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A question about time travel
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8113331" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>So, have you watched the TV series, "Timeless"? It is, if I recall correctly, currently available on Hulu. </p><p></p><p>[spoiler="The basic premise of Timeless"]</p><p>A cabal (named "Rittenhouse") that wants to control the United States, and perhaps the world, funds the construction of a time machine. </p><p></p><p>In an unrelated, entirely mundane event, a government agent catches wind of the existence of Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse tries to kill the agent before he can reveal them, but only manages to kill his wife and kid. He escapes, and then learns about the time machine project. Before the time machine can be put to use, he steals it, and tries to eradicate Rittenhouse from history to save his family.</p><p></p><p>Our heroes use a prototype of the machine to chase the agent, who is doing terrible things to the timestream for reasons they don't understand. In the process they learn about Rittenhouse. They then have to stop the agent <em>and</em> Rittenhouse. Wackiness ensues for two seasons.[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No so much wrong as... you have to identity the rules of your time travel before you can start figuring out how it can be used. And you have to identify how the universe reacts to attempts to break the rules.</p><p></p><p>So, "realistically" (which is a funny idea to apply to time travel stories, but hey) you might feel that a character could travel in time, and risk eradicating themselves. Games have two basic ways to handle this:</p><p></p><p>1) It just doesn't happen. The fact that you existed to travel back in time means that this travel back in time <em>cannot</em> eliminate you from the timestream. It may eliminate people you care about, but not you. Whatever changes you make, it will turn out that you will continue to exist. </p><p></p><p>2) There's some notion of "paradox" - in games, you might have a paradox score or rating, for example. As you do really impactful things, your paradox score goes up or changes. If it gets textreme, or you fail some check, or something, yes, you get eliminated from the time stream - thus you must be very careful about what you do, and you pick your battles. And yes, this means that you may cease to exist. But... doesn't every soldier face that same possibility going on deployment? Loads of people are willing to risk an end to their existence.</p><p></p><p>I recommend to you a game about time travel - <em>TimeWatch</em>, by Kevin Kulp, available on RPGNow and from Pelgrane Press. Whether you like the system for your own use, it will allow you to see how such things can be handled in a game, and adapt concepts to your own as you see fit.</p><p></p><p>[URL unfurl="true"]http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/timewatch/[/URL]</p><p></p><p>[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/201164/TimeWatch[/URL]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 8113331, member: 177"] So, have you watched the TV series, "Timeless"? It is, if I recall correctly, currently available on Hulu. [spoiler="The basic premise of Timeless"] A cabal (named "Rittenhouse") that wants to control the United States, and perhaps the world, funds the construction of a time machine. In an unrelated, entirely mundane event, a government agent catches wind of the existence of Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse tries to kill the agent before he can reveal them, but only manages to kill his wife and kid. He escapes, and then learns about the time machine project. Before the time machine can be put to use, he steals it, and tries to eradicate Rittenhouse from history to save his family. Our heroes use a prototype of the machine to chase the agent, who is doing terrible things to the timestream for reasons they don't understand. In the process they learn about Rittenhouse. They then have to stop the agent [I]and[/I] Rittenhouse. Wackiness ensues for two seasons.[/spoiler] No so much wrong as... you have to identity the rules of your time travel before you can start figuring out how it can be used. And you have to identify how the universe reacts to attempts to break the rules. So, "realistically" (which is a funny idea to apply to time travel stories, but hey) you might feel that a character could travel in time, and risk eradicating themselves. Games have two basic ways to handle this: 1) It just doesn't happen. The fact that you existed to travel back in time means that this travel back in time [I]cannot[/I] eliminate you from the timestream. It may eliminate people you care about, but not you. Whatever changes you make, it will turn out that you will continue to exist. 2) There's some notion of "paradox" - in games, you might have a paradox score or rating, for example. As you do really impactful things, your paradox score goes up or changes. If it gets textreme, or you fail some check, or something, yes, you get eliminated from the time stream - thus you must be very careful about what you do, and you pick your battles. And yes, this means that you may cease to exist. But... doesn't every soldier face that same possibility going on deployment? Loads of people are willing to risk an end to their existence. I recommend to you a game about time travel - [I]TimeWatch[/I], by Kevin Kulp, available on RPGNow and from Pelgrane Press. Whether you like the system for your own use, it will allow you to see how such things can be handled in a game, and adapt concepts to your own as you see fit. [URL unfurl="true"]http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/category/products/timewatch/[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/201164/TimeWatch[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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