Fun scene-setting and plot-twists for all occasions ... and all you have to deal with (if you even care to deal with that) is the occasional radical impossibility and paradox.  Do you guys have fun with time travel?  Do you find paradoxes a pain?  Do you find some other problems with the whole trope?

For reference:  In a time-travel game I played in, the other players confronted my (unrepentently evil) character Vanessa Faust with a younger, teenaged version of herself.  Their stated hope was that the younger Vanessa, fresh and unscarred by life, would give the older Vanessa some cause to reflect on her wicked ways.

Older Vanessa pulled out a great big zap gun and vaporized her younger self.  "Are we done ^$*@ing about here?  I have things to do."

That was fun

i don't touch the stuff.  last thing i need is paradoxes in a campaign world/universe/whatever.

Some of the best games I've run were GURPS: Time Travel games. One that stands out involved an attempt by Stopwatch agents to preserve borderline sentient dinosaurs in what would one day become southern France. I based the idea on an article I read about what was a supposedly "natural" nuclear blast that took place in the region some-odd-million years ago (no, really, it was in a legitimate science magazine and everything). Of course, the smart dinos had the bad luck to live in the region of the "natural" blast....

Edit: Actually, I may have been riffing hard on this: http://www.oklo.curtin.edu.au/  - natural nuclear reactors.

Heh - I've been toying with the idea of doing some time travel/paradox stuff in my Rifts campaign (as part of their escape from Hades).

Currently, I'm working on plans for introducing a new PC (that player likes to use pre-gens) who is an alternate reality version of one of the other PC's long-dead father.  That should be fun...

I didn't do anything with your precious time travel! It was Werekoala! He did it!

Well, actuallly in my current Blood Games campaign, the 1600s and modern groups have switched places, to ensuing hijinks and general hilarity. Surprisingly, the group from the 1600s has done better in modern day London than the modern group has done in the old Caribbean. Apparently calling modern technology "magic" and accepting it at face value is a survival characteristic.

-clash

Nossir nuh-uh no thank no no please.

Cyclical Groundhog Day/"Window of Opportunity" whackosity, maybe.  Paramadoxes and that jazz?  Naaaaaaaaaah-t innersted.

I'm a wimp.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Nossir nuh-uh no thank no no please.

Cyclical Groundhog Day/"Window of Opportunity" whackosity, maybe.  Paramadoxes and that jazz?  Naaaaaaaaaah-t innersted.

I'm a wimp.

You've never had PCs time-travel back to the eighties?

I ... can't get my brain around that concept.  I am actually doubting you, right now.  Liar!  

Quote from: TonyLBYou've never had PCs time-travel back to the eighties?

I ... can't get my brain around that concept.  I am actually doubting you, right now.  Liar!  

why time travel "back" when they're still there. . . not that there's anything wrong with that.

I've run continuum. I've also had Dr.Who show up in quite a few of my campaigns from time to time; and I've had the Time Bubble used in the Legion campaign a few times.

Oh, and in my RC D&D Campaign the pcs travelled back in time to Blackmoor.

RPGPundit

If was going to use Time Travel, it would be less "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" and more "Time Traveller's Wife".

If I EVER ran Time Travel - it would be a cross between Buckaroo Banzai and DOCTOR WHO in mood and tone.

...with a little bit of "Run, Lola Run" thrown in there.


- Ed C.

I haven't had a desire to do Time Travel, but if I ever did it would look more like Allen Steele's novel Chronospace than anything else.

As an aside, if anyone is thinking of grabbing the old AD&D2 book Chronomancy, save yourself the money. The four copies that I have seen over the years looked like they were printed with a chunk of needed pages missing.

Quote from: RPGPunditOh, and in my RC D&D Campaign the pcs travelled back in time to Blackmoor.

DA1 to DA4?

I'm about to run a modified DA2 for Masters (level 30) play, or at least I'm likely to be running such a thing in a few monthst time.

I've used time travel quite a bit in my campaigns-- in a couple of different ways.

One fun easy way to use time travel is to simply advance the timeline by a jump of several years after a break or hiatus in a campaign. This is best if you end on a good ending (not a cliffhanger type thing). Just tell everyone when they come back that their characters are 20 years older and go from there.

Another way is the actual travel aspect: The payers have an actual time machine (or device or time rift or whatever) that they use to actually move through time, or into alternate timelines. I did a bit with this in a Planescape campaign but it was a long time ago. It was a lot of fun when the players find out their dull-witted goblin valet had become a criminal mastermind and smuggler lord after they left him behind, that sort of thing.

My preferred method lately: Time distortion. The PCs end up in a demiplane or something (I've done this a couple of different ways), and when they come back out, they discover a year or more has passed. Or several years.
This has the benefits of both methods above -- it's a one way jump in time, so there's no paradox issues (or minimal ones) and you can also explore completely alternate timelines, while still having the PCs not aged horribly or anything. I used this method in my latest campaign (detailed on the actual play forums here)-- when the PCs entered the Egg of Rodnak, I had nearly a year pass.

Quote from: KoltarIf I EVER ran Time Travel - it would be a cross between Buckaroo Banzai and DOCTOR WHO in mood and tone.

...with a little bit of "Run, Lola Run" thrown in there.


- Ed C.

Trivia: The Run Lola Run girl (Franka Potente) was an exchange student at my high school. I didn't realize it was the same person until years later.