Future Perfect: Narrativist Time Travel

[mahoux]

Okay, so here's my first "official" post for Future Perfect.  I'm not doing any actual work on it until I finish with my classes, so there.  Nyah.

The Premise:  Here is the Narrativist start.  Just because we can change the future, should we?  How far are we willing to go for our country?

Originally, I was going to do this game as a sim style rpg.  But then something in me started buzzing, and that buzzing started screaming "Narrativism, try it."  And as I looked at the game more, it just begged to be Narr.

The story:  It is the year 2225, and Einstein's theories have been expanded.  Thanks to NASA experiments in the early 21st century, studies in the potential of the human mind and good old tax dollars, time travel is possible.  Of course it is future only time travel, as faster than light is not possible- yet.  The government of the US has set up a cabinet level department - the Office of Temporal Affairs.  Charged with national security and intelligence work, the OTA acts as something out of Minority Report and Timecop.  Precogs monitor the future for any threats to the US, foreign and domestic.  Teams of agents are dispatched either in the current time or into the future to protect the US.  By any means necessary.

Players will take on the roles of these agents, normal or psychic, and do these missions for the gov't.  Mucking through time and affecting the future in potentially massive ways.

The Mechanics:  Players have general stats, broken down in Body and Brain.  They assign points to each stat and use the points to generate skills.  The skills are generated by the players, for example gymnastics, shooting, engineering, linguistics, precog ability, telepathy, fast learner, photo memory, historian, etc.  This allowas the players to customize the game.

Task resolution is #d6 in stat (keep highest) plus skill level (if applicable) plus d6/2 Luck or PSI mechanic (if desired), gauged against a target number generated by the GM (from 1 to 12).  If you beat the TN, you succeed, if not you fail.

Luck is for normal characters (no para ability).  PSI is the corresponding mechanic for telepaths, precogs, telekinetics.

Luck and PSI are X factor mechanics to add to the game.  Narration of a scene goes automatically to someone who uses this mechanic, win or lose.  Narration by player only happens if s/he succeeds, if no Luck or PSI used.  

Dilemma:  The dilemma for Future Perfect is Constancy.  By mucking about through time, players are messing with the natural order of the Universe.  If they generate enough Constancy points against them, then the Universe basically goes against them.  They find themselves in lethal situations until; they are out of the equation.

So, how does this sound to the Forge folk out there?

Aaron Houx

EDIT:  I forgot to mention, the one nice thing about this game is that the GM can use Constancy issues to keep building stories for the players.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

What if instead of traditional Task Resolution, you worked with the central idea of the game?

That is, you can try just about anything using Time Travel (like, pick a lock...fail...study for ten years to become pick-lock-master-ninja...go back in time and try again). So what if the character's attribute scores represented the "wiggle room" the Universe was likely to give?

Here's a zany thought:

You gain Constancy Points (or whatever) by making things go your way. HOWEVER, you also gain them just by doing really well at something. Ummm...I'm thinking that you gain CP's when you succeed, with the # of CP's being the difference between the roll and your attribute. But going past your attribute and succeeding nets you twice that number.

The idea is that eventually, karma is going to bite you on the ass for being too damn bad-ass.

[mahoux]

Jared wrote:

The idea is that eventually, karma is going to bite you on the ass for being too damn bad-ass.

That's kind of the idea.  The more you think you can act with impunity, the sooner you start pissing off the Universe.  Then you're either dead at the Universe's hand or curled up in a fetal ball somewhere afraid to act.

As for the first part, I liked that in C0ntinuum, but I decided that Future Perfect - at least for now -  would be future only time travel.  Past travel is "impossible".  Plus I like the idea that huge actions in the future can have major repercussions just because you are moving in and out of the time flow.

The constancy point idea is kind of neat.  At present I'm thinking along the lines of GM fiat:  If your actions are likely to have some larger consequences, then you need to see whether your constancy generated is permanent or temporary.  So things like killing a bystander, or even a suspect, may have a problem down the line in the Universe's plans.  Even fathering a child in the future could be cause for constancy.

Aaron Houx

[xiombarg]

As for the first part, I liked that in C0ntinuum, but I decided that Future Perfect - at least for now -  would be future only time travel.  Past travel is "impossible".  Plus I like the idea that huge actions in the future can have major repercussions just because you are moving in and out of the time flow.

Okay, so, let me get this straight -- you can go forward, but you can't return to the time you came from? That would make the precogs you mention impossible -- at the very least, information has to be able to return to the "past" from the perspective of the future -- that is, the present.

If the PCs can return to the "present" this implies the ability to go into the past.

[mahoux]

xiombarg wrote:

That would make the precogs you mention impossible

My bad on the semantics.  The idea behind the precogs is kind of like Minority Report - people with big psychic powers sitting in a room getting visions.  No time travel and information relay through time, just visions.  Agents are then dispatched according to these visions.

Aaron Houx

[Le Joueur]

The idea behind the precogs is kind of like Minority Report - people with big psychic powers sitting in a room getting visions.  No time travel and information relay through time, just visions.  Agents are then dispatched according to these visions.

The problem here is, if information can travel into the past, that's only a piddling distance from people going back.

Important fact A is seen from the past and agents act upon it in the current era B.

Important fact A is

taken to the past by agents who act upon during B.

Important fact A is seen in era B and taken to era C and acted upon.[/list:u]It's really only a stylistic difference (and that can be the all-important factor).

Really, we went over this before, discussing Precognition and Pyron's Chrono Master.  Functionally, as 'story meat,' there's no difference between precognition and backwards time travel, just style.

