Prophecy and Visions

[Janx]

Ask [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION], author of Timewatch.

Good question.

What's the point of a prophecy or time travel (sort of the same thing) if you can't change things?

That would be a non-starter for most fiction, let alone RPGs which are about making choices and doing things. For a heroic party, that means trying to change things for the better.

I suppose somebody might prefer to limit the total re-writing of history, as that could get mind-numbingly complex, but then, isn't that basically what Sliders was (hopping to radically different timelines, which are the outcomes of different decision points being made)?

 

[billd91]

I generally try to be vague with any foreshadowing I give in games. I've included things like this in the form of dreams and card readings (particularly Harrow cards from Pathfinder).

In one case, running Masks of Nyarlathotep, I gave one PC, who had a brief mental breakdown, dreams that included African savannah and birth imagery to foreshadow part of the campaign. I did something similar with some Oriental Adventures modules like Mad Monkey vs Dragon's Claw.

In some Pathfinder I've run via play-by-post, I'll have the player, who also had a set of the Harrow cards (a really nice accessory) draw a reading and then I'll modify some cards and placements based on what I want to foreshadow and have the player then interpret whatever they want out of it. Right now, crows are figuring pretty heavily in her readings - but I'm using them for 3 different things - dire corbies, tengu, and actual crows. So, yes, ambiguous, but that's prophecy for you.

The important thing about all of these is I foreshadow stuff coming ahead in an AP, modules I want and plan to run, or other adventure areas I'm prepping. So I know something positive about everything already. If I was running a campaign more on the fly, I'd probably come up with something and then design an adventuring area around what I already presented in the foreshadowing... and I worry that would have the effect of making me more literal.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good question.

What's the point of a prophecy or time travel (sort of the same thing) if you can't change things?

There's a significant subset of time travel/prophecy fiction in which you can't, for some reason. The particulars of "why" makes it interesting.

 

[Umbran]

Good question.

What's the point of a prophecy or time travel (sort of the same thing) if you can't change things?

That would be a non-starter for most fiction...

Robert L forward wrote an entire novel (Timemaster) exploring this, sort of, to show the variation of tie travel that might actually be allowed in the real universe.

In his story, you can change history, sort of. The universe requires that the result must be self-consistent. There can be no paradoxes (paradoxes are equivalent to breaking conservation of energy/momentum, which is not good). So, if you go back n time, you can kill your grandfather before he sires your parent, but someone with your father's genetic code *will* be born, by hook or by crook. To the protagonist, it looks like he always has free will, but to the reader, it comes across like destiny.

let alone RPGs which are about making choices and doing things. For a heroic party, that means trying to change things for the better.

Well, there's "you can change nothing" and "there are some things you cannot change". My Star Wars example is one of the latter - avoiding the things that the Force says *will* happen is a good way to go mad. Setting yourself up to deal with the likely repercussions of known events, however, is tractable.

I suppose somebody might prefer to limit the total re-writing of history, as that could get mind-numbingly complex, but then, isn't that basically what Sliders was (hopping to radically different timelines, which are the outcomes of different decision points being made)?

No. Sliders was "many worlds". In "many worlds" time travel, you don't actually change history - you just create a new timeline with a new history. The old one also exists.

 

[Janx]

I'll go back to the other part, but I hate multi-quoting because it's hard to follow, so here's this bit:

No. Sliders was "many worlds". In "many worlds" time travel, you don't actually change history - you just create a new timeline with a new history. The old one also exists.

I think you misunderstood my point about Sliders.

Sliders is about alternate realities. Each one effectively a "what if this element were different" and how that reality deviated.

Altering time to create a new history is the exact same thing but different.

In Sliders, the deviation is simply a result of the quantum dice rolls coming out different and thus the chain of reactions and subsequent dice rolls leading to a different world

In time travel, the deviation is by action/information causing an alteration of dice rolls at that point and thus casading to the same thing as Sliders.

the cause is different, but the outcome, an alternate reality is the same.

Barring the consideration of whether stacks of alternate realities exist, while you are in Reality XYZ, you are looking at the outcome of a chain of dice rolls (random and chosen paths) and how "what if" has become reality compared to your baseline reality (the one you came from that you are comparing to).

 

[Janx]

Robert L forward wrote an entire novel (Timemaster) exploring this, sort of, to show the variation of tie travel that might actually be allowed in the real universe.

In his story, you can change history, sort of. The universe requires that the result must be self-consistent. There can be no paradoxes (paradoxes are equivalent to breaking conservation of energy/momentum, which is not good). So, if you go back n time, you can kill your grandfather before he sires your parent, but someone with your father's genetic code *will* be born, by hook or by crook. To the protagonist, it looks like he always has free will, but to the reader, it comes across like destiny.

now for this part...

This is certainly one way of doing time travel. It's basically the self-correcting version of time travel. Which in my mind, assumes some conscious effort on the part of the TimeStream to decide what is important to retain/re-map so it happens, and what part is acceptable to deviate from. Usually such stories allow for minor changes, and in fact, the reality would have to accommodate at least one major change, primarily the injection of a new mass of a time traveler.

After all, if I travel back in time to a book depository and bump into some guy about to take a shot with a rifle, who's to say that shot is more important than the one where Dick Cheney shot that guy in the butt.

