Help: Time Villains

[beauxdeigh]

Howdy, Champions assembled! I'm getting ready to start Year Two of my Champs campaign, and I find myself in need of the strength of your collective experience. Here's the deal, I've got this sub plot that I've begun tossing seeds out about and would like to resolve sometime in the next year or two. The problem is that in order to resolve it then, I need to introduce a new villain to the Justice Force Rogue's Gallery now. So, to get the juices flowing, I'm looking for ideas about time traveling and/or time manipulating villains.

 

How do you limit your time villains?

 

Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used?

 

What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again?

 

What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again?

 

What kind of personalities have you given your time villains? Are they megalomaniacs? Cool amoralists? Kooks?

 

What kind of motivations have you given them?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

My players have never thankfully dug that deep into it, to try to find the "real" laws of time travel, beyond some in-game hypothesizing based on sci-fi stories.

 

But I generally use the idea of "one stop only" - once you've been to a certain date, you can't time travel back. Some undetermined window around that day too, to avoid Kang attacking every day for the next 10 years. Except when I want to. I will freely throw out any time-travel laws I feel necessary to get the effect/story I want, paradoxes be damned.

 

A couple of cool (IMO) things I've done w/time travel villain:

 

*Got the heroes together, Loki/Avengers style. Travelled into the past before they were formed to destroy them, as in the future they will have caused him many problems. Of course, his attack is what causes the heroes to band together in the first place, to cause him trouble in the future, to cause him to come back to try to destroy them before they form, etc.

 

*PC's timeline is one in which the villain succeeded. Interesting to see what the PC's do when they realize it. Heroes race back in time to stop Mobius from altering the outcome of the Battle of Hastings, only to realize that his machinations cause the Normans to win! (ie "historical" outcome)

[Evil102]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

In my current campaign, I've laid the ground rule that time travel can only go into the future, not into the past. The old "you (or your component atoms) can't exist twice at the same time" schtick.

 

Okay, okay, I did have a way of the PC's travelling into the past, but that was a plot device one of the storylines revolved around.

 

The only time-manipulating character encountered so far went by the name of Tempus. He had developed devices capable of skipping an object a few days into the future, projecting an accelerated time field around an object (SPD boost) or freezing an object in time (SPD Drain).

 

When the PC's encountered him, he was robbing jewellery stores along with his crew (the Time Bandits), using rampaging dinosaurs to distract the police.

 

What can I say? Two of the rules I used when writing the campaign were "If it seems fun, do it. If it looks ridiculous, so much the better" and "Just becauses they're geniuses doesn't mean that they're smart..."

 

The entertaining part is that when the PCs captured him and figured out his motivation, they managed to browbeat the D.A. into commuting his sentence into a shedload of community service with the EPA, so he could develop beneficial applications of his technology.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

Yeah, first rule of character design is "no causality violations" - you can slow/speed/freeze/whatever time, or jump forward (basically pausing your existence til the target date comes around), but no travel to the past and no precognition. Just too much headache. I think time travel works in fiction a lot better than it does when players get their hands on it, and I'd rather have an overall ban than allow it for NPCs while banning it for PCs.

 

If I ever get an irresistable urge, I'll probably go with the "You didn't time travel, you went to a parallel universe whose time "rate" is skewed compared to your homeline's" kinda thing.

 

Sorry that's not much help. GURPS Time Travel deals with the issues you'll be worried about, but imo doesn't make time travelling PCs any more playable.

[csyphrett]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I had a rule that the character couldn't meet himself when time traveling. Also even the littlest thing could change reality for the worse. That kept the heroes from using it except as a last ditch effort to save the world.

CES

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

the only way they could effect the past was with a very rare (and plot powered) "chrono-shield" but they could go to the future and meet high tech villians and get neat gagets

[Emerald Mask]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I have found it usefull to set the rules for how Time travel works in a campaign . Then think of evry way the players can try to twist it and cover those bases. If the GM does not have a firm grasp how he envions it the players will . I have a useful rule of thumb is that anything that significantly changes the timeline cause a Branch off. Then the Gm and the players have to find the correct Timeline to return to or retuen to the future they caused.

