So I have an inn in my homebrew campaign named the Timely Manor (TM). The general idea is that any time spent sleeping in the Timely Manor sends you back in time for the exact amount of time you slept. There is a workaround for this, as the owner of TM offers each patron a very expensive tea, to "help them sleep" which prevents the effects of time displacement. The problem is ...well.. time travel itself. So here are the options I've come up with, currently, none of them seem to work so I'm open to critiques, ideas, and any help you can offer.
The setup - You visit city X and spend 8 hours walking around the city seeing the sights, you enter the timely manor, get a room and take a long rest:
Consciousness Shift (A)- You go to sleep in the TM for a long rest (8 hrs), and wake up with all the memories of the day you lived but you're just now entering the city. You can choose to make the same choices over again OR make new choices.
Consciousness Shift (B) - You go to sleep in the TM for a long rest (8 hrs), and wake up with all the memories of the day you lived but you're just now entering the city. However, you have to make all of the choices you made the day prior and relive the day as close as you can to the original. Failure to do so causes you to slowly fade from existence (back to the future style)
New You - You go to sleep in the TM for a long rest (8 hrs) and wake up in the bed you went to sleep in, but 8 hours prior, now there are 2 you's in this city. Coming into contact with, or seeing the past you causes you to wake up instantly in your bed, +1 level of exhaustion (from a night of restless sleep), and erasing any changes you may have made in that day.
New Timeline - You go to sleep in the TM for a long rest (8 hrs) and wake up in the bed you went to sleep in, but 8 hours prior, and in a new timeline that does not have a 2nd you but follows all the rules of the original timeline, allowing you to relive the day.
Do any of these make any sense, which sounds the most fun for players, which sounds like nothing but trouble for the DM (me)?
If you went back in time the exact amount of time that you spent in the inn, there wouldn't really be two "you"s running around in the city. There might briefly be two "you"s in the inn, but that resolves when you get sent back and they stay.
You might run into yourself on the way out as past-you is coming in, but that's it.
In order it to work as you described, it would have to send you back in time 16 hours to account for the time you spent in the inn (8-hour long rest) and 8 hours you spent since arriving in the city.
I'm going to assume the tea given is effectively a modified Potion of Watchful Rest so that characters don't get exhaustion points from the sleep/time travel.
Personally, I think a mix of options 1 and 4 is the most fun and the easiest way to go. If you have a reset button kind of day that creates a new timeline, that means there's still unpredictability and fun butterfly effects that can occur while still providing for player agency and DM freedom. (Plus, you won't have to remember every single little thing your NPCs did and repeat them if the timeline is new. Groundhog Day gets tiresome for everyone after a while). I also think that starting the whole day over is easier to understand than the 8-hour limitation in option 4.
While the idea of avoiding running into your second self might seem fun in theory (like the Time Turner in Harry Potter), it's probably going to bog down the gameplay as everyone tries to remember where they went and who they talked to so they don't wake up. The record-keeping will be cumbersome, and there will be an underlying anxiety as a player that they'll accidentally screw it up. Unless, of course, your group likes that kind of thing...
I also think it's probably wise to consider how this can be abused - by players and by villains. If it's known that a reset button exists in-world, I expect a ton of people will be wanting to use it as a way to avoid punishments for crimes, launder money, set people up, retcon bad days, and plan all sorts of nefarious or annoying things. There should be a way to mitigate abuse - like a high cost to use the services, or risk to health in time-traveling too frequently or multiple times in a row, or a group of time cops that make sure things don't spiral out of control. And if there isn't a control factor to the Timely Manor, then perhaps that can be an arc in itself...
Instinctively, I like n.3 the best. But I agree with theologyofbagels that it would be difficult to manage without bogging down the game.
