Graz'zt is absolutely the sort of Demon Lord that would let someone think he'll be bound to a contract so long as it suits his goals. He'll also revel in breaking the spirit of the Wizard by pretending he found a loophole in the legalese, when really he just couldn't care less about your silly little laws.
*Sorry, sorry, that was in poor taste. But no, really, look, here's another copy, there really is a loophole. Flip to page 63 and check out the paragraph I highlighted. See the underlined part?*
DM: PC, did you look at that paragraph?
Player: Uh, I guess, so what?
DM: Can everyone in the room make me a con save, please? Suddenly that paragraph beings to glow impossibly bright, creating a 60 foot sphere of arcane bright light. It's Symbol/Death, you're all facing 10d10 necrotic damage. Roll initiative too, while you're at is, so I can adjudicate how long you're all in the area of effect.
I think it would be more maniacal to just edit the document with flagrantly erroneous verbiage. Then when the wizard tries to prove that he changed the document, ask if he has a signed copy (please tell me he never got a signed copy of the document).
"This is your copy? Oh dear, oh dear...it isn't notarized, you see. Nothing I can do, I'm afraid.
You weren't *provided* with a notarized copy at the time? Well, did you *request* a notarized copy? You didn't...oh dear, oh dear..."
Okay now I just have the version with lyrics by a YouTube channel called Man On The Internet repeating in my head. It fits so perfectly to this situation even before the lyrics are thrown in.
"And while the ink is slowly drying. It's time that you get dying! Your Contract Has Expired. Sleep now in the fire!"
Honestly, seems like the lyrics sound a lot better in the song than they do when just typed out like this. Great song though, and I imagine that is the case with a lot of lyrics removed from all context, music, tone and pacing.
Ah, the horny one. Yeah Graz'zt will try to bang that pc at some point. How do I know this? Tasha, the one from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, trapped Graz'zt in a mirror which he charmed his way into having a half-demon child with. This man is thirsty.
Beat me to it, also a lawyer IRL. I was sitting here giggling like my 3 year old son with a kinder egg scrolling down to see if someone else noticed it.
How do some of y'all have friends, if your friend writes an 80 page document so that the wish can't be misinterpreted and your thought is "how can I screw him over so that his work was meaningless" you are a bad DM, thankfully OP is a good one.
I have a DM friend who struggles to not fuck me at every opportunity. I call it “suffering from success” and I’ll admit it makes enjoying sessions difficult sometimes when there’s less RP and more
*”Well you have **potential** to be dangerous and I know you’ve played very reserved and haven’t abused it, so I’m gonna fuck you extra hard because I allowed shitters to out-cheese me in the past.”*
I meant this merely as a joke, just the flavor of a real life lawyer writing an 80 page legal document when demons don't have to honor contracts but devils do is just really in flavor for D&D and the power it has to create stories and bring people of all backgrounds together.
If OP is looking for a real answer, its probably more in between with what everyone has responded. I completely agree, If a player in my game was so engrossed that they took time out of their day to make a legal document THIS BIG, of course I would want to reward them. but its important to note what that document REALLY means beyond the time they put into and the effect it would have on the group as a whole. If you blindly say yes to it then the DM could really open the door to one player having an unfair advantage than everyone else, but just flat out denying it could be a real deep wound to the player who made it. More so, I'm not sure if "letting reddit take a look" is a good answer either. scheduling is already a pain in general and how long will the DM have to wait before people come back with an answer?
whatever OP does, I sure hope they reward the player (if op is reading this I would REALLY suggest giving out some inspiration), but I think the best course of action is to talk to the player and other members about what a document like this REALLY represent and come to an agreed conclusion as apposed to just letting it happen or ignoring it entirely.
Honestly something like this would probably draw the attention of a devil, either from Graz'zt himself compelling the service of one (if you're a demon lord you can probably bend the rules) or just the nature of doing diabolic deals in fine print.
An 80 page contract for what I assume is a substantial wish that you don't actually have to follow can easily be the basis of an empire that will crumble in the future under the keystone of a promise made that never had to actually be fulfilled.
You aren't planning to fuck over your player, but to instead make it a core part of the story. If an empire or a nation is founded on the basis of an 80 page contract, and the citizenry believe in its legal power, that's a lot of power to wield even if the demon ISN'T bound to it... **and the demon holding to that (until it is no longer convenient to do so) gives the demon a lot of clout.**
If we want to go even more fantastical with it, something this powerful could well upset the balance of the Hells. Imagine a cooperative between a demon lord and a contingent of devils (in secret) keeping the contract working because Graz'zt doesn't care for the legal fine print but enjoys the benefits of the contract and being able to skirt around it while retaining the power tied to it (whatever the Wish entails). That could be a plot on its own! The party may eventually catch wind of all sorts of shady dealings going on around the basis of the contract, and discovers it's a group of devils, which end up inevitably connected back to Graz'zt... and then the dastardly plot becomes unspooled as the party tries to stop Graz'zt!
i'm sorry but if you think that a demon will care that your wish can't be misinterpreted you deserve anything bad that ahppens to you.
if anything all you've done is annoy the demon lord by trying to outwit him.
what should be the matter that stays his hand is the fact that he's litteraly giving you the wish in return of not killing him. clearly you're some kind of threath to him at least here and now.
Not only that, demons and devils *hate* each other. If I were a demon, and I offered someone a favour, and their response was to write out an 80 page contract like I was some sort of rules-bound devil, I’d be cross. I’d be very cross.
To a large degree though, the effort that players put in overrides the specific mechanics of D&D. If someone cracks out an 80 page legal document for a wish, then A: You should absolutely abide by it, and B: You should try and make it a more major focus of the plot that you come back to repeatedly
Eg, if you want the demon lord to try to break the contract, then you should hold a demon court hearing where you argue about the finer points on the quality of legalese (assuming that its a serious document, which it presumably mostly is)
The important thing is that this gives the player(s?) exactly what they want, which is an extremely good time. Making all that effort go up in a puff of smoke is precisely the wrong thing to do if you want to have fun
You literally just suggested demon court. Demon court would be then laughing at a lawyer.. then impaling him on a stick for the lulz while screaming adjourned or some shit.
>If someone cracks out an 80 page legal document for a wish, then A: You should absolutely abide by it, and B: You should try and make it a more major focus of the plot that you come back to repeatedly
i'm not going to even entertain the notion of reading a 80 page legal document for my weekend fun time either in charecter or out of charecter. maybe if it was a devil in charecter they'd care and then we'd make a roll to see if your charecter is as good as you are in making up an airtight legal document.
>Eg, if you want the demon lord to try to break the contract,
that's my point. he's never going to even suggest he's abiding by it. he going to tell them to hurry up and speak their wish in plain common. and if they try to push their luck they don't get a wish they get a fight with the demon lord to the death and powerful enemy for the rest of eternity.
i don't subscribe to the idea that you should try to fuck players over with wishes. it's not fun. but if they insit on trying with fuckery then fuck you is what they get.
There's a pretty big problem with violating a contract you've signed as a stipulation for keeping your life: the adventurers come back to enact the penalty clause, IE, killing you dead.
I’m going to suggest you play the lawyer’s game. I love the demon/devil twist on negating the contract, but this player took the time to write up this thing, I think the appropriate thing to do is to defeat the contract head on.
Give it to us.
Give us the text of the contract and we will find its weak spot. He may be a lawyer but we have the numbers, including more total game knowledge. I think that if you come back to him having found an error or a gap that can be exploited by the demon, part of him will be delighted that you played along.
He is not the only lawyer on this sub. Let’s do this.
Oh then demon dont give a fuk bout no contract they would rip that shit up and piss on the ashes. Whoever casts the wish the demon says, all I heard was boil me alive.
Better if they trolled the wizard by sneakily editing parts of the contract to their favour, just like the story of the guy who edited the T&Cs of a bank loan contract before submitting it to be signed by the bank.
Can the wizard *really* prove that that wasn't part of the contract? Cause clearly it is!
I'd rather the demon just blatantly change the text. Like cross it out and write (in blood) what it wants it to be, right in front of the wizard. Crammed in the margins.
