My first Wish

[Asmo]

The party used a Wish yesterday (first time for me as a DM to resolve a Wish!); they were badly pressed and with both healers down and at the verge of a TPK, they wished to reverse time and put them 2 hours back. I let it pass, but the question is:do they remember anything of the fight and what lead up to it?
We couldn´t resolve that, so I´m turning once again to the bright minds of the boards.

Asmo

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Wishes, unless very specific can harm as much as help players.

I'd do it in one of two ways:

1) Have them basically redo the fight. They would NOT remember that they had used the wish but the wish would still be expended. They'd go back into the past by 2 hours and everyone would be alive. This would give them a chance in-character to try the fight over again and hopefully the dice will roll better.

Now it's hard to not meta-game at this point for players, but explain that they can make the decision again to continue on if they want to (eventually doing the fight over again without any in-character foreknowledge) or they can turn tail and come back another day in the future (at which point you'd change the encounter all together if you wanted to).

2) Do some kind of time-loop if you wanted to give your players some help. The way I'd do it is that the living characters are the only ones sent back into the past, they encounter themselves and can give only give some advice as to what they will encounter in 2 hours into the future. Also remember they can't occupy the same space at the same time, so if someone touches their past self they can be sent into some kind of vortex never to return (time to roll up a new PC!).

 

[Rune]

My instinct would be to say "Yes," but that some of the events that came to pass may be unavoidable--but this is not to hose the players. I just think there's a great potential for awesome adventure, here. Let's call this the "Groundhog Day Approach."

First, some ground rules:

• The Wish is functionally gone, but not technically. It can be used again, but the effect is identical to the first usage. If the Wish is not intentionally used, the first time the PC sleeps, s/he dreams of using it to duplicate the effects of the first usage, which, of course, do. Hello, time-loop!
  
• Any XP earned during this time is set aside for each trip through the cycle. When all of this is over, the PCs earn whichever amount of XP was the highest. This will keep the PCs from leveling higher and higher through this scenario.
  
• Decide on an exit scenario, but be willing to adapt to a good plan by the players. The exit scenario should be pretty easy to accomplish, because the novelty of the experience will probably wear off after a few cycles. Possibly, this could be as simple as figuring out a way for the Wish to be reused to do something than transport the PCs back into the past.
  
• Hilarity ensues.

Edit= Daaang! Ninja'd on the time-loop concept!

 

[Dioltach]

I'd say that if time was simply turned back and they didn't retain their knowledge events would play out exactly as they had before. They would make the same decisions, their opponents would make the same decisions and strictly speaking the outcome would be the same. (I'm talking in-game here, meaninng that there are no dice to fall differently and affect attacks, damage and saves.)

So for their wish to serve any purpose (and let's be fair, it's a high-level spell so it's a bit of a bastard of a DM -- and not even a rat-bastard DM -- who would screw the players over on purpose) they logically have to retain their knowledge.

 

[Li Shenron]

Good scenario!

I think the easiest way to run this, is to let them go back exactly to where they were 2 hours ago, and remember everything that happened until they used the Wish. Basically full awareness... they will know exactly what will happen next if they choose to do the same as before, but clearly they will not, because they already know it will lead some of them to death, so they'll change some actions, at which point the new future is unknown.

More difficult way to run it would be to tell them that they don't remember anything, but they notice the Wish spell is gone, so they can guess they've used it because something went / will go wrong. To pretend not to know what happened / will happen, but still have the characters do something slightly different for believable reasons, probably requires some experienced role-players there.

 

[Mark CMG]

The party used a Wish yesterday (first time for me as a DM to resolve a Wish!); they were badly pressed and with both healers down and at the verge of a TPK, they wished to reverse time and put them 2 hours back. I let it pass, but the question is:do they remember anything of the fight and what lead up to it?
We couldn´t resolve that, so I´m turning once again to the bright minds of the boards.

Asmo

Well, you cannot erase the memories of the players, so they have to be incorporated somehow, as a practical matter. I'd say allow them to replay the scenario from that two hour previous point but warn them that all others will react as per their new movements/actions rather than as predictable by their previous movements/actions. It's a do-over not a scrying of the future.

 

[Cor Azer]

Rat bastard in me has to ask - how did they word the wish?

'Cause if they specifically used words like "wish we..." or "wish us..." rather than using the character names, maybe the baddies from the fight went back too.

As for the back in time part, maybe they can see there old selves getting ready for their ill-fated encounter, but they get some third-party advice about time paradoxes (ie, if they change the past, then the wish isn't made, so the past doesn't get changed, etc...) - essentially, the party gets a two hour windiw to spring an ambush on the encounter that Triggers just as their future past selves disappear via the wish. Of course, maybe the bad guys did this two, and a brand new encounter erupts...

Kind of a Back to the Future hook where good and bad guys are running around in past and prrsent versions.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I might have everyone in the encounter who was alive during the casting retain their memory and everyone who died would not retain their memory. I'd have this happen to everyone who was involved in the fight so if the PC's adversaries figure out what happened they could change their tactics and set up an ambush for the players or go on the offensive.

Unfortunately I don't have a rationale in mind for justify this but I think you need to do something more interesting than simply redoing the combat.

 

[Asmo]

Rat bastard in me has to ask - how did they word the wish?

I really can´t remember - it felt perfect, so I just let it happen. I´m probably to soft to be a true Rat Bastard. And I like the party.

Asmo

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

An equally rat-bastard way (though fair) to handle it:

The world goes back 2 hours. Everyone (I mean EVERYONE) has recall of the now future 2 hours. Now, most commen folk will just go about there way, with a sense of deja vue. Most monsters would be confused as well. But the high level folk (PCs, NPCs, BBEG) will definately have some recall and know something is up!