Time Travel. The concept has perplexed philosophers and puzzled physicists. It has inspired movies and books from “The Time Machine” to “Back to the Future” and a multitude of others. So far though, most definitions for time are confusing, conflicting, and not very helpful; I hope to be different. I’m not going to define time using math or physics; they’re confusing and sometimes scary. I am not going to help you construct a time machine, because that is not appropriate for D&D. And I’m not going to give you specific spells or prestige classes; I will leave that up to each DM and how time works for each different campaign. What I am going to do is give you options, so you choose your own definition of what time is and how you will want it to work for your campaign. I do it this way so you won’t be limited by my definition of time, and because we don’t know how time really works.
Nature of the Timeline
The nature of the timeline is the heart and soul of time traveling and it is often forgotten. The nature of the timeline tells you what can be done, what can’t be done, and what shouldn’t be done. The biggest misconception on the nature of the timeline comes from not completely understanding that the laws that regulate the timeline don’t change from past to present to future. All of the timeline obeys the same laws and so no matter where you are in the timeline you are subject to the same laws.
The second biggest misconception is that some people believe that thousands of themselves exist in thousands of parallel timelines. This is a misconception because there can only be one timeline, the rest are “virtual timelines”; virtual timelines represent the infinite possibilities of one’s imagination. That is not to say that the timeline cannot change; but doing so does not splinter the timeline, creating parallel timeline.
Static timeline Vs Dynamic Timeline
On the nature of the timeline there are two possibilities: one possibility is the static timeline where time is represented by a stream or a river and that the course of time is predetermined. The other possibility is the dynamic timeline where time is symbolized by a string or a rope that can bend to our will. The static timeline and the dynamic timeline as presented represent opposites but they aren’t extremes. As you think about the nature of the timeline you want to use for your campaign, consider your own option of time, plot opportunities, and what works best with your campaign world.
Static Timeline
If you are traveling on a static timeline the first thing you would notice will be that traveling through time has little effect on it. This is because a static timeline is described as a river and that there are laws or rules that control the flow of time and, despite what you think or try, a static timeline cannot easily be diverted from its predetermined course.
The second thing you will notice will be that any serious attempt to make changes to the timeline will cause the timeline to actively oppose the changes you make; the end result will be different but it won’t be unrelated. If you happened to stop Thomas Edison from developing the light bulb, then Sir Joseph Wilson Swan would have. The electrical revolution brought about by the light bulb would have still happened only with little differences. The static timeline is great because it is predictable, reliable, and definite. However that is also its weakness: many would find it strict and controlling.
Dynamic Timeline
If you are traveling on a dynamic timeline the first thing you would notice will be that traveling through time changes it. This is because a dynamic timeline has no direction through time; there is no overarching control mechanism, no laws or rules as there is in the static timeline. Despite that, a dynamic timeline is not random or chaotic or an experiment in the Chaos Theory, doing so ignores the natural tendency of balance and control as well as human stubbornness and resilience.
The second thing that you will notice is that any serious changes to a dynamic timeline cascades throughout time and affects the entire timeline, whether big or small, for better or for worse. This signifies simple cause and effect: for example a time traveler somehow causes a commander to lose a war, causing a country to get overtaken and therefore an evil dictator now rules the country of the future. The dynamic timeline is great because of its freedom and adaptability. But this is also its weakness: uncontrolled and irregular.
Paradoxes
The fear of creating a paradox is the main reason why people get scared about time travel; it’s not when things go right but it’s when things go wrong. Most people define a paradox as “something that will destroy the universe and unravel the fabric of time” with that vague description it is easy to get scared and reject time travel. But what really is a paradox? It is when two facts prove each other false. A good illustration is that it is common knowledge that all objects within Earth’s gravity will fall at the same rate, and it is observable that a bowling ball will fall faster then a feather. This, like all paradoxes, can be satisfied by a third fact; which in this case would be wind resistance. With the classic Father paradox, one fact is that you’ve killed your father before you were bourn, and the second fact is that you never could have killed anyone because you were never bourn, and like all paradoxes, you’ll need a third fact to make everything right again. But because it is still a paradox, we can only theorize upon what the third fact will be.
Nothing
The simplest and easiest fact will probably be that nothing happens. This means that time travelers are disconnected for the timeline and are therefore immune to the results of paradoxes. This is more appropriate for the dynamic timeline.
Erased from History
Erased from history is where after you have created a paradox, specifically by compromising your existence as in the Father paradox, you will slowly disintegrate until either you have restored your existence whereupon you’ll recover, or it is beyond restoration whereupon you’ll disintegrate, and everything that you’ve changed will continue changed. If you have compromised the existence of any other person, place, or thing the same thing will happen. The speed in which you disintegrate depends on your chance of restoring your existence and the chance on restoring your existence might be different for everyone involved; therefore the speed of disintegrating might be different for everyone.
