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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ilgatto" data-source="post: 8980238" data-attributes="member: 86051">Whoa! Blown away by what [USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER] did upthread. Many, many kudos scored.I probably shouldn't, but his <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-d-d-multiverse-the-weird-go-pro-part-1.680171/post-8456506" target="_blank">first post</a> also made me wonder if there should be a difference between “pasts, presents, and futures” and “alternate material planes/worlds/etc.” (AMPs). That is, “presents” as seen in that sequence – i.e., from a time perspective and not, say, as per “but Boot Hill is in a different time than Old Earth so time is either a) all over the PMP, b) an AMP, c) both".Without taking into account the science of time and how 1E and 2E D&D, DMs, and authors of relevant fiction treat time (e.g., dimension, an alternate world because branching) – and never having given the subject any thought because I've never had to deal with time travel as a DM – my gut instinct would be to say that there is a difference between the two in D&D.In fact, if pressed, I think I would go for each AMP having its own time line(s), wherefore “pasts, presents, and futures” can only be accessed using time travel – and not plane-shifting spells or abilities.In the discussion with said presser that would no doubt follow, I'd say that there is much about planes in the 1E and (early) 2E D&D source books but not very much about time travel – in fact, I do believe the first and only time I read about it for D&D in that period of the game was in This Is, Of Course, Impossible, by Marcus L. Rowland in White Dwarf 29 (GW, 1982). But that may well be because I didn't have the proper relevant sources and this argument will crash and burn the very moment somebody procures one that says that “pasts, presents, and futures” are all AMPs.So let's assume that an AMP is a phenomenon that can exist without having any causal relation to a phenomenon in another AMP – as opposed to one that depends on another for its existence.What would that mean for the origins of “infinite prime material planes”?Well, for one thing, going by the quote above, I suppose it could be argued that Murray Leinster's infinite possible pasts, presents, and futures are not actually AMPs but “pasts, presents, and futures” of “the world”, however infinite. They depend on things happening in a certain world existing in time, while it could be argued that Gamma World can exist independently from what happens, has ever happened, or will ever happen in, say Mystara, wherefore the concept of time doesn't come into play when one travels from one to the other.This one is trickier, for it seems to depend on the notion of “if”, which doesn't necessarily need to involve time. However, the last sentence seems to imply that the existence of at least one of these worlds of “if” depends on the “I” not having made a liner, perhaps effectively not making it an AMP?This speaks of “past-future cycles” and “times when” but it doesn't seem to actually come to mention a place where this “being not quite Jack Anders” is supposed to be? Rather, it seems to speak of many Jack Anderses being possible … somewhere/time.Infinite futures? Out.Wait... what?! Godd...! I thought mine was a unique concept! I am seriously having very serious trouble reading this.[very lengthy, frustrated sequence]<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f922.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":sick:" title="Sick    :sick:"  data-smilie="19"data-shortname=":sick:" />[/very lengthy, frustrated sequence]Oh well. Perhaps the lesson here is that there's nothing one can think of that someone hasn't thought of before, especially if one considers the possibility of infinite pasts.P.S.: Left this one because Jack Vance.</blockquote>

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