My first Wish

[Stormonu]

I agree with the others in letting at least the wishing character to retain knowledge of what's happened. How far outward that knowledge should go (other surviving PCs, deceased PCs, bad guys) is certainly up for debate (personally, I would only extend it to those who survived).

Also, I'd also make sure that when the characters come back across the Wish, its already used up - I wouldn't allow them basically to get two wishes by wishing for something else. It also means that if they "screw up again", they can't keep going back to fix it.

 

[RangerWickett]

Time cannot be changed. So their consciousnesses go back 2 hours, but they basically have to relive what already happened.

Now, they can make other decisions, but that creates a paradox. Things start to go crazy as they change things, lightning starts tearing holes in the sky, and NPCs react to what they did the first time through, not their current actions. They get a strong impression that if they change things too much, they might destroy themselves as reality erases the paradox they created.

So during the fight, they might decide to attack different people, but it won't matter. Oh, you hit? Well, the sword does no damage. But this other guy, who you hit in the original timeline, gets the same wound he got then.

I dunno, it's just an idea.

 

[Nytmare]

Man, this reminds me of a one shot, Groundhog Day-esque, time travel game I had run about a million years ago.

I had a huge table of computer rolled numbers, matched to what were basically rounds, and a bare bones script of what happened the first time the players interacted with things.

When the players attempted anything, they'd roll as usual, but everything else operated off that set list of numbers.

 

[Quickleaf]

I agree with the others in letting at least the wishing character to retain knowledge of what's happened. How far outward that knowledge should go (other surviving PCs, deceased PCs, bad guys) is certainly up for debate (personally, I would only extend it to those who survived).

Also, I'd also make sure that when the characters come back across the Wish, its already used up - I wouldn't allow them basically to get two wishes by wishing for something else. It also means that if they "screw up again", they can't keep going back to fix it.

Yeah that's how I'd run it. Treat the near TPK session as a sort of vision the caster PC has. He suddenly stops with a transfixed look on his face, whispering the final verbal components of the Wish spell. Everyone else feels a cold shiver down their spines, but otherwise has no clue why their friend is acting like this. Cue the caster PC filling the group in on what the players already know...anything they learned during that time (enemy powers & weaknesses, traps/hazards, etc) they now are aware of. To emphasize how awesome they are during the next 2 hours, have an NPC be stupefied by the PCs "how did you know there was a death trap control panel behind the brazier past the secret door in the otyugh's pit?!?"

 

[Asmo]

Yeah that's how I'd run it. Treat the near TPK session as a sort of vision the caster PC has. He suddenly stops with a transfixed look on his face, whispering the final verbal components of the Wish spell. Everyone else feels a cold shiver down their spines, but otherwise has no clue why their friend is acting like this.

This sounds like a plan; it could open up some new avenues for roleplaying in the group.
Thanks everbody for some great ideas and inspiration. Can´t wait 'til sunday, our next session.

Asmo

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

[MENTION=1767]Asmo[/MENTION] let us know how it goes!

 

[Mishihari Lord]

The answer very much depends on the precise wording of the wish, but I'll give my preferred answer.

The party moves back two hours in time, but remains in the same location since the wish did not specify moving in space. They retain all memories and remain in their current state, hit points, spells used up, down, etc.

Whether or not the current location is occupied by enemies depends on the adventure setting and how nice you want to be.

What happened, happened. Since they don't remember being in contact with their time-back selves, the time-back characters cannot interact with the first-time PCs. Similarly, the back-time PCs can't kill any previously encountered enemies because they know the first-time PCs must still encounter them.

If you want to get fancy, some things might be different and the time-back PCs might have to fulfill certain tasks to make the actions of the first-time PCs possible. E.g., the first-time PCs walked across a lowered drawbridge. The back-time PCs might have to kill some enemies and lower the drawbridge to make this possible.

I've always like the idea I got from an old SF story that the universe abhors change to the time-stream. In the story a man tries to avoid death by pulling himself from in front of a car that was about to run him over and a baseball-sized meteor falls out of the sky and kills him instead. The basic idea is that if a character tries to make a change to the time-stream that requires X energy, and a "natural" change to the time stream of adding a particular random-seeming event requires Y energy, and X>Y, then some random-seeming even will happen to prevent the PC from making the change he wants. This pretty much always involves some very heavy-handed DMing, and I'm okay with this for several reasons. First, I want changes to the time-stream to be very difficult. Second, I want travel to the past to be very dangerous. And third, I don't like time-travel stories or adventures, and reasons one and two discourage the players from taking the story in that direction.

So the PCs will have a couple options. They could run while they have the chance. Or they could hide and rest and recover for two hours, and attack the bad guys immediately after their first-time selves disappear. If they have the ability to significantly recover in the time available, I'd take the second option in their place.

 

[Asmo]

This was a long evening: the party discussed for several hours what to do, and in the end decided not to challenge the BBEG.

Asmo

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Follow up questions to their first attempt:
Did they just roll really bad and you rolled really well causing the near TPK?
Were they drastically outmatched, outclassed, and outnumbered?
Was the CR too high?

So they just talked for a couple of hours and did nothing in-game other than talk about whether or not they wanted to try the encounter again with the foreknowledge of what they would be facing and finding a way to spring a trap of their own or using weaknesses found in the first attempt?

I won't begrudge them not wanting a TPK, but if they just chickened out because they were scared of the encounter I'd make sure that the encounter in the future (when the tried again) would still be tough and different from their first time around as the BBEG would have time to garner more support, magical items, and weapons to face the increased power of the party.

Did they get anything else done for the night in the game which progressed the campaign or story arc?

 

[Blackbrrd]

This was a long evening: the party discussed for several hours what to do, and in the end decided not to challenge the BBEG.

Asmo

If you went with "they know what happened", shouldn't the BBEG also know and try to take out the party?