an impostor.
7. Another character needs to take on the challenge instead. Ex: help the less-capable prince reach the summit, or allow the Barbarian ally to prove her worth against the chief while keeping the tribesman from piling on, or teach the Chosen One how to fulfill their own destiny.
And again, that's assuming you even need to worry about that, which I'm not gonna agree that you do.
“Your character immediately feels an irresistible urge to avoid confrontation, contests, or conflicts. The day after making their Wish, they sell all of their gear and retire. Their adventuring days afforded them more than enough to live comfortably as a common person. They eventually settle down and get married. Not to their first choice, or their second, or even third. They could have probably gotten any of them, but they had other suitors as well, and they chose to find someone they could get with without competition.
Your character lives a long and comfortable life, but they’re never quite satisfied. In the back of their head, they know that they could have had more, more of anything it is that they wanted. They were more than capable of achieving it. But they couldn’t bring themself to attempt anything with opposition.
Many decades later, your character passes away peacefully in their sleep, having never suffered a single defeat since making their wish.
Go ahead and roll up a new character.”
You could say no and railroad the party any time they tried to enter a difficult combat. Rule that they are Frightened. So they never face defeat, but never become heroes either.
Kind of an It's a Wonderful Life monkey's paw. I like it.
Sounds like a politician I know of
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Post deleted.