Time Travel Campaign?

[JDONP]

I'm attempting to write a campaign centered around the plot hook of the players being sent back in time by an evil mage who killed a party member's cousin in front of them and the party seeking out a way back. They are going to be sent back around 1,000 years and have all their equipment disappear except for the special weapon and trinket I gave them in a solo quest before the campaign during this time travel (This time travel is less than an hour in, so the players won't be devastated by their losses) The players will seek out the powers of the Greek Gods, Titans, or neither. The players will meet the original wielder of their special weapon and learn some things.

I'm planning on the players using the skill point system once they go back with them creating a new character sheet (because years of training never happened). Also, I'm planning on having players no longer able to remember their spells as they become tomes. The thing about these tomes is they can be used by anyone who can cast the spell regularly.

Are there any rules or paradoxes that you guys could see becoming problematic? What items will have to be changed to work in a 1st to 6th century campaign?

[Bahamut7]

How about sending them into the future where the Evil mage's rule is supreme. Now the fools seek a way back to undo the evil that is the Mage....

Wait scratch that, Jack is already back.

There are a few ground rules you have to establish prior. Are they creating a divergent timeline? Or this a singular timeline? Singular is more likely to cause or risk paradoxes.

Regardless, I would make it clear that their special weapons must not come into contact with the item's past self...bad things happen.

[JDONP]

Are they creating a divergent timeline? Or this a singular timeline? Singular is more likely to cause or risk paradoxes.

Regardless, I would make it clear that their special weapons must not come into contact with the item's past self...bad things happen.

I think that it is a good idea for a divergent timeline to occur so they don't screw anything up in the present. I was thinking with the special weapons that it is kind of like the Dual Falchions in Fire Emblem Awakening.

[plisnithus7]

In my time travel campaign, I had unrecognizable future high-level versions of my (most..the surviving?) characters show up and interact with the counterparts.

I loved seeing the players faces near the end of the session as they finally figured out who these badasses were.

[Bahamut7]

I think that it is a good idea for a divergent timeline to occur so they don't screw anything up in the present. I was thinking with the special weapons that it is kind of like the Dual Falchions in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Not familiar with the Fire Emblem series outside the characters who appear in Smash (Marth player all the way!). Divergent will allow your players more flexibility, but I would still have a consequence system in place. A time Police or Guardian so to say. Something that is hunting them for being in the wrong time. Sure, they can't break other timelines, but they are creating a whole new timeline that could have consequences that are beyond their understanding. Also, make it a difficult process that must be figured out if they want to return to THEIR present and not the present of the timeline they interfered with (think back to the Future Part 2).

And let's not forget you have the perfect opportunity to have certain characters make a cameo: Doctor Who, Doc Brown, Sailor Pluto, the scientist from H.G. Wells The Time Machine, Chrono, a Terminator, and even James Cole from 12 Monkeys.

I will be disappointed if at least one of these didn't make it in. :smallfrown:

[Zorku]

Strictly speaking anything 16th century will work in 6th century, it will just be a bit anachronistic and advantageous relative to time period options. This is all well prior to the scientific revolution that started to actually change our lives for the better with each generation (and even a century or so prior to people even having this notion of progress, so people will be all the more confused by people that look and talk like locals ((enough) but have different dress and tools.)

The game time watch has made me a good deal more gung-ho about time shenanigans, so as long as the party is never getting free reign over time travel you should be able to pretty easily come up with fitting twists for the ways they make history deviate. If you care more about narrative then the changes are pretty much exactly related to what the party did, and you write that exactly like anything else, but with more time for it to become terrible. If you care more about simulation then the immediate results of what the party does work like normal but that basically serves as a wrench thrown into the delicate butterfly-effect grade clockwork and you end up with somewhat scrambled results.

A good metric for butterfly effect stuff on politics is that the really wealthy and powerful players in any event are probably still going to be among the most powerful when the dust settles, but between a quarter and a half of the people that are serious contenders are really random. Just about any little guy can rise up with the support of all the other little guys that hate the big guys, and if you shake things up that's probably going to have totally different results.
... and then all the people at the top fight each other to see who gets their way.

