The Passage of Time

[Fedifensor]

This came out from my post in a NGD thread (the rant about One More Day):

 

I'm beginning to think that comics need to have more continuity. Heck, even soap operas have characters develop, grow old, and eventually get replaced by new characters. In a comic world, you can always come up with reasons for the most popular characters to stay around. Some characters are effectively immortal (Thor is a god), and others can be given longer lifespans by virtue of their powers (Wolverine has his healing factor). For those that you can't or won't extend in lifespan, you can make them generational heroes. For example, Siryn is basically Banshee 2.0.

 

Looking at Marvel (since JQ's stupidity started this thread), if the X-Men started in their teens in 1963, they'd be in their 60's now. Still able to function as heroes, though they'd be more like DC's JSA. Jean Grey would still be dead, but semi-normal aging in the universe doesn't preclude alternate timelines, so you can still get Rachel to take on the Phoenix mantle.

 

Maybe due to the Hulk's healing factor, he only ages when he's Bruce Banner. That would dramatically extend his lifespan.

 

Captain America had the super-soldier formula to extend his lifespan, and they've already taken the 2.0 approach by killing him off and getting someone new to take on the mantle.

So, basically, do you ever use the "reset button" in a campaign, and/or ignore the effects of the passage of time on a character's age? A Champions campaign is usually a lot shorter than the run of a comic universe (though people in long-running campaigns could cite the New Universe or Impact comics...). Still, it has come up in some campaigns - Aaron Allston addresses this in the Strike Force suppliment he wrote many years ago.

[OddHat]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Never really had a single campaign last long enough for the issue to come up. That said, I've had multiple campaigns set in the same universe at different times; in those cases, characters that showed up in several different decades aged appropriately (or not, in the case of immortals).

 

I've always preferred the generational approach for heroes who age; if nothing else, it gives a reason for sidekicks.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

I generally ignore it. Campaigns don't generally last long enough for it to be an issue (I tend to the 'ooh, shiny' thing a lot nowadays and get distracted by a new idea before I'm done with the old idea), and even if I continued from the first campaign I created back in college, characters aging from their 20s to their early 30s wouldn't be all that big a deal.

[hfergus]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Most of my campaigns also do not last long enough for this to be a problem. Also, A year of gaming normaly results in less than a year of campaign time. Also, I tend to retro-age (youthify?) favorites when I start a new campaign with new people. Finally, my favorite does not age, so he's never a problem.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

When I was stationed at Osan AB in South Korea, I ran one game that was planned to run from 1936 through WW II. The first two characters were a Big Game Hunter (BGH) and an Indiana Jones/Pioneering Aviator/Aircraft designer/Adventurer named "Tex Jones". Several weeks or months would pass between adventures. In the Spring of 1938 they stopped a Mad Scientist® tampering with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know©. They saved the universe, but the laws of physics got bent in the process, though not so much that anyone noticed, at least, not right away. A few months later, the Golden Age Superman (~50 STR, Able to leap tall buildings, but not fly etc.) began adventuring in New York. Batman had begin operating in Boston a month before but the press had been asked to keep quiet until the authorities decided whether he was a threat or an asset.

 

Meanwhile, Our Heroes® (the PCs) began having strange "accidents". A native curse on the BGH intended to hake him the target of a cheetah attack instead gave him the ability to transform into one (this power later faded when the player decided he'd rather run a martial artist). Tex Jones began having clear insights into the exact nature of fluid dynamics and was now able to design aircraft that were several years in advance of the rest of the world (~100-200 MPH faster than anything else flying at the time). The Italian chemist with the stereotypical accent had a labotatory accident that turned him into a brick/stretchy guy and became Elastico! An experimental space drive for his armored suit opened a rift in space, marooning American Steel in the past. He teamed up with BGH to revolutionize the automobile industry much as Tex Jones was revolutionizing aviation.

 

The campaign ran right up through mid-1941 when I got orders to Clovis, NM and had to leave. This campaign ran several months. Each session covered about a month's worth of adventure, and the downtime between sessions counted for several months of relative tranquility. That was the time used by the BGH for running his industrial empire, and Tex Jones would design new aircraft for the military even though they weren't buying because everybody "knew" that American aircraft were superior to anything else on the face of the planet.

 

It was fun. Some characters came and went. Tex Jones became a little grayer, but because he and the BGH were so active, they didn't age in any other than cosmetic ways. The way the campaign was going, I can see that the characters would have eventually aged to the point where their players could easily decide that it was time for a new generation of heroes. We did that with one character during the course of the adventure when he got bored with his "elemental" powers character and wrote up a replacement.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

My campaigns tend to last for REAL decades which means centuries of game time so a combination of things happens. Some form of life extension/immortality is part of the conception or is acquired or players play their own descendants down the road. One of my players has now done this for 3 generations, retiring his character as his son gets to age. My wife is currently playing both mom ( who is a much older characters descendant) and daughter ( somehow they never meet).

