Have you ever used time travel in a game? How did it go? What are your thoughts on the subject?
I have only used it once, in a dnd game.
The characters were using a magic portal that went haywire and sent them to the correct location but many years earlier.
They met one pc's grandfather when he was a young adult, and they met one of wizard villains before he became a lich.
It worked out well, because both npc's were good, and helful to the pc's.
When they returned to the correct time, their enemies (Grandpa and The Lich) were still villains they had to deal with, but had a more human face from meeting them in the past.
Some players actually considered trying to redeem them.
I've used it several times in Star Trek, usually to correct or keep someone from screwing with the time line, always worked out in the end.
Did it a few times in a Supers game, sending players back in time to stop a villain from giving the Nazi's the tech needed to put Nukes on the V2 rockets once, it was pretty fun and another one was to keep a villain from preventing the assassination of JFK, which would screw up the time line, that one they nearly messed up because they kinda wanted to let JFK live.
I've used it a number of times in different ways, virtually all in various supers games. It can be very tricky because of many peoples' (read: geeks') ingrained ideas about how it (i.e. the consequences of time travel) should work.
One of the more clever uses of it that I've seen recently was in an ICONS module from AdInfinitum (new publisher of the game) called the RetConQuest (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/97708/ICONS%3A-The-RetConQuest?term=icons+retcon). It starts the heroes in an alternate timeline where they have been prevented from becoming their heroic selves. I intend to use it the next time I start a group with ICONS.
I used it in my parallel times Blood Games II campaign. The PCs in the current day were descendants of the PCs in the previous time - 200X and 168X respectively. They were working against the same immortal Wizard, and were reading the memoirs of their antecedents simultaneously with countering the Wizard's moves. The act of reading the book triggered them living out the situation they were reading about. At one point, they exchanged places in time as a result of the Wizard's magic, in London. Both dealt with the situation in interesting ways, and they each eventually returned to their respective times - each party less one member who elected to stay temporally transported - and effected the final defeat of the Wizard. A truly classic campaign! My players loved it. :D
-clash
I've used time travel a lot over the years. It was generally done to interfere with events and almost always worked out badly for the player who resorted to it.
I was in a time travel game in college. 2e characters sent to a future time (practically present day) with a good DM who described modern items in ancient terms. Even lost our Kinder to a "run-a-way carriage made of iron" when he tried to save it, and the woman inside. It only really worked because of a good DM and players who played and stayed in character for the game.
All the time. Most recently in my Golden Age game, both in the form of the villainous Per Degaton and in a guest appearance by the Legion of Superheroes.
Yes especially in games like TimeMaster...... which is about timetravel of course.
I have also used flashbacks extensively in Amber as a foreshadowing device
Quote from: GrumpyReviews;638944Have you ever used time travel in a game? How did it go? What are your thoughts on the subject?
Don't go there. Or, if you do, don't let the PCs interact with their future selves. Or if you do, then use Bill and Ted logic.
If you have an immutable future, which uses the PCs, then you force the PCs into those events, otherwise you have a paradox.
If you allow paradoxes as part of time travel then all bets are off and it's a hoot.
You have to think of why people can't do certain things, though.
For example, the diamond paradox. I know where a diamond is, so I travel back 10 minutes and take it. Then I travel back 10 minutes earlier and take it again, and again, and again. Since I have already taken the diamond, I can't "untake" it as this event has appeared in my personal timeline, so I end up with hundreds of identical diamonds. The obvious answer is that taking the second diamond means the first one disappears, which means that someone could travel back before you did something, make it so you couldn't have done it and make your events disappear.
It's truly horrendous for a GM.
I can't remember what the name of the game it was. Timelord, time something...
The basis of the game was that you were playing yourself and you went into the past for various reasons.
One of the things was that if you took something anachronistic into the past you paid more points to have it. the more anachronistic the more points. So a .45 auto was expensive to take to Rome. Tasers were very hard to take to the Crusades. But, a fine sword made with modern materials looked like any other sword and only cost a few points.
The glitch rule was that if the person HAD the item he wanted to take with him, on him at the game, he paid no points for it. It said this specifically in the game. They gave examples of swords, body armor, and such.
Not my players.
So the first session i ran the 12 players showed up armed for Armageddon. Fire arms. laser sights. a friggin handgranade. I walked into the back of the game store ready to play and the room looked like madmax gone wild.. I was caught between laughing and howling. I told the dorks to go directly to their vehicles and divest themselves before the Pasadena police raided the place.
I took a big black marker across that rule in the rule book.
Quote from: soltakss;639433Don't go there. Or, if you do, don't let the PCs interact with their future selves. Or if you do, then use Bill and Ted logic.
If you have an immutable future, which uses the PCs, then you force the PCs into those events, otherwise you have a paradox.
If you allow paradoxes as part of time travel then all bets are off and it's a hoot.
You have to think of why people can't do certain things, though.
For example, the diamond paradox. I know where a diamond is, so I travel back 10 minutes and take it. Then I travel back 10 minutes earlier and take it again, and again, and again. Since I have already taken the diamond, I can't "untake" it as this event has appeared in my personal timeline, so I end up with hundreds of identical diamonds. The obvious answer is that taking the second diamond means the first one disappears, which means that someone could travel back before you did something, make it so you couldn't have done it and make your events disappear.
It's truly horrendous for a GM.
I prefer the Looper approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbuXmXDw-T8
It works the way it does, best not to talk about it. :p
Quote from: soltakss;639433Don't go there. Or, if you do, don't let the PCs interact with their future selves. Or if you do, then use Bill and Ted logic.
