Im in the early stages of planning a dungeon for a new campaign where the premise of the dungeon is time travel. Basically, within the dungeon only, the PCs can travel 100 years into the future, or back to the present. I have a few ideas, one of which is combat, one of which isnt.
First idea is one room filled with cultists. You can sneak by them, or fight them. But if you fight them, and go through this room in the future, they are now replaced by much more powerful vengeful spirits.
Second idea is they PCs come to a door that requires 2 keys to open, and earlier in the dungeon they find one of the keys. They must then go the future to get the same key from the door in the future and bring it back to the past. However, in the future, the room is submerged by water and the door buried behind rubble. Finding a way in the past to stop the wall from collapsing/water flooding the room, either bracing the wall or mending some damage, will prevent the wall from breaking and the water from flooding. They stop the wall from breaking and water flooding, and go into the future to find there is no key. They go back to the past, put their one key in the door, go to the future, grab the key that is now in the door, and bring it back to the past, getting their “second key” needed to open the door.
Those are my ideas thus far. Let me know what you think, and please send a few more ideas regarding this concept, both combat related and not.
There was a level in Dishonored 2, A Crack in the Slab, that has this same setup. The main character could shift backward and forward in time to two different periods, and actions taken in the past carried through into the future. If you can pick up that game, give it a shot. The vengeful spirits idea is very neat. One interesting mechanic from Dishonored is worth noting but I'll leave it in a spoiler block just in case.
Aramis Stilton was a local labor hero in the Dust District, but went mad and became a hermit, letting his mansion become a run-down ruin. The main character witnesses a seance of sorts responsible for breaking Stilton's mind. If the main character prevents Stilton from observing the seance, by giving him a sleep drug, he never sees the seance, and the future is changed so that he never goes mad and his future mansion is "restored".
I’ll chime in that an episode of Infinity train has a similar vibe as well. The characters could go back and forth through time in the car and encounter creatures at different “evolutionary” stages. It would be funny if a young bad guy escapes the PCs only to be re-encountered as a big bad who has waited their whole life to settle the score with the party. 🙂
Have the party face an adult dragon they can't possibly defeat who is guarding a MacGuffin. They must use their environment as cover to slip by. They go back in time to kill the young dragon, but the MacGuffin doesn't exist yet. Perhaps it's some kind of flower that takes a century to bloom, so right now it's just a bud. Back to the future, they realize that the flower died because the dragon couldn't take care of it. Unless one of the players wants to spend a century of their life tending to the flower until they meet their party in the future, they're out of luck.
If they're particularly cruel, they could get back in time to resurrect the dragon (must have a spell for it) but not before maiming it so that it becomes severely handicapped. Back to the future, the adult dragon is weak and disabled, but was still able to take care of the flower. After putting it out of its misery, they can get the flower. Extremely clever players could foresee this problem and instead maim the young dragon without killing it, thus not having to resurrect it.
If they didn't think about this solution, have them stumble upon a broken and rusty robot. Going back in time lets them encounter it in top shape. They could convince it or reprogram it to take care of the flower, thus solving the problem. However, they see that the flower still died because the robot broke down long ago. Perhaps the robot requires a battery to function, and the state of the battery in the past is not that good. They need to recharge it with a specific kind of acid. They can find the ingredients in the future, but it requires decades of fermentation. So they go back in time with the ingredients and leave them there as they go back to the future to harvest it. Then they go back in time with the acid and insert it inside the robot's battery.
You can make a time travel dungeon as convoluted as you want. But make sure to follow one very important rule: they can't travel to a specific time in the past or future, they can only travel back and forth exactly 100 years relative to their current time. This way, they can't meet themselves and nothing they do can be undone. Anything they kill stays dead in the timeline, and only the past may affect the future. It's the only way to avoid a paradox. If for any reason the party splits in time, the players left behind may wait until the others travel in time again, or they could also travel in time to rejoin. It's impossible for them to be lost in time.
That last part can serve as a puzzle. In the future, there's a broken down room with a locked door. The only way to open it is to pull two levers at the same time. Unfortunately, the mechanism was ravaged by time. In the past, the levers are in two inaccessible rooms. The two rooms are completely walled off. The only way to access them is to wait for the walls to erode. They have to access them in the future, go back to the past while in the rooms, pull the levers, then go back to the future. But they have to pull both at the same time, so the party needs to split. There's no way to communicate by speaking due to the walls blocking sounds. They need to use magic to do it, such as telepathy or the sending spell. If they don't have a mean to do it, place such a mean inside the dungeon, perhaps some kind of magical timer that is basically useless outside of very situational uses such as this one. This allows you to not give a powerful magic item you don't want them to use outside of the dungeon.
