Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

[DataPacRat]

Just for kicks, let's play with one of the classic hard-to-roleplay super-powers: the ability to rewind time. First, how would you build it? Second, what would a reasonably smart person /do/ with such a power? And third, how might a GM use an NPC with such a power in play?

 

 

My first thoughts on a build is to look at it from everyone else's perspective - as far as they can tell, this 'Rewind' fellow somehow mysteriously gains knowledge of the future. So Clairsentience/Precognition would seem to be the way to go.

 

So, after skimming my Big Black Book, here's what I've come up with for the main power, and the various 'stunts' that might be accomplished using it... what do you think? Am I missing any, or have I mis-built anything?

 

 

Super Name: Rewind

 

Super ability: Can 'rewind' himself back through time, to any previous point in the day, and then choose to do something else. He physically re-experiences everything his body went through, though backwards and faster than before; thus, he can't rewind through any point he was asleep or unconscious. He can rewind just a single second, a few minutes, or the whole day... as long as nobody knocks him out. Effectively, from other peoples' perspective, he simply knows what's about to happen.

 

 

 

[3] Acrobatics 13-

[3] Combat Driving 13-

[10] Gambling, all types 13-

 

[3] Anonymity

[2] FB: International Driver's License, Passport

 

[3] Absolute Time Sense

 

Main Power:

[50] Clairsentience, Sight Group, Normal Hearing, Smell/Taste Group, Normal Touch. Precognition: of events which need not occur. (base 60) Invisible Power Effects (all Sense Groups) (+1), 0 END (+1/2) (active 150) Fixed Perception Point: self (-1), Precognition Only (-1) (real 50)

 

Power Stunts:

[30] DEX 20

[20] INT 20

[90] SPD 12

[] reduced Movement, as he's got fast reactions, not super-legs.

[20] Autofire skills

[?] Cramming

[6] Combat Luck, "just missed me!"

[10] Defense Maneuver IV

[?] Fast Draw

[?] KS: Events of the rest of the day

[10] Rapid Attack

Rewinding over and over again until he gets it right: [100] +10 Overall Skill Levels

[?] Tactics

Too many ways to get to count: [15] Money: Filthy Rich, [?] Contacts, Favors

[15] Combat Sense, 13-

Danger is sensed by simply suffering the attack, then rewinding to before it: [50] Danger Sense, sense, any danger, any area PER+8 roll

Take hours to figure out the answer, then rewind: [3] Lightning Calculator

[15] Lightning Reflexes, all actions, +10

Read a book, then rewind to before having started: [12] Speed Reading x100,000

[50] Luck, 10d6

 

 

One approach Rewind might take, to help ensure personal safety, might be to have a schedule something like as follows:

Monday morning: Wake up. Spend all day in room, with guards outside, reading newspapers, watching news, and otherwise gathering data on the day. To make sure nobody tries to kill him while he's asleep, pull an all-nighter, staying awake until Tuesday morning. Maybe stay awake all day Tuesday, continuing to do the news thing. Rewind to Monday morning. Use previously-gathered news to increase wealth. Use wealth to enjoy self. Not to mention use powers to enjoy self - he can do anything he wants, without consequence, as long as he makes sure to rewind before anyone tries to kill him. (Insert various Psych Limits here, probably some sort of dissociative disorder involving other people not being 'real', not worrying about his actions' consequences as he assumes he can just rewind to fix them.)

 

 

Now, to make this character interesting for a plot perspective, he can't do /anything/, and thus the limits of his power would have to be explored. For example, let's say that he does a little too well at a casino one day. Several days later, just before going to sleep, he feels a searing pain as a bullet pierces his heart... fortunately, he's able to rewind to before the shot, and turns to deal with it... only for the /second/ assassin to take advantage of his distraction. So he rewinds further, and avoids that street... only to stumble into one of those killers' other ambushes, or any of the other killers intent upon his death. No matter what he tries, /one/ of them gets him by the end of the day. And he can't rewind past when he wakes up. So he does something he hasn't tried before... and, as soon as he wakes up, tries to get the PCs to protect him.

 

Or, the PCs may be /on/ the other side, trying to catch him themselves, for Justice, for a Reward, or for some other reason. He's going to be tough prey, but once they put the cuffs on while he's out cold, or toss him in a cell until he wakes up, he's not going to be able to rewind his way out of it.

 

Or... taking a plot-point from a certain current TV show, perhaps, on Tuesday evening, Rewind is horrified to see the world end. Nukes, bioweapons, alien invasion, gray goo, or whatever apocalypse the GM prefers. So he rewinds as far as he can, to Monday, and tries to save, not just himself, but other people, too... enter the PCs, ala the assassin plot above. Though the GM may find it easier if, after delivering his warning, somebody manages to KO-and-probably-lock-up the rewinder for the duration, leaving the PCs to be oh so PC-like on their own merits.

 

 

 

 

Whaddaya think?

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

Interesting build and concept - his danger sense may have to have the limitation on it of "Not vs. attacks that could one-shot him into unconciousness/death"

 

You may also wish to limit his Luck to "only things he could have predicted/only thing he could have caused to happen", to give him the Groundhog Day effect of setting things up to go just right. He still can't get meteors to fall from the sky, but he sure as heck can prepare for anything else...

