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Wag
 
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So. I've had a few conversations about the possibilities of running a time-travel based LRP, and most of the time they end in the assumption that it's completely unworkable.
And then I had an idea. It would have to be quite big, perhaps small fest/large event size (100-200 people) to make it really fly, but there's all sorts of possibilities.
Essentially, the setup would be thus: At some point in the future, technology has advanced to the point where it is now possible to open a gateway between the "present" and any point in the past. It requires an increasing amount of power to penetrate further into the past, but in theory any time is possible. The organization responsible for the project (private business, government agencies, whatever) are now on the verge of sending people into the past to discover what it is possible to achieve using this technology.
We achieve this by setting up two IC camps. One is set in our high-tech future (which we call "Core Time"), and the other is in the past (which we call "Target Time"). It takes time for the technicians to set the gate up, and once the two timelines are connected they proceed parallel to each other - so if 5 minutes pass in Core Time, then 5 minutes pass in Target Time. This takes out the first and most annoying part of Time Travel - the question of why the travelers have to worry about time in their target period.
The Target Time to which the gateway leads changes each event (since the techies have weeks to set up the machinery between events). It could be Renaissance one event, modern-day the next, and then early medieval the next. For this reason, players produce 1 character in Core Time (the "core PC") which they can play at any event, and a second PC native to each Target Time. You can play either, although obviously not both at once. This is especially useful since your core PC doesn't necessarily have to be a time traveler, so if you decide you want to be a technician or pen-pusher in Core Time you can still get some costume action as your other character.
Potential Pros:
- Mix of Sci-fi and Historical action
- Multiple characters to allow a variety of playing experiences over a weekend
- Nice and simple time-travel mechanic. Go into the gate, be in the past. Nothing too complicated.
- Time travel is just damn cool
Potential Cons:
- Lots for players to take in
- Each time period means new costumes, new set dressing, and so on - could be very expensive
- Some physics flanging may be necessary to get around some temporal problems
- Time travelers will be basically be gods, if they decide to pull out the kit and using it
What do people think? It's just a germ of an idea at the minute, and I seriously doubt that I'll ever have the time to run it.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Lord Nasir Suran
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner
RL - Will Robinson
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Heroic Knight
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| Nice idea. It could get expensive though. (Flangy physics bit) If a gateway is opened into the past, it creates a ripple in space/time. This ripple makes it impossible to open another gate near the first one in time/space. Stops the problem of time jumping to stop problems. Could also create more plot. (team stuck for a year, while they wait for a new gate to be opened)
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Heroic Knight
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Is time travel intended to be
a) a mechanism to allow the action to take place in a wider variety of settings? (as in most TV sci-fi)
or
b) a fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of cause-and-effect? (as in some literary science fiction)
Case a, while moderately cheesy, is probably more amenable to traditional larp, especially of the story-driven variety. I'd suggest taking some hints from Dr Who and simlar shows as to how to preserve the dramatic form through genre conventions. Basically you need a decent blag for 'why can't we go back to just before our enemies started their plans and wipe them out' and similar paradox-inducing questions.
Case b is likely to be more interesting to dedicated science fiction fans, philosophers, and so on, but less engaging to everyone else. Players might legitimately travel from sunday morning back to friday evening within the same event. Everything that happens at the event could potentially unhappen, perceptions and memories might be mucked around, and complete confusion will reign. I anticipate a vast amount of ref-intervention going on, unless you can come up with some ingenious way for players to resolve consequences for themselves.
