I am running a campaign where one of the backstory villains uses a pocket watch that allows him, once per week, to time travel within the last 1,000 years. He uses it to essentially never be snuck up on. Each time he is about to die he goes back in time and tells his previous self about the weaknesses he has. This allows him to be incredibly difficult to beat mostly when in his home. I plan to use this as an endgame item as well. I have a PC who is secretly evil who will work in tandem with a league of villains to each obtain their own goals. Now, bear with me it gets weird here. This PC time traveled back from the future (end game) to now. He(NPC future version) warned himself(PC present version) of what he has to do to play the party just the right way. I want to drop hints that some wacky time stuff is going on, but I am not sure how else to do it. Thoughts?
Also: I have made it open-ended so if the PC who is evil now, decides to change his ways he can essentially create a new timeline where he doesn't betray the party to achieve an evil goal and instead gets help for the things that ail him.
Time travel is very difficult, and it's probably worth noting that I've never seen a thread in which someone says "look at >module<, they did it really well".
By pre-determining the future of the PC (they go back in time and warn themselves) then you are effectively having to write everything within the loop of the PCs time jump. That means railroading, which is excellent for stories but less so for TTRPGs where the players are meant to be making their own story.
One option is to make the timeloop entirely within NPC control. Have an NPC arrive to warn the PC, and then the PC meets said NPC, looking younger. This gives them the motive to keep the NPC friendly and alive, whilst still being able to write their own story.
How are you planning on the villain using the time travel? do they get in a fight with the PC's and then, just before death, they disappear? If they go back and change time, did the battle ever happen? would the PCs have been hurt?
I think that a timeline of your "expected plot" would be a great idea to put this down as a plan. if he jumps back at each fight, how many of him are there? Where do the copies go afterwards? If you went back to this morning to tell yourself to brush your hair, what happens to you after you did that - there are now 2 of you!
A cool idea could be a ring of decreasingly dangerous versions of the BBEG, each more powerful than the next (yes, that way around) ultimately guarding the original BBEG, who needs to be killed ot rid the world of all these BBEGs.
I'd give the evil PC the exact information that they need to avoid or beat certain key situations. For instance, they know an impossible code of numbers to disarm a lethal trap, but can't tell anyone how they know it.
Sounds fun for the evil PC, not so sure about the others though. I fear that if the PCs find out after months (years?) of gaming that one PC has been working against them all along, they may not enjoy that.
Time travel stories only really work if you can go back and forth in the timeline. You're actually having to play this linearly, as the PCs can't go back and forth in time. For instance once the PCs acquire the magic pocket watch of time travel, why haven't they met future versions of themselves helping them out? You could have the PCs repeatedly meet their future selves, but the moment they get hold of it in the current timeline, they should always have been seeing themselves...
You set 1,000 years as the time - maybe instead of actual time travelling the villain can just send an image of themselves, or can only travel back if they go more than 100 years and have to leave themselves written clues? PCs could do that as well.... but then that presupposes an ending.
It's really difficult because time travel is difficult!
I would say, improv is the way to go. If you can find a way to adapt the loop around what the players do on their own, then it might be easier to have it make sense.
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I am running a campaign where one of the backstory villains uses a pocket watch that allows him, once per week, to time travel within the last 1,000 years. He uses it to essentially never be snuck up on. Each time he is about to die he goes back in time and tells his previous self about the weaknesses he has. This allows him to be incredibly difficult to beat mostly when in his home. I plan to use this as an endgame item as well. I have a PC who is secretly evil who will work in tandem with a league of villains to each obtain their own goals. Now, bear with me it gets weird here. This PC time traveled back from the future (end game) to now. He(NPC future version) warned himself(PC present version) of what he has to do to play the party just the right way. I want to drop hints that some wacky time stuff is going on, but I am not sure how else to do it. Thoughts?
Also: I have made it open-ended so if the PC who is evil now, decides to change his ways he can essentially create a new timeline where he doesn't betray the party to achieve an evil goal and instead gets help for the things that ail him.
Time travel is very difficult, and it's probably worth noting that I've never seen a thread in which someone says "look at >module<, they did it really well".
By pre-determining the future of the PC (they go back in time and warn themselves) then you are effectively having to write everything within the loop of the PCs time jump. That means railroading, which is excellent for stories but less so for TTRPGs where the players are meant to be making their own story.
One option is to make the timeloop entirely within NPC control. Have an NPC arrive to warn the PC, and then the PC meets said NPC, looking younger. This gives them the motive to keep the NPC friendly and alive, whilst still being able to write their own story.
How are you planning on the villain using the time travel? do they get in a fight with the PC's and then, just before death, they disappear? If they go back and change time, did the battle ever happen? would the PCs have been hurt?
I think that a timeline of your "expected plot" would be a great idea to put this down as a plan. if he jumps back at each fight, how many of him are there? Where do the copies go afterwards? If you went back to this morning to tell yourself to brush your hair, what happens to you after you did that - there are now 2 of you!
A cool idea could be a ring of decreasingly dangerous versions of the BBEG, each more powerful than the next (yes, that way around) ultimately guarding the original BBEG, who needs to be killed ot rid the world of all these BBEGs.
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I'd give the evil PC the exact information that they need to avoid or beat certain key situations. For instance, they know an impossible code of numbers to disarm a lethal trap, but can't tell anyone how they know it.
Sounds fun for the evil PC, not so sure about the others though. I fear that if the PCs find out after months (years?) of gaming that one PC has been working against them all along, they may not enjoy that.
Time travel stories only really work if you can go back and forth in the timeline. You're actually having to play this linearly, as the PCs can't go back and forth in time. For instance once the PCs acquire the magic pocket watch of time travel, why haven't they met future versions of themselves helping them out? You could have the PCs repeatedly meet their future selves, but the moment they get hold of it in the current timeline, they should always have been seeing themselves...
You set 1,000 years as the time - maybe instead of actual time travelling the villain can just send an image of themselves, or can only travel back if they go more than 100 years and have to leave themselves written clues? PCs could do that as well.... but then that presupposes an ending.
It's really difficult because time travel is difficult!
I would say, improv is the way to go. If you can find a way to adapt the loop around what the players do on their own, then it might be easier to have it make sense.