Does anyone have any ideas about building time travel into a campaign setting? How would you like to see it work?
I ask because I'm hoping to include an element of time travel in The Ages of Allu, a new campaign setting for PF rules. We're writing a campaign guide, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, and time travel keeps coming up in our plans. My design team and I are throwing a few different ideas around, but before we settle on the rules, we need to hear from more players.
If you have stories or suggestions, throw them our way! Thanks!
I like "Time is a river". When you divert the time-stream, upstream, the old section of timeline dries up after you left. This prevents you from having to keep track of endlessly multiplying timelines.
Thanks, LazarX! I never heard of Continuum before reading your post, so I'm very intrigued to see how they handle it.
I agree with Goth Guru, multiple timelines are a headache, and I could see them leading to a lot of arguing at the table. Since one of the central themes of Allu is "the power to change fate," it makes a lot of sense that the time-stream would respond to changes as you describe.
We want time travel to be an active option for most players in Allu, so it won't just be a single artifact or site. But that raises questions about abuse. If characters have ready access to time travel, would they use it to go back and change every failed saving throw? I'd be curious to hear how other gamers have incorporated it into their games.
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Most spells, time school included, will let you reattempt a save once. You have to take the new result.
Time travel is a science fiction concept. As such, it requires more explanation than most fantasy concepts do. Hash it out. Explain what happens, how long the effects lasts, what happens to the timeline left behind, if observing something changes it, and all the good stuff. Once you decide on these things, STICK WITH THEM. Nothing is as ugly as a time travel story that breaks its own rules. GURPS Time travel has some very good advice.
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First, answer the question: Why do we want time travel?
For instance, in Doctor Who - a show which features a time machine every episode - very little time travel shenanigans are done. Time Travel is just a way of saying 'this week the setting is this'.
In Star Trek episodes are often about exploring the questions that often pop up in time travel. What if we get stuck in a time loop? what if we accidently change history and make it right? did it really happen that way at all? what if we destroy some required element of my/our present existence?
In the RPG Feng Shui time travel can occure between 4 zones and changing history (indeed physics) in that zone is a way of keeping score for the various factions.
Can you have the predestination paradox? this is where A cannot exist without B, which cannot exist without A . . .
Do you want PCs trying that?
Do you want PCs redoing the dungeon/adventure? How about NPCs?
Is the big bad really dead if he can plan contingencies to go back in time and do it all over. You could make it a feat.
I really look forward to seeing more on this.
One concept, is fated evidence. If a character finds evidence of themselves in the past, they have to go there. By not saving their grandfather, they can wipe themselves out.
These are all great ideas! Since Zodin asked "why time travel," I'll try to answer it from Allu's perspective.
I incorporated time travel into the first Allu campaign as a narrative device, transporting PCs between the four ages without giving them much control in the matter. If there's space in our campaign guide, I'd love to include a section for GMs, offering time-travel storytelling hooks, tips, etc.
But now, we are investigating how to put more chrono power into the hands of PCs. Particularly in Allu's fourth age (the Age of Gears), as the weave of the world is starting to unravel, more of the world's inhabitants are learning how to slip between the threads and shift through time.
I've seen provisions for chrono bonuses in combat, but I'm personally curious about extending a bonus throughout an entire combat encounter. The principle here is that a PC would fight a battle, then travel back afterwards to alter the outcome to her (or an ally's) favor. That shouldn't mean running the encounter twice (because boring), but finding a way to preemptively alter the encounter to account for the time traveler's influence. Any thoughts?
@ShadowcatX: Time Thief and Time Warden look very cool! I'll be sure to check them out.
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I have several story ideas revolving around time travel, often inspired by some amazing stories in superheroes' comics dealing with it. I will share them here.
ALL MY PLAYERS SHOULD STOP READING NOW.