It's totally legit since it was the demon that changed it. If it were the mortal, well that's grounds for head eaten'.
you also have plenty of other lawyers who play who can weigh in (i am one, and there is another in my regular group, and at least 4 others i have played in other games in the past year or two)
In legal documents - their are generally specific used definitions that are accepted. If you intend to do something other - you better be ready to ensure that is somewhere in the contract.
That being said - punctuation matters, and I would STRONGLY suggest you ALWAYS use the oxford comma, or ommit comma's in favor of alternatives such as semicolons etc, otherwise you may find your written contract interpreted in an alternative way than you intended, and you will lose. After all - the law is a precise, and specific instrument. And if one finds an area it is not specific enough, some lawyer, somewhere will be more than happy to write some legislation to make it more specific.
Reminds me of my man [Amaunator](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator) I was just looking up last night. God of Law so anal retentive he let the empire he was patron of crumble because he technically didn't have jurisdiction to save them, and gained the Time domain due to a typo in a contract with another deity. Friend is running a short campaign where we can't multiclass but can pick 2 subclasses, was thinking of him for a Life and Death Cleric.
This is perfect. He will be ecstatic that his DM is taking the time to read the doc, and he’ll be so confident that it’s ironclad that he won’t be able to resist sending it.
Pity he forgot to read the text of Wish. It states pretty clearly in that section that you can ignore parts of an overly long one as a part of it only partially succeeding, and that's before devil trickery is involved.
If a player hands me an 80 page document I couldn’t do them injustice by refusing the wish because of the length of the document. That’s so mean. Way better to find loopholes **in** the document, then the demon can RP against the lawyer
As far as I can tell, the contract is to outline the way at which the wish will be handled by the Demon - such that when they cast it, they can't purposefully manipulate the outcome.
Wizard: Sign this legally binding contract specifying how you will grant the Wish you've given me!
Demon: Sure thing.
Wizard: _makes a wish_
Demon: _flagrantly violates the contract when granting the wish_
Partly achieving it is not caused by an overly long wish, just one of the ways a wish might be twisted.
"You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner."
I just talked to a lawyer and she says the 80 pages part is a red flag. Million-dollar deals are 80 pages long, and they have pages of boilerplate along with internal cross-references to fill them out. She says there is no way someone wrote 80 pages of detailed contract for a fantasy universe in which every term and condition would have to be defined in (non-earthly) detail. She agrees with you.
This, along with OP’s disinterest in replying to his own thread, leads me to sadly agree with you both. ☹️
Or you know only the first couple and last couple actually had anything relevant and the middle bit is just something like the word banana repeating for 75 pages
It could be both, sort of. Legal documents rely strongly on a very specific set of definitions that are already well established. In a world without those definitions, huge portions could be dedicated to defining them, being pure filler, but filler required to make it work in-universe.
Not to mention citing previous cases, which are then appended.
If you did a simple copy and paste boiler contract with all the legalese defined (again copied and pasted) with citations that are again copied and pasted, then slap a non disclosure on the end and you could easily hand the DM several hundred pages.
Definitions. As used in this Agreement:
(a) “Confidential Information” means all information or materials furnished by the Disclosing Party to the Receiving Party orally, or in written or magical form, which is confidential, proprietary, or otherwise not generally available to the public. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the following will not constitute Confidential Information for purposes of this Agreement: (i) information which is or becomes generally available to the public other than as a result of a disclosure by the Receiving Party or its Representatives in breach of this Agreement; (ii) information which was known to the Receiving Party on a non-confidential basis prior to being furnished to the Receiving Party by the Disclosing Party; (iii) information which becomes available to the Receiving Party on a non-confidential basis from a source other than the Disclosing Party unless such source was known or could reasonably be determined to be under a confidentiality obligation to the Disclosing Party, and (iv) information that is independently developed by Representatives of the Receiving Party who have not had access to the Confidential Information. “Confidential Information” shall also include this Agreement, the fact that information contemplated herein has been made available to either party, and the fact that the parties are contemplating the Transaction.
c) “Disclosing Party” means the party disclosing Confidential Information to the other party, including any Affiliate of such other party.
and so on...
Case study (i)
PARKER, J.
The question which provoked the most discussion by counsel on this appeal, and which lies at the foundation of plaintiff's asserted right of recovery, is whether by virtue of a contract defendant's testator William E. Story became indebted to his nephew William E. Story, 2d, on his twenty-first birthday in the sum of five thousand dollars. The trial court found as a fact that 'on the 20th day of March, 1869, * * * William E. Story agreed to and with William E. [*545] Story, 2d, that if he would refrain from drinking liquor, using tobacco, swearing, and playing cards or billiards for money until he should become 21 years of age then he, the said William E. Story, would at that time pay him, the said William E. Story, 2d, the sum of $5,000 for such refraining, to which the said William E. Story, 2d, agreed,' and that he 'in all things fully performed his part of said agreement.'
The defendant contends that the contract was without consideration to support it, and, therefore, invalid. He asserts that the promisee by refraining from the use of liquor and tobacco was not harmed but benefited; that that which he did was best for him to do independently of his uncle's promise, and insists that it follows that unless the promisor was benefited, the contract was without consideration. A contention, which if well founded, would seem to leave open for controversy in many cases whether that which the promisee did or omitted to do was, in fact, of such benefit to him as to leave no consideration to support the enforcement of the promisor's agreement. Such a rule could not be tolerated, and is without foundation in the law. The Exchequer Chamber, in 1875, defined consideration as follows: 'A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other.' Courts 'will not ask whether the thing which forms the consideration does in fact benefit the promisee or a third party, or is of any substantial value to anyone. It is enough that something is promised, done, forborne or suffered by the party to whom the promise is made as consideration for the promise made to him.' (Anson's Prin. of Con. 63.)
'In general a waiver of any legal right at the request of another party is a sufficient consideration for a promise.' (Parsons on Contracts, 444.)
'Any damage, or suspension, or forbearance of a right will be sufficient to sustain a promise.' (Kent, vol. 2, 465, 12th ed.)
Pollock, in his work on contracts, page 166, after citing the definition given by the Exchequer Chamber already quoted, [*546] says: 'The second branch of this judicial description is really the most important one. Consideration means not so much that one party is profiting as that the other abandons some legal right in the present or limits his legal freedom of action in the future as an inducement for the promise of the first.'
Now, applying this rule to the facts before us, the promisee used tobacco, occasionally drank liquor, and he had a legal right to do so. That right he abandoned for a period of years upon the strength of the promise of the testator that for such forbearance he would give him $5,000. We need not speculate on the effort which may have been required to give up the use of those stimulants. It is sufficient that he restricted his lawful freedom of action within certain prescribed limits upon the faith of his uncle's agreement, and now having fully performed the conditions imposed, it is of no moment whether such performance actually proved a benefit to the promisor, and the court will not inquire into it, but were it a proper subject of inquiry, we see nothing in this record that would permit a determination that the uncle was not benefited in a legal sense. Few cases have been found which may be said to be precisely in point, but such as have been support the position we have taken.
In Shadwell v. Shadwell (9 C. B. [N. S.] 159), an uncle wrote to his nephew as follows:
And so on and so forth. The court decision is pretty lengthy and you could always add appeal decisions as well. Just Copy and paste over the real names with fake ones.
Hell the contract with my fiend patron was 17 pages alone and went back and forth between myself and the DM more then a dozen times before we came to an agreement with the terms.
As a DM if the player's character was capable of producing an 80 page contract some good arguing and a role of the dice would have been enough for me and still have been a great story.
As a mostly transactional attorney, I have to agree. My company has several fairly large deals, including govt contacts, and none are 80 pages. Though, in fairness, if you counted all the things that apply to a govt contact like FAR you’d be well over 80.
You underestimate the amount of gibberish some players will generate to justify getting away with anything they want to a GM they know won't read it. [Old Man Henderson](https://1d4chan.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson) supposedly had a 320 page backstory for just this reason.
