Time Travel

[Gadodel]

IMHO, Time Travel really is its own Genre. One in which that is difficult to do and thus, rarely done. It is at the core of my RPGing. I have searched high and low for game mechanics that enable Time Travel to be done right and successfully. 'Successfully' equating to 'Fun'.

 

My search stopped with HERO 5E.

 

Concering RPGing, Time Travel should be more of a plot device than a game mechanic. Though, like I imply above; a game mechanic that works-helps a lot.

 

That said, using your best experience/judgement; what tips can you offer me in using HERO 5E in this regard? Being new-at HERO 5E, my own experience/judgement tells me to ask the experts or those that aspire to be!

 

Thanks.

[Barton]

Re: Time Travel

 

What is your theory of time? This would help people comment on how to run your game.

[Gadodel]

Re: Time Travel

 

Theory of Time:

 

Time and Space are inseparable, though finite. This means that many different dimensions, of various sizes exist; even within a Universe. There are an unknown number of Universes, but their existence is linear: they have a starting point...and an ending point.

 

Time Travel can be accomplished by a Supercivilization or a Superpowered Individual...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Time Travel

 

If it's within your means, I'd suggest picking up a copy of Star HERO, the genre book for all types of sci-fi gaming. It has a chapter going into significant detail on time travel: campaigns featuring this capacity, the main tropes and plot elements, possible methods of travel, and the pitfalls of introducing time-travel to a campaign and how to avoid them.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Time Travel

 

How much energy does it take to travel through time?

 

What "tech level" does time travel happen at?

 

What happens if you kill your grandfather?

 

Do changes create other timelines or universes?

 

What if, in the new timeline, "you" were blond instead of brunette? Does your hair change? (AKA the "Back to the Future" effect. This is shorthand for other types of changes.)

 

Is reality "static" meaning that it tends toward a certain type of historical inevitability, or "dynamic" meaning that kill the wrong butterfly a thousand years ago and there is no one in the new universe that existed in the old?

 

Are there Superpeople At The End Of Time who are inscrutable?

 

Is there an Absolute Now beyond which no one may travel?

 

Is time travel two way, or one way, or one way with limits (can't travel forward or backward beyond a certain point, for instance)?

 

Are there other limitations on the ability? (For instance, you can only travel back to points that exist in 27 year intervals, because the timestream "loops" upon itself, and the 27 year intervals are the only ones accessible.)

 

Anything else I haven't thought of?

 

I'd suggest also picking up GURPS Time Travel, and if you happen to have a real time machine, pop forward to about 2158 or so and pick up The Ultimate Dimension which will have been written by me.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Time Travel

 

I like the idea of a character who can travel a set distance in time between two specific points, using a place as a focus. This is the central plot device of the classic anime series Inu-Yasha -- the heroine can travel at a specific geographic location from the present to exactly six hundred years on the past, and time passes at the same rate on both sides. Thus, if Kagome spends three days in the present three days will have passed for Inu-Yasha in the past. Kagome spends most of her time in the past, but Inu-Yasha has occasioanlly followed her into the "future", suaulyl because she was urgently needed in the past.

 

In this case technolgoy is not an issue because the travel is magical; only people who are inherently magical 9such as half-demons) and people who are posession of powerful msytic artifacts AND who have access to that specific location can do it. And although there has never been a suggestion of it, it is presumed that kagome's present would be erased if Inu-Yasha's enemies succeeded in detsorying the world in his time as is their goal -- in which case Kagome would never have been born and a massive paradox would ensue.

 

Kagome has used the well to bring limited anacrhronisms into the past (such as her omnipresent bicycle_ without seeming to cause people to build bicycles in feudal times. But Kagome is a smart time traveler and doesn;t bring dangerous anacronisms into the past, partly because she doesn;t have access to things like firearms and partly because given the nature of what she fights they wouldn't do her any good. The strangest thing she does is continually go into the past wearing her junior high school uniform, which stands out as "outrageous" dress; one would think someone as savvy as she is would see the viture of blending in as best she could with a dog-eared demon boy in her company. Maybe she feels kimonos or a miko's unfiorm would restrict her movement more than a pleated skirt and sensible shoes would.