I like the "Celestial Time" approach in
Nobilis: the PCs as well as the other miraculous beings are unique in all of time and space, always existing in a single location on a higher timeline which, unlike the constantly changing mundane history, cannot be tampered with at all. This doesn't prevent, for example, Nobles from killing their past mortal selves from a time
before they became miraculous, which potentially allows for staging your own death without any ill effects in the present. In an old campaign of mine, that's what JFK did.
Quote from: soltakss;639433Blah, blah, blah
Players like you are the problem with time travel.
:p
Quote from: Piestrio;639461I prefer the Looper approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbuXmXDw-T8
It works the way it does, best not to talk about it. :p
Such a good movie...and completely the right approach to dealing with it in game.
So, I'm a player in a time travel game which uses Looper-style rules.
Spoiler
Do I suddenly take damage to my leg for no reason? Not particularly fair.
So, the causal event must be played out. That might involve going back to a previous version of the PC, maybe before it was rolled up. So, I now have to play a scene where my PC as a child is attacked by a group of time-travelling gangsters. Aside from that being morally unsettling, I need to write up a new version of the character sheet for the child and play through a scene that could well be very unbalanced. I'm not saying that this is a good thing or a bad thing, just that it is difficult.
If I played a gangster who wanted somebody dead, then I would send several groups back in time at the same time to attack that person at different stages of his life, or even better kill his parents before he is born. How would you roleplay that? Would you play the parents? It could get a bit repetitive, in my opinion. It also means that you could constantly be dragged into other scenes, again not a good or bad thing, but something that might not appeal to everybody.
Quote from: soltakss;639637So, I'm a player in a time travel game which uses Looper-style rules.
No, you're entirely missing the point, which is this:
Quote from: Piestrio;639461It works the way it does, best not to talk about it. :p
The difficulty is with player who believe they know how time travel "actually works" better than everyone else at the table, and hence the consequences thereof.
Quote from: Bobloblah;639655The difficulty is with player who believe they know how time travel "actually works" better than everyone else at the table, and hence the consequences thereof.
Ah, I see.
So, as a child I see something happening which ties in with something that then happens when I am an adult, especially if I am party to the future event. Once I have seen it done, or had it done to me, or know how it is done then it is fair game for me to do it or to arrange for it to be done.
In my experience, once PCs find out how to do something, it is very difficult to stop them from doing it themselves.
Playing a time-travelling game means that you quickly work out what can, and cannot, be done. Once that is known then it can be used and abused, just like any other knowledge in the game. Nothing about knowing better than anyone else at the table.
Also, speaking from a GM point of view, it is very difficult to run this kind of game. In my opinion, at least.
Quote from: soltakss;639686In my experience, once PCs find out how to do something, it is very difficult to stop them from doing it themselves.
Of course. This isn't unusual.
Quote from: soltakss;639686Playing a time-travelling game means that you quickly work out what can, and cannot, be done. Once that is known then it can be used and abused, just like any other knowledge in the game. Nothing about knowing better than anyone else at the table.
Ahhh...no. You seem to be missing my point. My apologies if I didn't make it very clear. It's ultimately a people problem (as are most problems in an RPG group), but time travel seems to bring it out more than any other type of thing I've run. And it inevitably seems to be rooted in geeks who think, on this subject, they are smarter than everyone else at the table; they are going to more cleverly derive an advantage from it or they are going to "break the world," so to speak.
Now, while that
is a people problem, I have watched time travel bring out this kind of foolishness in players I never would've dreamed had it in them. Only with time travel. Which was my point.
Quote from: soltakss;639686Also, speaking from a GM point of view, it is very difficult to run this kind of game. In my opinion, at least.
No kidding, that's what I said. And in my opinion it's largely because players look for holes in this kind of scenario like no other, and practical time travel opens up an awful lot of potential holes.
Quote from: Bobloblah;639696Ahhh...no. You seem to be missing my point. My apologies if I didn't make it very clear. It's ultimately a people problem (as are most problems in an RPG group), but time travel seems to bring it out more than any other type of thing I've run. And it inevitably seems to be rooted in geeks who think, on this subject, they are smarter than everyone else at the table; they are going to more cleverly derive an advantage from it or they are going to "break the world," so to speak.
Now, while that is a people problem, I have watched time travel bring out this kind of foolishness in players I never would've dreamed had it in them. Only with time travel. Which was my point.
Yup. It's the same urge that leads players to argue that they should totally be able to cut the rifle in two because Katana are folded 18 bajillion times, don'tchaknow. Or that they should be able to move more in a day because Scott Jerick can run 135 miles in a single day, etc...
Whenever time travel has come up in my games I make it clear that it's 100% inscrutable and while players can come up with theories as much as they like it will have zero bearing on how it works in the game.
However it works is how it works. Deal with it.
Quote from: Piestrio;639697However it works is how it works. Deal with it.
Yup. The Looper Protocol.
Quote from: Piestrio;639697However it works is how it works. Deal with it.
Time travel in Austin Powers much the same.
I really think that the timemaster book time tricks is the sort of essential resource you need.
It lays out the Laws of Time Travel forthe setting and discusses how far they can be bent. Without a book like that or a GM with absolute player confidence (and if you have a book the GM needs to know it backways and sideways) time travel games can degenerate into a discussion about the physics.
When I do it I lay out at the start that the GM is the law, some of the effects may not seem to be what you woudl expect but that is becuase you don;t see hte whole picture.
I time travel games I try to avoid all the people not in the party following the same linear timeline. So I will let them meet NPCs for the first time who have already met them for example. I think this adds a depth of interest to timetravel plots that you can't get in other games.
I've always found it best just to wing it.
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