So I have an idea for a campaign, where like in the movie groundhog day time goes backward after a set amount of time has passed, in the movie it was just one day, I was thinking of having the time be one month, where the players start the game and then after a month has passed they go back in time, keeping only there knowledge and level but not the gear,
I know there will be problems with this idea for one reason or another, i would like to get any thoughts that all of you have on this idea, and any problems or solutions you might have for it. thank you for your time.
There has only been one time in my many, many years of gaming I have been threatened with violence by my players. That day was Groundhog Day.
I think that done well it is a fabulous concept. I pitched an adventure concept (unsuccessfully) a while back that had the players chasing a crazed neh-thalggu time-mage across various islands and through portals until a final showdown where they are ultimately too late in stopping him/it from completing/miscasting an eldritch ritual that rips all and sundry back down a different but very similar timeline.
All the foes and allies they met/faced have different motivations and alliances, but much of their initial run-through is still pertinent in the "new" timeline. The trick was to have been to make it so that enough was familiar to make it useful and some very important stuff changed (allies into foes and vice versa) to make it interesting. I'm still up for writing it and now intrigued by Curse of the Kingspire.
More power to you....
I ran this sort of idea once. Be sure to include a "count down clock". They lose a hp or stat or something every "day". Something to let the players know that they have a time limit. If you don't give them a sense of urgency they will take advantage of the situation. Just imagine how you could take advantage of it(like Bill Murray did)...and be afraid.
You might want to allow a way out of the loop that they have to discover. You might also want to consider what happens to characters who die or end up with a curse or something else nasty. If there's no negative consequences (because no one but them remembers it), it can lead to some really weird things after a while. Of course, it could also be fun for them too - doing whatever they wanted with no consequence because at the end of the month everything resets anyway.
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I've been playing in a game like this for a few years now, and it's one of my favourite games ever. It's necessarily fairly low item. The ways my GM handled this included starting us at 5th level to make sure we had decent starting gear before we got stuck in the loop, allowing us to find a basket that persisted through the time loop like our memories (so we could find things and put them in the basket to keep them), and inventing magical stones that could be expended to give us weapon or armour enhancements that persisted through the time loop. He also gave us a way to travel by putting complexes all over the continent that would serve as our start point each week but had portals to each other within them. The time loop was a week long, so for instance once we died at the end of a week, we'd begin the new iteration of the time loop in whichever of these complexes we were last in. This gave us meaningful limitations but a fair bit of flexibility. We haven't played the game in a long while, but I hope we eventually finish the campaign and figure out what was causing the loop. That game is so awesome...
It can work, but step 1 is to make sure your players know that they'll be playing a groundhog day campaign (or adventure). Step 2 is to address any questions they have (equipment? Spellbooks for the wizard & magus?). Step 3 is to figure out how they get out of the time loop, and what happens then.
Basically, this could easily be interesting, but it's sufficiently different that it's unfair to the players to drop it on them without warning. Especially since it impacts some character types more than others.
Try checking out Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. It's a video game that has the best treatment of the genre that I've seen.
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Basically, this could easily be interesting, but it's sufficiently different that it's unfair to the players to drop it on them without warning. Especially since it impacts some character types more than others.
On the contrary, as long as it's well planned out and you've accounted for all the potential problems that could arise, I actually think the surprise factor can be pretty important. I think if our GM had recruited for our campaign by saying "you guys are stuck in a time loop," a few people wouldn't have been on board. The fact that he just recruited for a regular campaign, told us we needed to start at 5th level to facilitate the campaign, and then sprung it on us in-game was essential to the plot development! In fact, the first two times we died, we thought he had been playing out elaborate dream sequences. Then we realized what the major plot point of the campaign was and immediately asked him if we could play again tomorrow (which we did).
Cleric are another thing to consider, how do the gods know that they are leveling up? Does the time loop affect the gods? If they are aware of the loop, why aren't they getting their high-level cleric involved?
One suggestion might be that the PCs are just the latest in a line of heroes the gods have "awakened" to the problem. All the others have slowly gone mad over their repeated failures to solve the problem.
Possible scenario - The PCs awaken to a commotion. One of their friends (say a low level Paladin) is going on a murderous rampage, cutting people down and screaming about how it doesn't matter. Worse, he has the abilities of a mid-to-high level Anti-Paladin. Then stories begin coming in from around the lands about other heroes suddenly going mad.
Investigating these incidents, the PCs discover the time-skip and become the latest to become cursed with the ability to perceive it.