Functionally, it's usually a gimmick to isolate the protagonist (I'm the only one who knows!) and pit him against everyone.  Science Fiction (vis a vis time travel) simply gives it the 'world depends on it' air, elevating the consequences.  One big drawback, and this will go doubly in your game, is if they can't 'come back,' how will their actions impact on anything that matters to them?  Won't each trip be essentially a suicide mission?  (As soon as you go, everything that ever mattered to you is gone forever to you.)

You bring up Minority Report, how is your project different?  The principles are isolated, but now in a world beyond their knowledge (like with backward travelling agents with bad research).  Is the point to travel even further forward and see the consequences of their own actions?

And what about the whole 'story now' prioritization?  I'm not really clear on how the players take part in actual story creation.  Are you expecting the act of narrating a scene alone to elevate it into Narrativism?  It doesn't necessarily; what's the 'kick?'  This isn't a challenge, I just want to know 'what is up.'  Say I'm a player, how do I 'make story' that I find compelling?  It sounds like I'm an 'island in time' with only vague orders cast out in a sea of time I'm unfamiliar with; what kinds of stories do you see me taking part in creating?

Kinda curious about all things time travel.

Fang Langford

[Jonathan Walton]

As for the first part, I liked that in C0ntinuum, but I decided that Future Perfect - at least for now -  would be future only time travel.  Past travel is "impossible".

Eventually, you're going to run out of story.  The characters have to keep moving into the future?  So, they eventually have less and less in common with the people around them?  What happens when they hit the year 3000 or something?  Are you going to detail the events of human history up until then or is the GM supposed to make all that stuff up?  It seems like a herd of time traveling lemmings leaping into the great abyss of the future, which is a great image, I'm just concerned about how you're going to pull it off.

Later.
Jonathan

[Mike Holmes]

I think, Johnathan, that there is no time travel. People recieve information from the future, and then they use it to change the future. So, I learn that Bob is going to assassinate Ted tomorrow. So, I wait til tomorrow, and go get Ted, and make sure he's safe.

Do I have that right?

As I'm fond of saying, we are all time travellers going forward in time. At slightly different rates, as it happens.

Mike

[greyorm]

Whoa, folks, calm down...don't get so jiggered up about the "time travel paradox! It isn't realistic!  AYIIIEEE!"  Crimminy, it's fiction.  So what if the "present" is set and the future is not...you can travel to the future, and come back to the present, because the present IS NOW, you're just a bit ahead of it.

You don't understand it? It's against common sense?
Good. There's a stack of scientific truths that defy common sense understanding, or did, but eventually the processes are understood and the reasons for the supposed "illogical behavior" are explained.

You sound like a bunch of ancients arguing that those "planet" stars can't circle the earth in a regular elliptical orbit, because they keep moving backward every so often!

So if someone were to set up a game and posit the above past-and-future-only, I'd say "more power to them!" and "quit whining!" Anyone wants to argue, I've a a 10-lb wet mackerel here I'm ready to smack you with (Whoo, I sound kind of like Jared!).

However, Aaron has already stated that there is no time travel per se, just "visions" of what will be, so it is a moot point, excepting that I disagree with Fang's assessment that it is functionally the same thing as time-travel. Just because I know I'm getting that utility bill in the mail tomorrow doesn't mean I'm travelling in time (in any fashion) by knowing that fact.

[Matt Snyder]

Ok, bear with me as I suggest this. All this time travel vs. precognition stuff got my head swimming, so maybe I'm suggesting the already stated or bloody obvious.

Jared suggested a neato idea wherein the players earn Constancy points for succeeding too well.

I offer up the inverse of that idea (well, kinda).

Ok, so the players are time cops who see the future (or at least their NPCs friends do) and they've got to do something about it, dammit!

Now, in lots of time travel story -- like even Minority Report -- the story becomes a lesson in free will and fate, blah blah blah. Man can choose his destiny, all that stuff. In those stories, the "bad thing" in the future isn't THE future, it's just a possible future. <gasp!>

Yawn.

Instead, why not have the balls to say the foreseen future IS the "real" future. Then, you're better situated to see Constancy as a bad thing to accrue.

So, the players find themselves in the ugly position to HAVE to take Constancy Points to save the day. Their actions are forcibly changing the path of fate or time. This ain't natural like.

So, you force players to "buy" constancy so they can be heroic. Then, perhaps you set up the mechanic such that how well they change the future ("how well" being perhaps "how subtly," or perhaps "how morally," or whatever, though you really should define that). So, yeah, they accept getting Constancy to do good in the future, but at least doing their deeds well earns them less Constancy.

Then, to turn it around, perhaps they see a vision later on in the game, and there's a "bad guy" timecop out there. They can take that Constancy they've accrued, and turn it back on that bad guy, thereby ENFORCING the future. Neato, it could work both ways.

[Le Joueur]

I disagree with Fang's assessment that it is functionally the same thing as time-travel. Just because I know I'm getting that utility bill in the mail tomorrow doesn't mean I'm travelling in time (in any fashion) by knowing that fact.

You're talking about predictions, that's a whole different matter.  'Knowing the future' only applies to the unexpected.  Remember that show where the guy kept getting the paper from one day in the future?  What was it called, Early Edition?  It was an interesting exploration of 'absolute time' and the various paradoxes with the theory.

Let me pose it a different way.  What is the difference between:

Learning that you'll be killed in a car accident tomorrow preventing you from developing the 'most loved' role-playing game ever.  And you stay home.

Someone else knows of you impending accident and travels back in time to ensure the role-playing utopia.[/list:u]In both, the future changes itself according to your needs in it.  The difference in the mechanism is trivial at best.

Fang Langford