A) Evil twins from the Future (Jade Regent but no spoilers)
In my Jade Regent campaign (not yet started), I plan for the PCs to meet (and fight) evil future (more powerful) versions of themselves. The Future PCs are traveling back in time to ensure that their timeline stays the same. Apparently, the current PCs are doing things a bit differently and the Future PCs feel they need to correct things to ensure that they still end up as the PCs' future selves. As always with such meddling in Fate's plans, the intervention of the Future PCs actually should end up steering the current PCs away from becoming the soulless monsters they confront. The higher power of the Future PCs will be balanced by 2 factors : their intervention in this time period is limited in its duration and they are forbidden from creating too much paradox (ie, they cannot end up killing the PCs since it would erase their own existence).
This could also end up being the origin story for the amnesic PC in my team : he was never born. He just went back to the past and forgot everything, only to live through the same main events, but maybe with a different ending this time.
So, 2 main concepts :
1) what is fated happens and is often caused by the very actions taken to avoid it (think Oedipus, Cassandra and similar classic Greek myths).
2) changing the past changes the future, but a given timeline does have some resiliency. Small changes can be taken in stride, but unsustainable paradoxes just destroy the guilty future.
Note that the coexistence of both mean that what actually happens in a given timeline is a mix of fate and random happenstance. And fate is actually out of time. The fated result might happen through the change of the future enabled by time travel.
B) Time travel through holes in the weakened structure of time (The Dragon's Demand : SPOILERS)
While preparing to run the Dragon's Demand, I thought about possible adventures after the end of the written adventure. One idea that intrigues me is that the original Black Dragon ended up undead, tried to reemerge through the new Green Dragon, only to see this plan fail because of the PCs. So, now he is desperate for any means to come back to life, including toying with forces best left undisturbed (ie time travel). His experiments actually create shortcuts through the fabric of time and the PCs end up traveling to the past of Belhaim at crucial periods. For example, they will end up joining the fight against the Good Baron Sarvo in his tower, planting the scene for what their younger selves actually went through at 1st level in the ruins of the tower 200 years later. To ensure this result, as soon as they begin to change something from what they know happened, they will start dissolving because they are putting additional strain on their already weakened timeline.
Obviously my greatest inspiration for this latter effect comes from Back to the Future :-)
Another inspiration to me is the Hell On Earth setting and its link to the Deadlands setting : the bad guys, knowing they were losing, went back in time and started manipulating events to ensure that this time they would win. (very similar to Terminator obviously)
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I've seen provisions for chrono bonuses in combat, but I'm personally curious about extending a bonus throughout an entire combat encounter. The principle here is that a PC would fight a battle, then travel back afterwards to alter the outcome to her (or an ally's) favor. That shouldn't mean running the encounter twice (because boring), but finding a way to preemptively alter the encounter to account for the time traveler's influence. Any thoughts?
This sounds very similar to the luck/unluck powers used by some 3pp's classes.
Another take at playing with time. One encounter my GM sprang on us was a 3pp monster able to steal time from its opponents. IIRC, if it touched us and we failed a Will save, it would steal actions from us. This was awesome because in this way it could act several times per round AND limit our own number of actions per round. it was a tough encounter but very well done.
I guess the most important thing is to keep your rules consistent.
Beyond that, how do you want it to be used? Is it a TARDIS/Phone booth/DeLorean that just whooshes to another spot, is it a Yithian mind swap?
What happens to changed timelines? Can you be a refugee from another timeline? Is that how we got the infinite possible universes? Are there aborted futures and dead pasts people might want to put onto their line like grafting a future on where something big comes to pass?
If I'm about to fight some really big bad dudes, what's stopping me from taking a half hour break, traveling a half hour back and going in with myself to double team them?
How does Time Travel work in the setting. Time Machine, or Magic, or...
It depends upon which Age you start from. In the Age of Gods, time travel is exclusively by divine fiat -- which likely equates to DM fiat, although in Allu it is possible to command (or even become) a god.
The Age of Gears introduces steampunk technology, so time machines will start to pop up. But obviously, once you send a time machine to a different age, it's there, so all bets are off.