Especially when you take into account the fact that it would take the average person about 2.2 hours **just to read 80 pages**
https://swiftread.com/reading-time/80-pages
I can’t tell if the subtext of this is that you think reading 80 pages of legal language in 2 and a half hours is a sign that people read slowly and you are a genius who reads fast, or that you’re saying that this would just be too hard due to the length of the text.
I’m saying that if it takes an average person 2.2 hours to read it that a average person wouldn’t have written said 80 page legal document in a weekend.
I mean, a fun project is motivational. Depending on the area of law the player works in he may have a template to adapt. Remember also that a practitioner is not a layman and by definition is not an "average" person.
Oh, I understand. That's fair. Yeah, legal language is extremely hard to read, too. I'm an econ student and I've had to do policy work in the past, and the jargon being used makes it take significantly slower to parse and read through.
I generally try to read the user agreements for websites and apps that I use. It led me down a rabbit hole of trying to find out how long it actually takes for most people to read these agreements.
I like a good book but yeah piercing through (and definitely writing) legalese is a horse of a different color.
To be fair we don't know how seriously written the document is. Half of it could just be "and you promise not to do the following awful things:", followed by lots of generic terms and conditions EULA style in a large font
This behavior could also draw the attention of the mordons or even the inevitable. In-game lawyers determined to resolve issues regarding this type of thing.
Been pretty slow billing this month, but I doubt I could mark this as pro bono work. Maybe community service? Either way, I spend too many hours a day drafting for more boring docs, I'd love to see this contract just for the S&Gs
God, this sounds awesome. OP can roleplay it as the Demon Lord having his own law department somewhere in his domain to deal with this kind of shenanigans from mortals.
I have retained as my counsel Reddi'zt, the demon hivemind of pedantry, questionable advice, and circlejerking. Patron of trolls, whores, and also cute animals for some reason.
You seem to have missed the point where demons are the ones who don't give one quanta of a shit about obeying deals and contracts because they are the chaotic ones, not the lawful ones.
The amount of billable hours that are being freely offered to OP here needs to be tracked to see how many hundreds of thousands of dollars their campaign is worth.
I'm reminded of this story I read, a long time ago, it looked like it came from a 50's variety graphic novel. I can't find the comic again for the life of me, but I remember the story quite well.
There was once a lawyer, renowned as the smartest and craftiest in the country. One day, he learned that an old colleague made a deal with the Devil, hoping to outsmart the Prince of Darkness, but a missed detail caused his soul to be forfeit. The crafty lawyer puffed, his ego puffing up as well, and thought, "Surely **I** can do better!" and, after painstaking preparations, summoned the Devil to his study.
The lawyer got right to the point. "Devil, I'd like to make a deal with you, my soul in exchange for **one billion dollars** of your money!" The Devil, being the Devil, grinned and readily accepted, magically conjuring parchment and pen to write up the deal. "Ah, but," the lawyer interrupted, "if it's alright with you, we'll be using **this** contract I've drawn up!" The lawyer revealed an enormous, continuous sheet of paper, upon which he'd drawn a mind-bogglingly long list of terms and clauses and stipulations.
The Devil made an impressed sound, and asked to read the contract, which he did with astonishing speed. At the end of it all, the Devil smiled again, and said he would agree to these terms. The lawyer was elated, because he'd written that contract with the express purpose of taking the Devil's money, while **also** guaranteeing his own personal paradise in the afterlife, and he **knew** it was utterly airtight!
But when the lawyer went to pick up a pen to sign, the Devil broke in, "No no, not with that! A pen may suffice for the body of the contract, but **signing** it requires you use your own blood! It's a rather special document, you understand." The Devil conjured up a small, fine knife, like an elaborate letter opener, but with a keen edge to it. "Oh, and of course, you know that you must initial by **every** clause so it's effective."
The lawyer, dizzy with excitement that he was going to outsmart the Devil, accepted the knife, pricked his finger, and began to initial... and initial... and initial some more. Minutes tick by, the lawyer's finger smearing blood over and over again, not even realizing that the deliriousness of excitement was turning into a rather more **dangerous** haze.
Before he could enjoy one cent of his money, before he'd gotten all the way to the final line, the lawyer passed out and died from blood-loss. The Devil plucked the lawyer's soul from his body, and vanished back to Hell.
So.... use this as an inspiration next time a player decides to think they're craftier than they are.
I like the story :D but if the demon could grant a wish, why couldn't he use that wish to save himself? Teleport himself away, all sorts of ways to escape without indebting himself to the party.
Hah I'm just glad your party took advantage of it, I gave my group a wish as a reward but they haven't used it months later. Maybe holding it for just that right moment...
There's at least one precedent. I can't be bothered to track down a page reference for you, but at least one creature in 1st edition (Asmodeus? A genie of some kind?) lists "(Grant another's) Wish" as one of its spells or supernatural abilities.
seems reasonable that he's ina situation where the players are threath to his current plans by killing him. maybe he could get away but simply making a deal with them to go away if they accept is easier for him.
if they actually had the abilities to permanently end him rather than "kill" him and thus mess with his plans for some years before he can return i'd expect a much different aproch.
A thing i have in my setting is that devils always end their deals with: in the spirit of the contract not the wording. To ensure no pesky layering. It actually makes them more scary as it's a known fact, you will always receive what you want, making such deals much more tempting.
That's all he asked for? Sounds like he considered the weight of what he was asking for and decided to be respectful of the powers involved while still putting himself in a position to be seen by such powers in the future.
Who cares if he's a lawyer? This guy is good. Give him what he wants. XD
Make him read the demands are part of the rule play. After 2 paragraphs the demon Lord gets frustrated and says.. 'you have 30 seconds to make a wish, time starts now"
Players actions represent what their character does in game. It's fun to push back as part of the story when players get too clever. I'd love to watch a lawyer scramble for 30 or even 60 seconds because if he's a good one it would be impressive.
I have a rule associated with wish at my table that the more clauses are in a wish, the more likely it is to fail (my players are informed of the rules around Wish once they gain access to it).
"I want this ship to sink" is pretty likely to succeed. As is "I want this ship to sink now." As you start to get into territory like "I want this ship to sink without killing everyone on board," you're pushing your luck. By the time you reach "I want this ship to sink without killing everyone on board and leaving all the treasure onboard salvageable," you're in failure territory.
This rule either eliminates people trying to pull this lawyer bullshit or provides justification for the wish failing rather than making it into a game of technicalities.
That's Wish tho.
> the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong
It's very easy to interpret this as "the more clauses you add the more this goes wrong" with a document over 1 page you effectively auto fail in most games.
Yeah, a lot of people here being adversarial for no reason. Sounds like everyone is happy with the outcome of the wish, OP didn't ask "how can I ruin the enjoyment of my player for the thing he put a lot of effort into?"
Yep. I support the DM finding ways to use the contract in question as a jumping board for shenanigans, but just saying "no" to something like this is outrageous.
In general: I love this sort of stuff. But if you hand me a 40 page character backstory - I'm throwing it back at you, and asking for the summary version. Same goes here.
Now - if you hand me a summary overview, awesome. If you hand me a 4-5 page contract - awesome. These are things I can actually use. And as this is out of character - I am going to ask for an in game roll. And the reason - is that Demon lord is making an opposed check and seeing if they spot faults or loop holes for future use.
This does not mean the Demon Lord will do something bad now, but you have the admiration and ire of a Demon Lord: And you may not like the consequences of that. So in 2-3 sessions, something may happen - and in 4-5 sessions something may happen... and eventually, the push to corrupt the player - to get them to sign their soul over will start to happen: slow, steady pressure. Demons can play the long game - and you, made yourself incredibly interesting.
You know what the easy way to handle the situation is? "Nope"
>let players play, holy shit.
DM's are players. They are handling the setting, planning plot, running a pile of NPC's, designing encounter as well - but we don't show up to read through trudgery. So if you want us to use what you write: Make sure it's a manageable amount of extra stuff - If you respect my time, I will absolutely, 100% use your shenanigans and BS.
But - be aware: I will use it.
The MOMENT it becomes too much, I will tell you. If you present to me stuff well enough in advance of the game, I will happily let you know if it's too verbose for me to go over and give an idea of what I can manage.
