Anyone read this? I passed over it in t' games store because the art really rubbed me the wrong way but apparently it's pretty good.

£20 on DTRPG, unfortunately. But I'ma tempted.

Maybe my future self can drop £20 into my bank account...Bill/Ted style...

no?









still no?

It runs on GUMSHOE... I'd check out Goblinoid Games' Timemaster instead.

Link: DriveThruRPG.com - Goblinoid Games - TIMEMASTER

I got a free copy of the core book in a Free RPG Day raffle. I have yet to play it but it gives you a lot of options on how and what to play. I plan to run it when my schedule calms down.

Never heard of it. What's the gist of it.

As for Timemaster: is this the same as the 1980s RPG of the same name??

Quote from: RPGPundit;975399Never heard of it. What's the gist of it.

As for Timemaster: is this the same as the 1980s RPG of the same name??

Apparently Goblinoid Games reprinted the old Timemaster boxset content into one pdf/book, adding new illustrations and putting the included introductory adventure into a separate free pdf. I'm not familiar with the game, but I own two other of Goblinoid's Pacesetter games - Cryptworld and Rotworld - and if I were looking for a time travel game I would pick this up.

It's a really, really good time travel game.  Like an unlicensed Doctor Who RPG, but arguably better in some ways.

It's also kinda' borked conceptually.

It runs on Gumshoe, so take it or leave it.  You can build all sorts of weird characters by mechanically purchasing skills available to pretty much everyone and using whatever trappings you like ("my character always has the small tools he needs because nanites!"  "mine's just that prepared.").

There are options and suggestions for tweaking the game throughout, and honestly they're all good and versatile enough (and the setting is broad enough) that you could probably find a way to work them all into a game if you wanted.  Alternatively, you could focus on just one type of time travel campaign, but the book defaults to PCs being part of a temporal police force existing before the Big Bang (and HQ's inevitable destruction is the -cause- of the Big Bang).  They have little wands/rods that let them time travel, along with other special gear to blend in whenever/wherever they go.  There's not really any outer space travel (the focus is on -Earth's- history, which is big and crazy enough), but there's still plenty of weird nasty time monsters and invaders and such.  You have dinosaurs from an alternate past trying to make sure the asteroid never hit and wiped them out, cockroaches from the future trying to make sure humanity survives long enough to nuke the planet so they can be born, alternate timeline Greeks who don't like being from an alternate timeline, and so forth.  You also have multiple time travel technologies, otherdimensional monsters (hey, it's a Gumshoe game!), and so on and so forth.  Really, it's a great time travel game, second only to Continuum perhaps.

But it fails to really answer why history isn't swarming with time travelers, changes, and paradoxes.

I mean it has those things, but only to a small degree.  The kind of degree that makes a story coherent and manageable.  If this were real though, pretty much every historical event would be filled with someone changing the past, someone going to fix the change, and cascading numbers of people trying to fix or break things.  It'd be a mess of time travelers standing around arguing/fighting over which future was better (like this, but with different folks arguing).

On the flipside, people have to turn off their brains to accept zombies, elven magic, and more.  Just going with the plotonium of time travel is part of the buy in.

Quote from: 3rik;975452Apparently Goblinoid Games reprinted the old Timemaster boxset content into one pdf/book, adding new illustrations and putting the included introductory adventure into a separate free pdf. I'm not familiar with the game, but I own two other of Goblinoid's Pacesetter games - Cryptworld and Rotworld - and if I were looking for a time travel game I would pick this up.

Cool. I played Timemaster a couple of times back in the 80s, and I quite liked it back then. Though I don't really remember almost anything about it system-wise now.

Quote from: RPGPundit;976130Cool. I played Timemaster a couple of times back in the 80s, and I quite liked it back then. Though I don't really remember almost anything about it system-wise now.

Basically, trying to roll below your skill and looking up your margin of success on a table to get the result of an action.

Quote from: san dee jota;975465It's a really, really good time travel game.  Like an unlicensed Doctor Who RPG, but arguably better in some ways.

It's also kinda' borked conceptually.

It runs on Gumshoe, so take it or leave it.  You can build all sorts of weird characters by mechanically purchasing skills available to pretty much everyone and using whatever trappings you like ("my character always has the small tools he needs because nanites!"  "mine's just that prepared.").

There are options and suggestions for tweaking the game throughout, and honestly they're all good and versatile enough (and the setting is broad enough) that you could probably find a way to work them all into a game if you wanted.  Alternatively, you could focus on just one type of time travel campaign, but the book defaults to PCs being part of a temporal police force existing before the Big Bang (and HQ's inevitable destruction is the -cause- of the Big Bang).  They have little wands/rods that let them time travel, along with other special gear to blend in whenever/wherever they go.  There's not really any outer space travel (the focus is on -Earth's- history, which is big and crazy enough), but there's still plenty of weird nasty time monsters and invaders and such.  You have dinosaurs from an alternate past trying to make sure the asteroid never hit and wiped them out, cockroaches from the future trying to make sure humanity survives long enough to nuke the planet so they can be born, alternate timeline Greeks who don't like being from an alternate timeline, and so forth.  You also have multiple time travel technologies, otherdimensional monsters (hey, it's a Gumshoe game!), and so on and so forth.  Really, it's a great time travel game, second only to Continuum perhaps.

