Steve Posted November 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Well, I think it would make a great addition to the Star Hero lineup. There aren't a lot of good time travel RPGs out, so Hero should have one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRavenIs Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe I'd love to see a book like the old Champions in 3D. I mean it's hard to do a time travel or dimensional hopping game as is, having something to work from helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Maybe it could be an independant writing project that could apply for licensing rights from DOJ for printing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRavenIs Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Maybe it could be an independant writing project that could apply for licensing rights from DOJ for printing? Now that would be nice, say some of those that want it, create different parts and then if what we did get's used we get a free copy of the book and credits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Times like these I wish there was some kind of online collaboration site where people could get together and add content, edit content and talk about the Hero system... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale A. Ward Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Times like these I wish there was some kind of online collaboration site where people could get together and add content' date=' edit content and talk about the Hero system...[/quote'] ~snicker~ Nice dig, dude! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted November 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe One of the laws of time travel I'm debating including is from Timemaster. The Law of Death: If a time traveller dies, they remain dead even if the circumstances of their death are undone. They simply keel over and die at that instant. Too harsh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpydirShellX Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe The Law of Death seems too harsh too me in some conditions. I like the idea that it makes death have perminant results for the characters in a time travel story. However, there should be some limit where it doesn't apply. If the players want to put forth the effort required, it should be posible to undo a death. Where's the fun in time travel if you can't change things? Of course, I kinda like the concept of Temporal Momentum in my time travel stories. History has momentum and kind of rolls on past the small changes. This is very helpful for ignoring the minor changes caused by stepping on the wrong ant or so forth. Changes to the time line require effort. Death and Life tend to be two of the greatest forces for change against the time line. This is due to the fact that lifeforms tend to be one of the largest forces for change... otherwise objects would follow straight physics. Death - eliminates a lifeform and all decendants not yet conscieved that were originally decended from them. Life - While someone is alive, they make choices and choices change things. Saving a life or creating one tends to have great effect. In both cases, the power of that life or death carries with it the Temporal Momentum that the lifeform had. Thus killing Hitler for example would have a much greater effect on the timeline than killing somebody on the street... both however would have effects reaching beyond the immediate. However, that Temporal Momentum carries two problems with it. One, it's hard to change. Hilter would be very difficult to kill. A potential assasin might find random people getting in the way of shots, chance messing up his attempts. Generally a person who wants to make major changes to the timeline must work at generating his own Temporal Momentum first. Secondly, what happens to the energy when the change is made? Sometimes the momentum might skip over to something else. Ex. Twilight Zone? episode where Hilter (isn't he just a great time travel example?) gets killed as a child, so it ends with the nurse substituting another child for him. When he grows up, everybody thinks the child is Hitler. Even more problematical is if it jumps to the time traveller. Our time traveller starts wearing a funny mustashe and begins going megalomanical. (This one is hard to pull off since most of the players tend not to want there characters to have to flip over into bad guys) Other times it might stick around... Unluck anybody? The person saved might start having a series of accidents that try and return things to normal... think there was a series of movies based on that concept. Or maybe the time traveler starts having waves of misfortune follow him or her. Normally, I'd try an keep this aspect of the time traveling hidden from character knowledge. They have to work at things or things start not going their way... let them figure out why. Although having a villian aware of the 'rules' makes things interesting. Somebody traveling through time, killing off important people.... to make himself invincible/immortal. Basically, in order to stop a death of a time traveller (which tends to pick up a lot of temporal momentum during their journey), requires something equivalent. "There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inu Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Secondly' date=' what happens to the energy when the change is made? Sometimes the momentum might skip over to something else. Ex. Twilight Zone? episode where Hilter (isn't he just a great time travel example?) gets killed as a child, so it ends with the nurse substituting another child for him. When he grows up, everybody thinks the child is Hitler.[/quote'] Another 'killing Hitler' story (I have no idea how old this one is, or who wrote it: "Hey, if you're a time traveller, why don't you go back and fix bad things? Like killing the Fuhrer before he kills all the jews?" "I did! But all that happened was that this Hitler guy took his place!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe One idea I've used is that while small changes leave the timeline intact (history corrects for the change), big changes spin off an unstable timeline that falls apart catastrophically. Not only does this cause needless suffering (the primary timeline is unchanged) but the time travelers must flee the timeline before they are destroyed with it. So killing Hitler is in general a bad idea. It is possible to make big changes, but extreme care must be taken that the divergent timeline is not unstable (according to whatever hyperdimensional mathematics serves the current plot). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted November 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe I suppose Temporal Inertia could also be expressed as the Law of Conservation of Events. There are certain key events in time that can't really be changed, and doing so simply triggers off a divergent timeline. Smaller changes could fall below a certain energy level and not trigger such a divergence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe One idea I've used is that while small changes leave the timeline intact (history corrects for the change)' date=' big changes spin off an unstable timeline that falls apart catastrophically. Not only does this cause needless suffering (the primary timeline is unchanged) but the time travelers must flee the timeline before they are destroyed with it. So killing Hitler is in general a bad idea. It is possible to make big changes, but extreme care must be taken that the divergent timeline is not unstable (according to whatever hyperdimensional mathematics serves the current plot).