If I may suggest something somewhat different: are you sure you want to introduce this to the PCs as a surprise time travel event for them personally? What if they first encounter this place because some villain they thought they'd killed turned out to have been working together with different time-stream versions of themselves (or some ally they thought they'd lost had a secret hangout)? Does it matter to you whether the tea enables the time travel instead? Seems to me that it would be easier to control that way, but I suppose you could make it work either way.
Any way you do this, I agree it will be abusable, so I'd advise going in with an endgame in mind. It's a fantastic idea. I'd play in this campaign even if I knew going in that we'd all end in the unraveling of time and everything my character did would be for naught.
It's all just massive headache for the DM. Even trying to get my head around the four different variations is confusing, and that's just comprehension - actually playing a game like this will be a nightmare.
What happens to money or items accrued during the time that you effectively erase by staying there?
What stops the PCs just repeatedly going back there to reset things over and over?
I recently ran a time travel incident in my campaign. I had a wizard's tower that was trapped in a time look. The PCs could use devices inside the tower to travel back and forth through time, but it was localised; leaving the tower would mean they were stuck in whatever time period they left, and if they travelled forward they would have gone to a future where they'd failed to stop the world being destroyed and find it a wasteland.
They had a job to do, went back 100 years, the BBEG in her early form tricked them into going to do a task for her 200 years into the future, then they travelled back to just before they met her 200 years ago, she betrayed them and revealed she'd killed them multiple times already and the quest went on with them escaping back to the present.
Oddly enough, large scale events and major shifts in time are much easier to work with than these minor shifts.
Some major story and game issues:
Why does the innkeeper not warn them?
Why is the inn not world famous?
Who would want to travel in time?
Why is it not taken over by the authorities and used to manipulate everything?
What stops the PCs abusing it constantly for the rest of the campaign?
What happens to your game when 1 PC sleeps there and the rest don't, or all but one sleep there?
If you go back in time the exact amount of time you sleep, then wouldn't you just wake up at the exact moment you fell asleep? Or do you sleep backwards, I guess that's more what it is.
Anyway, as far as trouble for the DM, they all are, so I'll default to my standard advice for time travel: Don't. Others have pointed out how it can be abused, and I'm sure lots of other issues will come up that none of us can predict. And not the fun, surprising kind, the headache-inducing kind.
Time travel is confusing, creates paradoxes and is much cooler on paper than in actual play. It can work in narrative fiction (though usually it's a cheap cop out for when the writer has painted themself into a corner). But narrative fiction has only one person telling the story, not a table full, so it's a bit easier to force it to work. But even then, there's really no version of time travel that makes sense.
I'll echo what others have said. The pun is fantastic and worth keeping, but there are other ways of handling it than convoluted time travel involving PCs
For instance, maybe it's called the Timely Manor because the proprietor(s) always has exactly what you need when you need it. Someone at the bar who wants to write something down finds they get handed a quill and ink by the barkeep as they pass by on the way to refill someone's mug, without even being asked. The bard plays a tune that references the bar fight 30 seconds before the fight starts. That sort of thing. At its upper limit, PCs afflicted with something when they go to sleep wake up with the remedy included with their breakfast, or at least a note indicating where they can get the remedy if you want to make it a quest
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
An alternative might be that the manor uncontrollably, and only occasionally, transports sleeping guests to another point in time. That way there's no control over it, no way to abuse it (you, the DM just choose if they travel through time, and to when) and you could have them appear at a fun point in the game world's history - maybe they step out and find the city is now controlled by their enemies, or they've gone back and can prevent a calamity.
To my mind, #3 is the only one worth playing. The others will end up being boring or over-powered.
One more thing, you need to discuss changes:
If you die, do you still wake up?
If you find and obtain treasure (gold, magic items) do you retain them when you wake up?
-----------------
Note, in any of these situations, we are basically talking Detective Story. Killing other people does not matter, as they will be back when you wake up. So this kind of adventure is always about figuring out what is going on. It could be as simple as figuring out that the INN is causing it. (or is it...) It could be figuring out an evil plot and stopping it. It could simply be doing the bidding of some god. (Damn gods never just come out and tell you what to do). etc. etc.