[Blue]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

How do you limit your time villains?

Not sure I limit them any more than my other villains.

 

Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used?

My players don't have the ability to travel time. They can use time as a special effect for their high SPD, or an entangle, but that's it.

 

What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again?

Two answers in my game: Degenerative Temporal issues (traveling to a time over and over causes a rift); and an organization called ANACH that show up to stop time incursions once they've spotted one "in progress" (for lack of a better term).

 

What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again?

My time villain can see the impact of his actions on the threads of time, but there are certain "X-factors"; In this case, two of the PCs, who are displaced in time. Their presence throws his visions off. Once he's tried his attempt and presumably been foiled, he must recalculate his plans because the threads of time have been altered in new ways. Essentially, his sight is off for a while.

 

What kind of personalities have you given your time villains? Are they megalomaniacs? Cool amoralists? Kooks?

Eldritch was a sorceror in the dark ages who lost his wife. With nothing left to lose, he threw himself into dangerous time magic experiments in an attempt to find the exact right instance in which he can destroy the demons who killed his wife; and he doesn't care what happens to whoever gets in his way. He's got a kind of dark, gothic rock-star look these days. yes, he's named after Andrew Eldritch of the Sisters of Mercy.

 

To solve the issue of "why not go back and rescue his wife", I answer that by telling you that his two attempts made things worse. She was harmed in far worse ways as the result of his actions. He hates himself for this, but he's still going to take it out on these demons, if he can manipulate the fates to get together with them again.

[Kirby]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

How do you limit your time villains?

 

Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used?

The only Time Villain I've created was one that could stop time, not travel through it. He was limited because he had to pay END while time was stopped (combat-wise, this means he could stop time, do 5 half-moves & five Energy Blasts and then be at 0 END).

 

I haven't created too much of a personality since I haven't used him yet. Plus, the idea for him was from a player who tried creating him as a PC, but he was too underpowered. I tweaked him properly and have thought about making him an art collector.

[Arkham]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

While I don't have any time villains, I've had two different PCs in different champions games which had time control powers.

 

In both instances, they were met by the Time Police, a group that monitors the time stream for 'anomolies' and fixes them. The anomolies they look for aren't people time traveling, but rather people trying to change something that would create a Paradox.

 

In addition, there is a Living Tribunal style Cosmic Entity/Entities that looks for those who have created a Paradox and destroys them and their entire race, with the exception being those who create a minor paradox while stopping someone from creating a major one.

 

When I inevitably create a time traveling villain, they will have the same things to keep in mind...

 

This doesn't mean people can't change history, but the changes are generally subtle, or the villain takes precautions against both the police and 'Living Tribunal'.

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used?

 

One thing I tried once was that you could only go forward in time, never back. Since you were always going into uncharted territory, it was pretty dangerous. You always took the chance of going a week into the future and finding the building you were in was on fire or something like that.

 

What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again?

 

Try the "Back to the Future" problem. If the theif accidentally lets one instance of himself see another one, they all go crazy.

 

What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again?

 

A common thread I've seen in other time travel stories is that big things will always happen, just differently. For example, you go back and assassinate a politician, but when you get back to your time, you find out another one with similar views ended up winning the election in his absence. Maybe you go back in time and kill Hitler, but then some guy he was in WWI with ends up running the Nazi party instead. This can be just as frustrating for the bad guys as the good guys, though.

 

The key to this is that you have to find smaller changes to make to try to get the effect you want. Let's say you wanted Bruce Wayne to not become Batman. His parents dying is probably a big thing, so you don't allow that to be changed. Instead, you keep them from going down the dark alley. They find a cab. The cab has an accident, killing everyone but young Bruce Wayne. Parents still dead, kid still orphan, but no psychological motivation for Batman.