[Grimble]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

The problem I have with your build is that he actually does travel back in time to do his rewind, right? My game Universe includes Temporal Devices. There are devices that can stop Time Travel in an area (One of the many dampeners built into the Super Teams holding cells). The way you built him, he could still use his power in a field like this.

 

Besides, Extradimensinal Movement would be cheaper that your Clairsentience. I do like your take on it. It's just the mechanics of it and the SFX that I think would work better with a more traditional write-up of a character like this.

 

What would I do with him? Well, I already use Captain Chronos in my game. I don't have a problem with a character like this. I would set more tim e for combat if I knew he would be involved. Combat already takes a while. Add in a guy that can rewind the battle several segment (Or even rewind to the beginning!) would really prolong combat.

 

Mostly, I'd use him as a good samaritan type. Saving people for deadly accidents before they happen. Some of his saves might not even be readily apparent to those saved. This could lead to some fun roleplay.

 

Grimble

[nexus]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

I like the idea of "faking" powers like this too. Creating them literally would be aggravating generally. There's so many abilites and stunt you could justify with a power like though I'd be inclined to recoomend only getting what would be the most commonly used effects and a small VPP (or high Power Skill) to handle more estoric uses. A temporal manipular that used to be in one of my games used "Luck" to simulate using her time travel to stack the deck on her favor too.

 

To keep things from getting too "Munchkin" (and cover some handwaving since Hero doesn't do absolutes) the GM could assume time is at least somewhat fluid. things don't always repeast exactly" how the character experiences them and of coure, being forewarned about an attack doesn't mean you can evade it.

 

If it were a character in a solo game I think I'd be more inclined to just built the ability literally as Extra Dimensional movement.

[DataPacRat]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

Interesting build and concept - his danger sense may have to have the limitation on it of "Not vs. attacks that could one-shot him into unconciousness/death"

 

You may also wish to limit his Luck to "only things he could have predicted/only thing he could have caused to happen", to give him the Groundhog Day effect of setting things up to go just right. He still can't get meteors to fall from the sky, but he sure as heck can prepare for anything else...

Both points are worthwhile; any suggestions on what those Limitations would be worth?

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

Here's an idea... duplication. It would represent actual loops backward rather than rewinding the timestream. Something bad happens and his duplicate appears in a safe zone nearby; now that the danger has been exposed he knows where to step and comes back to do it correctly. It's similar to figuring out a puzzle game, really. Details would need to be worked out, but it's an idea.

[DataPacRat]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

The problem I have with your build is that he actually does travel back in time to do his rewind, right? My game Universe includes Temporal Devices. There are devices that can stop Time Travel in an area (One of the many dampeners built into the Super Teams holding cells). The way you built him, he could still use his power in a field like this.

 

Besides, Extradimensinal Movement would be cheaper that your Clairsentience. I do like your take on it. It's just the mechanics of it and the SFX that I think would work better with a more traditional write-up of a character like this.

 

Ah, yes, powers interacting with other powers - I'd forgotten about that. I admit it's something of a poser. Do you have any anti-temporal power writeups handy for us to compare Rewind to, and try to figure out how to deal with?

 

 

What would I do with him? Well, I already use Captain Chronos in my game. I don't have a problem with a character like this. I would set more tim e for combat if I knew he would be involved. Combat already takes a while. Add in a guy that can rewind the battle several segment (Or even rewind to the beginning!) would really prolong combat.

 

Given how the PCs themselves wouldn't experience any of the rewinding (unless, perhaps, the GM throws in a 'usable by others simultaneously', which may give some interesting play...), I deliberately tried to write up Rewind to avoid having to re-play, and re-re-re-re-re-play events, merely giving the outwardly-observable effects of multiple rewinds.

 

 

Mostly, I'd use him as a good samaritan type. Saving people for deadly accidents before they happen. Some of his saves might not even be readily apparent to those saved. This could lead to some fun roleplay.

 

I can see how, when Rewind finally decides he's done with a day, he might want to run through it in such a way that benefits, not just himself, but others who might eventually benefit himself.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

Both points are worthwhile; any suggestions on what those Limitations would be worth?

 

Hm.. For combat sense: an attack that causes instant unconciousness/death is relatively rare; maybe 1 out of 16 will potentially do this, assuming your character is going up against 'nomal' campaign caps. So, call it -1/4. However, those attacks are the ones that are especially important for you to avoid, which IMO would take it up another -1/4 (or even another -1/2, as it effectively 'resets' all your other powers), for a total of -1/2 or -3/4.

 

For the luck thing? I think there's an official ruling on this, calling it "Precognition only", for -1/2 or so. It's in one of the Powers Database books, under the Precog section (I think).

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

Question: do psychic/psychological things come back with him? If they can, then someone could potentially use a mental power to "pass" messages to themselves, in the form of embedded psychic commands. ("The next time you go back in time, seek my past self out and tell him today's lottery numbers, then forget that you did it.")

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

OddHat's Always is a similar concept...

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Just kanoodling; what would you do with 'Rewind'?

 

For that matter, so is OddHat's Johnny Tick-Tock

 

from Enforcers Inc