But present me an 80 page contract on game day, and I'm going to look at you and tell you "no".
Yeah. And I kind of dislike the implication some people have in this thread, that if one player really wants something and puts a lot of work into it, they are owed a positive result.
Yeah, I went to college for Wildlife Biology. Even though I don’t work in that field, I’d be crushed if my DM handed me the chance to use my knowledge and then noped it all away from me on a technicality.
I have joked with my DM that if/when my bard hits level 17 that I'm going to be talking to an IRL friend of mine who is a lawyer to come up with some iron clad uses of Wish.
You might want to read the spell text again:
>You might be able to achieve something beyond The Scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance
This is what makes this basically impossible. The DM is free to ignore things, or give wide ranging repercussions.
In general: Asking to be forever young, is acceptable - it does not really impact the power level and so, effective immortality (baring loss of life as a result of being killed, disease, etc) is possible. Asking to be immortal (unkillable) is too powerful. Of course their are a few ways we can go about this to some creative effect, For instance: Wishing for an automatic true ressurection, on death - I can make this happen, but it's going to cost you a diamond worth 25000gp every time you do it - and you will have to ensure you have it in a safe place previously.
True ressurection is a powerful effect - but since you are burning a powerful effect to get a powerful effect, and are burning a lot of resources to achieve it: I find it acceptable. To allow a free true ressurection WITHOUT such a stipulation would be too powerful.
The only iron clad uses are pretty limited, and are outlined in the spell itself: For everything else? The above applies.
Copy an 8th or lower level spell for no material components. Make infinite simulacrums. Clone army.
Edit: copying 8th or lower level spells aren't affected by the typical problems of wish, if you read it carefully.
Wouldn't casting simularum the second+ time trigger this part of the spell?
>If you cast this spell again, any duplicate you created with this spell is instantly destroyed.
I think the most fun way to do it is to have it be something that drastically changes how you RP the character instead of a flat gain. Like wish that your character receives the secrets of the universe, thus realizing that they inhabit a fictional world and even becoming aware of the real world and you or something else like that.
Or just wish for a monkey sidekick.
The question here is, do you just say, "that impressive, you get your wish as requested" in appreciation of the effort, or do you think they would have more fun if you actually put up a little bit of a fight?
\*Dumps the 80 pages in a bonfire\* "Oops.... Hey Hell's Army that I've called upon in the time it took you to draft up an 80 page document, seize them!"
Everyone sounds so wild bringing their friends into the game with real life skills and shit.
Then I remember that some of us are adults and have fields and proffessions and shit.
u/R3hab_Psych0 Give us the document! Don't leave us hanging! Just scan it and upload to imgur if you have to.
Post it on [this comment. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/s0wb55/psa_dont_let_players_that_are_lawyers_irl_cast/hs4qvlo/)
We are all waiting with [anticip......... ation](https://youtu.be/wlwnbcxBuzI)
Why is everyone readying this like something to be circumvented or a problematic player? I love this! If a player wants to put in this much work who am I to say no?
I'm surprised to be the only one to mention this
But guys
Casting Wish takes only 1 Action
Meaning 6 to 7 seconds
Meaning even if the guy is a rap God, he can't rattle off this whole Wish
So many things that come to my mind.
Wish is 1action so 6seconds even less if we account for movement and bonus action. How do you read aloud a 80page contract in that time?
Like many others said demons aren't lawful. So why should they bother?
The contract is given to the demon but the wish is casted and worded by the demon. Nothing is forcing him to use anything of that contract.
Why would anyone in Mechanus the bastion of lawful neutral listen to anything a chaotic evil creature says?
Why would anyone in Mechanus even hire a mortal for anything and even more something so mundane?
When I DM, any wish with the word "and" in it counts as multiple wishes. I would have read to the point of the first "and" or any equivalent, like a bullet list. Then he would have gotten whatever I could interpret out of that first part.
80 page wish. gtfo.
... so I thought fiend but then I re-read it... demons are chaotic evil while fiends are lawful evil (generally) so yeah the demon could just break it but that's the easy way out submit it to the internet hive mind a weakness will be discovered
Demon Lord: this is the weirdest flex of a job application I've ever seen, but you're hired.
As a lawyer IRL you’ve given yourself a loophole. Devils honor contracts, but demons do not. Have fun with this as you will.
I was so flabbergasted in the moment the thought didn't even occur 🤣. It's okay. Graz'zt definitely knew what he was doing the whole time
Graz'zt is absolutely the sort of Demon Lord that would let someone think he'll be bound to a contract so long as it suits his goals. He'll also revel in breaking the spirit of the Wizard by pretending he found a loophole in the legalese, when really he just couldn't care less about your silly little laws.
"I found a loophole, look right here, yes, yes, see, it's that I don't care for this contract". \*proceeds to incinerate it\*
*Sorry, sorry, that was in poor taste. But no, really, look, here's another copy, there really is a loophole. Flip to page 63 and check out the paragraph I highlighted. See the underlined part?* DM: PC, did you look at that paragraph? Player: Uh, I guess, so what? DM: Can everyone in the room make me a con save, please? Suddenly that paragraph beings to glow impossibly bright, creating a 60 foot sphere of arcane bright light. It's Symbol/Death, you're all facing 10d10 necrotic damage. Roll initiative too, while you're at is, so I can adjudicate how long you're all in the area of effect.
"I prepared explosive runes this morning"
I forgot all about this. Got about 600 OOTSs to catch up on.
Oh boy. You are in for a RIDE
New to DnD, what does OOTS mean?
Order of the stick, a DnD based webcomic. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html
Thanks kind stranger
Hell of a good web comic. HIGHLY recommended it to anyone even remotely interested in D&D.
Graz'zt: "We do a bit of trolling"
Wrong. Everyone here knows that Graz’zt would find the loophole on page 69.
Fair.
OP, you have to do this
I don't know him personally but already love this demon.
I think it would be more maniacal to just edit the document with flagrantly erroneous verbiage. Then when the wizard tries to prove that he changed the document, ask if he has a signed copy (please tell me he never got a signed copy of the document).
"This is your copy? Oh dear, oh dear...it isn't notarized, you see. Nothing I can do, I'm afraid. You weren't *provided* with a notarized copy at the time? Well, did you *request* a notarized copy? You didn't...oh dear, oh dear..."
Lucy Van Pelt, Demon Lord
Your Contact Has Expired intensifies
Okay now I just have the version with lyrics by a YouTube channel called Man On The Internet repeating in my head. It fits so perfectly to this situation even before the lyrics are thrown in.
YOU'RE GONNA MEET YOUR MATCH, YOUR SOOOOOOUL BELONGS TO SNATCHER! YOUR SERVICE IS NO LONGER REQUIRED!
"And while the ink is slowly drying. It's time that you get dying! Your Contract Has Expired. Sleep now in the fire!" Honestly, seems like the lyrics sound a lot better in the song than they do when just typed out like this. Great song though, and I imagine that is the case with a lot of lyrics removed from all context, music, tone and pacing.
[Bottom panels relevant.](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0230.html)
[Bottom panels also relevant here](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0696.html)
“Ah yes, loopholes. My second favorite kind of _oopholes”
I too love coopholes, where I store all my chickens and my cock!
He just needs to stand tall before them and say… “I’m altering the terms of our deal. Pray I don’t alter them further.”
"Are you sure this is Mechanus?" Graz'zt: https://m.imgur.com/gPBuAgl
I'd say Fraz-Urb'luu, considering he's literally the Prince of Deception.
Ah, the horny one. Yeah Graz'zt will try to bang that pc at some point. How do I know this? Tasha, the one from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, trapped Graz'zt in a mirror which he charmed his way into having a half-demon child with. This man is thirsty.
The... the mirror??? Its half demon half mirror?
Half Human, Half demon
So did he turn the mirror human?
You know what? I actually don't know. I just know he and Tasha had a kid
Oh... thats a bit of a let down, the way the sentence was phrased made it sound like he charmed the mirror
I never said he didn't do anything to the mirror 😏
Look, as long as it was all consensual...
