Time Travel

[Tedology]

Hello all,

 

I know that having a PC being a time traveler isn't the best idea; I've agreed to give one of my players a chance at it, with the caveat that things may go "awry" from time to time. I'm also planning on telling him that he won't be allowed to "go back five minutes before the explosion to evacuate the bank."

 

I'm wondering if any of you may have suggestions of how I can handle the "awry" factor. Perhaps you've GMed a player who travels back/forth through time. How did you get the point across that the powers should be handled respectfully? For example, did you mention something like, "Thanks to Captain Chronos's last escapades, it seems that there is a rash of killings happening in the lower part of town. These bear a striking similarity to the murders of a one Jack the Ripper"?

 

Thanks for any ideas.  

 

I'm planning on using his character to help springboard adventures and such. Plus, he and I came up with a very cool origin story and, best of all, he's very excited and enthusiastic to play.

[Christopher]

There is a difference between a Character that is a Time Traveller and one that has Time Travelling abilities. The first one is a quirky origin, the later is a problem.

The Terminator and most other Characters are the former.

 

The prime power for Time Travel is Extra Dimensional Movement. Apply To-hit roll modifiers for hitting a "point" exactly. And apply rules similar to megascale about "missteleports" (try to go 2000 years back, you might end up overshooting by several thousand). Often timetravel works best if you focus on certain "global effect events" rather then a specific time. Some interpretations make Time Travel not work past strong magnetic fields (not past a nuclear blast, not near overland lines, etc.).

 

APG II has several Time Powers, inlcuding "Time Stop", "Slow Time" and "Replay".

 

Somebody came up with this writeup for "Savegame Scumming", particular the effect that you remmeber what happend last try:

Clairsentience, Future, Future only

"being reset and living through it again" is identical to just having seen what happens in via Clairsentience.

 

But when in doubt there is always one rule of why it is not allowed:

"What works in fiction does not nessesarily work in a RPG session". Also know as "not all things survive transition of generes." I detailed that one over here:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/87378-translating-characters-from-fiction-and-the-secret-of-having-fun-in-roleplaying/

And one big issue would be to track the state of the game several phases yet alone minutes into the past.

[Tedology]

Thanks for your input, Christopher. I especially like your comment about "over-shooting" a destination.

 

As I said, I know there may (most likely will) be problems. And there's a chance I will have to have the player re-create his character... but I don't want to squelch his enthusiasm.

 

So this isn't really a "Should I allow it?" thread. It's more of an "If I allow it, does anybody have any ideas on how to best handle/manage it?" 

 

If you don't allow it, or you don't have any ideas...that's okay. I know each GM has his/her own style.

[bluesguy]

I think I would check out as many of these possibilities before running a character who can time travel http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravelTropes .  As already mentioned there are the issues with 'hitting the time' you want to get to.  But it is worse than that because time and space are intertwined.  So if you miss your 'time' maybe you end up not only in the wrong time but also the wrong place.  "Dang we were suppose to end up in 1955 NYC but somehow we ended up 755 AD and we are in the middle of the North American Continent."  Or worse ... Last thought for our time traveling hero who really blew their roll 'Oh I thought I was going to be on Earth 5000 BCE but I missed... I am not on earth... I am in space... Oh bother..."

[bluesguy]

So this isn't really a "Should I allow it?" thread. It's more of an "If I allow it, does anybody have any ideas on how to best handle/manage it?" 

 

 

Do you want to run a time traveling campaign?  If you do then allow it.  But find a way to help manage it.  For instance do not let it be something that can be used in combat - takes a long time to do (minutes) and makes the user very vulnerable (0 DCV) and requires a large amount of END.  Otherwise I can see a problem where the player is about to get knocked out and says "Well I am going to time travel back 6 seconds and drop that guy first." 

 

Also what will everyone else in the gaming group/party do if one of them can just time travel around and they are stuck?  Or does he take them with him?  Why?

 

As a GM I would not allow a player to have a power that allows them to time travel.  I would use time travel as a plot device though depending on the kind of game I was running.

[Cassandra]

There are two kinds of "Time Travel" plots.  

 

One is a warning of future adventures.  The characters are trust forward into the future and see that something horrible has happened, and then have to find a way back to the past to prevent the disaster.

 

Two is there the characters end up in the past through an accident are their actions are needed to make sure history ends up as it did.

 

Examples

 

In Quantum Leap Sam leaps into the body of Less Harvey Oswald.  Before he can assassinate JFK he leaps into the body of Secret Service agent Rufus Youngblood, who manages to get Jackie back into the limo.  In the "original" timeline Oswald killed Jackie too.

 

In the TV Show Seven Days Frank Parker spent have his time trying to get to the Time Machine, and half the time going back in time to prevent the weeks disaster.

[Tedology]

Thanks, Bluesguy and Cassandra, for your input.

