Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Creamsteak" data-source="post: 1822588" data-attributes="member: 552">It's been a long time since I've started a thread like this, so bear with me. I'm working on an idea I've had to add a fourth (or maybe it's fifth or six, who knows) dimension to my game. The basic idea is that, in addition to the normal aspects of the game, I want the players to be able to manipulate current in game events through time travel and manipulation of the timeline. I want it to be possible for the players in the current adventure to be able to affect this adventure both in the theoretical past and the theoretical present.An example to set the tone: The adventuring party engages in a combat that they have little chance of winning without good aligned weapons or some form of magic. The working assumption of the whole campaign is that someone, somehow, always makes it through the battle. The characters can, therefore, call in a "favor" from their future selves. The future selves could, for instance, travel back in time to before the battle and leave magic item x there for the characters to come across in the fight. Or, the party wizard of the future!!! could have called down a fireball or other spell on the bad guy at a critical point in the fight. The most drastic solution would be for the future heroes to step in and save the day.Some basic concepts that I've worked out are that I want the time manipulation of current events to be limited. However, since I want these events to be based on the Players choices (and especially there creativity), the number needs to be in the Players hands. So a value (similar to action points I guess) has to exist. The points would be a sort of commodity to be used for both necessity and desire. For instance, the greediest character could have his future self "hide a treasure" for himself to find by spending his points. A more altruistic character might use them only out of necessity.As the DM, I want to allow every opportunity for the "future" to exist as soon as possible. For instance, if the 1st level party used there time manipulation ability to call down a fireball (cast by a 5th level version of the party wizard), then I would try to provide the opportunity to manipulate time as an in-game effect when the party was around 5th level. Of course, the party could decide NOT to throw the fireball spell for whatever reason. Thus creating a paradox. And thereby presenting me with a little fun cause and effect to play with for the characters.In the above example (1st level party is saved by the magic fireball from the sky that they believe there future counterparts would create), if the fireball had not appeared, what would have happened? There are a few ways to deal with this. One would be direct relationships like "Bob the fighter is crippled/injured/dead/missing/etc. because the fireball never saved him from the monster." There could also be more "tricky" effects that don't immediately make sense to the party because of the change in events.On the other hand, problems that take a long time to come to culmination sound pretty fun too. The secret door that magically opened for the group on their second adventure, in-fact, required a huge number of future events to happen, and years of time were spent specifically making sure everything happened exactly as it did. A related idea I had was that perhaps the party travels back in time to get a copy of a "common" scroll of a long forgotten spell, only to find that bringing the old spell to the future ends up setting off a number of historical events leading perhaps to the campaigns "problem."Repeatedly "abusing" the timeline would slowly result in gradually worse and worse problems. At first, the wizard's coinpurse is missing. Then, it seems Bob the fighter's magical sword isn't so magical. Next, divine authorities start to take notice of the alterations to the timeline, and try to correct things manually. If things continue to break down, I'd like to have a gradual "breaking" down of the world in the classic "oh no, the universe is unraveling" or maybe something akin to "they've awakened the elder gods."The actual mechanism for changing time will likely involve the use of portals or ancient artifacts of some kind. I havn't really decided on this yet, but it's really tertiary. Maybe one or more of the characters gradually unlocks chronomancy or some-such magic. So, I'm looking for ideas, considerations, and other bits from anyone willing to offer something up. Also, if anyone wants to take the "player's point of view" and think about what players might try to do creatively with this sort of tool, it could be helpful. I havn't really worked out all the details, so I'm just at the planning stage. It sounds like a handful, but I think with enough of the right preperation I can make it work.I've also been considering using this idea with Call of Cthulhu or a modern/future setting, but that's really besides the point. Any tangential ideas about this could be neat to see as well.</blockquote>

Verification