Square One
This is where a paradox causes time to reset, where you will have to repeat whatever it is you’ve done until it is done right; or to do it again without the person, place, or thing responsible for the paradox. The reset point could be when you last traveled through time, a couple of days/hours earlier, or some other appropriate time. This is more appropriate for the static timeline.
Ways of Traveling Through Time
The way you will be reaching other times changes the whole direction of the campaign because if getting to other times is simple then time travel becomes a commodity while the more difficult it becomes the more respect you will give it. The Ways of Traveling Through Time is independent of the nature of the timeline.
Freak Accident
The freak accident is the simplest; it requires little to no details or explanation. It could be an accident, a spell backfire, an intense desire or emotion, a planar trait, residual magic, fate, will of a deity, or a random event. It will best be used at the very beginning of an adventure or a campaign and used only as background flavor.
Tools – (Artifact, Room, Portal, or even a spell)
A Tool is a generic term for anything you have that you have at least partial control over that grants you passage through time, be it a Pendant of Time, Sundial of the Ages, or a Time Machine. A Tool can have any number of restrictions or components you can think of. A Tool might require a sacrifice of Gold, Experience Points, Blood, or some other component. A Tool might require assembling or even repairing, it might only be able to be activated at a specific place or time, a combination of two tools to grant passage through time; all would make great restrictions.
Access to the Timeline
This section describes how the players can access specific times in the timeline. Ways of Traveling Through Time and Access to the timeline are interrelated; one Tool could be attuned to every 1,000 years, while in the same campaign another Tool could be attuned to every Solar Eclipse.
Infinite Access
Infinite access to the timeline allows you to appear at any point in time, literally; any second, of any day, of any year, anytime.
Linear Access
Linear access allows you to travel to a predictable distance thought time like every 1000 years; or it could be a calculable pattern like a certain alignment of stars or planets; or it could be a chronological occurrence like every New Years Day. If you are using linear access in your campaign, you will need to consider the exit times. exit times means the time you will return to a time that you’ve left. There are three choices: Repetitious, Instantaneous, or Continuous.
Repetitious means that it doesn’t matter when you travel through time, you will always return at an exact time. Repetitious works best for a set destination like New Years Day, a Full Moon, or some other specific event.
Instantaneous means that you will always return almost Instantaneous to the time that you’ve already came from, no matter how long you’ve spent in other times.
Continuous means that the time spent in one time equals the time you are absent in all others, which means that time passes equally in all available times.
Sporadic Access
This method is close to Infinite, close to random. Sporadic access says that you can travel through time only to certain events scattered throughout time, either because the timeline is weaker at those points or there is something that attracts time travelers to those times: war, powerful emotions, will of a deity, fate… This gives you lots of control because this sends you only to the specific times where there is an adventure, without the possibility of a tangent as there is in Infinite access and without the necessary of the pattern in linear access. In sporadic access you will also need to consider the exit times which are the same as linear access.
Variants
Everything above are the rules, variants are the exceptions to those rules. Some variants change the nature of the timeline, others work to safeguard the campaign against the players, while others are nothing but interesting plot opportunities.
Time Number
The Time Number requires every person, object and event to have a theoretical number from 1 to 10 that tells of its importance to the timeline; the higher the number the more important it is to the timeline. To be more important means that you are unaffected by any event of lower importance, meaning that any person, object, or event that has a Time Number of 10 has all power over time, conversely anything with a Time Number of 1 is of no consequence to the timeline.
Everything is free to increase its Time Number but it shouldn’t be very easy. Maybe you can increase it by the amount of times you’ve traveled through time, or maybe you need to pass through a trial of some kind, or maybe a specific item could temporarily give you a higher Time Number.
Plane of Time Travel
The Plane of Time Travel is a place where you go when you are traveling through time; all time traveling for all time travelers will be done through this plane because the Plane of Time Travel is the place where the actual time traveling happens; Ways of Traveling Through Time only accesses this plane. The Plane of Time Travel could be almost anything; it could be a tunnel of some form, lined with clocks that you just float there until you reach your destination. Or it could be just like a city, and have special doors that lead to certain times and places. It is important to know that without the Plane of Time Travel, traveling through time would be instantaneous and uneventful.
Universal Law of Magic
This variant says that the laws that regulate magic change over time. Meaning that all magic, whether from magic users, magical items, or a monsters spell-like ability get sent to a time where the Universal Law of Magic is different, whether stronger or weaker, different components or a different spell altogether, then you will have to adjust to comply to the current Universal Law of Magic. Other Universal Laws might encompass other things; like technology, where any high tech gismos will work differently if they are taken to a time where the Universal Law of Technology is different.
