Post/Author/DateTime	Post
masterjoda999 12-07-07, 07:38 PM	I'm trying to put together a campaign that uses time travel as a big theme, but being a very inexperienced DM, I don't know how to set up such a story, or how to handle the time travel shenanigans. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Radijs 12-07-07, 07:52 PM	Well, my first tip would be, dont. Time travel, though really cool is very very difficult to DM. And if you don't have enough experience its a recipy for disaster. But if you are going to go on with it, restrict everone's ability to travel through time. Don't let your PC's go back an hour to warn themselves of the trap they just walked into. Because that will mean a quick end to causality and hello migraine!
Drohem 12-07-07, 09:16 PM	You may want to define the limits and ramifications of time travel in your campaign world. If you don't have a god with the sphere of Time, then you may want to create one. You could then use the god of time to step in and set things right if the players screw up the timeline. The god may limit the use of time travel or the distance traveled forward or backwards in time. The god may not allow a time traveler to be within a certain radius of himself to avoid time catastrophes, etc.
Shadowhowler 12-07-07, 09:27 PM	Buy a DeLorean and punch it to 88 mph. Weeeee!!!
boozerker 12-07-07, 10:44 PM	1.21 gigawatts?! 1.21 gigawatts?! The only thing that can generate 1.21 gigawatts of confusion is a D&D time travel scenario. A what? A D&D time travel scenario. Unfortunately we never know when or where one's going to be DM'd! We do now. Great scott! This is it! :D Hey, railroading is usually frowned upon, but in the case of time travel it might work wonders. If the PCs attempt to change history, they might find the universe heals the time/space continuum by reshaping events and presenting obstacles so that history remains intact. And if the PCs attempt to warn their past selves, who controls the "past" PCs? The DM does. So who's to say the PCs will believe them and not suspect the future PCs to be doppelgangers? Just saying. What's anyone else's opinion?
ppirilla 12-07-07, 10:56 PM	Especially since you're inexperienced as a DM, if you really want to go this route, I suggest you limit the time travel somehow. The easiest thing to do would be to force only one direction of time travel, though that rather limits what you can do. The PC's saw a major catastrophe, then were sent back in time, getting a chance to prevent it. Another option is to take the Chrono Trigger approach: define a few distinct eras each long enough apart that only major events will affect subsequent ones. Make it very difficult at first to switch eras, and then things get progressively easier in that regard. Time travel is very tricky to run. Since you don't know what your players are going to do, it's very easy to get stuck in a paradox.
masterjoda999 12-08-07, 02:09 AM	Oh, dang, I probably should have mentioned this in the first place: the PCs will have to come across time portals to specific eras to travel through time, like in early chrono trigger, not go where and when they want to like in late chrono trigger.
Radijs 12-08-07, 05:02 AM	I have never seen or played chrono trigger.
Amon_V 12-08-07, 05:59 AM	Well, Time Travel is insane, and any advocate of a 'mechanical world' type of game turn pale and shudder at the notion of what time travel can do. You can read five pages of my objections in the Time Travel and D&D thread in this forum somewhere. Anyway, the problem is you need to decide how to interpret Time Travel. Is it just a tool to gather information (kind of like a learning trip) that answers questions? It is the Alpha and Omega that results in everyone running on the portals and trying to take over eternity? Does changing it create a different reality, or does it simply take the traveler to a different timeline that existed all along? To play time travel you need those kinds of rules. Unfortunately, they don't exist in any book. You'll have to decide what they are, and then act on them. Remember that you are building a multiverse out of them, and so you need to recognize that your rules will create the framework of your D&D campaign. The best I can say is that you need to know how time travel works before you can do anything with it.
