Idea for a HU sourcebook........

[glitterboy2098]

i had an idea for a Hero's unlimited sourcebook the other day, but not being a player or GM of HU (i have a copy of the old revised HU, but i grabbed that because at the time that was the most recent, and i wanted some extra rifts material.)


basically, the idea is to convert the old Transdimensional TMNT sourcebook into an HU one.

timetravel would work well for a superhero game, and really doesn't fit the rest of PB's lineup.


the basic material on how timetravel and the timestream stay the same, though i'd think you'd want to drop or reduce the mutation effects of timetravel.

in addition to revamping the "Timelords" to seperate them from their TMNT origins and bring them in line with the PPE system, you could create other groups that run the timestream.

for example how about a group of "temporal cops" who operate out of a null time zone? they protect the "order" of time from inept timetravellers changes, by going back themselves and stopping the timetravellers. being from a null time zone, they would be immune to the changes, and would be able to see the total effects the moment they happen. they then insert an operative into the right time period to await the event and stop it.

(if you really want to throw things for a loop, you could have several different groups of these cops, each from a different time, and often one group decended from the others. each out to correct the mistakes of the previous group. [would get very interesting since while group 1 tries to "fix" the timeline, group 2 is trying to fix the changes made by group 1's "fixes", and group 3 trying to fix group 1 and 2's changes, ect. but group 3 knows of group 1 and 2, but group 2 only knows of group 1, and attributes group 3's actions to group 1, and group 1 only knows someone keeps hampering their actions, and assumes an EARLIER group is behind it.] could get complicated, but think of the role play!)

(fans of obscure Sci-Fi may recognize my insperation for this. in an old book called "Dinosaur Beach" there is a similar situation. you had 6 generations of "cops", as well as androids and other things. the first gen cops where formed to fix the changes made by the androids [which were man's first timetravellers], and each generation after that fixing the previous gen's problems, to the point where each gen was at war with each other. the main char turned out to be from the 7TH GEN, and they finally ended it by changing history to where timetravel never was discovered, and thus unmade themselves, a concept the prevoius generations could conceive but would not do.)

another plothook could be temporal wars where advanced civilizations send armies back into time to conquer their opponents in the past, cross temporal smuggling ("yep, genuine Laser Rifles, right from the 30th century. outta put dem redcoats in their places. so how many can i put you down for mister washington?"), the possibilities are endless.




for the sourcebook, include the rules for hero's in past ages (rifter #5) so you can create PC's/NPC's from the right era's.

[drewkitty ~..~]

You might try it as a Rifter submition before writing a full book's worth of text.

[ZEN]

Or you could write a Rifter article or two, and at the same time, have a full book published under the D20 license.. ha ha ha

The only problem with Time Travel settings is that they don't make any logical sense.. the moment someone comes up with a working time machine it is destroyed by someone using it to come back and prevent it's creation.. so the real proof that time travel is possible is that there is no time travel.

Its a real headache for GMs and players alike.

[glitterboy2098]

execpt in the palladium version, you can't return to the exact moment the machine was created, the best you could hope for was to plant a group of REALLY long lived people into the prevoius twist, and give them a list of targets to hit at a certain time. and with them there, the potential for them to contaminate the timeline is immense (can you imagine if our modern tech was to fall into hitlers hands in 1940 due to a stupid 2000's timetraveller waiting for a target to arise in 1960?) and if you were to give them only local tech, who can say what their knowledge will do? the knowledge of gunpowder in ancient greece could ruin everything, even if the timetraveller didn't bring any with him. and recruiting local help runs the same risks.

so in palladium you can't create such a "unhappening" temporal anomaly. it just doesn't work that way.
of course, pre-destination paradox's would run rampant, which would be cool.

[sinestus]

Or you could write a Rifter article or two, and at the same time, have a full book published under the D20 license.. ha ha ha

The only problem with Time Travel settings is that they don't make any logical sense.. the moment someone comes up with a working time machine it is destroyed by someone using it to come back and prevent it's creation.. so the real proof that time travel is possible is that there is no time travel.

Its a real headache for GMs and players alike.

well, unless you go with the whole alternate reality bit.. .

that a time traveler stepping out of time can never return to their exact origen as stepping out of the time stream shotputs them into an alternate possible timeline (think kinda like the old Sliders show, or, time Traxx... pretty much combine the two)...

so this basically leaves a fairly solid story of cover ops in a non-existant past (one what doesn't affect the future the players remember) where the team attempts to neutralize threats from their future before they can irreversibly affect the timeline of this new past...

[ZEN]

gah! Beat me to it Sinestus..

Any time traveller can go back to any time before the time machine was originally created and prevent the time machine being made.. given that the moment any time machine is created there is an infinate scope of probability that such a sabotage event might happen it will always happen.

The only way to avoid this problem is by saying that any travel into the future or the past is in fact travel to a very, very similar alternate universe/dimension and you can only ever return to your own dimension of origin in your own home space/time co-ordinates (ie, you spend twelve hours in the equivalent of ancient Rome and return to your own time, only twelve hours have past where you left from as well).
So while you seem to be travelling through time, you are not actually altering any time streams and therefore can never become entangled in a space/time paradox situation.

It is also important to note that messing around in alternate ancient Rome is not doing anything to mess up that timeline either, because as far as everything and everyone is concerned, it is present day both in alternate ancient Rome and in the time traveller's point of origin.. the time traveller is not going back in time, they are going from one dimension to another.

This also solves the other sticky problem of time travel.. the entire universe is moving, constantly.. so if I wanted to go back say.. 400 years.. the Earth, solar system, arm of the galaxy, galaxy itself and local super cluster of galaxies was not here 400 years ago. To safely arrive in any given spot on the Earth 400 years ago I have to travel through time and also an enormous distance through space.
Strapping on a time hopping backpack and leaping merrily into the past will always land you in interstellar space with the Earth due to arrive some exact moment in the future.

