Time Travel RPG?

[Zeta Kai]

Does anyone know of an RPG that revolves around time travel? Or uses time travel in a significant way? I don't care what system it uses, or if it's 1st party/3rd party/homebrew. I'm looking for a good time-travel system to mine for ideas, & I don't wanna have to make it myself. :smallbiggrin:

Can anybody help?

[Kaihaku]

ChronoTrigger is always a winner. :smallwink:

There was an AD&D FR sourcebook on the topic... I think...

EDIT: The Arcane Age line of books has some guidelines for time travel. The only ones of that series I have are Netheril Empire Of Magic and The Fall Of Myth Drannor.

[drengnikrafe]

I hear GURPS is really good for making systems based on whatever you want, so as the first replier has suggested, you can do a GURPS thing (I don't actually know how it works, so don't ask me or complain if it turns out poorly) for Chrono Trigger.

[The Demented One]

There's Continuum (http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/). I've not played, so I can't vouch for it, but it looks neat.

[horseboy]

There was a Dr. Who RPG, don't know if it's still in print, though.
Tech Law (Robotics Manual, Equipment Manual, Vehicle Manual) has some good guidelines, though the main rule book (Spacemaster) is very much a hard sci-fi space game. It would take some setting divorcing to make optimal use of it.

[LibraryOgre]

Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Hands down, one of the best gaming supplements of all time... and it includes rules for time-travel devices AND wizards, and a couple scenarios involving time travel.

[Kurald Galain]

Regardless of which system you actually end up using (for which I'd recommend White Wolf mortals), you should definitely pick up the GURPS Time Travel book. It contains very little actual GURPSy rules but is the most awesome reference work and background material I've ever seen on the subject. It explains everything from five different physics systems to dealing with paradoxes to timeline wars.

[Waspinator]

GURPS 4E Infinite Worlds has time travel stuff, including a time-traveling DeLorean if I remember right.

[Kaihaku]

Regardless of which system you actually end up using (for which I'd recommend White Wolf mortals), you should definitely pick up the GURPS Time Travel book. It contains very little actual GURPSy rules but is the most awesome reference work and background material I've ever seen on the subject. It explains everything from five different physics systems to dealing with paradoxes to timeline wars.

Interesting, sounds like a book I should considering picking up.

[Zeta Kai]

Thank you, one & all. Of all of these games, GURPS Time Travel & C°ntinuum seem the most intruiging. I think I'll hunt down those, for the ideas if nothing else.

[Clever Pun]

I've never actually played it, but I've read Continuum cover to cover. It's a very interesting theory and system. Whether or not it's /fun/ isn't so clear. Seems like a lot of accounting. Still, it has rules for meeting future and past versions of yourself, and for doing the Bill and Ted thing of 'I'll go back in time and leave the keys here!'

[Krrth]

Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Hands down, one of the best gaming supplements of all time... and it includes rules for time-travel devices AND wizards, and a couple scenarios involving time travel.

This. It works just fine with Rifts as well.

[Chronos]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.

[Krrth]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.

You can have lots of fun with it though. For example, one of the sample missions in TDTMNT has NPCs reacting to things the PC's haven't done yet. Greeting them by name, returning gear, and such.

[Zeful]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.

Not necessarily true, just point out The Way Things Were, and the Bad Things that could happen if it doesn't hold true. Historical knowledge is very important in games like this.

Example: Say a war was stopped short due to the assassination of one country's leader. The assassin was never caught. PC's go back in time and must assassinate this leader for time to remain stable.

[Siegel]

There is a german Setting. Basicly it is 3 worlds (Medieval, Victorian/20s, Sci-Fi) and Characters can swap between these worlds. I forgot it's name and it's german so it won't be much help for you but i tryed...

[Thane of Fife]

There was a Dr. Who RPG, don't know if it's still in print, though.


Is this what you mean? (http://www.geocities.com/sege1701/TimeLord/main.htm)

[Eldariel]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.

This only applies to Time Travel-systems where the mechanics aren't completely thought out. Type A is the ultimate railroad (the all you're doing has already been done, and there's nothing you can do to change it-version - think Twelve Monkeys, Terminators or such) while Type B is completely compatible with freeform RPGs (Type B is basically a system, which involves 5D travel, but the time travel itself doesn't cause the dimensional shifts, but rather if your actions cause some would-be paradox, you end up in a parallel dimension in "post-paradox"-state with your pasts being in the pre-paradox state, allowing a continued character existence and paradox aversion - Chrono Trigger can be explained in Type B terms; whether that was the intent or not is unclear, but it's the only way to actually logically found the story as things change, which makes it incompatible with Type A even with the hints that the cycle has happened before).

You can run a functional Time Travel RPG in either system, although Type A requires clear history for the world (or making one up as you go, fitting it around what's done) and can be frustrating for the players once they realize they actually are just reliving some events and have absolutely no control over them (of course, it's fairly easy to not let them realize that, at least before the end). Type B requires careful mapping of potential changes and DM fiats as to when they would cause paradoxes.

[Chronos]

(Type B is basically a system, which involves 5D travel, but the time travel itself doesn't cause the dimensional shifts, but rather if your actions cause some would-be paradox, you end up in a parallel dimension in "post-paradox"-state with your pasts being in the pre-paradox state, allowing a continued character existence and paradox aversion - Chrono Trigger can be explained in Type B terms; whether that was the intent or not is unclear, but it's the only way to actually logically found the story as things change, which makes it incompatible with Type A even with the hints that the cycle has happened before).Which is, as I said, just dimension-hopping which happens to look superficially like time travel. Which is not to say, of course, that it can't be fun.

