Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

[ParitySoul]

I'm thinking about using Time Travel as a medium for my PULP game. However, I've seen time game break down as paradoxes and Player goofiness derails good plot development.

 

Now I'm not afraid of killing or 'Tales of the Crypting' a player if I have to, but what ideas do you have on keeping a time based Pulp game on track?

 

Just simple guildlines would do...

[OddHat]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

Well, all of the time travel tropes showed up in Pulp, though I don't recall the "go back 5 minutes and fix that" thing until the sci-fi of the 60s. It's really just like any other time travel campaign.

 

HG Wells original the Time Machine is available online. Follow a very slightly tweaked version of that pattern, and you end up with time machines that are big and bulky, and that only seem to make fairly big jumps in time. If the players can only travel a thousand years or more minimum with each jump, the paradoxes they create can be ironed out or not as you like ("Turns out the Sphinx was actually repaired in the years after you guys blew it up").

 

H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain did some time travelling via a drug, but I can't remember which books. Again, the time jumps were huge, and paradox was not a problem.

 

If the characters do travel forward, I'd suggest dropping them in the future of the 1950s space serials rather than the Superhero future or the real world. IME, Pulp characters in a Superhero world are just lower active point power Superheroes; in the 1950s sci-fi future, they can hold on better to their Pulp identity.

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

And don't forget the many classic episodes of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits that had time travel. Many of them would be a perfect fit for Pulp. Oddhat made an excellent point- don't allow cheap sci-fi to invade the game.

A good solution to some issues would be to only allow timetravel to thhe maximum for that level of adder, and a minimum of a day. (i.e. you can go back to yesterday, or exactly 5 days ago, but not 3 days ago, etc.) and make time in the past progress at the same rate as it does in the present. That way you avoid the person have 6 of himself at the same time, can keep people from beating a not-yet-dead horse, etc. Paradox is simply a matter of your preference.

[Publius]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain did some time travelling via a drug' date=' but I can't remember which books. Again, the time jumps were huge, and paradox was not a problem.[/quote']I recall he did some of that at the story at the end of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.1, was it in the original source material too?

If the characters do travel forward' date=' I'd suggest dropping them in the future of the 1950s space serials rather than the Superhero future or the real world. IME, Pulp characters in a Superhero world are just lower active point power Superheroes; in the 1950s sci-fi future, they can hold on better to their Pulp identity.[/quote']Yeah, that I would agree with wholeheartedly. Something nice and Gernsbeckian, with flying cars and whatnot.

 

How about having a series of Time Interstices, weak spots in time that the right sort of machinery can tap into and allow travel across. These Interstices "drift" so that as time goes by in 1930, it also passes in 3123 (Gernsbeckian) and 128,990 (Wellsian post post-apoc) and the Triassic. Now, if you want to get fancy, it might not drift in the same way (i.e. every hour in 1930 is 2 weeks in 3123), but that will allow for some interesting wrinkles. Using these "Interstices" you will have a few advantages:

• Control: players don't get to wander just anywhere, only to the places that you want them to go and have developed in advance.
  
• Flexibility: you can always say that the Interstice has closed (permanant or temporary) allowing for a "Lost" adventure. Likewise, new "unstable Interstices" can develop
  
• Minimizes Paradox: This will end the "What if I go back and Kill grandpa?" situation. Just make certain that you place the Interstices far enough away from one another so that stuff from one doesn't really effect the other. (For example, the 3123 Interstice is 400 years after a Great Cataclysm that all but wiped out or -- better yet as a source of mysterious clues it scrambled -- the history records of the world)

You can even have a series of villains from each time period, sometimes getting together, sometimes working at odds with each other.

 

If I do a Pulp game, this sounds even better than a Mystery Man campaign. So that Skymaster (what with that great Zepplin of his) of the 1930s and Prince Khanu of 3123 can both have Beta-Troglodyte gaurds from the Order of Garnashak and Neanderthal shock troopers might be marching over the Rhine riding Dinosaurs a la Drawn Together.

[OddHat]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

I recall he did some of that at the story at the end of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.1' date=' was it in the original source material too? [/quote']

 

It's from the source material. As the stories go on, Quatermain has quite a few sci-fantasy adventures.

[st barbara]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

Well, all of the time travel tropes showed up in Pulp, though I don't recall the "go back 5 minutes and fix that" thing until the sci-fi of the 60s. It's really just like any other time travel campaign.

 

HG Wells original the Time Machine is available online. Follow a very slightly tweaked version of that pattern, and you end up with time machines that are big and bulky, and that only seem to make fairly big jumps in time. If the players can only travel a thousand years or more minimum with each jump, the paradoxes they create can be ironed out or not as you like ("Turns out the Sphinx was actually repaired in the years after you guys blew it up").

 

H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain did some time travelling via a drug, but I can't remember which books. Again, the time jumps were huge, and paradox was not a problem.

 

If the characters do travel forward, I'd suggest dropping them in the future of the 1950s space serials rather than the Superhero future or the real world. IME, Pulp characters in a Superhero world are just lower active point power Superheroes; in the 1950s sci-fi future, they can hold on better to their Pulp identity.

I believe that the book in which Quartermain travelled in time via a drug was "The Ancient Allan". My "Encyclopedia Of S F & Fantasy" by Don Tuck says "Allan and lady Ragnall mentally journey back and relive their lives in ancient Babylon".

[sinanju]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates had an approach to time travel that might help.

 

Think of time as a river. A frozen river. Now imagine that something has smashed holes in the ice. Someone moving thru time (the river) could now climb out, walk across the ice, and drop back into the river at another place (or time). But he can only do this where the holes in the ice already exist. They tend to be scattered across space and time--there may be A gateway to 1850 Dodge City, but it's the only one. If you screw up, you can't just pop back fifteen minutes and fix it.

 

Also the game Feng Shui used a very similar system. Also, the "gates" were moving thru time at the rate of 1 second/second. If you step thru into January 1, 1850 Dodge City today, then return home, then go back thru that gate tomorrow, you'll arrive in January 2, 1850 Dodge City. No do-overs.

[Publius]

Re: Time Travel, Pulp era tropes and playstyle issues.

 

Sounds vaguely familiar...