The Wishing Imp and time travel

[Algaris]

My party has acquired the Wishing Imp and have made a few wishes with it.

So far I've gone easy on them by granting the wish but with an inconvenient outcome. They believe the imp is well intentioned but broken somehow. The owner thinks all he has to do is figure out how to correctly word his wish in order for it to work properly.

I'm now ready to up the stakes and have real consequences for making the wish. The player who's character owns the imp has given me advanced warning of a wish he wants to make so I can figure out the logistics of it.

Here's a paraphrased version of the wish he wants to make:

When the command word is uttered. The party (as is our current set up [at the time the wish is made]) are to return back to 24 hours into the past. It’s a get out of jail card to save us from death or a bad situation.

This obviously means go back and be alive, and can possibly meet ourselves in the past to warn us of what is to come if we want to.

The character also wants to make the wish in secret without telling the rest of the party first.

My initial thoughts are:

1. This won't be permanent arrangement regardless of what the character thinks. If he tries using the command word a second time without renewing the wish he'll be in for a shock.

2. I'm really not keen on getting involved in lots of time travel (outside of The Curse of Ashington Manor and Castles Folorn)

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can suitably twist the wish to make the consequences very real (not just inconvenient) but not enough to stop the owner from making another wish (who might feel he could fix things with just one more wish).

[Alastor]

Well, the wish doesn't specify the party's physical location when they arrive in the past. If they arrive back in a different domain, they could "possibly" meet with themselves (after all, the Mists could theoretically transport anyone anywhere), while in practice being in a totally new situation which would not require a lot of looking back on your part.

Alternatively, they could meet themselves and change their fate, only to see that the timelines do not re-merge as expected. Instead, the PCs find that the group they warned about the dangers to come hang around as NPCs and potentially act as rivals to the "original" party.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

It would take a LOT of effort and quick thinking, but I think the ideal would be that they go back in time, try to change the outcome, and their attempts to change things only result in the same outcome, as the original outcome was always due to their own meddling. i.e. a closed time loop.

but those are hard enough to write when you don't have players actively trying to derail the loop.

Easiest would be for whatever problem/enemy they are facing to come back with them.

[Mistmaster]

As a side question would it be possible to control the Imp to force him to not twist the outcome of the whish?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

As a side question would it be possible to control the Imp to force him to not twist the outcome of the whish?

Seems to be counter to the narrative purpose of the thing.

[Mistmaster]

Yes, but I wanted to use it in a powerfull caster plot.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yes, but I wanted to use it in a powerfull caster plot.

Well, I could certainly see some of the demiplane's most powerful casters trying that as part of a scheme. Personally, I'd have it ultimately fail, but if it moves your plot along to have it work, even for just one wish, sure. Just shouldn't be something undertaken lightly.

[DustBunny]

When the command word is uttered. The party (as is our current set up [at the time the wish is made]) are to return back to 24 hours into the past. It’s a get out of jail card to save us from death or a bad situation.

This obviously means go back and be alive, and can possibly meet ourselves in the past to warn us of what is to come if we want to.

Some quick ideas which come to mind:

1) They go back 24 hours. But, they stay at '24hrs in the past' and time does not advance - essentially the world is frozen in time like in a Time Stop spell as they stay at 24 hours. They can move around but can not interact with the world - no food, water, cant open doors, etc. They had better restart time somehow before they starve to death - maybe another wish?.

2) Temporal displacement was stated at 24 hours, spacial displacement was not. They could quite literally appear anywhere. If they are in the tomb of infinite death, they appear exactly where they are now, just 24 hours earlier. Or they could teleport into middle of the ocean, castle ravenloft, etc. Another wish could get you off that 'Ship of Cannibal Ghouls' in the middle of the ocean....

3) 'Obviously'... such a nebuleuos term. Okay, your alive and in the past - you didn't say 'intact and heathly' though. Don't worry another wish could re-attach your arms....

[Mistmaster]

As a personal hopinion, I think that any lawyer with an intelligence score greater then the Imp could word the whish in a way it can't be twisted.
But the suggestion are valid however.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

I might suggest that they travel back in time by possessing the bodies of strangers, like Yithian mental time travel in the Cthulhu Mythos or what Azalin forces the players through in From the Shadows.

As a personal hopinion, I think that any lawyer with an intelligence score greater then the Imp could word the whish in a way it can't be twisted.
But the suggestion are valid however.

Adding conditions to keep the wish from getting twisted could make it very unwieldy to state. I wouldn't be surprised if the imp responded with "Too long; did not listen."

[DustBunny]

Adding conditions to keep the wish from getting twisted could make it very unwieldy to state. I wouldn't be surprised if the imp responded with "Too long; did not listen."

There was an article in Dragon #146 about wish spells and their use/abuse. There also was another article I read about 'lawyer wishes' (I, hereafter known as the wishee, wish that...), it essentially made the player read out their wish in full, and every "Um", "Ah", pause for breath, mispronunciation, long pause, etc was to be used against them for trying to be clever.

"I wish that I had um ... a million gold pieces and um... (they get 'Um' as their wish. Um the 15th level Barbarian is not happy about this)
"I want to RAISE/RAZE my ability scores by six points iin each catagory and that..." (ouch)

Also the longer the wish, the more fun you can heave with poor punctuation. Such a difference a comma can make...

"Let's eat, Grandma!" / "Let's eat Grandma!"

[Mistmaster]

Punishing players for being clever is poor DM's form. They should be rewarded for that.

[High Priest Mikhal]

Punishing players for being clever is poor DM's form. They should be rewarded for that.

That's actually the point with the Wishing Imp. It always distorts the wish, no matter how well it's worded. It's a cursed artifact that just makes thing worse with each use.

[DustBunny]

Punishing players for being clever is poor DM's form. They should be rewarded for that.

Ah, my apologies. It's an expression.

'Being Clever' in this case means the players are attempting to exploit the rules, abuse loopholes and metagame to gain an advantage. And I fully agree that imaginative, resourceful and cunning players who come up with ingenious schemes in the spirit of the game should never be discouraged.

Wish spells have always had this problem as they can do literally anything and can be easily abused. To counteract this DM's were encouraged by TSR to use the "literal wish" rules, but that resulted in players writing up 20 page contracts, which then resulted in DM's pouring over the contract to find a problem, which resulted in the players making 30 page contracts....

However as Mikhal pointed out - The Wishing Imp always twists the wishes. It _is_ a malicious DM who punishes players.

[Mistmaster]

The Imp does have an intelligence score however; so it's maliciousness has limits; exactly like that of a DM; if a player is smarter than the Imp he can beat it.