Very cool idea. I have often tried to work out how time-travel could be worked into a D&D campaign.
On the cost:
One way to add a cost could be that while you travel back in time, the moving backwards through the weave of magic causes you to age considerably. Say 1/10th of your natural lifespan, whatever creature you are. This would strictly limit how often you can use this method. As DM, you can describe how the PCs get up and realise it's the day before - but they then also notice some grey hairs and wrinkles that were not there yesterday/tomorrow.
You could even make this 'cost' itself an extra plot twist. Perhaps the that the innkeeper actually is a/the BBEG of the campaign and uses this method to syphon off the life force and souls of the living. Maybe describe the innkeeper initially as old and frail, but in the next iterations describe him as 'looking fit for his age', then as 'much younger than you seem to remember', until in the end, the PCs are shrivelled old retirees and the Innkeeper as young and fit and built like a demi-god. Hopefully the PCs will figure it out before the, or maybe have to break the source of the time vortex to reverse all its effects.
On the method:
I agree with the others. You won't want to force players to repeat actions, or to keep track (minute by minute) of everyone's locations and who they interact with. That woudn't be fun for anyone. So a mix of 1 & 4 seems best. Alternatively, you could do the groundhog-day issue of breaking out of the time-loop.
After you sleep in the TM, the next time the PCs rest anywhere else, they are returned in time and space back to the TM - and suffer some cost (e.g. accelerated aging, above). They then have to work out why - before they all shrivel up and die of old age.
Another fun idea that could be worth exploring: What if method 1&4 (wake up yesterday with memories in tact but no actions too place) applies not just to the PCs - but to everyone? So the whole town wakes up remembering yesterday. Anything you bought is back at the shop, anyone killed is alive - but everyone remembers. The shop-keep you stole from? He tries to find you. The guy you murdered? He woke up in fury and is now chasing you. The Villain you caught? He knows you have/will come for him, and this time hides better or prepares more traps.
I would use no. 3, where each time you go back, the timelines get more tangled. I would allow seeing your other self, but if your other self sees you, then you have problems and everyone wakes up immediately with exhaustion as the timeline fixes itself.
I would then make it a mystery which needs solving, and keep careful track of where everyone is in the timeline as it will become important. Every time they go back, there's another them to avoid. Further to this, if 5 players go back, then there will be other versions of each of them. Interacting with one of the other players fro mthe other timeline would be complex, and might change how things have played out. It would need each interaction to be concluded before you can return to the other player.
EG, bob the cleric goes back in time, buys some fish, then goes back again to sell the fish in the other market. Jeff the bard goes back in time to busk for money, then goes back again to try and rob the bank.
Jeff, on his second visit, sees Bob on his first, and persuades him to rob the bank with him. It's successful, but Bob fails to buy any fish. Bob the second, who went back in time to sell the fish, not only has no fish to sell, but never slept in the Timely Manor again, so didn't actually exist.
It's a lot to think about. You'd have to get each player to roll back to a previous version of themselves each time they are interacted with, and that could wipe out the other versions of them from a future which never happened.
Firstly, I love the concept that this presents. It's an intriguing idea that is fun to watch and ponder from the 3rd-party perspective.
For ease of use, I would suggest that #4 seems to be the most user friendly, as it cuts any quantam entanglements and doesn't muddy the waters any further than is neccessary.
Overall, I'm starting from the assumption that you have a party of PCs, not just a singular character to work with, and that these PCs aren't an Elf or Warforged. Elves and Warforged have the little bit about not sleeping, and I'm not sure if that factors into your concept or is inconsequential. Also, I'm assuming that you plan on putting this concept in front of a party of adventurers. More perspectives means more versions of reality. If one version resets, does it effect the others? Are you prepared to run multiple different versions of the same day to narrate the individual perspectives of each PC?
