How do you handle Wish?

[sithlordnergal]

IMO it's precisely the DM vs player issue that I want to avoid. IF a player actually wants that dynamic then I'll abide it, and we'll have a conversation about it.

On the other hand, I too like the monkey paw idea, but then I'd rather have an NPC be responsible for the corruption. Which is why I prefer to have an efreeti give a wish than a genie.
Likewise the wish can fail as per RAW, and it's entirely up to the DM. So it's very difficult for a player to corrupt the game.

What in the case of the character being smarter than the player? The Wizard with 20 int is almost assuredly better at getting the wording right than the player piloting them.

I meean, I'd actually say being able to avoid the pitfalls of Wish accidentally backfiring due to poor wording falls more on Wisdom than Intelligence. But that's neither here nor there. To answer the actual question, its pretty simple: I allow the entire table to chime in when someone trying to properly word a Wish spell. It goes from a single player to a sort of puzzle that the entire party joins in on. And I'll give them certain hints, nudges, and occasionally remind players about how the rules of the game work to help the player close loopholes or issues that I see as glaringly obvious.

Sometimes it works out and the table is able to come together to make a near airtight Wish that leaves me with little to no wiggle room to give them a detriment. Other times, the players will either miss something or forget to add some details that allow me to mess with them.

As for the DM vs Player aspect, I do a few things to help ease that. Helping the players avoid a couple of pitfalls really helps to diminish that feeling of DM vs. Player. I also make sure players know how I run Wish. I warn them when they first obtain Wish, and warn them again when they're planning on casting Wish. I also give the table as much time as they want/need to come up with a well worded Wish.

I don't worry about the wording because of an experience back in AD&D. I was a player, and one of the other players had a wish to use. They wrote - by hand, in cursive - a 20-page contract for a wish. They laid this on the DM near the beginning of a session. The DM then started to read it, taking notes on it. When 15 minutes later, he had reviewed the first four pages, one of the other players stood up and said, 'if this is today's game, you don't need the rest of us here' (something like that, it's been about 30 years). The DM, deeply involved in reading this contract, just nodded. That was not what the one who stood up expected - he thought the response would be that the DM could do it later. But the rest of us ended up leaving and did not play that day. I don't even remember what the wish was or why it needed such a long contract - I don't recall it having any impact on the campaign. I do know that there is no way I ever want to be in that kind of situation, so I'm never going to get into caring about the precise wording.

...Ok, I can see why that would turn you off of the wording for Wish. Most wishes I deal with are a few sentences long at most. I've never had a player bring a 20 page contract for Wish. DM should have absolutely read that after the game.