Anybody use this in their games? I know there was a book called "Chronomancer" where you could meddle with history in a limited manner, and a few published adventures have broached the issue (Factol Rowan is sent back in time, presumably by the Lady, to become Gifad...). Also you can supposedly time-travel using the Temporal plane and certain Artifacts, etc... (Not to mention the entire race of Illithids is supposedly from the future!)
Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Thu, 2007-07-12 11:49
#1
Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Thu, 2007-07-12 13:17
#3
Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Time travel itself should only be used as a campaign device, or possibly entrusted by DMs to players of very high level who they believe won't abuse it.
But there are alot of things that have to do with time that aren't exactly time travel. Mostly this is Chronomancy, but there are a few alternative options.
Thu, 2007-07-12 14:27
#4
Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Time Travel was used pretty extensively in the 2e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. It was even the basis for a related Campaign Setting called Arcane Age that assumed the PC had traveled back to the time of Netheril from "present day" Forgotten Reams. This changed the mechanics of spells as the Cleric and Druid classes didn't exist yet and it was possible to change the history of the Realms.
Also, WotC posted a Chronomancer supplement to their old editions section: Chronomancy and the Multiverse
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Fri, 2007-07-13 03:07
#5
re
That can be a rather complex question, considering that Sigil may well exist outside the standard timeline of most prime planes. Me, I make it dependant upon the portal key used, meaning that a given key determines not only where a berk ends up, but when as well.
Though they are rare, keys can be found to drop a cutter off at virtually any point in the history of that prime domain - but the inconvenience of having hundreds of keys floating about for each prime world tends to insure that only one or two are ever available at a given time.
No matter what time period a basher travels to from Sigil, however, when he returns to the Cage he becomes subject to its timeline - thus one cannot arive back in the city before he had left; the same generally holds true for the outer and inner planes as well.
If one truly wants to travel to another point in time, he can always risk the Elemental Plane of Time, though it is a dangerous place with powerful guardians and no guarentees as to results.
Thu, 2007-07-19 20:33
#6
Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Mucking about with time should not be taken lightly.
There are several Gods (and a Titan) that would not take lightly to blatant disregards for the natural order of events and manipulation.
Ever since I tried letting a PC play a chronomancer I developed a kind of 'time-cop' society that does nothing but go about and look for paradoxes and make sure that time flows smoothly.
This should also clue the observant into how well having a PC Chronomancer went.
Mon, 2010-12-13 12:27
#7
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
There is a subrace of Inevitables made specifically to enforce the time stream, so you can always use them as "fixers" if a PC seems to be getting out of hand with chrono abuse.
Tue, 2010-12-21 22:01
#8
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
There are also some monsters updated from 2E and also in 3x (such as the Time Dragon, another epic dragon, in Dragon Magazine 350), the temporal drake on Wizards website, etc.
In the Violet Dawn (3rd party campaign setting of 2E FR-level immersion; for such an ameteur company they're pretty damn good, but sadly they've been silent for over a year now...) setting, Violetspace is cut/sealed off from the other planes and crystal spheres (okay, I'm just going on assumption with that last part) by The Demiplane of Doors, a plane very similar to the Infinite Staircase save that you can use the doors to time travel, and also it consists of an endless maze of hallways with lots of doors. The books and website stuff state basically that it was created by the Avadnian god of time (now the head god since Temulea went insane and pulled an Ulutiu) to keep The Void and other inimical planes from further touching Avandu. However, if one were to adopt it into the Planescape and Spelljammer settings, then it's also likely that Celestia and perhaps even Ptah had a hand in its creation, with the goal of sealing The Void off from the rest of the multiverse.
One way in which you can avoid the whole timemucking can of worms is to make it so that the PCs (and NPCs) can go back in time, but while there are unable to interact with anything-- all they can do is watch the events unfold.
Wed, 2010-12-22 13:10
#9
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
I think the easiest way to manage it is to keep time travel out of the control of the PCs. If they can only time travel when you let them, there are basically no problems.
Wed, 2010-12-22 19:34
#10
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
There are two broad classes of problems involved in PC-controlled time travel - abuse of time loops and the loss of meaning of large events, which I think both have solutions.
Abuse of time loops is doing things like going back in time and taking gold from yourself in order to return to the present with twice as much gold (and/or any item you wish to duplicate). This is a problem in certain timetravel systems (those with multiple parallel timelines) but not in others (predestination systems or those where paradox is possible). You could just pick out of the later systems, but those are harder to run in a self-consistent fashion than the multiple timeline case (either because you can't predict what the PCs will do so predestination is a practical impossibility, or because pretty much any form of timetravel should produce paradoxes in a system that allows for paradox).
A simple way to do this is to go with a paradoxes-are-possible system but where there is some form of cost proportional to the paradox created, so simply going back in time and accidentally moving some twig or breathing out microbes is a small cost (perhaps the permanent loss of 100xp), whereas duplicating an artifact with a time loop is a big cost (permanently lose 10 levels). The cost means you can basically make sure that all loops to generate a resource X cost at least if not more than the value of the resource. By making available potential paradox pools as treasure (e.g. here's 5000xp worth of timetravel in the form of liquid time), you can encourage the PCs to timetravel but only when necessary, not as a gimick.