Empirate 12-10-07, 08:36 AM	Please, don't do it. Simple as that. DMing a time travel campaign gave me headaches to last a year. This wasn't D&D, but a heavily houseruled version of Hârnmaster 2, but the game system isn't important. It was actually only the last 10% of the campaign (which lasted 4.5 years... as far as I know! I'm not to be held accountable for paradox lengthening or shortening this time span). The PCs were in a state outside reality, making it possible for them to exist twice in the same general spot of space-time at once. They were able to go anywhere and everywhere they themselves had been "before", but only if the occasion was tied to their being in mortal danger. Once there, they usually had to find a way to prevent themselves from being killed, on top of whatever else they wanted to do then and there. The PCs were very important for the world, because they had brought about/were bringing about/virtan hain gebroughtan aboutan something that was decisive to how a junction in universal history played out. Thus, if the PCs were killed, paradox would destroy the universe. However, this didn't make it impossible for the PCs to die... Much in that world was based on a "let's assume they survived" scenario. If the PCs were in mortal danger, the universe just assumed that they had survived, hoping for the PCs to fix the problem "later". In actuality, there was only one instance in which the PCs couldn't have survived of their own, which I had done deliberately. Otherwise, they didn't die. Had they died (as in TPK), I'd have said "OK, so in this version of your universe, creation has just been undone. Congratz, gentlemen, nice playing with you." However, they had the grace of passing some nasty save-or-dies I put in there. I could probably have gone along with only one or two PCs dying, though, without endangering the whole campaign. The PCs finally managed to put together a contraption that allowed them to exist outside their own universe, but able to pop into it now and again. The popping-in was bound to "weak spots" in the fabric of the universe, spots that had been generated by the PCs almost dying. At these spots, the universe was literally only held together by assumption and good intention. The PCs could do whatever they wanted at these spots, but couldn't leave the spots' general space-time proximity. I.e., they could pop up at any place around a quarter mile from their own former near-death, and they could only arrive up to 10 minutes prior to, automatically being ejected around 10 minutes after, the event. They usually had to find a way to prevent themselves from being killed... eventually. At some points, they actually did nothing to save themselves, but did other stuff. This way, they didn't give up the "weak spot", meaning they could find it again "later". The understanding was, however, that all "weak spots" must be fixed before the final solution to the whole campaign could be sought. Furthermore, the universe helped the PCs along a bit, by providing the means of time travel. However, the PCs still had to use time travel in order to iron out the logical flaws of their acquiring these means. I.e., they needed to use time travel to guide their former selves to the places and bits of knowledge necessary to acquire a time traveling device. The whole story played out thus: At one point long before they even knew time travel would be an issue, I set the PCs a trap, which they promptly stumbled into. They honestly thought they'd die now, but miraculously, some doubles of themselves arrived from the future, saving their butts, and handing out some rather cryptic advice. I DMed the future selves as NPCs at that point. Now, the PCs knew there was going to be time travel, and they knew they'd have to travel back and save their former selves, so the universe wouldn't collapse in paradox. Later, they received one very important letter written by their future selves, telling them to go there-and-there and definitely be there on such-and-such date. This later proved to be a point of highly important information-gathering, as well as the place when and where they defeated the guy they thought was the campaign's BBEG... and learning that things were, in truth, far more complicated. Later, I simply skipped the part at which they learned how to travel through time. Instead, I simply told them where they were now, and that many and difficult adventures had brought them there, and that they only succeeded because of timely help by their own future selves. Part of this help had been in giving certain important hints as to how time travel functionality. I described to them how time travel worked (much too complicated to write about now - it all made sense, sort of). I railroaded them in a way, by simply saying "you did it". But, the thing is, I didn't tell them how they had succeeded - and the PCs now had to ensure their former selves (now NPCs) found their way to where the PCs were now. You could say the PCs shifted about their former selves like chess pieces, or that they "railroaded" them; although "laying a trail of crumbs" would be more accurate. So, after thus miraculously acquiring the means of time travel, the PCs found they could go to certain moments in the campaign (and a very few other moments), in which the whole quest had been in danger. They also found a very good reason to write said letter, and write it much the way I had presented it earlier. They traveled back in time to save themselves from said trap, and delivered said cryptic advice. They thought about what to do, and finally decided they must teach their former selves how to do time travel. They knew their former selves simply didn't have the means to acquire time-traveling capability (I had leveled them up and aged them somewhat for the time-skipping part). Much traveling was done, and much information given former selves... who sometimes had to be guided by letters to be there-and-there. For example, the PCs would disguise themselves as angels, and travel to one PC's childhood, to save him from a sudden fever. Once there, they employed healing magic, but also gave a letter to the PC's father ("to be opened no sooner nor later than his twentieth birthday - under threat of divine wrath"). On his 20th birthday, the former-self-PC would open the letter, which contained potent poison. Once again, the PCs had a "weak spot" to travel to. They saved the PC from the poison (arriving a few minutes early, disguised, snatching the letter from his hand). Then, they were free to plant more information... and so on. They put together complicated chains of near-deaths, only foiling them at the last instant, in order to make the PCs come upon certain events and informations. Finally, they needed to confront the BBEG, so they sent one former-self-PC there to fight him. Alone, that PC couldn't match him, so near-death again - and in stepped the whole group of future PCs, surprising the crap out of the BBEG, who hadn't even half finished his plans yet. The death of the BBEG made the whole paradoxical time-travel thing unnecessary as well as dangerous to the universe. So the universe retconned things in order to erase the whole episode, which was what the PCs had been after the whole time. Their own lives would be much more peaceful this time around. However, each of them secretly left a letter for his own self in order to give him certain nuggets of information: "Francesco, don't go on a crusade, it's a stupid idea that will cost you much of your youth and health. Learn magic instead, much more potential!" "Arthure, the formula you seek for calling up the spirits of the dead is such-and-such. Never underestimate the power of friendship. There's one guy called Francesco at the abbey, he should make a great friend. Just sit out the starting difficulties, it really is worth it!" "Angelo, the woman of your dreams is living in the mountains of Calabria, in the village so-and-so. She is all you ever wanted, and more, so stop farting around and travel there. And call your first son by her 'Francesco'." If you didn't understand the above description, you probably shouldn't DM a time travelling scenario. If you did, you've probably come to the conclusion that it's too much of a headache. Hope you enjoyed the read!