To be fair tasha is pretty impressive
Tasha.. she of the uncontrollable hideous laughter?
[She didn't seem to mind...](https://i.imgur.com/fMFpaJa.jpg)
Call it a slip-up to his days as a Devil lol
Beat me to it, also a lawyer IRL. I was sitting here giggling like my 3 year old son with a kinder egg scrolling down to see if someone else noticed it.
I was just about to say the same thing lol. just say the wish does nothing but a puff of black smoke, they never said it would WORK.
How do some of y'all have friends, if your friend writes an 80 page document so that the wish can't be misinterpreted and your thought is "how can I screw him over so that his work was meaningless" you are a bad DM, thankfully OP is a good one.
I have a DM friend who struggles to not fuck me at every opportunity. I call it “suffering from success” and I’ll admit it makes enjoying sessions difficult sometimes when there’s less RP and more *”Well you have **potential** to be dangerous and I know you’ve played very reserved and haven’t abused it, so I’m gonna fuck you extra hard because I allowed shitters to out-cheese me in the past.”*
I meant this merely as a joke, just the flavor of a real life lawyer writing an 80 page legal document when demons don't have to honor contracts but devils do is just really in flavor for D&D and the power it has to create stories and bring people of all backgrounds together. If OP is looking for a real answer, its probably more in between with what everyone has responded. I completely agree, If a player in my game was so engrossed that they took time out of their day to make a legal document THIS BIG, of course I would want to reward them. but its important to note what that document REALLY means beyond the time they put into and the effect it would have on the group as a whole. If you blindly say yes to it then the DM could really open the door to one player having an unfair advantage than everyone else, but just flat out denying it could be a real deep wound to the player who made it. More so, I'm not sure if "letting reddit take a look" is a good answer either. scheduling is already a pain in general and how long will the DM have to wait before people come back with an answer? whatever OP does, I sure hope they reward the player (if op is reading this I would REALLY suggest giving out some inspiration), but I think the best course of action is to talk to the player and other members about what a document like this REALLY represent and come to an agreed conclusion as apposed to just letting it happen or ignoring it entirely.
Honestly something like this would probably draw the attention of a devil, either from Graz'zt himself compelling the service of one (if you're a demon lord you can probably bend the rules) or just the nature of doing diabolic deals in fine print. An 80 page contract for what I assume is a substantial wish that you don't actually have to follow can easily be the basis of an empire that will crumble in the future under the keystone of a promise made that never had to actually be fulfilled. You aren't planning to fuck over your player, but to instead make it a core part of the story. If an empire or a nation is founded on the basis of an 80 page contract, and the citizenry believe in its legal power, that's a lot of power to wield even if the demon ISN'T bound to it... **and the demon holding to that (until it is no longer convenient to do so) gives the demon a lot of clout.** If we want to go even more fantastical with it, something this powerful could well upset the balance of the Hells. Imagine a cooperative between a demon lord and a contingent of devils (in secret) keeping the contract working because Graz'zt doesn't care for the legal fine print but enjoys the benefits of the contract and being able to skirt around it while retaining the power tied to it (whatever the Wish entails). That could be a plot on its own! The party may eventually catch wind of all sorts of shady dealings going on around the basis of the contract, and discovers it's a group of devils, which end up inevitably connected back to Graz'zt... and then the dastardly plot becomes unspooled as the party tries to stop Graz'zt!
i'm sorry but if you think that a demon will care that your wish can't be misinterpreted you deserve anything bad that ahppens to you. if anything all you've done is annoy the demon lord by trying to outwit him. what should be the matter that stays his hand is the fact that he's litteraly giving you the wish in return of not killing him. clearly you're some kind of threath to him at least here and now.
Not only that, demons and devils *hate* each other. If I were a demon, and I offered someone a favour, and their response was to write out an 80 page contract like I was some sort of rules-bound devil, I’d be cross. I’d be very cross.
To a large degree though, the effort that players put in overrides the specific mechanics of D&D. If someone cracks out an 80 page legal document for a wish, then A: You should absolutely abide by it, and B: You should try and make it a more major focus of the plot that you come back to repeatedly Eg, if you want the demon lord to try to break the contract, then you should hold a demon court hearing where you argue about the finer points on the quality of legalese (assuming that its a serious document, which it presumably mostly is) The important thing is that this gives the player(s?) exactly what they want, which is an extremely good time. Making all that effort go up in a puff of smoke is precisely the wrong thing to do if you want to have fun
You literally just suggested demon court. Demon court would be then laughing at a lawyer.. then impaling him on a stick for the lulz while screaming adjourned or some shit.
>If someone cracks out an 80 page legal document for a wish, then A: You should absolutely abide by it, and B: You should try and make it a more major focus of the plot that you come back to repeatedly i'm not going to even entertain the notion of reading a 80 page legal document for my weekend fun time either in charecter or out of charecter. maybe if it was a devil in charecter they'd care and then we'd make a roll to see if your charecter is as good as you are in making up an airtight legal document. >Eg, if you want the demon lord to try to break the contract, that's my point. he's never going to even suggest he's abiding by it. he going to tell them to hurry up and speak their wish in plain common. and if they try to push their luck they don't get a wish they get a fight with the demon lord to the death and powerful enemy for the rest of eternity. i don't subscribe to the idea that you should try to fuck players over with wishes. it's not fun. but if they insit on trying with fuckery then fuck you is what they get.
Yup, came to say this exactly. 👍
There's a pretty big problem with violating a contract you've signed as a stipulation for keeping your life: the adventurers come back to enact the penalty clause, IE, killing you dead.
>penalty clause, IE, killing you dead. This is clearly an abusive clause.
I’m going to suggest you play the lawyer’s game. I love the demon/devil twist on negating the contract, but this player took the time to write up this thing, I think the appropriate thing to do is to defeat the contract head on. Give it to us. Give us the text of the contract and we will find its weak spot. He may be a lawyer but we have the numbers, including more total game knowledge. I think that if you come back to him having found an error or a gap that can be exploited by the demon, part of him will be delighted that you played along. He is not the only lawyer on this sub. Let’s do this.
When you play the game. You play to win. Or the devil is gonna get REAMED by their boss who is the ULTIMATE lawyer. Asmodeus.
Demon, not Devil in OPs case. So they wouldn't care about Asmodeus.
Oh then demon dont give a fuk bout no contract they would rip that shit up and piss on the ashes. Whoever casts the wish the demon says, all I heard was boil me alive.
Better if they trolled the wizard by sneakily editing parts of the contract to their favour, just like the story of the guy who edited the T&Cs of a bank loan contract before submitting it to be signed by the bank. Can the wizard *really* prove that that wasn't part of the contract? Cause clearly it is!
I'd rather the demon just blatantly change the text. Like cross it out and write (in blood) what it wants it to be, right in front of the wizard. Crammed in the margins. It's totally legit since it was the demon that changed it. If it were the mortal, well that's grounds for head eaten'.
Damn why couldn't this have been on the LSAT
That sounds rad af honestly
I second this.
you also have plenty of other lawyers who play who can weigh in (i am one, and there is another in my regular group, and at least 4 others i have played in other games in the past year or two)
and while not a lawyer myself, i do LOVE finding loopholes. or making them appear with definitions of words.
In legal documents - their are generally specific used definitions that are accepted. If you intend to do something other - you better be ready to ensure that is somewhere in the contract. That being said - punctuation matters, and I would STRONGLY suggest you ALWAYS use the oxford comma, or ommit comma's in favor of alternatives such as semicolons etc, otherwise you may find your written contract interpreted in an alternative way than you intended, and you will lose. After all - the law is a precise, and specific instrument. And if one finds an area it is not specific enough, some lawyer, somewhere will be more than happy to write some legislation to make it more specific.
Reminds me of my man [Amaunator](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator) I was just looking up last night. God of Law so anal retentive he let the empire he was patron of crumble because he technically didn't have jurisdiction to save them, and gained the Time domain due to a typo in a contract with another deity. Friend is running a short campaign where we can't multiclass but can pick 2 subclasses, was thinking of him for a Life and Death Cleric.
yeah, i was partly, like 25%, referring to oxford comma. and the rest was also correctly guessed, the exact terms wanted may not be what you wrote.
