"Groundhog day"-like adventure?

[DoctorB]

I like the plots thread...

Perhaps your demon could steal the gate and try to open a gate large enough to make the Abyss/Hell and the Prime Material plane one. If he does that, perhaps it destroys the universe!

That would explain why the players are in the time loop and give them something to do to stop it (stop the bad guy from opening a gate that big or prevent him from getting the thing in the first place). A little over the top, but with a willing group, I think it could be a cool adventure.

 

[Darklone]

Yihaa

Like the movie too. As well as the plot.

As well as the plots section!

Well, this may sound like a summary of earlier proposals, but it's how I would do it. Very playable is the greater evil that's trapped in a timeloop by it's greatest adversary (who died perhaps right at the moment when the timeloop started). Have the players stumble over the artefact the evil thing needs. (meteor from north?). Have the thing take place in a little village where everyone knows everyone and the players know everyone. Evil: Perhaps a greater doppleganger. Strong enough to kill the whole group. Since he's the only other person who does not the same thing all day long, the players might soon notice what's wrong (as well as hide by doing the same things as the day before if he's around). Make some trap or whatever for the players or a run for the artefact or the key to it's functions.

 

[The Oracle]

To my mind, this is the perfect way to rescue a party which has made a serious blunder that has had seriously bad consequences, such as loss of most of the party. The party wakes up the next morning and the party members who died are back! And they are back where they were at the start of that day. This works especially well if they are on a quest for church where the god of that church might have a personal interest in them succeeding, or, as in my campaign, powerful nature spirits do not want rampant warfare among the tribes, so together they reset that day...

 

[Storminator]

How did I end up here? I was in the under 25 reading list poll, and this somehow became my location?

That's weird...

PS

 

[Asmor]

My players would groan at an attempt at such an adventure. Aside from Groundhog Day, there's been similar plots on
Star Trek: TNG, Xena, and Buffy. I'm afraid it's a bit cliche already.

And Stargate SG-1!

 

[Asmor]

How did I end up here? I was in the under 25 reading list poll, and this somehow became my location?

That's weird...

PS

Me too. I couldn't figure out why I was here at all, though, because I hit reply and then walked away from my computer. My memory's terrible. Thanks for clearing that up!

 

[tallyrand]

If there is any repeated combat ancounters, you need hefty and cumulative to hit and damage bonuses each time the characters repeat it, this will both represent their familiarity with these individual combatants, as well as speed things up, even to the point of one shot kills about the 5th time around (this will also keep the players from demanding full xp for repeating the same encounters)

The beauty of Groundhog Day type tales (such as the Stargate episode) is that you, the viewer, get to fast forward through, seeing the growth of those caught in it, rather than have to slog through it yourself. Be willing to grant auto success freely on repeated checks , hand wave things that have been repeated,and so forth, concentrating on the wholly new actions of the players, otherwise this could become a nightmarishly repetitive game.

 

[Barastrondo]

I wouldn't say five occurances makes it a cliche (X-Files had a similar epsiode too). Of course, it's entirely possible that there've been a lot more occurances that I don't know about.

Run Lola Run is a fun example, and another one that occurs outside the framework of made-for-geeks entertainment.

I'd say tallyrand has a good perspective on one of the pitfalls you'll want to keep an eye out for; repetition can be a real slog in actual game time, particularly if you're dealing with a group of players who have to divide up the time to generate new content between themselves. Not insurmountable, I'm sure, but definitely something to watch.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

First, epic thread necromancy.

Second, I'm shocked that no one mentioned the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

For all intents and purposes, it's Groundhog Day, the video game. Certain elements are retained when you repeat the sequence (3 days in this case), but many elements are reset. Certain artifacts that "prove" accomplishments allow them to remain accomplished when you reset the time loop.

It's a brilliantly executed game on many levels, and is a rather good source to mine for side-quests and good cues of the passage of time.

 

[malraux]

One of the better modules I've seen for this is Chaosium's Gatsby and the Great Race. I haven't yet had a chance to run it, but really want to at some point. Since the setup is key to the solution, the rest is in spoilers.
The module is designed to run with multiple groups playing simultaneously, each running in effectively a parallel universe. What is fun about the module is that after some time playing through, players start swapping characters by being moved into different groups. The solution to the module is to find an item that has been broken into pieces and scattered across the groups' universes. Since its CoC, combat is relatively short. And since only about an hour of game time repeats, any character who dies is pretty quickly restored to life.