 

Then again, if becoming Batman is a 'big thing' too, it just happens differently. Maybe someone breaks into his house or mugs him in college. He still has that mindset, but it doesn't start until 15 or 20 years later. He still becomes Batman, but with a couple decades less emotional baggage and probably a significantly different style.

 

What kind of personalities have you given your time villains? Are they megalomaniacs? Cool amoralists? Kooks?

 

Typically, obsessive perfectionists. They'll do things over and over again until they're "right". Usually exhibiting strong obsessive compulsive disorder traits as well (not to make light of anyone who has such an affliction).

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I generally operate on the 'divergent timeline' theory; you can't alter what you would consider 'your own past', you just split off another timeline that operates off that change. It's not actually time travel, per se, just dimensional travel.

 

In rare cases, some really (REALLY) brilliant types can generate true Time Travel, but they're usually not evil (though their motivations may not synch up well with the rest of the multiverse); in most cases, these minds realize that playing around with causality loops is just asking for trouble, and therefore don't, unless they're intending to destroy the universe.

[Kirby]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, the Gunslinger and a boy named Jake have a type of time paradox (where the boy Jake died, but the Gunslinger later did something that saved his life) and they both started going a bit insane by having their brains 'argue' about what the true reality was. This might be a good option to take with those that are willing to role-play such a thing. (The 'problem' was later solved, fyi).

[Jhamin]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

In general, I love time travel adventures. I therefore hate to have any rules that prevent timetravel. I just try to find ones that let you muck with history but make it complicated enough to give me lots of options with where to story will go.

 

Also, I expanded the background of Captain Future from the old 4th edition Golden Age Champions. In GAC Captain Future was a slightly befuddled crimefighter from the future. I took his writeup as reflecting his "conventional" ablilities and added lots of skills and gear that make him immune to temporal interference. Meaning that if you try to time travel to before WWII to kill Hitler as a child, Capain Future will know about it, be able to intercept you, and be immune to all your temporal powers. And have a blaster gun.

If all you wanted was to save a book from getting destroyed in a bombing you might not show up on his sensors strongly enough to lock onto.

 

A big deal was made out of the fact that there were many time police throughout history, all calling themselves Captain Future. So I created another Captain Future in the modern era. He fights crime as part of an NPC team, but also goes off on his own to track down time villians. Captain Cronos, Tempus, and several others are hunted by him.

 

How do you limit your time villains?

In a few ways.

-I use time rules that limit your ability to go to a point in time repeatedly.

-I make sure that major changes that affect history in a major way will guarentee that everybody with a time machine anywhere in time will gang up to stop you from erasing their past/future.

-I have introduced/stolen the Time Police from GAC. (Temporal law enforcement makes for great NPC interactions!)

 

Do you establish rules about time travel ahead of time? What kind of rules have you used?

In general, I've stolen the time travel rules from "Menace out of Time" an old 4th edition adventure. In there, you can go foreward or backward in time, but if travel somewere that you already exist the version of you that is less important gets shunted into limbo until the time travel effect ends. In other words, if you time travel back to change the outcome of the Battle of Detroit one of two things happen:

a) if the version of you from that time was at home watching TV, it gets slipped to limbo until you leave.

if the version of you from that time was in the battle of detroit, or stopping a villian somewhere else it is very likely that you will either change history in unpredictible ways when they disappear, or you will get sent to limbo rather than the past.

 

I've also added a couple twists. There are lots of timelines and changing history changes all the timelines that branch out after the point you changed. New timelines come into existance after the old ones vanish. Meaning that people whose futures no longer exist have a window to go back and fix it before people from the new timelines come into existance and try to defend their existance.

 

What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again?

 

What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again?

If you work your rules right, you can only activly participate in an event once. If you go back again, you displace your earlier self and change subtle things about the event. (IE, you have to make all your rolls agains, you can't just go back and only re-roll one thing)

 

Also, if you keep going back you eventually attract the Time Police. And if you try to go back again and outwit them, they can go back with backup. They will eventually beat you and set time right, so the trick is to make changes small enough not to draw their attention or warrent their full resources.