And to make type A work, you basically need a sufficient level of railroading that it ceases to be a game, and instead turns into a storytelling exercise. Which can also be fun, if the DM's good enough at it, but such DMs are somewhat rare.

[Eldariel]

Type B is still time travel all the way up until when the dimension hop ensues, and even after that, they continue to travel in the 4 just occasionally shifting in 5 to make it work - it's more than dimensional travel that superficially looks time travel; time travel that incorporates dimensional travel for mechanics. And of course, the characters don't actually need to realize the dimension hops are happening - it may look to them like they're simply changing the work and somehow persisting even though they don't necessarily even exist in the new future.

There are few other ways to handle it, but those are pretty much the easiest for RPGs (as others involve incapability to take actions which cause paradoxes and such and incapability to do anything for seemingly random reasons tends to fail in game).

[fractic]

I personally also like Type A better, it just makes more sense. Here's an idea to avoid railroading. Let the players play both their current versions and there future versions, who have found a way to travel back in time, simultaniously.

It would prevent situations where the future version of a PC has helped the current version, but when the PC gets around to the future ey decides not to thus creating a paradox, without railroading. Of course paradoxes could still appear in other ways.

[Tsotha-lanti]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.

Well, considering the only way to travel in time is a closed time loop, and you can't go past beyond when the loop starts, the GM is saved a lot of headaches there. In practice, it'd just be a save/reload deal (except you can only save/reload the world around you; if you die, you stay dead).

If you're ditching physics and allowing fiction-level time travel, then there's no need to know what the PCs were going to have done.

[Starbuck_II]

This only applies to Time Travel-systems where the mechanics aren't completely thought out. Type A is the ultimate railroad (the all you're doing has already been done, and there's nothing you can do to change it-version - think Twelve Monkeys, Terminators or such) while Type B is completely compatible with freeform RPGs (Type B is basically a system, which involves 5D travel, but the time travel itself doesn't cause the dimensional shifts, but rather if your actions cause some would-be paradox, you end up in a parallel dimension in "post-paradox"-state with your pasts being in the pre-paradox state, allowing a continued character existence and paradox aversion - Chrono Trigger can be explained in Type B terms; whether that was the intent or not is unclear, but it's the only way to actually logically found the story as things change, which makes it incompatible with Type A even with the hints that the cycle has happened before).

You can run a functional Time Travel RPG in either system, although Type A requires clear history for the world (or making one up as you go, fitting it around what's done) and can be frustrating for the players once they realize they actually are just reliving some events and have absolutely no control over them (of course, it's fairly easy to not let them realize that, at least before the end). Type B requires careful mapping of potential changes and DM fiats as to when they would cause paradoxes.

What about Quantum Leap Time Travel?

[Eldariel]

Well, that's really a different world entirely considering that it's more of a transmigration than actual time travel. It seems quite impractical for the game with the time travel-portition being more of just an explanation for you being there - it's hard to recreate the effect of having an alien body for a game character as the characters aren't as intimately familiar with their own bodies either, and having multiple characters participate on the leaps would also seem difficult to handle.

That said, physically the whole Quantum Leap (assuming you're talking about the series)-system makes practically no sense whatsoever. Most systems can at least be explained in some rational ways even if they don't necessary conform with the presently dominant physical theories, but it really just...makes very little sense.

[Jayabalard]

Does anyone know of an RPG that revolves around time travel? Or uses time travel in a significant way? I don't care what system it uses, or if it's 1st party/3rd party/homebrew. I'm looking for a good time-travel system to mine for ideas, & I don't wanna have to make it myself. :smallbiggrin:

Can anybody help?I'm a little late to the discussion but if you're just looking to mine for ideas, GURPS time travel would be a good reference. There are dozens of ways that time travel could work, and it does a pretty good job at providing some ideas for each of them while staying pretty clear of the GURPS rules themselves.

[Aquillion]

You can't really incorporate time travel into a game... At best, you can incorporate dimensional travel that sort of vaguely resembles time travel. Incorporating actual time travel would require that the DM already knows what his players are going to do in the past, before they do it.Human time travel isn't real, at least not yet. There is no one definite set of rules for 'actual' time travel. Just because games tend to go all Timey Wimey Ball (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.TimeyWimeyBall) doesn't mean you're not incorporating time travel into your game.

It helps a great deal to set restrictions on the time travel available to the players. For instance, if they can only travel to an era 2000 BC, it becomes much easier for the DM to handwave things they do into existing continuity, if that's how they're playing it. Even if they kill a major historical figure, well, it got covered up... or whatever.

You can pull out Clock Roaches (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClockRoaches) to keep the players in line (or as a sort of 'temporal inertia' that fixes the problems the players cause to keep things from changing), or implement a 'time paradox (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TemporalParadox) = universe eventually goes BWEM if you don't fix it' rule to give the players good motives (useful if the players are some sort of time police, say.)

Depending on how things are set up and the rules you establish, the DM can pull a You Already Changed the Past (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouAlreadyChangedThePast) out of his ass by making up events between the change and the 'present'.

Or you can just go all Timey Wimey Ball, like I said, and make it up as you go (sometimes You Already Changed the Past, sometimes Clock Roaches put it all back in line, sometimes you can change things freely and the world changes back in your timeline, aside from your Ripple Effect Proof Memory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory) and anyone else who has a ripple-effect proof memory... You get the idea.)

Speaking of which, the original poster should probably read the list of Time Travel Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravelTropes). It might give you some ideas.

[turkishproverb]

Is this what you mean? (http://www.geocities.com/sege1701/TimeLord/main.htm)

A better version, including rules for creating more complex characters and experience is here (www.torsononline.com/hobbies/timelord/main.htm)