The Campaign Builder's Guild

Has anyone ever used Time Travel in their campaign or game? What do you suggest if I wanted to implement that?

Make it as simple as possible and go to a point in history where the characters otherwise would not affect themselves much.  Maybe it's me being unwilling to think that hard, but I wouldn't let the group go a day in the past to stop their past selves from doing something.  The amount of overlap is difficult.

Time Travel is easiest when jumping between large periods of time.  They can and should affect each other, but it's very difficult getting those little details down.  

Unless, of course, you go with the diverging timelines theory.  That'd make it easier.

mhmmmm I was kind of thinking about a group of Mages who travel through time making sure you don't mess with it. to make a complex statement simple.

I tried a time travel plot once.  Once.  Jharviss is dead on, though, alternate timelines are the only way to not give yourself a headache.

I usually run with a type of semi-self aware timeline, if that makes sense. Small actions won't throw off time (negating the butterfly effect), and it becomes incredibly difficult to alter the timeline via large events (if you plan to shoot Washington before he can lead the Rebellion army to victory, you'll find yourself unexpectedly delayed, for instance). You can change it, but it's hard.

And, of course, it just shunts you into a different timeline. You don't fade from existence or anything.

I always liked the idea that you can't change certain key events in history (like America being born or Hitler rising to power) but you can delay them, speed them up. Heck you can even kill the main characters (like Hitler) but that only means Nazi Germany will be created by another similar person. Time has a way of correcting itself, I suppose.

I did, however, never loved the idea presented in the book Pastwatch. I won't spoil anything, but it involves whole sale changing of history through direct intervention by future humans. To me this is totally unrealistic and in game terms, causes way too many headaches.

Nope, never ever ever. It's silly, never pulled off right and can have severe game-altering effects that can be highly abused.

There's a game called Fireborn in which the players are the ultimate descendants of dragons who took human form centuries ago in which play revolves around two timelines, the current one with the "human" players and one in the past in which the players assume the roles of their sires.

I've always wanted to steal this mechanic and work in flashbacks, either to characters' pasts or to wholly different times (past lives? ancestors?).  Such a dynamic could potentially allow for a kind of time travel without screwing things up in quite the same way.  I think it would work best in a pseudo-collaborative setting where events in the past are mysterious and/or unknown and the GM doesn't have them written in stone.

Quote from: SteerpikeI've always wanted to steal this mechanic and work in flashbacks, either to characters' pasts or to wholly different times (past lives? ancestors?).  

i had an Eberron Campaign in mind (I never had he opportunity to run it) that was much like this. It on 2 points in time - the present and the early stages of the Last War. I was going to use the Past to influence the present. Meaning if the Past PCs didn't kill an important enemy he might show up in the future; one of the great relics found in the past could have been handed down to a present character; Long-lived races (such as Elves & Dwarves) would be reoccurring NPCs in both timelines, aiding the PCs in the past through deed and doing the same through advice in the present.... Like I said I was never able to get it off the ground (school etc.) but I always wanted to run it. :)

along Steerpikes line I once had two different groups that were playing in the same world at different time periods. Group A would burn down the shiny new fort X, and group B might find that fort out in the wilderness with nothing but an ancient charred husk and a really old, really dead BBEG skeleton in the basement.

They don't really have much of an effect on each other. In fact the two groups of players are completely unaware of each other, mostly because their characters are about 300 years apart.

In the larger timeline that my campaign setting is a part of, there was a time where I was going to have a major time travel event affect the timeline as a whole. But it was so easy to remove, and did so little to help the setting, that I threw it out.

I do like timetravel stories. Running a "Quantum Leap" style game would be pretty fun I think.

Quote from: Kapn XeviatI do like timetravel stories. Running a "Quantum Leap" style game would be pretty fun I think.

"Oh boy."

Quote from: Gnome NachosHas anyone ever used Time Travel in their campaign or game?

Yes.

QuoteWhat do you suggest if I wanted to implement that?

Be very careful with it. If you control it enough within the game, you can make it feel plausible without making players feel totally trapped by it.

In my case, one of the principle villains of a campaign was mysteriously murdered and the artifact he sought stolen. Only near the very end of the game, when the players had traveled back in time to find the artifact themselves, did they realize their future selves had traveled back and killed them. But what if they had got to the confrontation and decided not to play ball? Well, there were other characters that could have ennacted the murder and been the real killers all along.


Of course this kind of plot assumes time exists as a whole, and is, thus, more-or-less immutable. The opposite end of the spectrum--players can indeed change anything they want, but the consequences are always more far-reaching than they expect. The only way I could see to work this is make even a minor change butterfly effect into huge reprecussions, such that they are always afraid to risk making changes. In either case, for mechanically reasons (even in just a story and not a game), there probably has to be some kind of limit as to what points they can travel to. They cannot simply just return to any point in time and change it without leaving you with a mess.

Heh this thread makes me think of Dr. Who and it's ultimate cop-out for not going back in time to fix stuff, "It's too late, we're part of events now!" (Why don't they go back to when they weren't part of events???).

That said, I still love Dr. Who...

Quote from: SteerpikeHeh this thread makes me think of Dr. Who and it's ultimate cop-out for not going back in time to fix stuff, "It's too late, we're part of events now!" (Why don't they go back to when they weren't part of events???).

That said, I still love Dr. Who...

Isn't it because they become apart of the events they participate in? There's a clear continuity of 'Following this we go here,' meaning even though they become apart of the events, there's still a Doctor in the 'temporal present' which is why he can't just jump back ten minutes ago and act like the whole thing never happened...

BAH! Temporal mechanics be damned! I'm in favor of instituting the Temporal Prime Directive!