Paradox needn't be a problem in a high-magic campaign, since there can always be magical or divine solutions. We won't have space in the campaign guide to address all the different theories of time travel, so much of this would have to be left up to the GM. (Maybe there's a supplement about this down the road, though).
Mostly, right now, we're most interested in seeing time travel from the players' perspective. So, Journ-O suggested a timeline-crossing team-up strategy. We can probably find a way to make that happen. But is that what other players would want to do, if they had access to time travel? What would YOUR characters do, if they were handed the keys to the DeLorean?
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Mostly, right now, we're most interested in seeing time travel from the players' perspective. So, Journ-O suggested a timeline-crossing team-up strategy. We can probably find a way to make that happen. But is that what other players would want to do, if they had access to time travel? What would YOUR characters do, if they were handed the keys to the DeLorean?
I get it better now ;-)
Come to think of it, most of my characters would probably go back and correct the dramatic circumstances that in fact led to them becoming adventurers.
My Halfling Sorceress in Serpent's Skull would ensure that she dies at birth.
My Cleric of Pharasma in Darkmoon Vale would save her child from the death that made her a Cleric.
I guess my Ranger/Paladin would prevent the would-be murderers of his father from fleeing justice. He would also probably beat the snot out of his foolish arrogant younger self.
So going that far, or with enough freedom to pinpoint a specific event that pertains to their own personal story, is probably not the best way for them staying adventurers (or the same character actually).
On a smaller scale, my PCs would likely use it to rewind a fight that ended in PC death and use different tactics now that they have seen both what surprises the enemy may have in store how they will attack and what the bad choice is.
Or they might observe the battle and use their abilities to interfere with it while staying hidden. Note that this is somewhat similar to the aforementioned team up.
They could also go back and give good advice/explanations to their younger self (the left door is trapped, the unassuming monk is actually the BBEG, the fighter will betray you in this way).
Or they could ensure that the fight does not happen at all (or at least not with all the same people) by arranging to travel back in time and defeat one or all of their future opponents before the fight takes place.
This could actually become an interesting mechanic. Spend some Temporal energy to deviate the situation from what is currently happening. The greater the change, the more energy it requires (and the greater the risk of mishap maybe). And the player/PC needs to explain how he does it. If it requires additional encounters (such as dispatching their opponents in the past), then playing those will be postponed to a later date. Their result will be ensured, but who knows what truly happened (and what the consequences for the PCs are).
For example, say your PCs are ambushed by brigands led by a rival wizard. They could use a big amount of temporal energy to ensure that the wizard could not be there. This will need an appropriate encounter that will be roleplayed later. The PCs are now facing the brigands only.
Of course, for even more temporal energy, they could further alter the timestream and ensure that the brigands are not there anymore (another encounter to be played through).
Putting a time limit on how long the PCs have before having the "encounters in the past" ensures that they do not have enough time to gather resources that make these trivial (let's say one hour before they vanish from the present and appear in the past in the vicinity of said rival wizard).
These are all great ideas! Since Zodin asked "why time travel," I'll try to answer it from Allu's perspective.
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I've seen provisions for chrono bonuses in combat, but I'm personally curious about extending a bonus throughout an entire combat encounter. The principle here is that a PC would fight a battle, then travel back afterwards to alter the outcome to her (or an ally's) favor. That shouldn't mean running the encounter twice (because boring), but finding a way to preemptively alter the encounter to account for the time traveler's influence. Any thoughts?
QUICK half formed idea before I go to work, use 13th ages escalation die. during combat, whenever something that the PCs (or bad guys) don't like, they can spend their chrono resource and undo the event. don't replay, its just undone. then add +1 to the escalation die.
Phase Spiders. They weave webs between timelines keeping them from crashing into each other and unraveling. When they enter a timeline, they become very hungry and may get slain. They have to lay their eggs within a timeline because the conditions in the time vortex are hard on them. The adventurers must go back in time and start a spider cult that feeds goats and other animals to phase spiders. They enter timelines via the ethereal plane(If you don't want to alter the bestiary listing.)