 

As the GM, you can also conveniently make a time event block out their timeline when you want the PCs to deal with something themselves.

[steriaca]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I always liked the Profesor Reed Richers Time Travel Theroy, which goes like this: You can not travel through time. Instead, you travel to an alternative dimention where the event you want is happening here and now. You can meddel with it to your heart's desier, but once you get home, nothing has changed.

 

Of course, The Doctor both proves and disproves that theory, but only because he touches on the fringes of the Marvel universe himselfe. And it does nothing for the guy who can stop time (which, so far, nobody in the Marvel universe can do...but there is already a guy in the Hero Universe who can do just that...hint Caption Cronos...hint).

 

Which reminds me, am I the only guy who misses Timemaster?

[Fox1]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

How do you limit your time villains?

 

They behave as the source material has them behave.

 

What keeps the thief from going back to steal the artifact again and again?

 

What keeps the conqueror from going back to adjust his strategy again and again?

 

It's not genre.

 

 

 

What kind of personalities have you given your time villains? Are they megalomaniacs? Cool amoralists? Kooks?

 

Almost always meglomanics.

 

It's a very rare villian setup. There should only be one or two of these types of guys if any IMO.

[beauxdeigh]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

First of all, thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread. I appreciate you sharing your opinions. They've helped me make some informal decisions.

 

I own Champions Presents and really like the Menace out of Time adventure, and was tempted to just use those rules carte blanche, but something about their rigidity bothered me when I started working up this villain. Part of the fun of the Comic Book genre is the flexibility in story telling, and all the "you cannot" stuff doesn't lend itself to that.

 

The primary, long term, reason for the existence of this character is to (along with the PCs) resolve a mysterious event in the campaign world history. The character must be able to travel to the past for this to work. So, travel along the time-stream in each direction is possible. This was a given, based on my plans for the future of my game.

 

A few rules I've decided to use:

- Time travel takes a great deal of force/energy to accomplish. The further along the time stream you want to go, the more energy it will take. The expenditure (and the resulting residue) is easily detectable as an occurrance of time travel with the proper senses/equipment.

- Changes to the time-stream are possible, but major ones are extremely difficult. However, any type of change will likely result in unintended consequneces. Any attempt at major change in the time-line will absolutely result in a cascade of unexpected moderate and minor changes. (ie. You can kill Hitler before he rises to power, but it is likely that someone will take his place and WWII and some kind of Holocaust will still happen, but not anything near to what you remember).

- You can visit a time period more than once, but doing so can be a very, very, bad idea. To begin with, every time you return you risk seriously altering the events of your previous incursions, affecting your own past and causing paradox (and possibly insanity). Worse, if, by chance, you happen upon a previous incursion serious personal and/or temporal damage can happen (temporal rifts, death, etc.).

- PCs who wish to time travel will be forced to suffer my stern GM Glare of Ultimate Scrutiny.

- All these rules are in place, except when they are not.

 

I think that'll do, for now. The only addition I might make is the "nature abhors the time traveler" rule from Menace.

 

Now, for the next part. Building the character. I'd rather he not be a typical obsessive perfectionist or master villain. I'm not big on cliche. I liked the time travelling thief from JLU. He was vulnerable, but resourceful. I'd like a touch of tragedy as well. I have ideas, but I'm looking for second opinions. Here, mull these over, please:

 

Suppose a Joker-like villain with time-travelling powers. He suffered tremendous paradox and went all sociopath-y. The Clown Prince of Time. How does that strike you as a GM? (As a player?) What kind of plot seeds does it inspire? Would you want that character in your game?

 

Something a little less whimsical/scary. The character from the semi-near future goes back in time and does something small, that changes the time-line. When they return, they find their spouse and children never existed. They are trying desperately to fix the mistake without causing a paradox. How does that play? Can you plumb that motivation effectively? How do you think a female character would be considerably different than a male in this case?

