Ive heard great things about this game. But looking at wikipedia it just looks like another time-travelling game (albeit a stylish one).

So, why all the hype ?

I have a copy on my bookshelf -- been there for a decade or so.

I know at least two of the creatives were part of the time behind the comic, Yamara in Dragon.

Never had a chance to play it but it's one hefty book.

Quote from: silva;521138So, why all the hype ?

Basically, the hype is in the details: Continuum presents an extremely well-conceived trans-temporal society. It's one of the top three or four takes on time travel in any media.

First, the setting is awesome.

Second, it actually tries to think hard about the mechanics of time-travel, and not cop out by saying "you can't fuck around with time, ever".  
So its a time-travel game, but not in the typical sense where the "time travel" is just something meant to get you to the next location in the game.

RPGPundit

Third unless you are a timelord playing it will kill your brain.

It's an excellent, excellent game. The setting and character structure are brilliantly laid out, and the mechanics fit the setting quite well - though they are rather difficult to get a firm grasp on. I've played in a one-off (run by a guy I know who played in an extended campaign), and it was phenomenal.

Though, again, bit of a learning curve. Still, one of the high water marks for RPG design, I think.

I don't know if I'd go as far as "high water marks".  It is a really amazing setting, but any game that is so difficult to actually play as to require reams of notes from the players (to avoid paradox), is actually pretty clumsy in design.  Where Continuum succeeds it is in conveying the real complexity of what time travel can do by implication. Where it fails gloriously is in not finding a way to make that complexity more abstract and less depending on the players actually, in real time, having to do ridiculous amounts of work and effort to avoid their characters being wrecked by paradox.
And the work of the GM is basically worse, because he's the one who has to keep track of all the players in this regard.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;521376I don't know if I'd go as far as "high water marks".  It is a really amazing setting, but any game that is so difficult to actually play as to require reams of notes from the players (to avoid paradox), is actually pretty clumsy in design.

I think of it as a high-water mark in design because it works despite its complexity. I realize that seems a bit counter-intuitive, but think of how Continuum deals with extremely complex mechanics without shortcuts or GM-side handwaving. In other words, it effectively deals with a set of complex situations and represents them successfully in a set of complex mechanics without sacrificing necessarily detail in the name of streamlining.

Which makes the game difficult, and not everyone's cup of tea, of course. But its certainly quite an achievement, IMO, and head-and-shoulders above any other time travel based game that I can think of.

QuoteWhere Continuum succeeds it is in conveying the real complexity of what time travel can do by implication. Where it fails gloriously is in not finding a way to make that complexity more abstract and less depending on the players actually, in real time, having to do ridiculous amounts of work and effort to avoid their characters being wrecked by paradox.

But without that work the game would become just another "timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly stuff" time travel game (not that such games are bad, of course). The work, the attention to detail and necessary - and difficult - focus makes the game a stand-out. So I'd agree with you on how it succeeds, but disagree that the implementation of that success is a failure. I think they're both successes, albeit not ones that everyone is going to cotton to.

QuoteAnd the work of the GM is basically worse, because he's the one who has to keep track of all the players in this regard.

I imagine the GM can have quite a difficult time, yes, though I can't speak to that since I've not run a session of it myself.

I'd never heard of it until this thread. I'm pretty sure my FLGS never had a copy of it.

Its only a "success" in design if you define success as "players MUST (not "may", like in amber, but MUST) write several pages of notes in every single game session and keep those for the entire campaign, which gets increasingly complicated as you go along because the likelihood of getting entangled in your personal history gets higher the longer you've been around, which makes it that most games don't last more than a few sessions and the game was a huge commercial failure".   That's kind of an odd definition of successful design, though.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;521681Its only a "success" in design if you define success as "players MUST (not "may", like in amber, but MUST) write several pages of notes in every single game session and keep those for the entire campaign, which gets increasingly complicated as you go along because the likelihood of getting entangled in your personal history gets higher the longer you've been around, which makes it that most games don't last more than a few sessions and the game was a huge commercial failure".   That's kind of an odd definition of successful design, though.

That's one element of the design (though it doesn't have to be "several pages"), yes. I don't think the game succeeds or fails because of that one element of design.

Quote from: PaladinCA;521561I'd never heard of it until this thread. I'm pretty sure my FLGS never had a copy of it.

I think it's been out of print for a while now (but don't quote me on that). I know my local stores haven't had a copy in... gosh, eight years?

Quote from: Géza Echs;521728That's one element of the design (though it doesn't have to be "several pages"), yes. I don't think the game succeeds or fails because of that one element of design.

If campaigns literally collapse under the weight of that particular design element, I would say yes, the game does succeed or fail (in this case fail) on account of it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;521919If campaigns literally collapse under the weight of that particular design element, I would say yes, the game does succeed or fail (in this case fail) on account of it.

Okay. But you're the only person I've ever heard claim that campaigns collapse due to the design decisions. The campaigns I've read about online (at various forums) didn't, nor did the one campaign that I know of from real life.

Quote from: Géza Echs;522216Okay. But you're the only person I've ever heard claim that campaigns collapse due to the design decisions. The campaigns I've read about online (at various forums) didn't, nor did the one campaign that I know of from real life.

Pundie likes to tell other people that the campaigns they're running can't possibly exist. It's a trick he picked up from the Forgies.