[Markdoc]

Re: Time Travel

 

Another source of useful game material:

 

Feng Shui (the game) had time travel but only to limited crucial periods (called conjunctions, IIRC). Altering the world situation at that period would define what the future world looked like - so of course you have multiple groups all fighting over each one. Of course this setup was really only a kludge to let you use characters with different distinct backgrounds, but it actually worked pretty well.

 

cheers, Mark

[Jinx999]

Re: Time Travel

 

Kagome has used the well to bring limited anacrhronisms into the past (such as her omnipresent bicycle_ without seeming to cause people to build bicycles in feudal times. But Kagome is a smart time traveler and doesn;t bring dangerous anacronisms into the past' date=' partly because she doesn;t have access to things like firearms and partly because given the nature of what she fights they wouldn't do her any good. The strangest thing she does is continually go into the past wearing her junior high school uniform, which stands out as "outrageous" dress; one would think someone as savvy as she is would see the viture of blending in as best she could with a dog-eared demon boy in her company. Maybe she feels kimonos or a miko's unfiorm would restrict her movement more than a pleated skirt and sensible shoes would.[/quote']

 

I've heard that Kagome is rather an odd name in Japan, it doesn't seem to mean anything. I wonder how Kagome would react if she discovered she was named after a wandering foreign (look at her clothes) Miko folk-heroine from hundreds of years ago. . .

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Time Travel

 

I've heard that Kagome is rather an odd name in Japan' date=' it doesn't seem to mean anything. I wonder how Kagome would react if she discovered she was named after a wandering foreign (look at her clothes) Miko folk-heroine from hundreds of years ago. . .[/quote']

"I was named after -- myself?"

 

Kagome was originally believed to the reincarnation of a famous Miko and monster-fighter. This results in one of the more bizarre love-triangles in anime between a contemporary girl, a demon and the ghost of the demon's former love. I havent't seen all of Inu-Yasha (the series finallyt ended in Japan after more than 150 episodes) so I don;t know how it all gets resolved. Howvere, I will be very disappointed oif kagome does not stay in the Fedual era in the end and admit her feelings for Inu-Yasha and vice versa. but that;s neither here nor there in the discussion of time travel.

 

What is gern\mane is the thought of time passing at the same rate in two different LOCATIONS in time and a character or characters shuttling between them. Let's say, for example, that you can go betwwen 1204 and 2004. one of your friends in 1204 gets sick from a disease that has been cured in 2004. You have to obtain the medicine that will cure your friend -- but every day you spend in 2004 trying to get the medcicine brings your friend ijn 1204 closer to death.

[Gadodel]

Re: Time Travel

 

1. How much energy does it take to travel through time?

 

2. What "tech level" does time travel happen at?

 

3. What happens if you kill your grandfather?

 

4. Do changes create other timelines or universes?

 

5. What if, in the new timeline, "you" were blond instead of brunette? Does your hair change? (AKA the "Back to the Future" effect. This is shorthand for other types of changes.)

 

6. Is reality "static" meaning that it tends toward a certain type of historical inevitability, or "dynamic" meaning that kill the wrong butterfly a thousand years ago and there is no one in the new universe that existed in the old?

 

7. Are there Superpeople At The End Of Time who are inscrutable?

 

8. Is there an Absolute Now beyond which no one may travel?

 

9. Is time travel two way, or one way, or one way with limits (can't travel forward or backward beyond a certain point, for instance)?

 

10. Are there other limitations on the ability? (For instance, you can only travel back to points that exist in 27 year intervals, because the timestream "loops" upon itself, and the 27 year intervals are the only ones accessible.)

 

 

To wit,

 

1. 'How much' isn't as important as 'what kind'.

 

2. Tech Level should be that of a 'supercivilization'.

 

3. One 'freezes' in that instant. 'Stuck' in Time. Grandfather dies prematurely, but family continues on without you. 'You' disappear.

 

4. Yes...

 

5. Yes

 

6. Static

 

7. There is no end...atleast not that anyone has found.

 

8. See number 7.

 

9. Anyway.

 

10. I try not to get myself confused by such ways.