Over a thousand years you've probably got 5-8 really big geopolitical events (or if you're copying typical D&D settings, 1000 years is more like 100 Earth years, so maybe just 1 big event,) and things are gonna shake out really differently as each one presents different starting conditions for the next. If your world has the cassus belli sort of rules of war that Europe did then country boundaries aren't going to be wildly different, but wealth and prestige will, and stuff like who ends up with the biggest navy should be totally up in the air.

[Flashy]

I think that it is a good idea for a divergent timeline to occur so they don't screw anything up in the present. I was thinking with the special weapons that it is kind of like the Dual Falchions in Fire Emblem Awakening.

So, if you're looking for plot holes and paradoxes, how are they serving the plot by creating a diverged timeline? They're going back in time to stop a thing from happening, except they aren't stopping the thing from happening in the original timeline, they're basically just going to an alternate dimension where it doesn't. Isn't the whole point of going back in time that they're TRYING to create a paradox?

[Vogonjeltz]

Are there any rules or paradoxes that you guys could see becoming problematic? What items will have to be changed to work in a 1st to 6th century campaign?

I think that it is a good idea for a divergent timeline to occur so they don't screw anything up in the present. I was thinking with the special weapons that it is kind of like the Dual Falchions in Fire Emblem Awakening.

D&D has only a passing relationship with historicity, so I wouldn't worry at all about different eras of equipment/items, although you could certainly include touchstones to things seen in the "present" when the players reach the past.

Whether the timeline is represented as diverging or singular (diverging as a depiction makes slightly more sense in recognizing how things have altered from the way they were previously), there's no way to get to the future one left if the past was mutable and the players made any impact at all.

Which is to say, unless some creatures death is completely untethered from impacting any other thing (very very unlikely) then even a single death in the past could have extremely dramatic changes on the future, sometimes on the order of ensuring that characters who used to exist in the present no longer do, and when returning from the past the characters could arrive only to find that everything is different than they left it (because they embarked along a different future than they reached the past from).

The only way, at that point, to return to their original timeframe would be to somehow go back and stop themselves from changing the past, ensure no more damage would be done, and then proceed again into the future. Ideally the loop could be closed by directing the 2nd group of past selves to themselves go into the past to divert yet a 3rd set, and so on. This has the, slightly unfortunate side effect of screwing with the timelines of an infinite set of ones alternate selves, but it's kind of inevitable in any scenario where a character has diverted from their original timeline.

Even then, it's arguable that if the whole interaction wasn't part of timeline A (the original timeline) then the characters never really go home, they're actually in timeline C, one that very closely resembles A, including the C versions of themselves having been sent into the past, and then continuing their lives with C's loved ones, instead of A's.

This is pretty much what happens in an episode of Deep Space 9 where Chief Engineer O'Brien starts time traveling into the future in 5 hour increments, then going back. The original O'Brien receives a lethal dose of radiation and knows he'll die, so he sends his future self back to the past to avert disaster, then dies. The future version continues to live with the original's family.

Time or Dimensional Travel invariably leads to Rick and Morty levels of fridge horror or nightmare fuel.

[Bahamut7]

snip

This is why I suggested something very difficult to allow them to return to their timeline. The OP could make the story unfold where the heroes achieve many victories and prevent horrible atrocities that would have come without their meddling, but at the cost of them never returning to their love ones. Then a Guardian of Time finally finds them and instead of eliminating them offers them a choice:

I can return you back to your timeline but all that you did will be undone, the horrors you prevented will occur as your history dictates. Or you can go to your present of this timeline but at the cost of whatever butterfly effects you caused (perhaps they never met their love one and that person fell for their rival).

Option 2 could lead to a darker or brighter future (but them may become the outcasts).

[JDONP]

Isn't the whole point of going back in time that they're TRYING to create a paradox?

While you do have a point, the players are sent back in time by an enraged mage as punishment. The point is the players will never see their friends, family, even their favorite music or scenery ever again because they will die before they get a chance.

[JDONP]

This is why I suggested something very difficult to allow them to return to their timeline. The OP could make the story unfold where the heroes achieve many victories and prevent horrible atrocities that would have come without their meddling, but at the cost of them never returning to their love ones. Then a Guardian of Time finally finds them and instead of eliminating them offers them a choice:

I can return you back to your timeline but all that you did will be undone, the horrors you prevented will occur as your history dictates. Or you can go to your present of this timeline but at the cost of whatever butterfly effects you caused (perhaps they never met their love one and that person fell for their rival).

Option 2 could lead to a darker or brighter future (but them may become the outcasts).