Paradoxal Repulsion
This variant says that any event that has a possibility to cause a paradox are hard to do, the greater the chance the harder it is to do. The Paradoxal Repulsion could be a physical force: Closing a door requires physical exertion, your sword gets deflected, running takes a lot more effort. Or the Paradoxal Repulsion could be a mental force: you get dizzy, you start hallucinating, you forget things. Or the Paradoxal Repulsion could be a subtle unlucky thing: you trip, you drop your weapon, an old wound prevents you from casting spells. The Paradoxal Repulsion should stop a person from doing something she shouldn’t, instead of forcing them into something they normally wouldn’t.
Restricted Access Travel
Restricted Access Travel is where you are not completely in the time that you travel to, so you have to keep some restrictions to stay there; this restriction might come from either the Nature of the timeline or Ways of Traveling Through Time. It could be a time restriction where you only have so long to do what you want to do, or it could be a place restriction where you cannot leave a specific building or location. It could be that you need to maintain concentration to stay in another time; it could be a minimum HD requirement to stay in another time. If you violate your restrictions you could at best be forced back, or at worse anything else.
Time Ripples
This variant says that any changes to the timeline will not instantaneously rewrite time but will slowly ripple forward, rewriting time as it goes. This variant gives you time to do something about some time traveler in the past, or it might force you to stay a little longer in the past (to perhaps cause more problems).
Freestyle Travel
This variant restricts you to your body and the location you had at the time that you travel to, with whatever statistics, items, and defects you had at that time, meaning that you can only travel to times that you are alive and have a body to travel to.
Considerations
Whenever you are putting serious thoughts together about a time traveling campaign, there are a few things you’ll need to consider because it is not as easy as you would like to think it is.
Skills of Knowledge
How much does Knowledge (Current events - and perhaps some other Knowledge sub-skills like Nobility and Local) change now that you have traveled through time? The easiest way is that those skills don’t transfer to another time, but there are better ways.
One way that would fit well would be that for every 10 years that you travel away from your current time you take a -2 penalty on all related Knowledge checks.
Probably the best way though is to have Knowledge (Time) which replaces many of the Knowledge sub-skills which can be used in all times. A person can obtain Knowledge (Time) by a feat or class feature.
Another skill that needs to be considered is Speak Language. Does history speak the same language you do today?
Spells (and some monster special abilities, prestige class features and the like)
This consideration considers the spells and other time related effects that various people have made who did so with no familiarity with the Nature of the timeline; they are divided into two categories: Spells of Time Travel and Spells of Time Manipulation.
Spells of Time Travel allow you to travel through time like Temporal Regression (XPH), but spells that granted passage through time are considered part of Access to the timeline, and if it isn’t compatible with how you want to get to other times, then house rule the spells out.
Spells of Time Manipulation are spells like Time Stop. Spells such as these utilize time in one way or another, but they don’t grant passage through time, and so you can keep them if you want or modify them if you want
Ultimately, it is up to you as to what defines a spell as either a Spell of Time Travel or a Spell of Time Manipulation.
Your Player and your Campaign
Before you introduce time traveling into your campaign you’ll need to stop and think about your players. My experience has shown me a little wisdom which I’ll share a little with you now.
Don’t force the party through time. Time traveling is dangerous enough, but having no reason is even more dangerous.
Give control to your players–Simply railroading the party to avoid Paradoxes is a bad way to get the party through a well thought out time traveling campaign.
Don’t give too much control to your players –Some people don’t care for the consequences their actions have on the timeline, while others might care even less and treat time traveling as a world wide playground.
Be consistent –Be consistent in what you’ve decided on, especially for the Nature of the timeline.
Time Traveling for the DM
Time Travel. The concept has perplexed philosophers and puzzled physicists. It has inspired movies and books from “The Time Machine” to “Back to the Future” and a multitude of others. So far though, most definitions for time are confusing, conflicting, and not very helpful; I hope to be different. I’m not going to define time using math or physics; they’re confusing and sometimes scary. I am not going to help you construct a time machine, because that is not appropriate for D&D. And I’m not going to give you specific spells or prestige classes; I will leave that up to each DM and how time works for each different campaign. What I am going to do is give you options, so you choose your own definition of what time is and how you will want it to work for your campaign. I do it this way so you won’t be limited by my definition of time, and because we don’t know how time really works.
