Genie Tropes

[Korak The Boisterous]

Specifically be careful what you wish for. It's on my mind and I'm considering making a kind of genie kin, the classic 3 wishes lamp kind for pathfinder. Now, in many myths these wishes come at a price and that's what I want to do. So for this I'm thinking Genie's have no concept of mortal laws. I wish for a horse, bam, might want to run, the inn's missing a mare, I want a big house, poof, it's done, until the owner brings the sheriff to his door and asks why you're in his house, I want money, poof, pouch after pouch of coins fill your small hut, pressing against windows, cracking them and spilling out, at least some of the owners of this coin can prove it due to coats of arms and such.

How would you handle the price of a wish?

[Bob Bob Bob]

So my only question, why do you need a new kind of genie? Marid get 1/year (CN). Efreeti get 3/day to non-genies (LE). Noble Shaitan get 3/day to non-genies (LN). Noble Djinni get 3/day to non-genies (CG). So that's a whole range. Maybe Marids give the best wishes (follow the spirit and don't screw you over) but only if they feel like it (they can grant a wish to anyone, even other genies, but only have 1/year). Maybe Djinni give accurate (follow the spirit) but short-sighted wishes (take gold from the local ruler, take food from the emergency stores). Maybe Efreeti give technically correct but cruel wishes (all gold is stolen from the poor/your friends, food is taken from the mouths of the hungry). Maybe Shaitan grant technically accurate but onerous or burdensome wishes (gold is granted by taking ownership of the Duchy of Fenwick predicated on collection of 30 years of back taxes, food is granted by giving them a field, some oxen, some seeds, and a plow). I guess you could throw in some of the other alignments but I have a feeling that LG would be too nice and CE would be too dangerous.

If you're just looking for screwing over wish makers, there's three points to consider. Time, source, and form. Time means how long it takes the genie to grant the wish. If no time range is specified it only needs to be done at some point before they die. Wait to grant them their gold until they're in the heart of a volcano and laugh as it melts. Source means where the result of the wish comes from. If they want something, steal it from someone else. You can even do it with abstract concepts. The man who wants eternal life randomly kills off someone every time he reaches the end of one natural lifetime. And form is what form the results of the wish come in. Live forever? Temporal Stasis or Imprisonment. Gold? Molten river of it. Kill your enemies? Done, and bring them back as Lich/Graveknight/other undead.

Additionally, you can always use conditions. So when they want gold, they get a map to Midasville. They want power, here's the location of the strongest monster nearby, enough to level them up (and probably kill them). Things like that.

Oh, and as a final warning, don't do this to players unless you establish well ahead of time that genies are not to be trusted. Many of these are pointlessly cruel and character-ending and if you spring that on players unannounced you'll get things thrown at you. Veteran players will be properly paranoid the second it seems like something nice is happening so newbies will probably take the brunt of it and it might sour them for the future.

[Pixie, the Leng Queen]

Also you may eventually end up with players who begin to sound like lawyers with their wish...

"I wish for 10 million gold coins of Chelish mint standards in neat stacks of 1000 gp high arranged in a cubic format 1000gp high, X gp wide, and X gp long inside my personal warehouse located at grid coordinates XX by XX"

Or something rediculous like that.

[M1k31]

Pixie, the Leng Queen wrote:

Also you may eventually end up with players who begin to sound like lawyers with their wish...

"I wish for 10 million gold coins of Chelish mint standards in neat stacks of 1000 gp high arranged in a cubic format 1000gp high, X gp wide, and X gp long inside my personal warehouse located at grid coordinates XX by XX"

Or something rediculous like that.

*Poof*

you are now inside an air tight antimagic bank vault at the prescribed co-ordinates with all the guards now standing inside your warehouse or in the vault with you... what's not there? the key....

[Errant Mercenary]

I believe this comic is very apt - the Genie has different values about what you actually NEED. Need to live? water, food, etc.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1440859037-20150829.png

In an extreme case "I wish to have all I need" could easily mean being teleported to a gibbet in a prison where you are fed all your life, forever to rot.

[Entryhazard]

Do you think you can fool me

[master_marshmallow]

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