These ideas work well for movies and books as they only have to cater to a singular perspective, the audience member. The director or author only need write/show/track one perspective. When we add multiple perspectives to account for the different characters on screen, the DMs job is multiplied exponentially by the number of perspectives and the number of instances that have occurred. I don't remember watching a Back to the Future - Marty's Mom Version. I do remember watching Reservoir Dogs, in all of the different perspectives (I think it's the 10th Anniversary version where each version is named after each character ie. Mr. Brown...). I might suggst having a peek at that before pulling the trigger on this. It's a good demonstration of the amount of work required to show different perspectives for the same timeline.
If you were to run this as a duet (1 player + 1 DM), I think it would work better mechanically but might become tiresome to the player after some fashion, ala Groundhog Day.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
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So I have an inn in my homebrew campaign named the Timely Manor (TM). The general idea is that any time spent sleeping in the Timely Manor sends you back in time for the exact amount of time you slept. There is a workaround for this, as the owner of TM offers each patron a very expensive tea, to "help them sleep" which prevents the effects of time displacement. The problem is ...well.. time travel itself. So here are the options I've come up with, currently, none of them seem to work so I'm open to critiques, ideas, and any help you can offer.
The setup - You visit city X and spend 8 hours walking around the city seeing the sights, you enter the timely manor, get a room and take a long rest:
Do any of these make any sense, which sounds the most fun for players, which sounds like nothing but trouble for the DM (me)?
If you went back in time the exact amount of time that you spent in the inn, there wouldn't really be two "you"s running around in the city. There might briefly be two "you"s in the inn, but that resolves when you get sent back and they stay.
You might run into yourself on the way out as past-you is coming in, but that's it.
In order it to work as you described, it would have to send you back in time 16 hours to account for the time you spent in the inn (8-hour long rest) and 8 hours you spent since arriving in the city.
P.S. I LOVE the name pun here A+
I'm going to assume the tea given is effectively a modified Potion of Watchful Rest so that characters don't get exhaustion points from the sleep/time travel.
Personally, I think a mix of options 1 and 4 is the most fun and the easiest way to go. If you have a reset button kind of day that creates a new timeline, that means there's still unpredictability and fun butterfly effects that can occur while still providing for player agency and DM freedom. (Plus, you won't have to remember every single little thing your NPCs did and repeat them if the timeline is new. Groundhog Day gets tiresome for everyone after a while). I also think that starting the whole day over is easier to understand than the 8-hour limitation in option 4.
While the idea of avoiding running into your second self might seem fun in theory (like the Time Turner in Harry Potter), it's probably going to bog down the gameplay as everyone tries to remember where they went and who they talked to so they don't wake up. The record-keeping will be cumbersome, and there will be an underlying anxiety as a player that they'll accidentally screw it up. Unless, of course, your group likes that kind of thing...
I also think it's probably wise to consider how this can be abused - by players and by villains. If it's known that a reset button exists in-world, I expect a ton of people will be wanting to use it as a way to avoid punishments for crimes, launder money, set people up, retcon bad days, and plan all sorts of nefarious or annoying things. There should be a way to mitigate abuse - like a high cost to use the services, or risk to health in time-traveling too frequently or multiple times in a row, or a group of time cops that make sure things don't spiral out of control. And if there isn't a control factor to the Timely Manor, then perhaps that can be an arc in itself...
Instinctively, I like n.3 the best. But I agree with theologyofbagels that it would be difficult to manage without bogging down the game.
If I may suggest something somewhat different: are you sure you want to introduce this to the PCs as a surprise time travel event for them personally? What if they first encounter this place because some villain they thought they'd killed turned out to have been working together with different time-stream versions of themselves (or some ally they thought they'd lost had a secret hangout)? Does it matter to you whether the tea enables the time travel instead? Seems to me that it would be easier to control that way, but I suppose you could make it work either way.
Any way you do this, I agree it will be abusable, so I'd advise going in with an endgame in mind. It's a fantastic idea. I'd play in this campaign even if I knew going in that we'd all end in the unraveling of time and everything my character did would be for naught.