But it fails to really answer why history isn't swarming with time travelers, changes, and paradoxes.

I mean it has those things, but only to a small degree.  The kind of degree that makes a story coherent and manageable.  If this were real though, pretty much every historical event would be filled with someone changing the past, someone going to fix the change, and cascading numbers of people trying to fix or break things.  It'd be a mess of time travelers standing around arguing/fighting over which future was better (like this, but with different folks arguing).

On the flipside, people have to turn off their brains to accept zombies, elven magic, and more.  Just going with the plotonium of time travel is part of the buy in.

Thanks for the breakdown. I have been looking around for a good time travel game, and TimeWatch and TimeMaster were both on my radar.

I have no experience with Gumshoe system. What is that like?

I played TimeWatch once at GenCon and backed the Kickstarter.  The Kickstarter rules weren't out yet or if so they were beta; as a result, I was excited to actually play it live with someone who could show me/us the ropes.  The game at GenCon was dreadful, but that was because the GM didn't have us do any timetravellin' until there was 15 minutes left in the 4 hour slot.  Okay, so an unfair test.  I think the game does a nice job of making paradoxes game-able.  Unless you are a Primer-level time traveller, I think many get hung up on the paradoxes.  So instead of resulting in 5 hour metaphysical debates, you just roll for them.  Okay super watered down, but hopefully that does the concept justice.

Gumshoe is pretty much a d6 mechanic (target is 4) with an advantage pool (you add points to the roll from your abilities, which reload/refresh after attaining certain mid-game goals).  So you essentially start off really good at what you are good at (have ability points) and moderately good at what you have passing information about.  I think it works with Nights Black Agents pretty well, but it isn't my cup of tea for much beyond one-shots.

Quote from: Ted;976236the GM didn't have us do any timetravellin' until there was 15 minutes left in the 4 hour slot.  Okay, so an unfair test.

I can't even imagine a game of TimeWatch that ran like that. That's so strange. I wrote the game, and *I* probably would have walked.

TW assumes that time is a river, and that it's easy to get swept away while time traveling if you don't have a strong sense of self. Paradox erodes that willpower, making you fade or otherwise disappear when too much paradox occurs. That said, it's a game where you can pull off classic time travel tropes: fight next to yourself, have your future self bring you something you need now, fight a younger version of someone you've already killed, that sort of thing. You can weaken or wipe out a villain by making sure they were never born.

The game's feel is (at least as written) cinematic, with a pretty heavy pulp component. The first thing I usually want to do is punch a dinosaur in the face. You can pare that back if you want fewer fantastic elements.

Time travel is fairly automatic; there's no check to succeed, or anything like that. I figure the fun is in solving the problem or in getting to the adventure, not in screwing up and getting lost in time.

Mechanically, it takes me about 15 minutes to explain the rules to new players. It's a game where the PCs are assumed to be competent. Your abilities are split into General abilities, which Ted described well, and Investigative abilities. These automatically give you clues, and you can spend them to achieve particularly useful things. If you're trapped in a burning building, for instance, you can spend an Architecture point to have your future self go back to alter the blueprints and put in a fire exit.

Thumbs up for Timemaster, by the way; I'm not sure the rules have aged well, but it's still a great game with some amazing supplements. Missing it was what caused me to write TimeWatch.

Quote from: Piratecat;976411I can't even imagine a game of TimeWatch that ran like that. That's so strange. I wrote the game, and *I* probably would have walked.

Well it was GenCon after all, first game of Friday morning and my mates and I didn't want to be rude.  Unfortunately, Timewatch is solely a read and consider game--it is going to be a tough sell to get it back on the table for our gaming group.  I was going to try and strike a deal with one buddy to run his Aces and Eights one-shot as a "lost in time" Timewatch game and pull them back to Time, Incorporated at the end.

Curious, have you had people suggest the idea that Timewatch serves as a nexus for trying other systems, a Tanelorn that sits astride not just Time, but between worlds and their physics (read: game systems)?  Anywoo, just something I was kicking around.

I haven't, but I like the pared-down system enough that I'm using it for a crap-ton of other things (pulp action primarily) with the time travel removed. I know people have hacked TimeWatch into lots of other games, including a Mythic TW game where you're establishing myths and legends.

When Dialect comes out, I'm running a short TimeWatch series mixed with Dialect: showcasing the start of time travel, the middle, and the end of TimeWatch, with three short games of Dialect interspersing them to build time-travel vocabulary. Sounds dumb, but I expect it's going to be the most fun thing I play all year.

I think TW is really strong as a one-shot: focus on the most fun stuff, let people screw around with the time stream, and show off all the pieces it does well (mostly using time tricks to gain advantage on your enemies). If you want to try and sell it to your group, that's one way to do so.