Timetraveling, Realityshifting Artifact - Seeking Advice, Ideas and Mechanics

1. Timetraveling, Realityshifting Artifact - Seeking Advice, Ideas and Mechanics

   #1

   Hi,
   
   I'm planing a Storyline involving a mysterious time traveling artifact for an IRC-based sci-fi RPG.
   And I'm really going to need some helpful advice from creative, funny, and/or wise game-masters. At the moment I'm in a pre-planning phase (as in "I have not really begun on making fixed adventure ideas") and thinking about the mechanics of such an artifact.
   
   The current idea goes as follow:
   The players find an artifact, after a long search, to destroy their mortal enemy, but alas the artifact is damaged and it seems not to be the weapon everyone hoped for.
   In fact it is a time machine, that would allow to “uncreate” the enemy. If it wasn't for the damage.
   The damaged artifact creates some kind of radiation, that sends people randomly through time and/or in alternative timelines.
   
   Most Player Characters will remember the history of the original timeline, due to effects of being near the artifact and will have no or just an echo of a memory for the changed timeline. Some player characters might only remember the changed timeline or a series of changed timelines, if the player want's to change his character according to a new timeline.
   
   So say due to a change in the timeline one character switches his gender. This Character might only remember a timeline in which he/she has the new gender and a set of alternative timelines akin to those that happened in the sessions before, but with the new gender.
   
   I hope it's not to complicated.
   
   
   Adventure Ideas would be:
   
   To relive a single day again in a groundhog day manner.
   Some Things, like the status of a character suddenly changes.
   The player characters are suddenly back home, in a reality, where they never been “heroes”
   The history of the world is suddenly changed, the ussr won the cold war, the american colonies never rose up.
   A player character has a chance to change a single moment in his/her history.
   A player character has to chance history so that he and his partner will never become a couple.
   
   
   
   So have you any ideas how the “mechanics” of the artifact could look like? How is it activated? How can someone "travel back to his time" in a time travel adventure? Are there signs of the artifact "activation"?
   Any advice for this storyline?
   Any “have to try” adventure ideas?
   

2. Re: Timetraveling, Realityshifting Artifact - Seeking Advice, Ideas and Mechanics

   #2

   This article has some great advice on time travel in rpg's and some nice techniques on how to make in run smoothly.  :up: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/campaigns/watch-out-for-these-time-travel-gm-traps/

3. Re: Timetraveling, Realityshifting Artifact - Seeking Advice, Ideas and Mechanics

   #3

   I originally wanted to answer yesterday, but alas, time constraints had me hold up elsewhere.
   
   Thank you for that helpful link. I knew RoleplayingTips but somehow this Post had eluded me.
   Well, they never fail to deliver, I'm planing a time travel story, they're making a post about it. That's now the third time that happened do me (not with time traveling story obviously).

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