THIS! This is what i was looking for. I love this forum because everyone here has such clever ideas.

[JDONP]

Over a thousand years you've probably got 5-8 really big geopolitical events (or if you're copying typical D&D settings, 1000 years is more like 100 Earth years, so maybe just 1 big event,) and things are gonna shake out really differently as each one presents different starting conditions for the next. If your world has the cassus belli sort of rules of war that Europe did then country boundaries aren't going to be wildly different, but wealth and prestige will, and stuff like who ends up with the biggest navy should be totally up in the air.

This could be good... The major powers did have a war 4 years before the main events in the present, so I can always say tensions have always been high. There could be a MASSIVE war that takes place where they were sent back and the party could lead one of the armies to victory/defeat depending on who they pair up with (gods or titans).

Even who they side with and who triumphs could have a major major effect on the present.

[Bahamut7]

THIS! This is what i was looking for. I love this forum because everyone here has such clever ideas.

Glad I could be of help.

[Temperjoke]

One of my all time favorite lines when anything involving time travel comes up is "History abhors a paradox" from the Legacy of Kain series.

I think you should have a several events, both immediately significant and not apparently significant, and when it happens there should be some sort of visual reference to them that something has changed that no one else can see. Like the world ripples around them, and they can feel something shift. Big events are fairly obvious, but subtle ones can be fun too.

Like, a type of alcohol became less prevalent and disappeared because a tyrant in a village was overthrown by the party instead of dying a natural death, and this alcohol was a major foundation of trade and prosperity a hundred years later. Or the ancestor of an adventurer who was a legend in your time never met his future wife, who was a bar maid, because someone in the party seduced her instead.

Smaller things like this can be nice to break things up since they're not entirely life or death, and can be solved by less drama and more fun by the party.

EDIT: I also recommend them having some sort of guide, like a spirit or agent who can show them the consequence any time something happens, so they can decide what to do about it, let it go or try to at least restore what changed.

[JDONP]

One of my all time favorite lines when anything involving time travel comes up is "History abhors a paradox" from the Legacy of Kain series.

I think you should have a several events, both immediately significant and not apparently significant, and when it happens there should be some sort of visual reference to them that something has changed that no one else can see. Like the world ripples around them, and they can feel something shift. Big events are fairly obvious, but subtle ones can be fun too.

Like, a type of alcohol became less prevalent and disappeared because a tyrant in a village was overthrown by the party instead of dying a natural death, and this alcohol was a major foundation of trade and prosperity a hundred years later. Or the ancestor of an adventurer who was a legend in your time never met his future wife, who was a bar maid, because someone in the party seduced her instead.

Smaller things like this can be nice to break things up since they're not entirely life or death, and can be solved by less drama and more fun by the party.

EDIT: I also recommend them having some sort of guide, like a spirit or agent who can show them the consequence any time something happens, so they can decide what to do about it, let it go or try to at least restore what changed.

This is good too. I didn't think of a Time Guardian but he will definitely play a huge role now, such as stopping the players from doing such things and telling them what they did and they can attempt to fix it before it's too late, Back to the Future style.

[Zorku]

This could be good... The major powers did have a war 4 years before the main events in the present, so I can always say tensions have always been high. There could be a MASSIVE war that takes place where they were sent back and the party could lead one of the armies to victory/defeat depending on who they pair up with (gods or titans).

Even who they side with and who triumphs could have a major major effect on the present.Certainly, especially if they set up alliances between nations that didn't exist the first time around. As always, make sure the rest of the world is alive (mainly by having people that weren't of note in the original timeline contracting assassins now that the political map has changed :b )

Sometimes what looks like it will become a grand utopia leads into the most war wracked situation imaginable while misery and atrocities keep everyone too weak to really enact the carnage and horrors they're capable of. Some things don't change no matter how you shake things up, others always keep time travelers guessing.