It's all just massive headache for the DM. Even trying to get my head around the four different variations is confusing, and that's just comprehension - actually playing a game like this will be a nightmare.
What happens to money or items accrued during the time that you effectively erase by staying there?
What stops the PCs just repeatedly going back there to reset things over and over?
I recently ran a time travel incident in my campaign. I had a wizard's tower that was trapped in a time look. The PCs could use devices inside the tower to travel back and forth through time, but it was localised; leaving the tower would mean they were stuck in whatever time period they left, and if they travelled forward they would have gone to a future where they'd failed to stop the world being destroyed and find it a wasteland.
They had a job to do, went back 100 years, the BBEG in her early form tricked them into going to do a task for her 200 years into the future, then they travelled back to just before they met her 200 years ago, she betrayed them and revealed she'd killed them multiple times already and the quest went on with them escaping back to the present.
Oddly enough, large scale events and major shifts in time are much easier to work with than these minor shifts.
Some major story and game issues:
If you go back in time the exact amount of time you sleep, then wouldn't you just wake up at the exact moment you fell asleep? Or do you sleep backwards, I guess that's more what it is.
Anyway, as far as trouble for the DM, they all are, so I'll default to my standard advice for time travel: Don't. Others have pointed out how it can be abused, and I'm sure lots of other issues will come up that none of us can predict. And not the fun, surprising kind, the headache-inducing kind.
Time travel is confusing, creates paradoxes and is much cooler on paper than in actual play. It can work in narrative fiction (though usually it's a cheap cop out for when the writer has painted themself into a corner). But narrative fiction has only one person telling the story, not a table full, so it's a bit easier to force it to work. But even then, there's really no version of time travel that makes sense.
I'll echo what others have said. The pun is fantastic and worth keeping, but there are other ways of handling it than convoluted time travel involving PCs
For instance, maybe it's called the Timely Manor because the proprietor(s) always has exactly what you need when you need it. Someone at the bar who wants to write something down finds they get handed a quill and ink by the barkeep as they pass by on the way to refill someone's mug, without even being asked. The bard plays a tune that references the bar fight 30 seconds before the fight starts. That sort of thing. At its upper limit, PCs afflicted with something when they go to sleep wake up with the remedy included with their breakfast, or at least a note indicating where they can get the remedy if you want to make it a quest
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
An alternative might be that the manor uncontrollably, and only occasionally, transports sleeping guests to another point in time. That way there's no control over it, no way to abuse it (you, the DM just choose if they travel through time, and to when) and you could have them appear at a fun point in the game world's history - maybe they step out and find the city is now controlled by their enemies, or they've gone back and can prevent a calamity.
To my mind, #3 is the only one worth playing. The others will end up being boring or over-powered.
One more thing, you need to discuss changes:
If you die, do you still wake up?
If you find and obtain treasure (gold, magic items) do you retain them when you wake up?
-----------------
Note, in any of these situations, we are basically talking Detective Story. Killing other people does not matter, as they will be back when you wake up. So this kind of adventure is always about figuring out what is going on. It could be as simple as figuring out that the INN is causing it. (or is it...) It could be figuring out an evil plot and stopping it. It could simply be doing the bidding of some god. (Damn gods never just come out and tell you what to do). etc. etc.
Very cool idea. I have often tried to work out how time-travel could be worked into a D&D campaign.
On the cost:
One way to add a cost could be that while you travel back in time, the moving backwards through the weave of magic causes you to age considerably. Say 1/10th of your natural lifespan, whatever creature you are. This would strictly limit how often you can use this method. As DM, you can describe how the PCs get up and realise it's the day before - but they then also notice some grey hairs and wrinkles that were not there yesterday/tomorrow.