That being said in all my campaigns, Some form of age retardation is not too hard to obtain for PCs. If fact in my SF campaign anagathics are commonplace and even my supers game lifespan is doubled by technology. In fantasy its not that common but there are lots of ways to stay young if you look for it.

[Acroyear II]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

My campaign has been running for fourteen and a half years. During that time 6.5 years have passed in the campaign world, and I keep track of all of it. In this manner it reflects the passage of time in a comic book world in that for the players 14 years have passed, but for their heroes only 6 year have, so the characters are staying relatively young, but still aging and growing from each experience and adventure. This seems to emulate fairly well the feeling of reading about a young comic book hero (like Spider-Man or Robin) and seeing them grow up and/or change based on the choices in their heroic careers.

 

The campaign is set in the 1980's, and started in April of 1984. It is now late summer 1989, and most of the original heroes are still active. Many are around the 450 point level or greater (they were begun as 250 point superheroes). At this time, the campaign shows no sign of slowing, so I'm hoping to go for another five years at least.

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

My campaign has been running for fourteen and a half years. During that time 6.5 years have passed in the campaign world, and I keep track of all of it. In this manner it reflects the passage of time in a comic book world in that for the players 14 years have passed, but for their heroes only 6 year have, so the characters are staying relatively young, but still aging and growing from each experience and adventure. This seems to emulate fairly well the feeling of reading about a young comic book hero (like Spider-Man or Robin) and seeing them grow up and/or change based on the choices in their heroic careers.

 

The campaign is set in the 1980's, and started in April of 1984. It is now late summer 1989, and most of the original heroes are still active. Many are around the 450 point level or greater (they were begun as 250 point superheroes). At this time, the campaign shows no sign of slowing, so I'm hoping to go for another five years at least.

 

I read posts like this, and I weep. I have never had the opportunity to keep a campaign going that long. And then, of course, is that fact that I haven't played at all in over 2 years. Why is it so hard to find a group around here?

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Mostly time InGame doesn't matter because most campaigns don't really last long enough for that to really matter. Thus maybe in a campaign that runs for two years in the real world, might have 5 years pass In Game time...maybe!

 

penn

[Kenn]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

My campaign has run for decades. I eventually hit the point where I started using the "X years ago method" and time compression. Basically, stuff that I ran 20 years ago is generally considered to be about 10 years ago.

 

It's gotten weird with having an on-line campaign running, and the face-to-face sessions happening months apart. It slows time down a lot.

 

And the players who've lasted and I do make an effort to play the characters older.

[Trebuchet]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Our campaign is entering it's 15th year (We started in 1992). The gameworld and characters started in 2000 with the first appearance of metahumans and it is now early 2008 in-game. Only two of the original characters are still in play, although several of the original players still participate.

[Fedifensor]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

My latest campaign builds off of the same campaign world I used for a pair of games in the early 90's. Fortunately, most of the PC's in those games were young, so they're now NPC's in my current game (and generally in their mid-30's). I have no problem with introducing second-generation supers, so I'm not too worried about the passage of time. On a similar note, if a player is playing a teen character, that would probably get tiresome after 5+ years of play. I'd rather see the character graduate from high school and go to college than compress time to keep them a teenager forever.

 

Considering that a normal human can live to be over 100 years old, I think someone with superpowers that is at or above the peak level of human performance could live longer, to the point where I won't have to worry about them dying off - unless I'm still running Champions when *I'm* 100...

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

I think the value in running an ongoing campaign is that you can have the characters age...we had an NPC in our game named Gabby who started off as effectively a hostage and kid-to-get-into-mischief, but throughout a couple of years of gaming got some training and eventually became Bucky to our Captain America. The slow transition meant that the players really actually cared about her, and it meant something that someone who was once just one of the other NPC's daughters had become an important heroine in their world.

 

There are plenty of ways to keep characters eternally young if that's what you want in a superheroic universe, but IMO part of the fun of playing a long-running campaign is specifically seeing how characters grow and evolve...

[Zeropoint]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

The longest campaign I've ever been in was six months, with a gap in the middle.

 

In my mind, multiyear campaigns are like sex: something that only happens to other people.

[Tech]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Long-running campaigns do indeed give you an insight to your characters that you won't find in shorter ones. Indeed, something I don't recall anyone ever mentioning is that is also gives you insight into your villains. They age just as much as the heroes do... usually... on both sides.