As for getting back to their loved ones: If you wanna go single timeline without it getting too crazy, TimeWatch has got another useful mechanic: each character has got a chronal stability stat, and they take hits to it when they create paradoxes (or just time travel in general.) If you're not already picturing the sanity mechanics from every tabletop game centered on Lovecraft's mythos, I'll assume you haven't ever touched one of those games. With sort of a combination of a constitution save and wisdom save, you'd basically hit them with exhaustion type effects. Where history knowledge effectively makes the party into a bunch of oracles that outperform the greatest scrying and divination magic, they have to limit how much they directly tamper with things. In TW there's a minor hit for contradicting events that you've got fairly direct observation of (somewhat alleviated if you can explain how this isn't really a contraction) moving up to a fairly heavy hit if you create a grandfather paradox or massively rewrite history (except in the case of undoing other time traveler alterations.) A couple of these without any rest and you start to fade (the game tries to be really pulp and [word I can't think of right now],) and if you keep going you get overwritten by somebody that belongs in the proper space time, and then finally snuffed out of existence (or alternatively, flung to a random point in time without any of your stuff, somewhat crazy from the multiple personalities in your head now.)

You could just run it like exhaustion out of the box, but writing up your own version of temporal instability (and letting them discover what bad things happen if they try to change too much at once,) seems like it could be a lot of fun.

Now, this is supposed to be about getting back. Well, the butterfly effect is pretty much going to guarantee big enough changes to prevent their parents from getting together, but we also know that certain things don't seem to change a whole lot. If the circumstances of their births are same-y enough then there's somebody that well enough corresponds to them, born in the new timeline close enough to the same time. If all this thousand year meddling hasn't totally prevented an enraged caster with time magic from coming into power, then this little event still takes place and still throws some folks back in time. Narrative-ly this works a lot like casting reincarnate on everyone in the party, so their features change a little or a lot, but this also makes their memories of their childhood snap to whatever changes they've experienced.

History probably doesn't have to make those changes in real time, so much as wait until the party catches up to where they began. For that you can use the temporal guardian idea or simply give them some cryogenic freezer option (and maybe the party would take well to the idea of posing as adults in their respective villages that guide their younger selves into this whole adventuring -thing- in the first place?)

You might even hand them the means to skip ahead through time pretty much of their own accord (or like, 100 years at a time, and then they've gotta go locate another battery to power the thing,) if you're confident in your ability to nail them with plot hooks like a volley of arrows.

[Vogonjeltz]

This is good too. I didn't think of a Time Guardian but he will definitely play a huge role now, such as stopping the players from doing such things and telling them what they did and they can attempt to fix it before it's too late, Back to the Future style.

Be sure to name him Ziggy in a call out to Quantum Leap!

[Bahamut7]

Be sure to name him Ziggy in a call out to Quantum Leap!

While I adore this idea...I have to suggest instead Captain Jack Harkness...just be careful he may try and sleep with the entire party.

[JDONP]

While I adore this idea...I have to suggest instead Captain Jack Harkness...just be careful he may try and sleep with the entire party.

more concerned about my party sleeping with the time guardian... One of my players got a 20 on charmisa.

[nickl_2000]

This is good too. I didn't think of a Time Guardian but he will definitely play a huge role now, such as stopping the players from doing such things and telling them what they did and they can attempt to fix it before it's too late, Back to the Future style.

I can't help but think of Gideon from Legend's of Tomorrow. The genius level computer that tells them what they need to change and overall controls the motion of the party. It would be very easy to have a Genius level Sentient Artifact that can play this role.

[Temperjoke]

You know, for an added twist, the guardian assisting them could turn out to be the future version (well after the point where the party entered the timeline) evil wizard who flung them back into the past, who's manipulating them to ensure that he can maintain his power in the future.

[JDONP]

You know, for an added twist, the guardian assisting them could turn out to be the future version (well after the point where the party entered the timeline) evil wizard who flung them back into the past, who's manipulating them to ensure that he can maintain his power in the future.
or, the evil wizard changed his ways...

[JDONP]

Well, today's the day. Campaign starts today. I'm nervous but also excited.
Will keep everyone's ideas in mind.

[Bahamut7]

Well, today's the day. Campaign starts today. I'm nervous but also excited.
Will keep everyone's ideas in mind.

When in doubt, Samurai Jack cameo!

[zeek0]

Yeah, being clear about the type of time travel is important.

The most complicated would be the 'time-turner' model. The events of the future are absolutely fixed, but possibly only came to pass because of the actions of characters in the past. This might make it seem more epic, especially if creating that future seems impossible. It eliminates the need for a Time Guardian, because time is inviolable on its own. You can reveal how characters really did have a role in things being as they are in the future, even with small cultural norms. It also casts some questions on free will, so it's not for everyone.