 

Bluesguy: I like your idea of having geographic location being part of the equation. Also, you're right...it would NOT be used in combat, nor would I allow it to "bring back a fallen ally from the brink of death", or "I'll time travel back to when I wasn't imprisoned in this tank of hungry sharks". I believe the player (being a GM himself) understands the implications.

 

Cassandra: Your examples hit home. I think the "thrust into future" to see disaster would make for some very good roleplaying and/or plot devices. Thank you!

 

I also thought about letting the player know that I would be rolling an 8 or less to see if any problems happen. Next time he tries to time travel within a given time (24 hours perhaps?), it would be 11 or less; third time: 14 or less; fourth time - he's playing with chronological fire.

[Cancer]

I have sort-of-played, sort-of-helped-run a campaign that had time travel as part of its underlying premise (the Feng Shui RPG and its underlying background). The inherent self-contradiction (in a certain sense) and instability of the time stream in such a situation was something I played up in one adventure. If you can accept a certain level of absurdism in your campaign it can be a hoot. Yes, we had the PCs try to avert the enemy from the future from messing with the time-stream and annihilate an enemy faction in the past, with the resulting interference by the PCs resulingt in "causal disconnection" for their native time-stream, i.e., reality as the PCs knew it no longer should have occurred. This led to an even more bizarre intervention by the PCs into the future to preempt the future-based enemies' initial attempt to mess with the timestream. As chronoentropic disintegration approached, more and more inexplicable things happened (and I mean that both as more numerous and less explainable) ... it gave rise to the line at the table, "I'm a porn star in another universe"). Seeing how many contradictions you can stack becomes a game to baffle the players. And then there was the sort-of PC (my character when I play) who was a renegade demon from the underworld and was looking cheerfully forward to showing everyone around his home turf (because when a reality disintegrates, its crunchy bits get scattered across the underworld)....

 

I had a blast, but I strongly approve of humor based in contradictions in self-reference, so YMMV.

[Lord Liaden]

There are a couple of principles I usually keep in mind when I plan to run time-traveling supers adventures, which help to keep temporal paradoxes and tangles to a minimum. I actually cribbed both of them from past Champions adventures, namely Wings of the Valkyrie and Menace Out of Time.

 

One is the "Temporal Inertia" principle. This states that historical events have their own momentum which follows an established timeline, and the degree to which they can be changed is directly proportional to the amount of force exerted to change them. For example, if you went back in time to assassinate Hitler, temporal inertia would lead to another Nazi rising to fill his place, and WW II and the Holocaust would proceed pretty much as they did on our world. Affecting a lasting change to history would require much more drastic action.

 

The other is the "Psychic Exclusion" principle, which states it's impossible for two essentially identical psyches to exist in the same place at the same moment. In other words, you can't go back to meet an earlier version of yourself. One of your "selves" (usually the visitor to that era) is ejected to the nearest time in which an earlier version did not exist. This keeps someone from going back to undo a mistake or failure from his own past.

[Tedology]

Cancer and Lord Liaden....thank you both for your responses.

 

Cancer: I think my group would have a blast if I can do some absurdity from time to time...I just wonder if I could pull it off. I'm a funny guy, but sometimes not absurdly funny. Would be fun to see if I could do it though, eh?

 

Liaden: I REALLY like your "Psychic Exclusion" principle and will present that. Brilliant! I even like the name of the principle. Thank you!

[Scott Baker]

I was going to suggest setting limits on how close to "present time" the ability would work. Lord Liaden's suggestion covers that nicely by completely avoiding the ability to be in a time where you already exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young Spock: "You lied."

Old Spock: "I exaggerated."

[Tedology]

I was going to suggest setting limits on how close to "present time" the ability would work. Lord Liaden's suggestion covers that nicely by completely avoiding the ability to be in a time where you already exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young Spock: "You lied."

Old Spock: "I exaggerated."

 

LOL! Thanks for the Spock quotes....I'll use them in the game!

[Lord Liaden]

In the description of how Captain Chronos functions in the Champions Universe, it highlights how careful he always is in the actions he takes and the foreknowledge he shares, to minimize the risk of changing the timeline in detrimental ways. OTOH he often takes deliberate actions, or provides someone with anachronistic information, which his sophisticated calculations suggest will impact the future beneficially. But he almost never explains why he has to do something, because that knowledge may cause people to change their own future actions and thus also affect the timeline. This has sometimes led the Captain to do things which seem random, or even villainous, although his intentions are always good.

 

Imagine translating those restrictions to time-traveling PCs in an adventure. They have to do something in another time which may set them at odds with heroes from that era, but they can't afford to explain their reasons for doing it. Or they do decide to explain, but that impacts the development of their home era.

