D&D 5E Time Travel and forced time paradoxes

[SkidAce]

I wouldn't like small minor events creating entire alternate universes. I go back in time and eat a pizza instead of a plate of chicken...NEW TIMELINE!


I feel that the principles of "Simplest Solution" and "Conservation of Energy" would prevent that.

So in my campaigns, time is more like the river example, it flows around the event, but still heads down the same main course. I allow for the possibility of an alternate reality, but it would be for really, really, major divergent points. And would look very similar except for the "big difference".

 

[GMMichael]

I would let the characters roll for it. If they have a Bard in the party writing down the story, perhaps roll with Advantage. Roll high enough and the players can make up the story; roll low enough and the DM will twist the story into something which could be a good side-quest activity to fix OR something which has completely changed the world as the characters knew it.

Please, no. This goes for [MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] too. This is a great idea, except the "roll for it" part. I can't count the number of times that a player has had a great idea, and was super excited about it, just to see it quashed by the DM saying, "okay, roll," and getting a low roll. Sometimes it's not even a low roll that spoils the fun, it's an average roll that spoils the fun!

Time travel and changing things in the past are always nice twists; one interpretation is that of the alternative time line resolution (ie the way Back to the Future envisions it).

personaly, I wouldn't touch time travel with a 11 foot pole.

It could be good ig going with multiverse theory when you go back in time you create a whole new reality that co exist with infinite others, similar but all diferent in small details.

I'm with Horwath here. Time travel is a nightmare for anyone who stops and actually thinks about it. For everyone else, it's a barrel of monkeys. So I'll one-up him: I wouldn't touch it with a 12-foot-pole.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Please, no. This goes for @pming too. This is a great idea, except the "roll for it" part. I can't count the number of times that a player has had a great idea, and was super excited about it, just to see it quashed by the DM saying, "okay, roll," and getting a low roll. Sometimes it's not even a low roll that spoils the fun, it's an average roll that spoils the fun!

I'm with Horwath here. Time travel is a nightmare for anyone who stops and actually thinks about it. For everyone else, it's a barrel of monkeys. So I'll one-up him: I wouldn't touch it with a 12-foot-pole.

So rather than use that players great idea you'd rather just say "Nope" to it? If you think it's a great idea, why wouldn't you want to take the ball and run with it to see where it goes? Seems...odd...

Anyway, my reasoning for the random roll is to removed the inevitable long, drawn out, and probably heated debate with the players.

DM: You get back and the world is run by nazi's!
Player: What?! Why? We took out Hitler fer crying out loud!
DM: Yes, but Herr Schtoofer took over and was just as bad, but didn't attack Russia until last...
Player: But we gave all the rocket info to everyone, including Russia...
DM: Yeah, well...hmmm...in that case...you get back and the world is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland!
Player: WTF?! Because everyone had rockets? That's called mutually assured destruction. Why would *everyone* get in on it? That makes no sense...
DM: Because, well, crazy people did it.
Player: So no matter what we did, you still just 'decided' to mess up the world for us? We couldn't have made it better? ...yeah...real fair, Mr.DM... *fume*

That is why I suggested a random roll. It takes the "absolute DM fiat" out of the equation. Unless the player characters never go back to their own time line, there is no feasible way to "play out" likely scenarios and outcomes. Especially when we are dealing with years, decades, centuries or even millenia.

Somebody mentioned the butterfly effect near the beginning of this thread. That theory would lead to the most interesting outcomes, IMHO, so I'd use that. And as I just said...a near infinite amount of variables for a DM to consider to come up with a "likely" outcome for any PC time-meddling. Because of that...random roll to determine horrible, bad, neutral, good, or awesome result of that meddling. Even/Odd, dice vs. dice, number spread, whatever the mechanic, a random roll is the only way to be both fair and cover all the variables. IMHO, of course.

I do agree with the "not with a 12-foot pole!" though...I'd rather just not get into time-travel in my D&D game (at least not in any meaningful way). But if the players really wanted to...random outcome. And yes, I'd let the players know this mechanic before hand...otherwise it's kind of a dick move.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[BoldItalic]

...
A couple people in the party (fighter and Paladin) have been trying to start their own order/following by recruiting people and telling them about their order, handing out flyers, kissing babies,etc... to make sure their name gets out there, possibly convert some unsure in their lives during these multiple timelines. They are leaving behind information,knowledge and some training of themselves throughout these times intentionally, in hopes that when they get back to their time, they would have a mass of followers waiting for them.
...

