Comments on: Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: Have Time, Will Travel.

By: Using Time Travel in a Role-Playing Game | LivingDice.com

Using Time Travel in a Role-Playing Game | LivingDice.com — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:04:56 +0000

[...] The Chatty DM on Time Travel [...]

By: Yan

Yan — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:24:28 +0000

Whatever the structure of the time in your universe, there is one thing I have a hard time with in time travel… It’s what I like to call the Star trek Phenomenon.

In this show their is so many different way to time travel and they do it so often, that you wonder how come nobody stumbled through a rift in the space time continuum while going to the bathroom.

The point is be consistent with whatever you decide and stick to it. If you determine that paradox are possible and that the universe crumble if you manage to do one. Fine just don’t do it halfway.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:09:02 +0000

Trask: That’s a cool concept. I wouldn’t worry to much about the Grandfather paradox and I’d look at Tangent128’s link on the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle

By: Trask

Trask — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:34:33 +0000

I very much enjoy time travel stories, especially for the potential to provide new dramatic hooks to the PCs. I just completed final testing on a module for the “Living Arcanis” campaign that allowed the PCs to “virtually” travel in time to save a small village. They basically pull a “Trancers” and have their minds sent back to different bodies/characters and then they have to challenge fate without their equipment and skills. They are told to avert a specific bad end for the village. Problem is, all the other options involve death and suffering also. I was very happy with the role-playing this brought out. The only concern I have is the “grandfather paradox” problem. I dodged that issue with a “it was all a dream” trope, but it still exists as an issue in “real” time travel.

Trask, the Last Tyromancer

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:12:46 +0000

It’s funny, whenever I get comments that don’t go the same way I thought they would, my reflex is to say ‘but you don’t understand…’

I’ll resist… I see your points and agree with Graham that using the Sub trope with a Bad guy’s Xanatos Gambit is an easier sell for players allergic to railroads.

By: Graham|ve4grm

Graham|ve4grm — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:36:20 +0000

I’m with Yan, in that while this principle works great in storytelling, it can be frustrating in a game.

Unless, of course, it’s used as part of a Xanatos Gambit.

Big Bad is in power due to some event in the past. Big Bad knows that the people who caused the event were sent by himself from the future (or came back to try to stop said rise to power from happening). So he orchestrates this event to happen, and the PCs are unwitting pawns to make sure the Big Bad rises to power.

Or something like that.

In any case, combining this (where the players’ outcome is predetermined) with something where the players’ outcome is being manipulated will tend to put the focus on the manipulation, rather than the predestiny.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:54:35 +0000

Yay, Real time travel Science!!!

I must now go back to this morning and tell me to add this principle in the post… or just edit it now… much simpler!

By: Tangent128

Tangent128 — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:49:25 +0000

Ah yes, my favorite way to handle it too. See the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:27:46 +0000

As I discussed offline with Yan, this sub trope can be considered railroady in the sense that the consequence of the PCs are already pre-determined. In that sense he’s right

However, I believe that if you want to fit in a one shot time travel adventure, this sub-trope is easier to pull off than others (easier to plan for) and leads to a strong punch.

Plus, for story driven games, the exploration of the past, and some player choices can help explain some of the campaign’s present-day mysteries and loose threads.

That being said, if your campaign screams for a reset button, I’d definitively go with Set Right What Once Went Wrong sprinkled with some Temporal Paradox.

Finally, longer time travel campaign should feature only a few time loops and maybe only as the result of major character failures or loops created by NPCs that characters have to break.

By: Yan

Yan — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:57:37 +0000

Yep, not a big fan of the stable time loop.

I prefer the each event spun an alternate time line approach. In this approach you’re not as much a time traveller then you are time line hopping guy. Unnable to really change the past just moving in a dimension where the event did not occurred yet. Of course if they(the heroes) would move to the present of this new time line they would met them selves who did not try to alter the past…