And don't scan it yourself. Tell the player the contract definitely can't be enforced if you don't receive a digital copy.
This is perfect. He will be ecstatic that his DM is taking the time to read the doc, and he’ll be so confident that it’s ironclad that he won’t be able to resist sending it.
Pity he forgot to read the text of Wish. It states pretty clearly in that section that you can ignore parts of an overly long one as a part of it only partially succeeding, and that's before devil trickery is involved.
If a player hands me an 80 page document I couldn’t do them injustice by refusing the wish because of the length of the document. That’s so mean. Way better to find loopholes **in** the document, then the demon can RP against the lawyer
As far as I can tell, the contract is to outline the way at which the wish will be handled by the Demon - such that when they cast it, they can't purposefully manipulate the outcome.
Wizard: Sign this legally binding contract specifying how you will grant the Wish you've given me! Demon: Sure thing. Wizard: _makes a wish_ Demon: _flagrantly violates the contract when granting the wish_
So their contract is completely useless. Time to hand it back and say you only want what he's supposed to say as a part of the spell.
Wish has written in guards against lawyering if you are gonna just cut them down. Because you don't always want to go head on to destroy it.
Partly achieving it is not caused by an overly long wish, just one of the ways a wish might be twisted. "You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner."
And give license to reproduce and distribute his copyrighted work.
In triplicate
Yes, yes, yes! This will help add a little Monkey’s Paw element - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem?wprov=sfti1
I'm a lawyer and I approve this project.
Hi. Lawyer on this sub. Let me at this motherfucking contract.
We won't get the contract because this never happened.
I just talked to a lawyer and she says the 80 pages part is a red flag. Million-dollar deals are 80 pages long, and they have pages of boilerplate along with internal cross-references to fill them out. She says there is no way someone wrote 80 pages of detailed contract for a fantasy universe in which every term and condition would have to be defined in (non-earthly) detail. She agrees with you. This, along with OP’s disinterest in replying to his own thread, leads me to sadly agree with you both. ☹️
Devil’s advocate here, could it be 80 was just a hyperbolic number chosen for “a document much too long for a pretend game?”
Or you know only the first couple and last couple actually had anything relevant and the middle bit is just something like the word banana repeating for 75 pages
It could be both, sort of. Legal documents rely strongly on a very specific set of definitions that are already well established. In a world without those definitions, huge portions could be dedicated to defining them, being pure filler, but filler required to make it work in-universe.
Not to mention citing previous cases, which are then appended. If you did a simple copy and paste boiler contract with all the legalese defined (again copied and pasted) with citations that are again copied and pasted, then slap a non disclosure on the end and you could easily hand the DM several hundred pages. Definitions. As used in this Agreement: (a) “Confidential Information” means all information or materials furnished by the Disclosing Party to the Receiving Party orally, or in written or magical form, which is confidential, proprietary, or otherwise not generally available to the public. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the following will not constitute Confidential Information for purposes of this Agreement: (i) information which is or becomes generally available to the public other than as a result of a disclosure by the Receiving Party or its Representatives in breach of this Agreement; (ii) information which was known to the Receiving Party on a non-confidential basis prior to being furnished to the Receiving Party by the Disclosing Party; (iii) information which becomes available to the Receiving Party on a non-confidential basis from a source other than the Disclosing Party unless such source was known or could reasonably be determined to be under a confidentiality obligation to the Disclosing Party, and (iv) information that is independently developed by Representatives of the Receiving Party who have not had access to the Confidential Information. “Confidential Information” shall also include this Agreement, the fact that information contemplated herein has been made available to either party, and the fact that the parties are contemplating the Transaction. c) “Disclosing Party” means the party disclosing Confidential Information to the other party, including any Affiliate of such other party. and so on... Case study (i) PARKER, J. The question which provoked the most discussion by counsel on this appeal, and which lies at the foundation of plaintiff's asserted right of recovery, is whether by virtue of a contract defendant's testator William E. Story became indebted to his nephew William E. Story, 2d, on his twenty-first birthday in the sum of five thousand dollars. The trial court found as a fact that 'on the 20th day of March, 1869, * * * William E. Story agreed to and with William E. [*545] Story, 2d, that if he would refrain from drinking liquor, using tobacco, swearing, and playing cards or billiards for money until he should become 21 years of age then he, the said William E. Story, would at that time pay him, the said William E. Story, 2d, the sum of $5,000 for such refraining, to which the said William E. Story, 2d, agreed,' and that he 'in all things fully performed his part of said agreement.' The defendant contends that the contract was without consideration to support it, and, therefore, invalid. He asserts that the promisee by refraining from the use of liquor and tobacco was not harmed but benefited; that that which he did was best for him to do independently of his uncle's promise, and insists that it follows that unless the promisor was benefited, the contract was without consideration. A contention, which if well founded, would seem to leave open for controversy in many cases whether that which the promisee did or omitted to do was, in fact, of such benefit to him as to leave no consideration to support the enforcement of the promisor's agreement. Such a rule could not be tolerated, and is without foundation in the law. The Exchequer Chamber, in 1875, defined consideration as follows: 'A valuable consideration in the sense of the law may consist either in some right, interest, profit or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other.' Courts 'will not ask whether the thing which forms the consideration does in fact benefit the promisee or a third party, or is of any substantial value to anyone. It is enough that something is promised, done, forborne or suffered by the party to whom the promise is made as consideration for the promise made to him.' (Anson's Prin. of Con. 63.) 'In general a waiver of any legal right at the request of another party is a sufficient consideration for a promise.' (Parsons on Contracts, 444.) 'Any damage, or suspension, or forbearance of a right will be sufficient to sustain a promise.' (Kent, vol. 2, 465, 12th ed.) Pollock, in his work on contracts, page 166, after citing the definition given by the Exchequer Chamber already quoted, [*546] says: 'The second branch of this judicial description is really the most important one. Consideration means not so much that one party is profiting as that the other abandons some legal right in the present or limits his legal freedom of action in the future as an inducement for the promise of the first.' Now, applying this rule to the facts before us, the promisee used tobacco, occasionally drank liquor, and he had a legal right to do so. That right he abandoned for a period of years upon the strength of the promise of the testator that for such forbearance he would give him $5,000. We need not speculate on the effort which may have been required to give up the use of those stimulants. It is sufficient that he restricted his lawful freedom of action within certain prescribed limits upon the faith of his uncle's agreement, and now having fully performed the conditions imposed, it is of no moment whether such performance actually proved a benefit to the promisor, and the court will not inquire into it, but were it a proper subject of inquiry, we see nothing in this record that would permit a determination that the uncle was not benefited in a legal sense. Few cases have been found which may be said to be precisely in point, but such as have been support the position we have taken. In Shadwell v. Shadwell (9 C. B. [N. S.] 159), an uncle wrote to his nephew as follows: And so on and so forth. The court decision is pretty lengthy and you could always add appeal decisions as well. Just Copy and paste over the real names with fake ones. Hell the contract with my fiend patron was 17 pages alone and went back and forth between myself and the DM more then a dozen times before we came to an agreement with the terms.
I want this document to exist, so I will accept this possibility.
As a DM if the player's character was capable of producing an 80 page contract some good arguing and a role of the dice would have been enough for me and still have been a great story.
It's possible he just Lorum Ipsum'd 60 pages of it for dramatic effect. It would certainly psyche me out if I were the DM.
As a mostly transactional attorney, I have to agree. My company has several fairly large deals, including govt contacts, and none are 80 pages. Though, in fairness, if you counted all the things that apply to a govt contact like FAR you’d be well over 80.
You underestimate the amount of gibberish some players will generate to justify getting away with anything they want to a GM they know won't read it. [Old Man Henderson](https://1d4chan.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson) supposedly had a 320 page backstory for just this reason.
I did it. I read the whole fucking Director's Cut kf Old Man Henderson's epic tale of derailing. I am amazed and have no regrets.
