Time Travel

[Napftor]

I've had great success with time travel. It's a lot of fun. In our 2e FR campaign, the PCs went back in time to stop a wizard from breaking a staff of power (or magi, can't remember). This act slew numerous mind flayers and caused certain precious stones to become psionically "charged" (causing races to hate other races in the present day). The PCs stopped the wizard and returned to the present victorious with only a few minor things changed in the present.

In our current FR campaign, the PCs were sent accidentally to a possible future where Orcus' minions had taken over everything and chaos reigned supreme (Orcus being the current BBEG). The party's plan of action from the present was shown to be a bad idea as the PCs died in the future. When they did perish in a dramatic explosion, the item responsible for sending them to the future in the first place was also destroyed, which reset the party, and they were safe in the present--but with the knowledge that their plans would fail. As a result, they've embarked on a new plan which is yielding more success.

I usually work some time travel element into my campaigns because I just love the subject. In fact, I'm about to sign a deal to bring a time travel sourcebook into the market. Look for Temporality later in '05 in pdf and print forms if all goes well.

 

[Committed Hero]

Rowling's handling of time travel was actually a case of poor writing, one of her worst. Even were time travel possible, you cannot be saved from certain death by a future version of yourself who would never have existed had you died. Of course, Rowling pulls fallacies and deus ex machinas left and right, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by such a blunder.

It's consistent enough for the one time it's used. Adveturers would play hell with a scenario like that though.

 

[Falkus]

It's consistent enough for the one time it's used. Adveturers would play hell with a scenario like that though.

Heh, yeah. If I created a situation like that, it would probably eventually result in me paraphrasing one of the death messages from Space Quest 5:

'Bea is dead. In an alternate future she would've borne your son. In the future past of Space Quest 4, your son would have saved your life. But she didn't, so he couldn't -- therefore you aren't. '

 

[Silver Moon]

I've used it before. The most successful was with our gaming group's 10 Year Anniversary game (a decade for both players and characters). A villain had used a time travel device to go back to the hour that proceeded our first game night, where the Army officer leading the group had been killed by orcs (seemed like a good way on night one to explain why they were all together but had no chosen leader).

So this villain goes back in time, kills the orc leader before the battle, so the other leaderless orcs then get killed in the attack and the Army leader lives. He then goes on to lead the party through an alternate ten-years, which have them working for an autocratic military leader. This alternate decade also proves fatal for the six playing characters who are now dead in this new timeline when they shouldn't be.

A deity's servant who had helped the party before tells this to the spirits of these playing characters. She then sends them to find a time travel device and go back in time to make things right again. They did this by inhabiting bodies - similar to DC Comic's Deadman. The climax battle had them inhabiting the bodies of the orcs to make sure the Army commander died. It was great fun watching them battle their younger selves. It was one of those concept games that could have fell flat but instead was enjoyed by everyone.

 

[Storyteller01]

Not a success stoory yet (players don't know about it), but there is a home brewed PrC on another 3e site. Don't allow you to time travel so much as alter the time stream. Send messages back and forth to your self through time, alter probability, etc. Your basically playing 'Bill and Ted's' time game. You have to be able to cast 3rd level spells , then gain no spell casting abilities during progression, but the class abilities more than make up for the loss IMHO. The 'balancing' factor is the duration needed to make a change, as well as the side effects (temporary ability loss).

Anyone remember what I'm talking about (I printed it out, so I don't have the link)?

 

[Rackhir]

One of Piratecat's tricks for dealing with prophecy was to keep things as vague as possible with multiple meanings and interpretations. This sounds useful to keep in mind when planning things. The less things are "set in stone" so to speak, the more flexibility you have with what does happen. I guess a lot of it also comes down to how well you know your players as well as how predictable they are.

 

[Buzzardo]

Check out an upcoming adventure path from Troll Lord Games. It should be out in the summer. It is called The Cult of Yex, and it has a fair deal of time travel in it.

 

[Templetroll]

I ran a superhero game where the characters ended up back in WWII at a Navy base where an experiment in making a ship invisible (Philedelphia Experiement) was being attempted. They were able to stop the spies and saboteurs and then got caught up in the bad effect of the experiment. They were seperated at this time, all went to a scene and something happened that would normally cause them to react, having to do with saving someone or foiling a plot. One was an immient explosion at a research lab, a child in a graveyard leaving flowers and hands reach up from the grave, a Nazi scientist in an obviously WWII site working on a superweapon and a woman trying to buy drugs among others.

In all but one case the hero interfered in the scene and caused the origin of another hero to have never occurred. When they came back to their 'own time' it was a grim time, with only one hero in the world. Funny thing was the guy who let the kid get grabbed by the animated mother's corpse was the one player who dispised the hero that kid became. the hero liked to do every action he possibly could every round the game was running. He was perfect for being the only hero around.

The group realized what had occurred and had short origin stories - and saw what their lives would have been like without having been a hero. Part of the darkness of the current world was that the former Nazi, ex-super-villian member of the group never failed in his experiments and the Nazis won. The evil world government was the primary foe of that one hero. The guy who let the kid get grabbed by the corpse ended up a supervillian that had his back broken and was in an aqualung.... he was an acrobatic speedster so that was really bad. The woman with the drugs ended not able to be found in the current world - the ex-druggie martial artist realized it was because she had died.

They set about recreating the odd occurance that sent them back in the first place and each concentrated on a different situation so they could undo the other hero's interference. They ended up finding out it was some villian's plan that had tried to undo their origins. They never got around to finding out it had been someone affected by the experiment that was the villian.

 

[Templetroll]

Look for Temporality later in '05 in pdf and print forms if all goes well.

And if things go really well look for it in 04, in time for Christmas!

 

[Napftor]

And if things go really well look for it in 04, in time for Christmas!

If only!