Silversheen197 12-10-07, 12:11 PM	As a couple people have mentioned, if you're adamant about doing this, don't give the PCs free reign. A couple of things to think about to make it easier: 1. Have you played Zelda: Ocarina of Time? Link must use the temple of time to warp, and he can only go to two time-locations: the "present," and "exactly seven years before the present." This will make things much easier on you. Establish a few space-time locations that are far enough apart, and require portals be used to get between them. Also, the portals should travel at the same speed, so if the PCs jump from Time-Spot 1 to Time-Spot 2 and remain there for a week, then jump back to Time-Spot 1, a week should have passed. 2. Past events have already happened, even if you haven't done them yet. If I were to go back to 1943 tomorrow and try to assassinate Hitler, you could tell me today to not waste my time, because I will obviously fail, because Hitler wasn't assassinated in 1943, now was he? Use this view of the space-time continuum to your advantage: It doesn't matter what craziness your PCs come up with, came up with, or are going to come up with, they won't see any repercussions in any future Time-Spots because those events have already been taken into account (even if the PCs haven't done them yet). 3. Separate knowledge of what's going on across several Time-Spots so that the PCs can't just stay in one location, complete everything, then move on. Like Ocarina of Time again, Link had to travel back and forth in time to get everything he needed; only a kid could get into the well or the Spirit Temple, so he needed to find a way to get into those hard-to-reach-as-a-kid places in order to advance his mission as an adult. 4. Just for fun, throw in some paradoxes! To take another example from Ocarina of Time, you learn the song of storms from the organ grinder inside the windmill...who told you he heard the song first from some meddlesome kid who played it and destroyed his mill! Where did the some come from? Link heard it first as an adult from a guy who heard it first from Link as a kid! At one point in your past-most Time-Spot, require special weapons to be acquired to defeat an enemy. When the PCs go to the future to find out how the enemy was defeated, they learn of the ancient heroes (themselves) who used weapons of power...and this old tomb of theirs holds those weapons! The PCs raid their future tomb, and take the weapons that they need...so where did the weapons come from initially? Hope that helps! Time Travel can be a major pain, but it can be a whole lot of fun if you do it correctly!
Escef 12-10-07, 12:17 PM	Official AD&D 2e Chronomancer Rules. (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/chrono.rtf) They could use some tweaking, but a lot of the work is done for you.
SkyOdin 12-10-07, 01:59 PM	Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=950900) is a recent thread on this topic. I have been thinking about running a time travel campaign myself eventually. The Chrono Trigger time portal idea is a good one. Borrowing ideas from Chrone Trigger is good period. The most important thing about time travel campaigns is to remember that the whole point is that the PCs can change history for the better. To that end, it is best if they themselves are immune to changes in the timestream. I suggest you gleefully ignore the problem of paradox.:)
Valthonis 12-10-07, 02:08 PM	I have never seen or played chrono trigger. You poor, poor person. :weep:
Shaftiel 12-10-07, 02:47 PM	If you are serious, go out and buy GURPS Time Travel. You might have to hunt a bit because I think it's been out of print for a while, but it's an award winning rulebook on how to run time-travel based campaigns. Almost all of it is applicable to any system and it will positively, absolutely help you. I've run a bunch of time travel D&D campaigns and when they work, they're awesome... and when they don't, well, you can always start another campaign... -Shaftiel