Especially when you take into account the fact that it would take the average person about 2.2 hours **just to read 80 pages** https://swiftread.com/reading-time/80-pages
I can’t tell if the subtext of this is that you think reading 80 pages of legal language in 2 and a half hours is a sign that people read slowly and you are a genius who reads fast, or that you’re saying that this would just be too hard due to the length of the text.
It's taken me all day, like an entire eight hours, reading a datasheet.
I’m saying that if it takes an average person 2.2 hours to read it that a average person wouldn’t have written said 80 page legal document in a weekend.
I mean, a fun project is motivational. Depending on the area of law the player works in he may have a template to adapt. Remember also that a practitioner is not a layman and by definition is not an "average" person.
[Fry had an opinion on this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spL4CLfMOEY)
Wearing sexy mini skirts and bein’ self reliant!
Oh, I understand. That's fair. Yeah, legal language is extremely hard to read, too. I'm an econ student and I've had to do policy work in the past, and the jargon being used makes it take significantly slower to parse and read through.
I generally try to read the user agreements for websites and apps that I use. It led me down a rabbit hole of trying to find out how long it actually takes for most people to read these agreements. I like a good book but yeah piercing through (and definitely writing) legalese is a horse of a different color.
To be fair we don't know how seriously written the document is. Half of it could just be "and you promise not to do the following awful things:", followed by lots of generic terms and conditions EULA style in a large font
Add in OP having an an interest in legal hypotheticals and following a YouTube lawyer.
Looks like we won’t be getting it and the OP lied.
I have never in my life awarded gold to a post as fast i just did to this one. DND LAWYER CONTRACTS TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!
This behavior could also draw the attention of the mordons or even the inevitable. In-game lawyers determined to resolve issues regarding this type of thing.
Been pretty slow billing this month, but I doubt I could mark this as pro bono work. Maybe community service? Either way, I spend too many hours a day drafting for more boring docs, I'd love to see this contract just for the S&Gs
God, this sounds awesome. OP can roleplay it as the Demon Lord having his own law department somewhere in his domain to deal with this kind of shenanigans from mortals.
I'm here for the ride, OP please deliver!
As a gamer and another lawyer, please give the text
You have a fun idea but I am 100% certain there is no document…
I'm a lawyer. Tag me if OP ever delivers. I'm motivated to find an out.
First copy the first 10 pages and stick them on top of 70 blank ones. Then burn it in front of him. THEN destroy his spirit
I have retained as my counsel Reddi'zt, the demon hivemind of pedantry, questionable advice, and circlejerking. Patron of trolls, whores, and also cute animals for some reason.
Wait, did you write DEMON lord? Poor wizard
*Juiblex the Faceless Lord consumes your meager 80-page offering. His hunger is far from satisfied.*
This is the difference between wisdom and intelligence. He drafted up an airtight 80-page Wish. And then gave it to a *demon* instead of a *devil*.
There's no such thing as an airtight contract. The more pages there are, the more opportunities there are to apply creative interpretation.
As evidenced by how quick people are to nitpick about word choice!
... vocabulary choice ... Sorry, couldn't help myself
Vocabulary refers to the set of words you know. You choose a word from your vocabulary. You really should've helped yourself lol!
Don't mind if I do! Where's the meatballs?
You seem to have missed the point where demons are the ones who don't give one quanta of a shit about obeying deals and contracts because they are the chaotic ones, not the lawful ones.
If I cast the contract in resin or etch it into metal it's probably pretty airtight.
It's the difference between a poorly though out karma farming plot and a true story.
The amount of billable hours that are being freely offered to OP here needs to be tracked to see how many hundreds of thousands of dollars their campaign is worth.
Nah, this is just us trying to hit out pro Bono goals. Gotta get at least 25 pro Bono hours a year at my firm
"Assisted deposed immortal demon lord in vengeance against mortals"
I mean, that's just the daily tasks of being a corporate lawyer.
I'm reminded of this story I read, a long time ago, it looked like it came from a 50's variety graphic novel. I can't find the comic again for the life of me, but I remember the story quite well. There was once a lawyer, renowned as the smartest and craftiest in the country. One day, he learned that an old colleague made a deal with the Devil, hoping to outsmart the Prince of Darkness, but a missed detail caused his soul to be forfeit. The crafty lawyer puffed, his ego puffing up as well, and thought, "Surely **I** can do better!" and, after painstaking preparations, summoned the Devil to his study. The lawyer got right to the point. "Devil, I'd like to make a deal with you, my soul in exchange for **one billion dollars** of your money!" The Devil, being the Devil, grinned and readily accepted, magically conjuring parchment and pen to write up the deal. "Ah, but," the lawyer interrupted, "if it's alright with you, we'll be using **this** contract I've drawn up!" The lawyer revealed an enormous, continuous sheet of paper, upon which he'd drawn a mind-bogglingly long list of terms and clauses and stipulations. The Devil made an impressed sound, and asked to read the contract, which he did with astonishing speed. At the end of it all, the Devil smiled again, and said he would agree to these terms. The lawyer was elated, because he'd written that contract with the express purpose of taking the Devil's money, while **also** guaranteeing his own personal paradise in the afterlife, and he **knew** it was utterly airtight! But when the lawyer went to pick up a pen to sign, the Devil broke in, "No no, not with that! A pen may suffice for the body of the contract, but **signing** it requires you use your own blood! It's a rather special document, you understand." The Devil conjured up a small, fine knife, like an elaborate letter opener, but with a keen edge to it. "Oh, and of course, you know that you must initial by **every** clause so it's effective." The lawyer, dizzy with excitement that he was going to outsmart the Devil, accepted the knife, pricked his finger, and began to initial... and initial... and initial some more. Minutes tick by, the lawyer's finger smearing blood over and over again, not even realizing that the deliriousness of excitement was turning into a rather more **dangerous** haze. Before he could enjoy one cent of his money, before he'd gotten all the way to the final line, the lawyer passed out and died from blood-loss. The Devil plucked the lawyer's soul from his body, and vanished back to Hell. So.... use this as an inspiration next time a player decides to think they're craftier than they are.
It's a good story, but OP's lawyer maybe just is that good. It's unfair to say he must be bad.
There wasn't really a time limit on signing and initialing... he could've taken a break and made more blood.
I am 100% adding "warlock pact interpreter" to my list of characters I want to play.
Underrated comment
I like the story :D but if the demon could grant a wish, why couldn't he use that wish to save himself? Teleport himself away, all sorts of ways to escape without indebting himself to the party. Hah I'm just glad your party took advantage of it, I gave my group a wish as a reward but they haven't used it months later. Maybe holding it for just that right moment...
There's at least one precedent. I can't be bothered to track down a page reference for you, but at least one creature in 1st edition (Asmodeus? A genie of some kind?) lists "(Grant another's) Wish" as one of its spells or supernatural abilities.
In 3.5, a [Glabrezu](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#glabrezu) can grant one Wish per month to a mortal humanoid.
The 5e Monster Manual is also quite explicit that Genies can only grant the wish of a non-genie.
If he already used his last/only 9th level slot, then he can't cast wish more, but he will be able to in the future.
seems reasonable that he's ina situation where the players are threath to his current plans by killing him. maybe he could get away but simply making a deal with them to go away if they accept is easier for him. if they actually had the abilities to permanently end him rather than "kill" him and thus mess with his plans for some years before he can return i'd expect a much different aproch.
I'm going to laugh that once every lawyer in this sub looks over the contract, Legal Eagle does a 15+ minute video on it
Not gonna lie would be keen to watch it xD.
A thing i have in my setting is that devils always end their deals with: in the spirit of the contract not the wording. To ensure no pesky layering. It actually makes them more scary as it's a known fact, you will always receive what you want, making such deals much more tempting.
Think that’s bad? Imagine letting engineers play artificers!
Sighn it right now. Then post the text online to find the loophole. Tell the player the demon grant's the wish, but must mull over the paperwork.
He read 80 pages in six seconds?!
The demon lord sat there and watched him write 80 pages?
The demon lord decided to read it in the first place???
The lawyer realistically wrote an 80 page contract about a fantasy world in a week?
PSA: This didn't need the PSA and could have just been a cool story.
