When your DM bends the rules

[Tabris92]

you know he probably intended for something to kill you.

Actually though, my group's DM who we been playing with for a couple of years now, we all went to school together as well. So were all friends, and that makes for a pretty fun time.

Hes pretty flexible on the rules just so that we can all have a good time, and that's pretty great and from what I seen, hard to find in a DM.
One time he let one of our wizards use his int score to successfully run a trap.
Heres what it was; a trap that had spikes popping out of the ground, ceiling, and walls at intervals.
our party wizard had asked, if he did a concentration check to memorize the patterns of the spikes and then did continuous intelligence checks throughout the trap, if he could try to run through it that way.

He took a minute and said "..yea, sure why not? seems feasible to remember the pattern"
and so our party wizard ran through a trap cause he was a genius.

[Crake]

Would have probably been more akin to an autohypnosis check based on the way he described it.

That said, this isnt so much "bending the rules" as much as it is awarding player creativity. There's nothing in the rules that say that you couldn't do that after all.

[Aegis013]

...awarding player creativity. ...

Something I strive to do any time I DM, and hope that others do as well.
If the players come up with an interesting plan that might actually get them something useful, by goodness, I will let it get them something useful (not necessarily exactly what they want, but useful nonetheless).

[lytokk]

I've seen stuff like this done. When my ninja came face to face with a 50 foot hallway complete with spinning blades, pendulums, crushing blocks and the like, I told the DM I was going to sit there for a few minutes to memorize the trap sequence before I started my movement through. Got me a +2 to my reflex saves and tumble rolls to avoid the traps. Though by the end of it I could tell he was upset I was just about to evade them all, and had one of them nick me.