[MADMANMIKE]

..ZEN's theory was first exemplified to the masses in Back To The Future Part II, when they ended up in the wrong 1985, Doc drew a timeline on the chalkboard in his lab showing the divergance of the timeline, essentially to a new timeline. Of course, they saw it as having been created by changes in their own, but the essense is the same.

..The Time Lords cannot be printed in a Heroes Supplement, as they are property of Eastman and Laird, as first published in TMNT the comic book. But I agree, the rest of the book should be updated and reprinted as a good Heroes Unlimited supplement.

..In fact, I sent Kev a proposal to revise HU about a month after Wayne had already started it, and stated that a simplified part of the dimensional/temporal physics of TDTMNT be included as info for GM's...

-Mike >8]

[glitterboy2098]

but if a group is from a "future that was", and is working to undo all the changes that made it no longer exist (null time zone, remember? temporal changes don't effect them), and is trying for that combination of events that will bring the future back to the way it "was" (darn our english tenses!), it works out.

say, group A and group B both come from the same point on a timeline. group A changes the timeline somewhere in the past so that the point the groups are from no longer exists, having been replaced by an alternate version. then group B starts working to find out which changes where made and when, and creates a plan of action to mold events so that regardless of group A's mistake the future will still result in what they remember.






as for different timelines/dimensions, current thinking is that while changing history will split off an alternate timeline, the timetraveller will be stuck in said timeline, and can never go back. so the paradox gets nullified, but the results are similar.

[Zenvis]

[quote="glitterboy2098"]

Basically, the idea is to convert the old Transdimensional TMNT sourcebook into an HU one.

time travel would work well for a superhero game, and really doesn't fit the rest of PB's lineup.


the basic material on how timetravel and the timestream stay the same, though i'd think you'd want to drop or reduce the mutation effects of timetravel.
quote]


Well I like it and I think that you are right. Trandimentional Turtles could work for a HU2 campaign. Time cops and Time-Stream mutation would be cool although it would have to be carefully done. Sound like a good game all by itself.

[Zenvis]

..In fact, I sent Kev a proposal to revise HU about a month after Wayne had already started it, and stated that a simplified part of the dimensional/temporal physics of TDTMNT be included as info for GM's...

-Mike

Who did you kill to get that information? Man I wish I had a clue as to what was going on in the Palladium Megaverse.

[MADMANMIKE]

..In fact, I sent Kev a proposal to revise HU about a month after Wayne had already started it, and stated that a simplified part of the dimensional/temporal physics of TDTMNT be included as info for GM's...

-Mike

Who did you kill to get that information? Man I wish I had a clue as to what was going on in the Palladium Megaverse.

..I was suggesting the inclusion of material from TDTMNT, but they then informed me that Wayne was already working on the project. Beat me to the punch. Very frustrating as Kev had told me on the phone a few years earlier when I was designing the Rifts Game Master Screens and had sent him the beginnings of a novel I was trying to write that I reminded him of Wayne when he first started doing work for Palladium.

-Mike <8[

[ZEN]

Group A and group B leave present and venture back to 1974.. group A plants a bunch of explosives in the hospital where a member of group B is a baby.. that dead baby member of group B winks out of existance.. whoops, too bad.. the only chance was for group B to immediately jump further back in time and prevent the bomb being planted.. group member from B pops back into existance and wonders what all the fuss is about.. but wait a minute.. why did group B jump back in time if the bomb was never planted?
Ok.. so that was a borderline brush with a paradox.. turns out they didn't completely eradicate the motivation for the jump back in time and erase the reason why they left, thereby preventing them from doing anything..

So the problem with the single time stream model is that you run into these temporal brain teasers all the time and they make it almost impossible to do anything.
It is much more fun to use a parallel timestream system and it reduces game mechanics to a very simple level.. one we already have in place as a matter of fact.. Dimensional shifting!
What would be better than a whole sourcebook full of revamped temporal travel rules is a big series of adventure scenario articles featuring ideas for time travel, for the Rifter.

[sinestus]

ok... quickie fix...
(actually used this one in a Rifts game once)

time travel is possible...
however, there is a set "temperal jump" frame (i think TMNT touches on this with the whole "coils" mentality...

where going back from, say 2004 to 1974 isn't possible, because the temperal wake is too great (or some such nonsense)
and thus leaves the heroes/villians only able to jump in larger amounts...
like say 1000 years at least...

thus adventures would happen in ancient times (like Rome and the like) where modern records are still a little dodgy... and thus become the heroes of old...

(in the Rifts game I ran, the heroes jumped back to ancient Greece on accident, a miscalculation by the TW who made the device, and wound up being the origens for some of the greek myths... this was pre-ConversionBook2...)

or if you don't like them becoming the ancient heroes (or going that far back) it can be one of the bill&ted implications, that whichever side wins the battle of the past, has teh ability to arrange an agency in the future capable of coming back between the "battle for the past" and the heroe's present to fix whatever went wrong...

finally...
there's always the paradox safety.... when the hero travels to the past, it becomes his present... and thus when he tries to remember major details (like what the world was like from his time) it's all jumbled... with the future (and thus the hero's past) always changing, his mind has locked away those memories as the constant inconsistancies therein would otherwise drive him insane...
which would give him a wicked defence against telepathic probes...

[ZEN]

This whole thing has prompted me to do a rewrite and make additions to the Transdimensional Crossovers section on Heroes Ltd. (no, it's not posted on the server yet).

I shall illustrate as best I can why Parallel dimensional travel is not just the best way to handle temporal mechanics in a role playing game.. it is the only way.