You could even make this 'cost' itself an extra plot twist. Perhaps the that the innkeeper actually is a/the BBEG of the campaign and uses this method to syphon off the life force and souls of the living. Maybe describe the innkeeper initially as old and frail, but in the next iterations describe him as 'looking fit for his age', then as 'much younger than you seem to remember', until in the end, the PCs are shrivelled old retirees and the Innkeeper as young and fit and built like a demi-god. Hopefully the PCs will figure it out before the, or maybe have to break the source of the time vortex to reverse all its effects.
On the method:
I agree with the others. You won't want to force players to repeat actions, or to keep track (minute by minute) of everyone's locations and who they interact with. That woudn't be fun for anyone. So a mix of 1 & 4 seems best. Alternatively, you could do the groundhog-day issue of breaking out of the time-loop.
After you sleep in the TM, the next time the PCs rest anywhere else, they are returned in time and space back to the TM - and suffer some cost (e.g. accelerated aging, above). They then have to work out why - before they all shrivel up and die of old age.
Another fun idea that could be worth exploring: What if method 1&4 (wake up yesterday with memories in tact but no actions too place) applies not just to the PCs - but to everyone? So the whole town wakes up remembering yesterday. Anything you bought is back at the shop, anyone killed is alive - but everyone remembers. The shop-keep you stole from? He tries to find you. The guy you murdered? He woke up in fury and is now chasing you. The Villain you caught? He knows you have/will come for him, and this time hides better or prepares more traps.
I would use no. 3, where each time you go back, the timelines get more tangled. I would allow seeing your other self, but if your other self sees you, then you have problems and everyone wakes up immediately with exhaustion as the timeline fixes itself.
I would then make it a mystery which needs solving, and keep careful track of where everyone is in the timeline as it will become important. Every time they go back, there's another them to avoid. Further to this, if 5 players go back, then there will be other versions of each of them. Interacting with one of the other players fro mthe other timeline would be complex, and might change how things have played out. It would need each interaction to be concluded before you can return to the other player.
EG, bob the cleric goes back in time, buys some fish, then goes back again to sell the fish in the other market. Jeff the bard goes back in time to busk for money, then goes back again to try and rob the bank.
Jeff, on his second visit, sees Bob on his first, and persuades him to rob the bank with him. It's successful, but Bob fails to buy any fish. Bob the second, who went back in time to sell the fish, not only has no fish to sell, but never slept in the Timely Manor again, so didn't actually exist.
It's a lot to think about. You'd have to get each player to roll back to a previous version of themselves each time they are interacted with, and that could wipe out the other versions of them from a future which never happened.
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For ease of use, I would suggest that #4 seems to be the most user friendly, as it cuts any quantam entanglements and doesn't muddy the waters any further than is neccessary.
Overall, I'm starting from the assumption that you have a party of PCs, not just a singular character to work with, and that these PCs aren't an Elf or Warforged. Elves and Warforged have the little bit about not sleeping, and I'm not sure if that factors into your concept or is inconsequential. Also, I'm assuming that you plan on putting this concept in front of a party of adventurers. More perspectives means more versions of reality. If one version resets, does it effect the others? Are you prepared to run multiple different versions of the same day to narrate the individual perspectives of each PC?
These ideas work well for movies and books as they only have to cater to a singular perspective, the audience member. The director or author only need write/show/track one perspective. When we add multiple perspectives to account for the different characters on screen, the DMs job is multiplied exponentially by the number of perspectives and the number of instances that have occurred. I don't remember watching a Back to the Future - Marty's Mom Version. I do remember watching Reservoir Dogs, in all of the different perspectives (I think it's the 10th Anniversary version where each version is named after each character ie. Mr. Brown...). I might suggst having a peek at that before pulling the trigger on this. It's a good demonstration of the amount of work required to show different perspectives for the same timeline.
If you were to run this as a duet (1 player + 1 DM), I think it would work better mechanically but might become tiresome to the player after some fashion, ala Groundhog Day.
Whatever you choose, good luck and have fun!
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad