NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rabulias" data-source="post: 9628835" data-attributes="member: 16651">My most egregious use of DM fiat was many years ago in a solo adventure I planned for a player's elf wizard character over our summer break from college, but I think it worked out well. This was back in AD&D 2nd edition. I gave wizard characters a choice to be trained by a school (more resources for the character, but more obligations and/or rivalries) or by a sole wizard (less resources, but less obligations). He had chosen the school training, so for this adventure I called him back to the school in the capital city to teach a class of basic cantrips for a few weeks while one of the elder instructors was on a research trip to the outer planes.Teaching the class was mostly uneventful. Suspicious events began happening as they neared graduation, and he began snooping around the school and the nearby city blocks in his off hours. He became convinced that someone was planning to disrupt the graduation ceremony or the school's party afterward.At any rate, one session I am describing his class taking the final exam, and my tone just slipped into monotony. I could tell he was starting to get a bit bored with this (our sessions did not normally detail much of the class, though I had roleplayed up a few of the students to give them distinctive personalities), and I said something like this:"You note this student's technique has improved from the start of the class, and his confidence has grown with it. You begin to write your notes..." Then I leaned forward, slapped the table, and exclaimed "You are running. It is dark, damp, and it smells awful - you are on a ledge in a sewer?!? To your left and below you is a rushing torrent of water and filth. About 50 feet ahead of you there is an elf holding an open wooden chest about 10 inches wide toward you. He slams the chest shut, tucks it under his arm, then tears off running away from you."The elf had an obliviax in the chest which had eaten the last 24 hours of the character's memories (I fudged it to let him keep some spells, since he was a solo wizard). So I DM fiated two things: one, that he would fail the saving throw vs the memory loss, and two, I had written up the last 24 hours of what he had done in his investigation, which he was able to work backwards, ultimately saving the school's leaders from a plot to poison them by a revenge-driven former student. My player said he really enjoyed it.</blockquote>

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