 

Another character. This character gets trapped outside the time-line in an accident. They can briefly interact with the time-line, and, each instance when they do, they try desperately to solve their problem, without any care for the consequences and can create mass problems. Interactions with the timeline will not be linear, so they could know the heroes before the heroes know them. What would you do with that?

 

That's all I got for now. Thanks again!

[Evil102]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

I'd like a touch of tragedy as well. I have ideas, but I'm looking for second opinions. Here, mull these over, please:

 

Something a little less whimsical/scary. The character from the semi-near future goes back in time and does something small, that changes the time-line. When they return, they find their spouse and children never existed. They are trying desperately to fix the mistake without causing a paradox. How does that play? Can you plumb that motivation effectively? How do you think a female character would be considerably different than a male in this case?

 

When I had Tempus (Professor Timothy Collins) in my campaign, I'd set the ground rules that time travel into the past was impossible. Tempus' motivation was guilt. Back when he was twelve, his family had died when their house caught fire. It had always been assumed that the fire was caused by an electrical fault - possibly from one of the science experiments he had running.

 

Years later, as a brilliant physicist, Collins had made such advances in temporal physics that he could slow or suspend time, or even hurl objects into the future. But travel into the past always remained tantalisingly out of reach. His figures showed it was impossible - nothing could exist in the same timeframe twice - but if he could travel back, he might be able save his family...

 

Eventually, Collins resorted to crime to fund his researches (hampered by his narrow vision of the applications of his research, and egged on by an old college buddy who had pulled a few jobs for Viper). The PC's captured him, but when they realised his motivations, they pressured the D.A. into commuting his sentence into community service with the EPA to develop useful applications of his technology (e.g. speeding up the half-life of radioactive waste to dispose of it).

 

He developed into an interesting character in the campaign, and the PC's had some quite powerful scenes with him. (At one point, he was pleading with a PC to be allowed to concentrate on his research into travelling back in time, and asked what wouldn't she do to save her loved ones. At that point in the campaign, most of this PC's spare time was going into trying to find a cure for her mother's cancer...)

 

Unfortunately, the players/PCs self-destructed before I could kick loose with the second half of the campaign. This was intended to be the "Cross-Continuity Caper" sequence. The PC's are catapulted from one parallel world to another, desperately trying to get home, but not knowing how, as it was a pure fluke of magic and physics that allowed them to travel to another dimension on the first place.

 

The last jump was intended to return them home, but fifteen years in the future. The villians' plot they were trying to foil before their disppearance have come to fruition. There are Minutemen everywhere. Pretty standard "Days of Future Past" stuff. Their only hope is to bust Tempus out from the research facility where he is now an unwilling participant and find some way of sending them back to correct matters. (The time travel loophole in the campaign was to be that Tempus would be able to send the PCs back as they did not actually exist at the point they would be returning to, since they were in a parallel dimension. Corny, I know, but whatever works ).

 

*Evil mode on*

 

The catch, of course, is that Tempus has a price. He knows the world has gone to hell. He knows the PCs are the only hope of correcting matters. He knows that if they change history, then this version of him will be replaced by a new version in the revised timeline.

 

However, there are two things in this timeline that Tempus holds precious - his wife and child. And since he met his wife-to-be at a point after the PCs would be returning to, that means their changes may result in that meeting never taking place.

 

His price then, will be a solemn promise extracted from the PC he trusts the most. Once she has helped foil the villains' schemes in the past she will bend every effort into ensuring Collins and his wife-to-be meet and fall in love.

 

What Collins doesn't know, and what the PC doesn't know (due to some PCs concealing their secret IDs from each other) is that the lady in question is currently the girlfriend and near-fiancee of one of the other PCs. In the history where the PCs vanished without a trace, she eventually got over her loss and met and married Collins. So what will happen in the history where the PCs return, but one of the PCs is trying to matchmake her with a geeky professor..?