Or as I was crossing the street in Dallas 1964, this one dude thought the outfit I was wearing was really cool so he invented a new fashion of clothing. Why is one change more important than another to allow or block?

As just as valid a idea, the one I've seen incorporating quantum physics is that there's already alternate realities for every decision point (both sentient being induced and quantum dice roll of stuff that is decided "randomly" by physics) or that these alternate realities spawn into existance the moment a choice happens. That part's not too important because it's chicken and the egg to time travel. By the time you have time travel, you got chickens and eggs already.

Anyway, when you time travel and kill your grandpa, You have landed in a DIFFERENT reality than the one you came from. You now find yourself in a reality where it's version of your grandpa died by a mysterious stranger who appeared from nowhere. As such, YOUR actual grandpa still existed and you got born. No paradox, no drama. You could (tech permitting) return to your own reality where he's just fine, or travel forward to the future branch of this "dead grandpa" reality chain to see how things turned out, though technically, this would be a THIRD alternate reality as again, it is the one where you just popped in from nowhere to observe it, as opposed to the one where you did not appear.

There's probably issues with adding mass/energy for myself in the target reality either because I'm made of the same matter (from another reality) or because I really am adding dirt from Reality A to Reality B. That's something for folks like Umbran to know..

------------

Suffice it to say, I hate the "can't change anything" style of time travel as it's so much BS with my view of reality and inhibiting in a game where we are presumably featuring time travel (aka prophecy/actual time travel).

To bring this back to topic, for a game that has Prophecy/time travel, I favor an interpretation that enables player choice to matter in the sense of if they try to make a change (and if they are successful).

I do think the "implied responsibility" issue Umbran raised is very important not to dismiss. For PCs doing a spell for "what's going to happen tomorrow" or "is this course of action a good idea" it was the player's choice to seek that info, and thus their choice how to use it. If the GM foists a "you are the chosen one, this is your quest" or "the king will be murdered next week" kind of hand-me down prophecy, that's the danger zone as it pretty much defines the direction the game is going outside of player choice.

That said, even in that framing, it should be the player's choice to go along or disrupt the prophecy. That should be the very point of giving it to the players in that the GM assumes (hopefully by knowing his players' preference) that they would enjoy having some adventures about fulfilling or preventing the prophecy.

Within the prophecy about the king dying, how that's phrased and how it relates to the PC's also matters.

If it says "the PCs shall kill the king and save the kingdom" or some such, that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Dice have to be rolled, fights have to happen. But it does indicate that going to kill the king is a good idea and that it will result in a happy ending if they are successful. It may also be possible the players come up with an alternative, like arresting the king, or even talking him into being a good guy. Which of course invalidates the prophecy but still might be a good outcome.

Since that prophecy implies player action, you have to plan for players rejecting that action (doing something in opposition) or accepting that recommendation.

 

[Umbran]

Altering time to create a new history is the exact same thing but different.

Only in quantum-mechanical many-worlds universes.

The QM many-worlds theory is that any time a choice is made, the universe splits into separate streams, one for each possible result. You making a choice and taking an action *is* an instance of rolling the dice. But, what happens is that we get one branch for every choice you cold have made. If you are in this universe, and you change history, all you do is create a new branch on the tree. The old one still exists. Stopping a disaster is kind of a Pyrrhic victory, because the universe in which you didn't still exists.

It is only in single-timestream cosmologies that there's much point to time-travel. Only here does altering the past actually mean that no future ever sees the event you stopped.

 

[Janx]

Only in quantum-mechanical many-worlds universes.

The QM many-worlds theory is that any time a choice is made, the universe splits into separate streams, one for each possible result. You making a choice and taking an action *is* an instance of rolling the dice. But, what happens is that we get one branch for every choice you cold have made. If you are in this universe, and you change history, all you do is create a new branch on the tree. The old one still exists. Stopping a disaster is kind of a Pyrrhic victory, because the universe in which you didn't still exists.

It is only in single-timestream cosmologies that there's much point to time-travel. Only here does altering the past actually mean that no future ever sees the event you stopped.

I'd say yes and no it doesn't matter in many-worlds.

If you remain stuck in "this sucks" reality, sure, it doesn't matter that Adolf was killed as a baby.

But hopping over to the sweet and pleasant "I killed Hitler and it's great" reality means you get to live in that blissful paradise, regardless of what those sorry saps in the other reality have to put up with.

It's not about the other realities still existing. It's about getting to the good reality and leaving the bad reality. Relativity at its most literal. Where is the observer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good point about switucing neighborhoods, as it were.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have tried to do this a lot. I have tried keeping it vague, and keeping it mysterious, and the answer I have gotten over the last 20ish years is simple...

Players WANTING the prophecy is the trick... just like the real world, people will in there minds make connections. Let them. If the players want the prophecy (not the character the player) then it can feel like it worked.


Edit: it works best when one player LIKES to be the smarty pants and figure things out, AND the gm totally goes with the flow.

Example: The player says "Hey when X said Y they meant this..." then the storyteller says "Yea, way to go I didn't think it would be so clear...way to go take a bonus xp" the real reason for that bonus XP was he had a good argument.