Author Topic: Story Idea I need help pulling off  (Read 2666 times)

Offline CaptFisher

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Story Idea I need help pulling off
« on: July 24, 2011, 03:44:57 AM »
So I am trying to work a 6th law violation story into my game...time travel stories always come with their own problems and difficulties staying consistent, and I don't want my players to be lawbreakers so they have to be able to fix things in linear time from their perspective.

The idea is to have them not face the story points linearly

Start with an attack by the bad guys this should get the players involved.
(they are beat up and weak but motivated)

The players then investigate the people who attacked them and begin to discover that time travel is involved.  They confront them and in fact introduce the idea of time travel to the practitioners. 

In an attempt to stop the players from turning them into the authorities they fight them agian and when they fail go back in time to stop the players from ever getting them involved.

"Thus I create myself"

The players then move forward and the bad guys are left stuck in a time loop of their own creation.

This is obviously very rough idea but i am looking for some help in ways to pull it off.  Suggestions and big pitfalls? 
 
Fairy tales don't teach children that monsters exist, children know that monsters exist.
Fairy tales teach children that monsters, can be slain.

Offline UmbraLux

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2011, 04:23:36 AM »
Caveat:  I'm not a big fan of time travel campaigns...haven't had the best experiences with them.  Because of that, I would keep the narrative linear - at least from the PCs' points of view.

That said, I'd send the group at the up front as you plan.  Make sure they see (but don't fight) some or all of them afterwords (even if they'd killed some).  Then, when you get to the final battle, have that same group sent back in time as a last ditch effort to stop them...right as they take out the main opponent.

In between those events, have the opponent show up (perhaps before they recognize him as the main opponent) on various occasions.  Some occasions he may simply be watching...learning their capabilities.  (I'd give him Assessment actions at those points.)  Mostly he shouldn't do anything overtly hostile.   But, eventually, he'll start casting spells.  Manuevers.  Setting up aspects for use in other times....

Beyond that, make liberal use of open ended forrshadowing...and emphasize all those which come true!  :)

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“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.”  - Albert Einstein

"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."  - Eric Hoffer

NicholasQuinn

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2011, 05:11:29 PM »
If you can pull it off, I think it'd be good. Especially as the players have to piece together the information they've gained, despite the fact they're recieved it in a muddled order. It would make for some interesting investigation. That said, it could be quite difficult to pull off; Umbra's advice seems useful.

I think the big bad should appear out of sequence at least once. I just think it'd be amusing that having already had a big confrontation with the big baddie, the next time the group meets him/her, he/she can't help but ask, "I'm sorry, but who the f--- are you?".

Other then that I don't really have any suggestions, but please, keep us informed as-to how it plays out. 

Offline Richard_Chilton

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2011, 08:22:55 PM »
Here's a link to a description of the ultimate self made man - all because of a little time travel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94All_You_Zombies%E2%80%94

Richard

Offline bibliophile20

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2011, 03:31:15 AM »
Here's a link to a description of the ultimate self made man - all because of a little time travel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94All_You_Zombies%E2%80%94

Richard

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Offline sinker

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2011, 03:33:34 AM »
I loved "By his bootstraps" but I never read that one, looks interesting.

Offline tetrasodium

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2011, 04:32:46 AM »
drwho 2005 (season/series 1) huge season finale spoiler:

Quote from: Bad Wolf
I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words...
...I scatter them, in time and space.
A message, to lead myself here.
You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them
Everything must come to dust. All things, everything dies.
Time travel only works if it's like the twilight zone episode where they try to go back and kill baby Hitler, only to have the nursemaid steal a neighbor baby to replace him before anyone notices and they get back deciding it's possible to change the past without knowing they were the one who might have let things play out as they did or if no matter player interference you can think of an outcome.  the other way is to have a traveller going the other way like River Song in doctor who where both sides know each other's futures but not pasts until later when one figures out. 

Of curse, if your players are doctor who fans throw in the badwolf speech to shake them :P
« Last Edit: July 25, 2011, 04:35:55 AM by tetrasodium »

Offline Silverblaze

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #7 on: July 25, 2011, 04:49:53 AM »
In general when it comes to time travel in any media as well as games my one rule is simple:

Don't.