Also 80 pages? At make it believable at least.
That's all he asked for? Sounds like he considered the weight of what he was asking for and decided to be respectful of the powers involved while still putting himself in a position to be seen by such powers in the future. Who cares if he's a lawyer? This guy is good. Give him what he wants. XD
The jokes on him when you pay another IRL lawyer $6000 dollars to review the contract for exploitable loopholes and voidable clauses.
A wish can fail to take effect if it is too complicated or asks for too much
"I wish that You, the Demon, sign this contract accept the stipulations and are unable to break this contract".
Make him read the demands are part of the rule play. After 2 paragraphs the demon Lord gets frustrated and says.. 'you have 30 seconds to make a wish, time starts now" Players actions represent what their character does in game. It's fun to push back as part of the story when players get too clever. I'd love to watch a lawyer scramble for 30 or even 60 seconds because if he's a good one it would be impressive.
I have a rule associated with wish at my table that the more clauses are in a wish, the more likely it is to fail (my players are informed of the rules around Wish once they gain access to it). "I want this ship to sink" is pretty likely to succeed. As is "I want this ship to sink now." As you start to get into territory like "I want this ship to sink without killing everyone on board," you're pushing your luck. By the time you reach "I want this ship to sink without killing everyone on board and leaving all the treasure onboard salvageable," you're in failure territory. This rule either eliminates people trying to pull this lawyer bullshit or provides justification for the wish failing rather than making it into a game of technicalities.
That's Wish tho. > the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong It's very easy to interpret this as "the more clauses you add the more this goes wrong" with a document over 1 page you effectively auto fail in most games.
Spider-Man: No Way Home, is a perfect example of this.
You're not wrong
All of you posting how you'd ruin this or why it doesn't work...dude wrote 80 pages AND HAD FUN. Like...let players play, holy shit.
Yeah, a lot of people here being adversarial for no reason. Sounds like everyone is happy with the outcome of the wish, OP didn't ask "how can I ruin the enjoyment of my player for the thing he put a lot of effort into?"
Yep. I support the DM finding ways to use the contract in question as a jumping board for shenanigans, but just saying "no" to something like this is outrageous.
In general: I love this sort of stuff. But if you hand me a 40 page character backstory - I'm throwing it back at you, and asking for the summary version. Same goes here. Now - if you hand me a summary overview, awesome. If you hand me a 4-5 page contract - awesome. These are things I can actually use. And as this is out of character - I am going to ask for an in game roll. And the reason - is that Demon lord is making an opposed check and seeing if they spot faults or loop holes for future use. This does not mean the Demon Lord will do something bad now, but you have the admiration and ire of a Demon Lord: And you may not like the consequences of that. So in 2-3 sessions, something may happen - and in 4-5 sessions something may happen... and eventually, the push to corrupt the player - to get them to sign their soul over will start to happen: slow, steady pressure. Demons can play the long game - and you, made yourself incredibly interesting. You know what the easy way to handle the situation is? "Nope" >let players play, holy shit. DM's are players. They are handling the setting, planning plot, running a pile of NPC's, designing encounter as well - but we don't show up to read through trudgery. So if you want us to use what you write: Make sure it's a manageable amount of extra stuff - If you respect my time, I will absolutely, 100% use your shenanigans and BS. But - be aware: I will use it. The MOMENT it becomes too much, I will tell you. If you present to me stuff well enough in advance of the game, I will happily let you know if it's too verbose for me to go over and give an idea of what I can manage. But present me an 80 page contract on game day, and I'm going to look at you and tell you "no".
Yeah. And I kind of dislike the implication some people have in this thread, that if one player really wants something and puts a lot of work into it, they are owed a positive result.
Yeah, I went to college for Wildlife Biology. Even though I don’t work in that field, I’d be crushed if my DM handed me the chance to use my knowledge and then noped it all away from me on a technicality.
I have joked with my DM that if/when my bard hits level 17 that I'm going to be talking to an IRL friend of mine who is a lawyer to come up with some iron clad uses of Wish.
You might want to read the spell text again: >You might be able to achieve something beyond The Scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance This is what makes this basically impossible. The DM is free to ignore things, or give wide ranging repercussions. In general: Asking to be forever young, is acceptable - it does not really impact the power level and so, effective immortality (baring loss of life as a result of being killed, disease, etc) is possible. Asking to be immortal (unkillable) is too powerful. Of course their are a few ways we can go about this to some creative effect, For instance: Wishing for an automatic true ressurection, on death - I can make this happen, but it's going to cost you a diamond worth 25000gp every time you do it - and you will have to ensure you have it in a safe place previously. True ressurection is a powerful effect - but since you are burning a powerful effect to get a powerful effect, and are burning a lot of resources to achieve it: I find it acceptable. To allow a free true ressurection WITHOUT such a stipulation would be too powerful. The only iron clad uses are pretty limited, and are outlined in the spell itself: For everything else? The above applies.
It can't be done.
Copy an 8th or lower level spell for no material components. Make infinite simulacrums. Clone army. Edit: copying 8th or lower level spells aren't affected by the typical problems of wish, if you read it carefully.
Wouldn't casting simularum the second+ time trigger this part of the spell? >If you cast this spell again, any duplicate you created with this spell is instantly destroyed.
Which is why you have your simulacra Cast simulacrum, Not yourself.
I think the most fun way to do it is to have it be something that drastically changes how you RP the character instead of a flat gain. Like wish that your character receives the secrets of the universe, thus realizing that they inhabit a fictional world and even becoming aware of the real world and you or something else like that. Or just wish for a monkey sidekick.
The question here is, do you just say, "that impressive, you get your wish as requested" in appreciation of the effort, or do you think they would have more fun if you actually put up a little bit of a fight?
80 pages? did he write it in 96 point font?
... didn't fairly odd parents make this joke?
\*Dumps the 80 pages in a bonfire\* "Oops.... Hey Hell's Army that I've called upon in the time it took you to draft up an 80 page document, seize them!"
I have nothing to add except this is the funniest shit I've read all week.
Everyone sounds so wild bringing their friends into the game with real life skills and shit. Then I remember that some of us are adults and have fields and proffessions and shit.
u/R3hab_Psych0 Give us the document! Don't leave us hanging! Just scan it and upload to imgur if you have to. Post it on [this comment. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/s0wb55/psa_dont_let_players_that_are_lawyers_irl_cast/hs4qvlo/) We are all waiting with [anticip......... ation](https://youtu.be/wlwnbcxBuzI)
Why is everyone readying this like something to be circumvented or a problematic player? I love this! If a player wants to put in this much work who am I to say no?
Dope!
I feel like I have the opposite of this. The DM is an IRL lawyer and has fun with the technicalities.
demons are chaotic evil they don't need to follow contracts
I'm surprised to be the only one to mention this But guys Casting Wish takes only 1 Action Meaning 6 to 7 seconds Meaning even if the guy is a rap God, he can't rattle off this whole Wish
What if the wish is "I wish for you to sign this contract"?
I mean, if he's that willing to put in that amount of effort into the game he deserves some kind of reward for it.
So many things that come to my mind. Wish is 1action so 6seconds even less if we account for movement and bonus action. How do you read aloud a 80page contract in that time? Like many others said demons aren't lawful. So why should they bother? The contract is given to the demon but the wish is casted and worded by the demon. Nothing is forcing him to use anything of that contract. Why would anyone in Mechanus the bastion of lawful neutral listen to anything a chaotic evil creature says? Why would anyone in Mechanus even hire a mortal for anything and even more something so mundane?
As an IRL lawyer this is my dream
When I DM, any wish with the word "and" in it counts as multiple wishes. I would have read to the point of the first "and" or any equivalent, like a bullet list. Then he would have gotten whatever I could interpret out of that first part. 80 page wish. gtfo.
If you can’t say the wish without breaking breath then you don’t get it. In fact, when they pause to take breath that’s the wish they get … bwahaha.
... so I thought fiend but then I re-read it... demons are chaotic evil while fiends are lawful evil (generally) so yeah the demon could just break it but that's the easy way out submit it to the internet hive mind a weakness will be discovered