The players' plan worked. There are indeed masses of followers but unfortunately they have already been claimed by NPC clones of the characters, who returned to the present last year having been away on even more time-travelling adventures that the players don't remember because they haven't had them yet.

As a result of their adventures in the extra time loops, the clones are several levels higher, more famous and better equipped than the players' versions. If the players meet their future selves, it gets interesting ...

Is that twisted enough ?

 

[Eltab]

I am running an adventure that has a group adventurers travellng back in time to a few different time periods (stone age, bronze age, etc...)

What do you guys/gals think?

When they get back to "present time", there is an identifiable group of people, kinda like the Jews, who remember what the PCs taught and are practiced in the PCs' training. This group has always been looked at as almost-outsiders wherever they lived, though, and so they tend to act like hedgehogs / porcupines: they protect each other first and do not crusade in the larger world. They have lost the part about "one day we shall return and shall summon the call".

Leaders from this group can be persuaded to cooperate with the PCs, maybe in the open but probably from behind the scenes - it won't just be "here we are, follow us!" and get an army. But sympathetic individuals keep helping out in subtle ways, like leaving a door unlocked, or "accidentally" starting a wildfire to clear away brush from a hidden cave and also giving everybody in the nearby village something important to do just then.

The PCs learn from history that there used to be an order of crusaders but they were destroyed during a war / whittled down by attrition defending an empire from invasion / betrayed by a greedy king when they got too rich / distracted into searching for the Holy Grail ... these expected reinforcements have long since been destroyed. The PCs can see that they DID do good in the world. But they will have to do today's hard work themselves.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I can't imagine that being the originator of an organization hundreds or thousands of years down the track would stand for anything. Almost every long lasting organization will have drifted far from where it started, and isn't going to just dump it's current rulership for the returned PC. I can't imagine that if Steve jobs came back to life in 50 years he'd have any sway over apple (for instance).

So let them do it, even let it create a cult! But the best they might hope for is that some faction within their cult recruits them for PR.

 

[Mad_Jack]

As others have mentioned, whatever organizations or factions the PCs have created in the past have long since splintered and headed off in different directions - perhaps the party has not only accidentally created some of the current campaign factions through their actions in the past, but they may be responsible for some of the campaign's greatest villains throughout its history as well. Maybe there was a schism between two factions of the order created by the paladin, and one of them has fallen to evil and been corrupted - the paladin could have unwittingly started an ancient evil cult that worships a perverted image of him as their god. And perhaps the other faction has chosen to pursue the paladin's original goals in a manner inconsistent with the way he would have wanted them to - they've become the Illuminati secretly running nations and empires...

And it's entirely possible that all of this has happened so far in the past that nobody outside the gods and a handful of liches and mad sages actually remembers enough of the details to link the party to it - so it doesn't really change the game much at all until they finally piece together enough of the story over the course of multiple levels or years of in-game time to figure out that they may have somehow caused it all.

 

[MichaelArkAngel]

As others have mentioned, whatever organizations or factions the PCs have created in the past have long since splintered and headed off in different directions - perhaps the party has not only accidentally created some of the current campaign factions through their actions in the past, but they may be responsible for some of the campaign's greatest villains throughout its history as well. Maybe there was a schism between two factions of the order created by the paladin, and one of them has fallen to evil and been corrupted - the paladin could have unwittingly started an ancient evil cult that worships a perverted image of him as their god. And perhaps the other faction has chosen to pursue the paladin's original goals in a manner inconsistent with the way he would have wanted them to - they've become the Illuminati secretly running nations and empires...

And it's entirely possible that all of this has happened so far in the past that nobody outside the gods and a handful of liches and mad sages actually remembers enough of the details to link the party to it - so it doesn't really change the game much at all until they finally piece together enough of the story over the course of multiple levels or years of in-game time to figure out that they may have somehow caused it all.

I could see one timeline getting splintered, or fractured over the course of time, but do you think that if travelling through multiple time timelines, spreading the "good word" could keep it alive, active, and still believed in?

 

[Ganymede81]

I'm not sure it would add up to much more than some word-of mouth tales spread by a doddering old man that proclaims, "Do you remember when those Heroes of Legend arrived? Pepperidge Farm remembers."

 

[MichaelArkAngel]

Was curious as to what you think about corrupting the paladins apprentice in his new order? Since he wasn't able to travel with them, maybe he becomes jealous / power hungry and makes this new order in his visage?

though not sure how that works with the time travel?

thoughts?