The second problem is a bit harder to address. If every time the BBEG wins the PCs can just go back and undo it (even at precipitous cost) then its hard to have consequences for actions (well, aside from the cost involved). Furthermore, if you extend things logically (and have a world without multiple parallel timelines) then the PCs should also periodically be subject to alterations of events from other timetravellers. There are a couple ways to help remedy this:
1. You can give certain beings resistance to having their timelines changed, so if something happens to them or if an event involves them then it sticks
2. You can make it so that changes are local (e.g. you can change the history of a particular Prime, but that doesn't effect the history of Sigil), so that anyone who is a planar traveller will tend to remember the original events. Perhaps tie this to the Astral, due to its innate timelessness?
3. You can make it so that there is a very strong historical inertia, and only some events represent turning points which can be changed, whereas all other changes will wash out on historical timescales (e.g. if you stop the BBEG from burning a random village, it just happens to be wiped out by floods in the following season, or everyone suffers strange incidents). This could be due to deities of Fate, influences from planes that remember the original history (e.g. the soul of everyone who died went to an afterlife that is outside the timeline, so when the body failed to die on time it just turned into a soulless zombie), etc.
These limits make it so that timetravel will tend to be used more to 'save that important object we didn't collect from the villain's collapsing temple' or 'have one last conversation with that guy who knew what was going on' and less as a reload-from-save mechanic.
Alternately, embrace it and make it a central part of the game - the heroes are special in this case because they are the ones who have access to time travel (and perhaps one or two enemies to keep things interesting) and they win out against impossible odds because they can do it again and again until they get it right. In a game like that, PC death from combat wouldn't be a threat, but there'd be plenty of puzzle opportunities involving things like 'for some reason, PC X's parents suddenly never fell in love, we need to figure out what was changed and fix it'.
Fri, 2011-01-14 20:57
#11
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
The easiest way to limit time travel is make it difficult and dangerous. You don't allow anyone to wander around with an "travel time at will" device or ability and make the act of getting to the location - such as the Elemental Plane of Time - a difficult and resource consuming task. Then, once there, the plane (or other time traveling device) is going to have guardians and safeguards against its misuse ... not to mention the Powers whose duties it is to prevent time related catastrophes.
I had a PC use a time travel spell once to prevent a terrible series of events from occurring which not only destroyed most of their party, but let loose a terribly danger upon the land; but it cost it a great deal in resources he really hadn't wanted to sacrifice and afterword a herald of time left him some low key,but very pointed indications that his actions had not gone unnoticed and it would not be in his better interest to try something like that again. As GM I allowed the player to get away with it because the alternative was less beneficial to my story, but made to control the resulting backlash of their changes and give them the very clear impression this would be be allowed again.
If you watch Eureka, they've had a few time travel storylines over the seasons. The results tend to fluctuate around the significance of the change, and the greatest changes tend to revolved around those involved and lesson the further one moves outside their field of influence. (like dropping a stone in a pool, the strongest effects are those closest to the stone and as they move outwards the ripples become progressively weaker) According to that premise, history has a way of attempting to enforce normalcy back upon itself, so non cataclysmic time events tend to remain fairly self contained.
Sat, 2011-03-05 15:13
#12
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
Dont forget, if I could mentino it, that Appearently, Chronomancy is almost WORTHLESS in planescape.
As the gods can SENSE intruders, from the future, and spys from the past... and do NOT welcome them.
Wait, clerics didnt exist yet? Uhmmmn curious I looked through the netheril book... and am curious...
Is it safe to say, if im running a game of demihumans in that time period or before, that they also used the kinds of "winds" that netherese priests did... does seem very apealing I admit freely.
Mon, 2011-03-07 04:52
#13
Re: Time travel in D&D/Planescape
As the gods can SENSE intruders, from the future, and spys from the past... and do NOT welcome them.
Yeah, but that's the GODs (and probably also the Quasipowers when they're in their own fortress) If you're trying to reverse something that occured during a specific time during a battle in Oinos, you might actually have a chance, as that layer as I recall doesn't actually have any powers that govern the entire thing.
Your chances are even better on the Elemental Planes, Astral, Shadow, and Ethereal since nobody has control over the entire thing.
Stygia would work as well, since the powers on that layer only control portions of it, while IIRC Levistus's layer is uncontrolled.
Prettymuch any layer/sphere/etc. ruled only by a quasipower is fair game since said quasipower generally has limited control of the layer beyond his/her stronghold.
However, it's a good idea to bear in mind that the Outer Planes, at the very least, have wills of their own and may reject the players' attempts to timehop on them.
The transient planes themselves do not appear to have a will, and it's entirely up in the air about the Elemental planes.
Illithids being from the future is a cool idea, but it also contradicts older canon and was somewhat poorly realized, so best to just ignore that one. Regarding time travel, I think it's something that should be used very sparingly as it has the power to mess up a continuity like nobody's business. If you want to send PCs back in time, have a power or some godly artifact do it and, if possible, only do it once or twice. Time travel is not something you want to be used often if you value your sanity.