 

*evil mode off*

 

Ain't I a stinker?

[transmetahuman]

Re: Help: Time Villains

 

When I had Tempus (Professor Timothy Collins) in my campaign, I'd set the ground rules that time travel into the past was impossible. Tempus' motivation was guilt. Back when he was twelve, his family had died when their house caught fire. It had always been assumed that the fire was caused by an electrical fault - possibly from one of the science experiments he had running.

 

Years later, as a brilliant physicist, Collins had made such advances in temporal physics that he could slow or suspend time, or even hurl objects into the future. But travel into the past always remained tantalisingly out of reach. His figures showed it was impossible - nothing could exist in the same timeframe twice - but if he could travel back, he might be able save his family...

 

Eventually, Collins resorted to crime to fund his researches (hampered by his narrow vision of the applications of his research, and egged on by an old college buddy who had pulled a few jobs for Viper). The PC's captured him, but when they realised his motivations, they pressured the D.A. into commuting his sentence into community service with the EPA to develop useful applications of his technology (e.g. speeding up the half-life of radioactive waste to dispose of it).

 

He developed into an interesting character in the campaign, and the PC's had some quite powerful scenes with him. (At one point, he was pleading with a PC to be allowed to concentrate on his research into travelling back in time, and asked what wouldn't she do to save her loved ones. At that point in the campaign, most of this PC's spare time was going into trying to find a cure for her mother's cancer...)

 

Unfortunately, the players/PCs self-destructed before I could kick loose with the second half of the campaign. This was intended to be the "Cross-Continuity Caper" sequence. The PC's are catapulted from one parallel world to another, desperately trying to get home, but not knowing how, as it was a pure fluke of magic and physics that allowed them to travel to another dimension on the first place.

 

The last jump was intended to return them home, but fifteen years in the future. The villians' plot they were trying to foil before their disppearance have come to fruition. There are Minutemen everywhere. Pretty standard "Days of Future Past" stuff. Their only hope is to bust Tempus out from the research facility where he is now an unwilling participant and find some way of sending them back to correct matters. (The time travel loophole in the campaign was to be that Tempus would be able to send the PCs back as they did not actually exist at the point they would be returning to, since they were in a parallel dimension. Corny, I know, but whatever works ).

 

*Evil mode on*

 

The catch, of course, is that Tempus has a price. He knows the world has gone to hell. He knows the PCs are the only hope of correcting matters. He knows that if they change history, then this version of him will be replaced by a new version in the revised timeline.

 

However, there are two things in this timeline that Tempus holds precious - his wife and child. And since he met his wife-to-be at a point after the PCs would be returning to, that means their changes may result in that meeting never taking place.

 

His price then, will be a solemn promise extracted from the PC he trusts the most. Once she has helped foil the villains' schemes in the past she will bend every effort into ensuring Collins and his wife-to-be meet and fall in love.

 

What Collins doesn't know, and what the PC doesn't know (due to some PCs concealing their secret IDs from each other) is that the lady in question is currently the girlfriend and near-fiancee of one of the other PCs. In the history where the PCs vanished without a trace, she eventually got over her loss and met and married Collins. So what will happen in the history where the PCs return, but one of the PCs is trying to matchmake her with a geeky professor..?

 

*evil mode off*

 

Ain't I a stinker?

(Doffs hat, bows) Nasty...

 

In a similar vein, for all of you with "can't coexist in the same time frame" rules, I got to thinking... Can't everyone remember some morning where you woke up at your usual time but just didn't seem to get any use out of your sleep? Or woke up long after you thought you would? What if time travel uses some kind of projector, and a character (desperately needing to visit some point in his own past without causing paradoxes) zaps his earlier self, sleeping soundly, alone, several hours into its future - thereby opening a limited gap of time in which he can travel back and get things done... Maybe the inventor had a history of "oversleeping", to the point where it adversely affected his career/reputation, and only now realizes what was really happening all those years...