(chris)
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Wag
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| Its workable on smaller scale as well... same rationale as above just, not a fest scale. Basically, each event the players are sent to that time by thier 'time agency' from core time to a point in the past to solve a problem. Sort of a bit like Time Cop or Sapphire and Steel. Players are all core timers, NPCs are all 'locals' or renegade core timers or whatever. Running the fest with two lots of PCs could be logistically a problem but in principle is possible and could be interesting. I suppose the nearest existing parallel would be the 'Old worlders'/'native' split in Maelstrom. What may be even more interesting (for the fest scale, mainly) would be if the core timers don't necessarily know what time they are arriving in until they get there. You run two seperate games - with seperate background briefs. You only tell the 'locals' the stuff about the time period and only after they have confirmed that they are playing that side of the game. The core timers may have a vague idea due to the amount of energy they are using (its about 14th century - I reckon the level of accuracy seen in carbon dating where they can get it within a few hundred years is about right   but not the specific year. It is an experimental tech, after all... leads to at least some amusement when the players try to work out the exact year. Especially if they have to try to dress for the right period somehow... Are you planning on having some form of 'masquerade' in place where time travellers are forbidden to reveal themselves to anyone from the past? That is another potentially interesting plot device as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Heroic Knight
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Not sure that I've got anything useful to add in the way of suggestins but I can say wow that sounds cool. Its an idea I'd love to see work and although currently very jaded with lrp if it was at a fairly easy to acess location if it runs then I'm interested.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Life, meh!
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Wag
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Ravensbourne (6/26/2006)
Is time travel intended to be
a) a mechanism to allow the action to take place in a wider variety of settings? (as in most TV sci-fi)
or
b) a fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of cause-and-effect? (as in some literary science fiction)
I hate to say it, but in my head it's more the former. I really can't see how we'd be able to make the latter work properly, unless there was some flange reason why the "ripples" of what people do take time to have an effect.
Balor - part of the idea is that everyone has 2 characters all the time - kind of like (possibly mandatory) event-specific secondaries. You can only ever play one or the other, however. The other idea I had was that for some IC reason, it's impossible for people to go "back the other way." Perhaps time-travellers have some kind of tracking implant or similar technowizardry, which is used to track them so they can be recovered. The reason for this is to enforce the whole divide between PC types - the only ones which go on from event to event would be the Core Time PCs. We'd need at least a minimal crew to play Target Time PCs, as well - I'm fairly sure there'd be a few players who wouldn't want to bother with a Target Time PC.
Also I thought we might have a whole bunch of different organisations being involved in the "project" - corporations, governments, and so on. So all the Core Time PCs have their own factionalisations and their own agendas. Hopefully this'd resolve some of the cheesey smell that emanates from crap time travel films.
Xellpher - I was thinking of something quite similar, actually. Between that and the need to spend weeks resetting the technology to a new time period, it'd give events a definite "only this one opportunity" kinda feel.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Lord Nasir Suran
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner
RL - Will Robinson
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Prodigal
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| How do you handle players changing/messing up the timeline (killing important people, or their grandfathers)? What sort of aims do they have, and who/what are the antagonists? Other time travellers? (perhaps even from their own future) It has some parrallels to stargate as a setting.
------ PD: St. Legion the blessed, ' "If you're a loyal eidolon, where were you when we killed the first-born?" RW: Ketta Sheng "Girls are evil. They break your heart, and then your spear, and then they get killed" EOS: Hasib Suran: "Yes, older brother, it's your choice. I only advise you." TNN: Druid Coran: "Do not heckle me, witch!"
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Wag
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chalicier (6/26/2006)Balor - part of the idea is that everyone has 2 characters all the time - kind of like (possibly mandatory) event-specific secondaries. You can only ever play one or the other, however. The other idea I had was that for some IC reason, it's impossible for people to go "back the other way." Perhaps time-travellers have some kind of tracking implant or similar technowizardry, which is used to track them so they can be recovered. The reason for this is to enforce the whole divide between PC types - the only ones which go on from event to event would be the Core Time PCs. We'd need at least a minimal crew to play Target Time PCs, as well - I'm fairly sure there'd be a few players who wouldn't want to bother with a Target Time PC. Exactly my point - you play one or the other each event and you need to make the decision before you are told what the time period is therefore keeping the mystery. Ok, it may mean that those choosing the target time PCs will not know what they can play until after they commit but it does add a level of uncertainty and mystery for the core time players.
Also I thought we might have a whole bunch of different organisations being involved in the "project" - corporations, governments, and so on. So all the Core Time PCs have their own factionalisations and their own agendas. Hopefully this'd resolve some of the cheesey smell that emanates from crap time travel films.
Oh yes, for a fest scale event you would need many factions in order to justify why so many people were involved in the project.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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