I don't like it... unless handled very well and used sparingly.  If you can manage those two caveats, I say go for it...but plan ahead well.  I am negative enough about it I can't really contribute much other than to say, be sure your players are ok with a lot of thinking...potential paradoxes (paradoen, paradoxi?), and undoing reality.  Be sure you are to for that matter.  Time travel is a pain... best of luck.

Offline Haru

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2011, 05:11:47 AM »
Ok, here's some ideas on Time Travel. First of all: it will probably require a lot of bookkeeping, to keep it all straight, regardless of what way you will actually go with.

"Been there, done that."
A lot of times, when characters travel in time, they will get to a scene that they have already been at, only from a different perspective. The declaration method covers this beautifully, and a player could always say "hey, we might get here later and help ourselves in this fight, without us now knowing about it.". However, you can easily compel them in exactly that situation to act the way they declared before.
I would recommend using a timeline to fill in as you go, to keep track of where the characters are and where they have been.
In general, this goes great with a random-time-jump story device that the characters get somewhere, and it should probably be connected to the big bad. Let them fight the big bad early, and let them defeat him while he is trying his time travel ritual (thus making the whole situation worse). The characters get sucked into the vortex and are thrown through time randomly, until they find a way to stop it. I would set a few (half a dozen maybe) fixed times that cover the better part of 2, maybe 3 weeks, between which they will jump randomly (at least to them, you might have a plan behind this). One of them could be in the future, where, at first, the failed ritual will have had a disastrous effect. You can roll the destination for each jump, for both the players and for the antagonist, so the way they meet will be random as well. The declarations will have great effect on how the other jumps play out, especially, because they see their way through the jumps linear but not the way the antagonist jumps. The declarations of one scene can influence the result of the next. I get dizzy even thinking about it now, but I hope you get what I mean  ???

"One Year of Hell"
The basic idea is, that the villain succeeds or something absolutely horrifying is happening, that the characters don't understand and therefore can not stop. At the end however, they will find a way to travel back in time to a critical moment and choose the other leg in the trousers of time. There are some tv shows that have done this, if you want to go all out, this is a great option.

"Groundhog Day"
Plain and simple, ye olde time loop. can get tedious, if the players have to do the same things over and over again, just to get to a point of the day they can get into action, but of course you could skip those things after they are figured out to get to the more interesting parts. Day Break is a great inspiration for this type of time travel, I think.

And then there's the doctor, like tetrasodium said. It is full of a lot of time travel stuff, and the Bad Wolf example is a great one, especially if used multiple times, like they did in the series. I was really creeped out, when they brought it back.

Another interesting example would be the 4th season weeping angel episode.

And another one I like very much would be the season 5 finally:
(click to show/hide)

That's what I got for now, I may come up with some more once I got some sleep.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Offline CaptFisher

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #9 on: July 25, 2011, 03:52:12 PM »
Thank you for all the advice.
As a Dr. Who fan I loved the bad wolf story line which is why i planned a time travel story, but i want it to be based on a story from a series called Adventures of a Stainless Steel Rat. 

The idea is that the players will not travel in time (except forward at a second per second like the rest of us), but they will through their actions catch the time traveling bad guys in a time loop (prison) where they repeat their actions over and over, but the players having already defeated them move on through time.  It does form a paradox, and that paradox is what captures away the BG...the players first encounter is the BG's last.

  The details are still vague right now, trying to work out possible ways to make it work. But nothing messes up a story like player characters.  Also I am looking for a Monster of the Week type feel, not a full campaign arc, we got enough of those right now :)
Fairy tales don't teach children that monsters exist, children know that monsters exist.
Fairy tales teach children that monsters, can be slain.

Offline sinker

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Re: Story Idea I need help pulling off
« Reply #10 on: July 25, 2011, 04:55:22 PM »
As a Dr. Who fan I loved the bad wolf story line which is why i planned a time travel story, but i want it to be based on a story from a series called Adventures of a Stainless Steel Rat. 

Now I'm trying to remember which story had time travel... It's been a while since I've read Harrison.