Tuesday 19 July 2016

Always time for a bar fight


Its a bit of a weird co-incidence. Although weird is a somewhat relative term when it comes to role playing scenarios.....and role players for that matter. It would appear then that the Numenera players are also tinkering in time travel technologies albeit as much over the players heads as it is in the game of Strike. This is going to involve a lot of complicated and confusing pre game chatter as the weeks go by as for my part, I am always interested in what general approach the GMs take to the fundamentals of cause and effect. I always think it likely that there is a universe collapsing paradox laying at the heart of such plots or possible time quakes cascading forward chasing parties into alternate futures. Either way a great deal of care will need to be given to the temporal footprint of adventurers in any given context, or the future wasn't what it was supposed to be.

Words fail me literally as I am reminded of Douglas Adams point..

"The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. "

Personally my character is just along for the ride but I am secretly hoping that in fact both games are set in the same universe, just billions of years apart - it opens the real possibility that the GMs can swap groups for an episode as we go on missions in each other's timezones. However with respect to well laid plans, we should really concentrate on cocking up our own game before moving onto someone else's.

Following on from last weeks Strike episode of time travelling Nazis, we find ourselves in 1943 at a meeting of the great powers, German, Soviet and American. It's a week before a pivotal summit and we are all hanging out at the same hotel bar with the other delegations' security details, trying to pry information out of each other by seeing who can drink the most. All the characters are tired, paranoid and  inebriated. This is only going one way...

In the Numnera in GM Rob's very own words:

"the party seek an ancient and mystical key the time-travelling wizard from centuries in the future identified as a thing called a "fuse" to stop a giant metal being transmitting nightmares to the population of the nearby town. They have found this key in the possession of some goat-like creatures who killed the priests guarding it. Finding their camp at night, the party plans their attack."

OK, so goats, wizards, priests, keys and metal things. Got it. So if anyone out there has has experience with time travelling killer goats then we would appreciate a few pointers.



1 comment:

  1. Let's see if there's time travel in 618 too. As the GM, I won't know until it happens...

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