Chrono Master?

[Eric J.]

I'm simply asking for a yes or no.  Is there an RPG completelley devoted to time traveling?

[Paul Czege]

Eric,

Yes. I know of at least three.

Paul

[Eric J.]

{Restarting search for original concept}

[Le Joueur]

{Restarting search for original concept}

If you're going to abstract every idea down to something like "an RPG completely devoted to time traveling," then there are no "original concepts" (at least not playable ones).  You see, using that simplistic a description is like deciding to 'reinvent the wheel' because someone already thought of 'something that goes round and round.'

I mean, think about it.  Time travel?  There really are an infinite number of ways you can create that, no two even that similar.  Examples?  Quantum Leap (about a guy who travels into other peoples' bodies and solves their personal problems) or Back to the Future (a humorous romp with a one-of-a-kind time machine, messing with one's own history) or Time Squad (bumbling temporal enforcers crossing swords with anachronistic famous historical figures) or Time Cop (for you action fans) or even Minority Report (knowing the future is as much about time travel as anything else).  The examples are legion and all very different.  (Heck ours is going to be a little Time Squad mixed with some Voyagers with a significant twist.)

The point is not to create an "original concept" but to create one that's compelling.  I challenge anybody to come up with an "original concept" as abstract as "devoted to time travelling" that isn't so alien that no one understands it (or so awful that no one is interested).  I double dare ya.¹

Fang Langford

p. s. If you want an original concept to gaming, I'm pretty sure I've never seen an NC-17 game about explicit sexual encounters (card games don't count).  Is that worthwhile?  You have to decide.

¹ I am reasonably confident it can't be done (or we'll wind up arguing over the semantics of "as abstract as").

[Eric J.]

I understand that, but I'm shure that Chrono Trigger ripoffs must be existant.  Would you give me the names of the RPGs that are based upon time travel?  My idea was that, throughout history (fantasy/science fiction) figures would be chosen that could access gates.  These people would be surrounded by unlikelley happenings and would have to fight a dominent element in their temporal circuit, to allow their temporal circuit to function.  This element would have to be dominent in history, and would have to influence the time circuit.  Each player could be a sort of Chrono-hacker, that could travel through history, battling other Chrono-hackers (that want to use their power for personal gain) and other such things.  The potentials should be obvious.  First:  It allows for each campaign to be epic.  The GM and players would have to create their own time circuit (universe, complete with timeline).  Each player would be from a different era, and have corresponding powers.  It would allow for a perfect mix of fantasy and science fiction, and fuffil the needs for players to have complete controll of their own setting.  I was thinking of portals existing in the periods that mattered for this conflict that would allow access.  Each portal would require something to access.  Solve a riddle/complete a historical event/get item/come to a greator understanding of something/ect.  This is highly Chrono Trigger esk.  but that's what I want, so there you have it.  It would fuffil a void that a huge market of Role Players are missing: imagination.  This does not mean creativity by any means, but it does mean that I think that people are too setting oriented with a system instead of theme-oriented.  This leads to endless conflicts.  See associated Star Wars thread.  Usually a setting is dominated by major events associated with a few characters.  I would really enjoy working on such a game, but I just don't know how such a potential could be perpetuated with such a clique idea.

More importantly: I'm depressed, as I've come to a writers' block in my system.  I feel that my resolution mechanics/the concept/ characters/premise/ect. is too repetitive with nothing to inspire new role-players looking for something different.  I pride my individuality above most humans and to me, this is very frusterating.  I repetivilley find this problem, and have thrown away a book I was writing because of it.  (That's over 100 pages, double spaced, in microsoft word, in 14. point font right there.)  I'm in dire need to make something that people, other than I, would have fun playing.

I'm attempting to aspire this thread to a new level.  Elaborate at will.  What experience does the industry have with time games, and can mine be any different...

[hive]

p. s. If you want an original concept to gaming, I'm pretty sure I've never seen an NC-17 game about explicit sexual encounters

Kama Sutra: A roleplaying game about role playing.


"All my sensitive areas fail their resist rolls. This dominatrix scene is going to get intense..."

"My stamina's 17. I want to make a called shot"

"How can such a large black thing have such a high speed factor?"

This might just be a rpg book you get for the artwork. Cue the porn musick...


-
h
www.internalist.com

[hive]

A couple of socratic questions that might help get you started in a direction:

1. Is there a grand scheme to time-space?
Maybe time-space is actually a large complex entity with cells of time circuits. Too much mucking around with CONTINUITY and the entity's survival is threatened.

2. Do adventures and campaigns revolve around What If's?
Hitler's brain in a jar! Nazis everywhere!
or
Prehistory never ended! Everyone fights dinosaurs!

3. Erasure of history? Can someone erase history by folding time-space?
New world never happened. Japan never happened. Internet never happened <gasp!>.

4. Deja Vu?
Time progresses (becomes faster to relative perception) or evolves (becomes smarter removing redundant happenings) or loops (didn't we just see that black cat?).