[csyphrett]

I have run a campaign where time travel featured and both the heroes and villains had it. I ran the effects of their meddling like back to the future where both sides changed things to make the tide of combat go their way. Part of the campaign was rewritten and an aloof ally took over the enemy's turf and barred the PCs from visiting

CES 

[Tedology]

In the description of how Captain Chronos functions in the Champions Universe, it highlights how careful he always is in the actions he takes and the foreknowledge he shares, to minimize the risk of changing the timeline in detrimental ways. OTOH he often takes deliberate actions, or provides someone with anachronistic information, which his sophisticated calculations suggest will impact the future beneficially. But he almost never explains why he has to do something, because that knowledge may cause people to change their own future actions and thus also affect the timeline. This has sometimes led the Captain to do things which seem random, or even villainous, although his intentions are always good.

 

Imagine translating those restrictions to time-traveling PCs in an adventure. They have to do something in another time which may set them at odds with heroes from that era, but they can't afford to explain their reasons for doing it. Or they do decide to explain, but that impacts the development of their home era.

 

Wouldn't this be hard to run through PCs? I would have to let the player "in on the plan" (so to speak)...when I may not even have an idea what the plan is! LOL

[Tedology]

I have run a campaign where time travel featured and both the heroes and villains had it. I ran the effects of their meddling like back to the future where both sides changed things to make the tide of combat go their way. Part of the campaign was rewritten and an aloof ally took over the enemy's turf and barred the PCs from visiting

CES 

 

Sounds like a very fun campaign, CES. I'm not nearly that skilled to keep things organized...but perhaps someday.

[Cancer]

If you don't apply the "psychic exclusion" idea, then you can use a mechanic that appears in Keith Laumer's "Dinosaur Beach". If you are present with a different instance of yourself at the moment one of the instances dies, then the mental field of the dying instance merges into that of the surviving instance, giving the survivor a few moments of (in the story) an IQ of 300+. (Avoiding spoilers, when this happened in the story I mentioned, it gave the protagonist an insight boost that was key to the story.) And yes, one instance did kill the other, but it was the one which was killed that insisted on it.

[Lord Liaden]

Wouldn't this be hard to run through PCs? I would have to let the player "in on the plan" (so to speak)...when I may not even have an idea what the plan is! LOL

 

Not knowing the plan in advance can be the fun of it, provided the players are OK with that. Let them know (in character or out of character) that changes to their time line could happen, and if they're still game see what their characters do, then look for ways to incorporate the repercussions. They can be broad or subtle, depending on what you and the players are comfortable with. This can also be a good excuse for a "radiation accident" redesign of a PC that a player may be looking for, or even of a NPC.

[Steve]

In regards to time travel, you have to consider how you want changes to work as GM.

 

Does a change to the past instantly split off a new timeline futureward from that point, and it is impossible to return to your starting point in the original timeline? This is kind of the premise in the "Back To The Future" movies.

 

Does changing time instantly change all points in time futurewards instead of creating a new timeline split off from the original?

 

Does changing time create a rolling change futureward, like a wave moving into the future?

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

A couple ideas. First, you could have the guardians of the time-stream come after him, be they paradox eaters, langoliers, Marvel's Time Variance Authority (or TVA), etc.

 

Alternatively, and possibly more fun, change his world. Little changes that won't ruin it for everyone ... at first.

"That great hot dog place isn't there anymore."

"I could have sworn the neighbor's dog was a basset hound, not a dachshund."

"Hey, my hunter got deleted!"

 

Then ramp it up as he gets reckless.

"Final exam? I'm not even in this class!"

"Dude... where's my car?"

"Hey, all my toons are horde!"

 

And finally, the big stuff.

"Mom, Dad, don't you remember me??"

"President Palin???"

"You've never heard of World of Warcraft? How is that possible?"

[Tedology]

I appreciate all these additional ideas and suggestions...thanks to all!

 

Log-Man...great ideas. I may incorporate those as well as the psychic exclusion.

 

This may work...again, thanks to each of you contributors.

[Cassandra]

Time Travel Examples (Spoilers)

 

In the 1980 movie The Final Countdown the crew of the U.S.S. Nimitz encounters a strange phenomenon at sea and finds itself on Dec. 6, 1941.  They rescue a group of people from a yacht who were strafed by a pair of Japanese Zeros.  Among the survivors is a U.S. Senator who disappeared on Dec. 7 and was in line to become the Vice President in 1944, and next President when F.D.R. dies in 1945.  The Commander of the Air Group falls in love with the Senator's secretary and is accidentally left behind when the Senator blows up the helicopter taking him to safety.  When the Nimitz returns to Pearl Harbor in Present Day it's revealed that the builder of the Nimitz is the Commander to the Air Group.

 

Result:  No Change In History.  Predestined Event.

 

 

In 2009: Lost Memories the prevention of the assassination of the Japanese Governor of Korea results in a change in policy for the Empire.  Japan becomes an Ally of the U.S. in World War Two, Berlin receives the Atomic Bomb, and Korea remains part of the Japanese Empire.  A Korea Police Officer investigating a Japanese High Government official stumbles onto the time travel device and kills the man who prevented the Assassination.  The original timeline is restored.

 

Result:  Timeline Changed and then Restored.