Nature of the Timeline
The nature of the timeline is the heart and soul of time traveling and it is often forgotten. The nature of the timeline tells you what can be done, what can’t be done, and what shouldn’t be done. The biggest misconception on the nature of the timeline comes from not completely understanding that the laws that regulate the timeline don’t change from past to present to future. All of the timeline obeys the same laws and so no matter where you are in the timeline you are subject to the same laws.
The second biggest misconception is that some people believe that thousands of themselves exist in thousands of parallel timelines. This is a misconception because there can only be one timeline, the rest are “virtual timelines”; virtual timelines represent the infinite possibilities of one’s imagination. That is not to say that the timeline cannot change; but doing so does not splinter the timeline, creating parallel timeline.
This is only one view of time. 'Timeline' is really a misstatement because it makes you think of events in a straight line. It also flies in the face of such works as Proteus Operation by James P.Hogan and the premise of how time works in the DC and Marvel comic universes.
Likely the most definitive RPG book on time travel in all its used incarnations is GURPS Infinite Worlds as it goes into the core themes used in time travel pointing out their strengths and weaknesses. Its all here: Fixed Time (you cannot change history), Plastic Time (history can be changed but there may be limits on how you can mess things up), Chaotic Time (Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder" is the poster child for this version), Time loops, Alternative Timelines, and Parallel Universe that simulate Alternative Timelines.
That said as a GM you must decide which version best suits your world. Once you settle on a version stick with it. One problem in comics is they set up rules about time travel and then promptly ignore or violate them.
I must say though, the first thing i thought of when i read this was the old cliché of the crazy Gnomish mage, messing with powers beyond his control. :P Certainly makes for an excellent plot hook when the PCs find a message in a newly excavated site that apparently has never been opened before, but has some sort of very recent artifact such as a local fad or craze! (ala the movie "Timeline")
Anyway, thank you again, and keep up the good work! ;)
No_Lynch
After I finished reading your response I started kicking myself. Thank you very much for pointing out to me that I gave a flawed example for my Static Timeline. Maybe I should change it into something about an unstoppable assassination.
The Ultimate Dragongod
I believe that you have also been a victim of my flawed example. What you said there was what I intended for the Static Timeline. Sorry.
Thanks. Juggernaut
1. A universe in which change is impossible. Events inextricably occur. In this example, if you dive in front of Lincoln to take the assassin's bullet, another assassin pops up to shoot him, or the same assassin just gets another one off. Of it turns out the real assassin was sitting right beside him. In this example, the event will occur no matter what. In this case, Lincoln will be shot by an assassin. When you try to prevent things, you realize that 'the strange man wearing strange clothes that tried to save Lincoln's life' was you all along.
2. When you try to change things you actually end up making them the same. When you push Lincoln out of the way of a bullet, you accidentally land on one of his friends' guns. The gun discharges, killing Lincoln. In this example, events are the important thing. Lincoln's death, no matter how it happened, is inevitable.
3. The timeline itself is protected by a group of creatures, knights, soldiers, angels, whatever. When you are on your way to saving Lincoln, you desperately need to go to the bathroom. When you sit down in the stall, four large men appear around you and proceed to mow you down with their guns. This is just an example. What actually happens is that the 'Knights of the Timeline' see what you do in saving Lincoln, and they travel in time to fix it. These people could be appointed by some god of time, or created by time as a representation of a 'time-fixing' mechanism, like time-antibodies.
But I answered to correct point 3. If there are Knights, Clerics, Sages, or just a concerned time traveler, working to (at very least) maintain the timeline, then I see that as an interest group and a DMs incentive for his own campaign; but it isn’t how The Nature of the Timeline works.
If there is anything preserving the timeline, like a monster or people erased from the timeline, that can be fought and sometimes defeated, then that is a Variant. Gods and Deities are on the border whither it is an interest group or if it is a preserver of the timeline.
I usually prefer to keep my players out of the loop on how time in my settings functions. It helps to avoid unusual questions and bad situations involving infinite wealth scenario or other abuses involving time.
I've always been very fascinated by time and its mysteries, and it is good to see my interests are shared. Time is a fantastic and exciting element that greatly enhances the fun of a game, I hope to see more time related material in the future.
The Manual of the Planes mentions the Temporal Energy Plane as a variant plane towards the back of the book. It suggests that anything able to fly against the plane's winds is able to travel back in time--ending up in the future is rather easy, but going back is implied to be impossible (but maybe not). Perhaps anything able to attain a minimum flying speed of, say, 300', can travel back in time through the Temporal Energy Plane.
The Quarut, a CR 17 inevitable listed in the Fiend Folio, is responsible for punishing those who violate space and time. While time travel is not explicitly listed, it would obviously be part of the Quarut's jurisdiction, and one or two of these could make an interesting BBLNG for a time travel campaign.