5. What age are you in?
If chrono-tech available to someone in Post-Industrial age they are going to view it differently that someone from the Dark Ages. Maybe labeling becomes different (magic vs. tech) or put a history stamp on when chrono-tech is known of (say 1977).

6. Real history?
World history is rich even if history class makes it out otherwise. Take significant people from history and make them travel the time-circuits. Even better, make characters from the players themselves and see what they would do with chrono-tech.

7. I/O?
Time goes one way. Everything is retroactive. Characters become trapped going into the past to solve a series of events (adventures) that will open the exit gate.

8. Hello...my name is you?
All characters are the same person just in alternate time circuits. Who are they going against? Why themselves!

These are just some suggestions to help spur you off the block. Use at you're own discretion.

-
h
"i wish i had a time machine, then maybe i wouldn't drink so much".

[Jürgen Mayer]

Would you give me the names of the RPGs that are based upon time travel?

Continuum http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/index.html
Time Master (1984) http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showbook&bookid=1630

[Bailywolf]

I must have been wafting about in lala land- is this thread a spinoff of an earlier thread?  I feel like I just poped into the middle of a conversation.

As for time travel, I'd say Continuum is the definitive time travel RPG... but perhaps the DrWho game Timelord is the most playable...

[Bailywolf]

OK everyone.  Read this story.  READ IT!  Greg Egan is one of the best idea men in SciFi today, and here he presents a ready made, no paradox time travel scheme complete with interventionsists trying to fix the past.

READ IT!  

http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/MISC/ORACLE/Oracle.html

the time travel concepts here (as well as the nature of the time traveler) would make a kickass rpg.

[wyrdlyng]

Would you give me the names of the RPGs that are based upon time travel?

Continuum http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/index.html
Time Master (1984) http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showbook&bookid=1630

And don't forget Feng Shui. Though the Time Travel is usually limited to certain locked periods the effects of temporal shifts are a large part of the game. (Such that PCs are some of the few who are immune and thus realize that things are not what they are supposed to be.)

[Paganini]

p. s. If you want an original concept to gaming, I'm pretty sure I've never seen an NC-17 game about explicit sexual encounters (card games don't count).  Is that worthwhile?  You have to decide.

It's called PORNO! It's up on a webzine someplace. Be afraid... be very afraid.

[Eugene Zee]

Pyron,

Time travel is a tricky concept because the very nature of it can be very complex.  But there are an number of ways to write it, just be careful that you don't delve too far into the madness.  It is so easy to get carried away with concepts that "make sense" that you can have a bloated game that is unplayable.

As far as a writer's block try this.  Write about something else in your life.  An item or person will do.  When you are writing relax and try to let the familiarity flow into your work, making it easy.  You should know the concept, item or person well enough that the words write themselves.  Don't edit it or re-read and keep writing until you feel better.  Don't stop once the words start coming out.  Then take two aspirin and call me in the morning. :)

[Mike Holmes]

(I thought there was a XXXenophille RPG in addition to the card game. Do I misremember?)

Also, GURPs has, I think, two supplements out on Time Travel now. In shich they discuss how to get the "no Paradox" version mentioned above. In addition to Timelords there was an actual Dr. Who RPG (If Eric says, "What's Dr. Who", I will have to despair for today's youth).

In addition, Eric, there are a whole slew of multi-dimensional games in which one seems to switch periods if not actual times. For example, Rifts, Multiverser, Rob's Game (Million Worlds?), and TORG. And more abstract stuff like "Tales From the Floating Vagabond". Tempus Fugit seems to be a theme of Over the Edge. ("You wake up in a harem, lying on a titanic fuscia cushion covered with razorbacked frogs the size of labrador retrievers, while a blob of quivering yet somehow sentient protoplasm hovers above you looking like its considering if you're edible, and might drop down on you to check any moment now.")

Role-players are missing imagination? Hmmm, that doesn't jibe with my experience.

Like Fang said, nothing new under the sun. So who cares, do it anyhow. By the way, I'm not sure what Chrono Trigger is, but assuming that its a copyrighted property, I'll bet you don't have a license for it. So any Rip-Offs will be illegal, and the moderators might get concerned. What you're supposed to say is that Chrono Trigger is an influence, along with other stuff in creating a totally different RPG. Besides, to just rip it off wouldn't be very creative, anyhow, now would it.

Mike

[mahoux]

First off...

I have read PORNO! and I totally agree.  I nearly wet my pants with laughter (and it was at work, so there's a double whammy).

Secondly, my favorite idea about time travel is in of all places Stephen King's the Langoliers.  While the basic thought is that time exists as moments, and as soon as a moment is over, the backgrounds are eaten away by some temporal force while living beings are fluid through time.  Therefore, the past cannot be changed as it has become a fixed reference point and all parties have moved on.  That's where I stop using thestory, because making time travel to the future the only possible siyuation makes things a lot cooler.  Players have to think out their actions and can see how things play out in the future.  However, if they screw up in their decisions, they can't fix the past.  At least they themselves can't.

That gives me an idea for a Sim Exploration of Situation game.  Bye for now...

Aaron[/quote]