[/quote'] Donnie Darko used the idea of a divergent temporary timeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe I have always used the Marty McFly approach to time travel when I have used it. It lets the players change events, but whether changing the event was good or not, depends on what else changed with it. CES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted November 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe There is also the notion taken from the Time Wars series by Simon Hawke, that a timestream split was a VERY BAD THING, since that could trigger off a cascade effect of more and more splits, ending in the dissolution of the entire universe. I also liked some of the pseudo-science used in the series, like zen physics to explain the issues raised by time travel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Zen physics? I don't know if it's art, but I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inu Posted November 8, 2006 Report Share Posted November 8, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe There is also the notion taken from the Time Wars series by Simon Hawke, that a timestream split was a VERY BAD THING, since that could trigger off a cascade effect of more and more splits, ending in the dissolution of the entire universe. I also liked some of the pseudo-science used in the series, like zen physics to explain the issues raised by time travel. Especially when in one book, suddenly they go 'oh... there's already BEEN a timestream split. Damn.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midas Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe One possibility is that once he's seen something, he can't change it... but some other time traveller might be able to, if only by accident. Similarly, once The Master has seen something, he can't change it... but the Doctor might. Both modern Doctors have used the phrase "We're part of events now" to explain why they can't just zip around. A bit harder to grasp than simply 'witnessed events can't be changed'... more like, you can change things by your presence, BUT you can't go back and get a do-over. You get one shot only. This leads to a very interesting scenario idea: Posit two friendly Timelords. Timelord 1: Say, would you mind going to Earth, year 2005, Christian reckoning, and look around for a bit? TL2: Not at all. Why? TL1: I'd rather not say. TL2: Ah, one of those situations, eh? TL1: ermmm... TL2: OK, I'll see what I can do. So Timelord 2 (head of the gang of PC's) rounds up her friends, heads off to 2005, to see what TL1 screwed up, carefully without checking ahead and thus "setting" the events. Midas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe In one of the recent Big Finish radioplays, an earlier version of the Doctor discovers that a future version of himself will do something in the past. So he tries not to find out what that is, but still tries to send himself in the future a message about it - "8687" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted November 28, 2006 Report Share Posted November 28, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe Just to say, the idea of the Doctor being unable to interfere in an event which he has already witnessed is not strictly true. As far as I recall, this is an invention of the new Doctor Who series and was not a feature in the canon of the previous 25 years or so. There are at least four instances of stories featuring multiple Doctors at the same time, which by definition does involve the Doctor affecting something that he already witnessed: The Three Doctors, the Five Doctors, the Two Doctors and the story Logopolis (where the 4th Doctor is foreshadowed by his fifth-form-to-be; although this is an example of where the Doctor witnesses events he has already seen but does NOT intervene). Nonetheless, it's quite a nice argument for time travel non-interference, although Doctor Who implicitly includes another. The Doctor actually can NOT travel into the future. The 'present day' is the present day on Gallifrey, the home of the timelords, and no-one can travel beyond this boundary point. As such, from his point of view, all the Doctor is ever doing is travelling into the past. And as can be seen from numerous episodes where he gets involved in well known historical events, often all his intervention does is makes history take the course that we would expect it to anyway (e.g. Visitation, where his intervention causes the Great Fire of London in 1666). It would appear that the Doctor Who universe infact has some kind of anti-paradox law whereby the apparent extraneous interventions of timetravels actually serve to take events the way that those in the future would recognise as being correct. The conclusion might almost be that obeying the gallifreyan law of non-interference would in fact lead to history repeatedly having been changed! Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted November 28, 2006 Report Share Posted November 28, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe I think it is a byproduct of regeneration - that he can be in the same location more than once. Also - when he regenerates he doesn't retain all his memories. Possibly the paradoxical ones are removed at that time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oroborous Posted December 1, 2006 Report Share Posted December 1, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe My theory is that, since The Doctor has the only working portal to the Eye of Harmony, he alone cannot channel enough power to rectify situations of divergent time streams, paradox and alternate universes. When Gallifrey was still in existance, along with all the other TARDIS's, I believe that several Time Lords could cooperate and right the time stream, but it just isn't possible to do alone. Also, since the Time Lords are known to be strict, they probably limited the power any one TARDIS could channel, so that someone like the Doctor, Master, Rani, Meddling Monk, or War Chief couldn't destroy them. Speaking of alternate universes and living outside of space time, there are a few Gallifreyans who may still exist and were passed over by the Time War: Romana, who is in E-Space and had at least 7 regenerations left The Master, who was sucked into the Eye of Harmony in the 1996 movie (for some reason I don't think we've seen the last of him) Omega (remember to pronounce it "OH-me-ga" not "oh-MAY-guh") who is disembodied and living somewhere outside of space/time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe In the Big Finish series which are kinda canon - Romana became President so probably didn't survive. I do think the Master will be back because RTD has stated he likes him and wouldn't mind bringing him back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inu Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe In the Big Finish series which are kinda canon - Romana became President so probably didn't survive. I do think the Master will be back because RTD has stated he likes him and wouldn't mind bringing him back. I'd heard that he'd stated that he didn't like him and wouldn't bring him back. One or both of us is wrong. More likely to be me, I must admit, as my information isn't particularly reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe I'm not sure where I heard it - possibly the Children in Need charity concert in the Q&A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale A. Ward Posted December 6, 2006 Report Share Posted December 6, 2006 Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe ~flings his scarf over his shoulder and states with absolute certainty...~ Actually, you both heard right. You're just in different timelines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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