 

My first hero went from solo, to joining a team, to fighting against Viper and making name, was the first to introduce Superhero Insurance to the world (!), to becoming team leader, to getting married, to retiring, to coming out of retirement with his wife, getting an adopted daughter, and becoming one of the respected voices of superheroes to the media. An extremely brief history but it shows what happens when a campaign is extremely long-lived.

 

A different hero of mine, had an accident and thus ended up being a cyborg. He used his abilities for crimestopping but wasn't actively a hero. Then he met other heroes and they formed a team. Later, his body was totally healed/regenerated and but he missed being a hero and so ended up with a exoskeleton that resembled his first appearance. During this time, he dated many heroines and even a villainess (fought heroes but that was about it). She later left villainy and he married her. Later, his suit would be destroyed and he underwent a quantum jump in bionics allowing him to be bionic yet fully human. He now has twin children and continues to superhero. Also, he's become a new and rising writer, and his book is being considered for a movie. Okay, this one's not quite as brief as above.

 

Villains have been cured, some have died, some have sacrified themselves for the heroes and the world - some just losing their powers, some their lives. Some villains look for more power, some just stay the same. Villains have shown up, retired and come out of retirement for new heroes to fight (and for the newer players). One player has even said: "Y'know, I've never met Grond" (to the GM playing Grond's great delight).

 

Villains have retired, come out of retirement and formed a team. Some have just disappeared, some have gotten more powerful and some are still just fun to have around, like Foxbat, who seriously tried to date a couple heroines to no avail.

 

Yes, long-running campaigns are rare but to those who do have one, you can have the opportunity to have indepth and deep characters, with lives that change and affect others. I'm fortunate to be in one such campaign.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

I agree long term growth of the campaign can really be great. We've had all the things you describe happen also.After several decades you get such a rich tapestry and depth to a campaign that the next adventure almost writes itself or the players have ongoing concerns and they initiate action very proactively

 

Its really wonderful when a core group stays together for that long. so many developments that could never happen in a shorter term campaign occur. Legacies happen in game. Really just all around great experience.

 

I'm very lucky to have had such a great and consistent group to run my game. I started the present universe which has grown into a multiverse in college in 1979 and 2 of the original players are still with me. ( I married one) . That is just so cool!

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

Good point on the villains, Tech!

 

It is good to be able to have your villains actually develop rather than maintain the same static personality with every single appearance.....even goons have potential for growth.

 

In the Marvel game I used to run, a few villains slowly became good or just gave up the capes altogether because it made sense as a part of their long-term character growth...and there were also those who grew more powerful or dangerous with time.

 

Letting time pass allows your heroes to build a relationship with their recurring villains of a sort....

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

About 10 years ago real time, One of my wife's characters managed to strike up a rocky friendship with one of the most dangerous villainesses in the multiverrse. The friendship became pretty strong then the next time the villainesses struck she almost took over the Cinnibaran empire which is the steamteck campaign home base. Her friend sided with the empress when the villainess knew The player liked the villainess more

Things went bad and she was sent to a hellplane but fought her way back out. Now she's saved the empire and the empress more than once since coming back. She's still not nice but macabre, arrogant ,vicious and with delusions of godhood but she wants to protect her friends.( Nothing can kill this thing, lets find Fiona she can kill anything and she'll enjoy it.) Now more of the PCs have managed to strike up friendships. One even became her lover for awhile. Never thought any of this would happen when I conceived of her.

[Gideon]

The game I play in works a little strangely. I have been playing in the game for just around 10 years now, and have several characters.

 

A game session may cover anywhere from a few hours to a couple of months, and adventures generally last a few In Game weeks.

 

However, after 4-5 adventures we will put the campaign on hold for a while and play something else for a while (but we always go back to the champions game.) The in-between campaign time (relatively) passes in real time.

 

Because of this, the game is currently a little behind real time (late August-early september 2007). However, 10 years has passed In Game since my first PC showed up on scene.

 

One of my characters, (in fact my longest played character) Mesa originally had immortality OIHID. His powers changed and now he only has X4 life span. So he really still looks like he is in his mid twenties. Back in 1998 he got married, and has had two kids since. Lilly was born June first, 2000 (she just had her 7th birthday), and her little brother Ken was born November 15, 2002 (his 5th birthday is coming up IG soon).

 

So yes, in this game time passes relatively normally, but only during down time.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

We compress a little. The games last 8-10 years, but the character age about 5-7 or so. We don't reboot, and many characters has slowed down aging.

[Hermit]

Re: The Passage of Time

 

I had campaigns were people played their own characters off spring, but it was often gimmicked with other dimensions where time moved faster etc.