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Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
Oh wow. That is honestly really good stuff. I never actually thought about splitting the party between the 2 time periods, and I definitely want to use that now.
And yes, it would be back and forth 100 years relative to current time, so no time paradoxes :)
Its a bit complicated, but if your players are experienced, they might complete it, like I said complicated, but it is super creative and I would actually use it, I think its great content to run in a session, if your players love puzzles, then this is a great idea.
I think thats what it was called. Its the season with the bell thats sad about its hotel guest leaving. Infinity really has some great material to steal from for D&D.
Hi all,
Im in the early stages of planning a dungeon for a new campaign where the premise of the dungeon is time travel. Basically, within the dungeon only, the PCs can travel 100 years into the future, or back to the present. I have a few ideas, one of which is combat, one of which isnt.
First idea is one room filled with cultists. You can sneak by them, or fight them. But if you fight them, and go through this room in the future, they are now replaced by much more powerful vengeful spirits.
Second idea is they PCs come to a door that requires 2 keys to open, and earlier in the dungeon they find one of the keys. They must then go the future to get the same key from the door in the future and bring it back to the past. However, in the future, the room is submerged by water and the door buried behind rubble. Finding a way in the past to stop the wall from collapsing/water flooding the room, either bracing the wall or mending some damage, will prevent the wall from breaking and the water from flooding. They stop the wall from breaking and water flooding, and go into the future to find there is no key. They go back to the past, put their one key in the door, go to the future, grab the key that is now in the door, and bring it back to the past, getting their “second key” needed to open the door.
Those are my ideas thus far. Let me know what you think, and please send a few more ideas regarding this concept, both combat related and not.
There was a level in Dishonored 2, A Crack in the Slab, that has this same setup. The main character could shift backward and forward in time to two different periods, and actions taken in the past carried through into the future. If you can pick up that game, give it a shot. The vengeful spirits idea is very neat. One interesting mechanic from Dishonored is worth noting but I'll leave it in a spoiler block just in case.
Aramis Stilton was a local labor hero in the Dust District, but went mad and became a hermit, letting his mansion become a run-down ruin. The main character witnesses a seance of sorts responsible for breaking Stilton's mind. If the main character prevents Stilton from observing the seance, by giving him a sleep drug, he never sees the seance, and the future is changed so that he never goes mad and his future mansion is "restored".
I’ll chime in that an episode of Infinity train has a similar vibe as well. The characters could go back and forth through time in the car and encounter creatures at different “evolutionary” stages. It would be funny if a young bad guy escapes the PCs only to be re-encountered as a big bad who has waited their whole life to settle the score with the party. 🙂
Have the party face an adult dragon they can't possibly defeat who is guarding a MacGuffin. They must use their environment as cover to slip by. They go back in time to kill the young dragon, but the MacGuffin doesn't exist yet. Perhaps it's some kind of flower that takes a century to bloom, so right now it's just a bud. Back to the future, they realize that the flower died because the dragon couldn't take care of it. Unless one of the players wants to spend a century of their life tending to the flower until they meet their party in the future, they're out of luck.
If they're particularly cruel, they could get back in time to resurrect the dragon (must have a spell for it) but not before maiming it so that it becomes severely handicapped. Back to the future, the adult dragon is weak and disabled, but was still able to take care of the flower. After putting it out of its misery, they can get the flower. Extremely clever players could foresee this problem and instead maim the young dragon without killing it, thus not having to resurrect it.
If they didn't think about this solution, have them stumble upon a broken and rusty robot. Going back in time lets them encounter it in top shape. They could convince it or reprogram it to take care of the flower, thus solving the problem. However, they see that the flower still died because the robot broke down long ago. Perhaps the robot requires a battery to function, and the state of the battery in the past is not that good. They need to recharge it with a specific kind of acid. They can find the ingredients in the future, but it requires decades of fermentation. So they go back in time with the ingredients and leave them there as they go back to the future to harvest it. Then they go back in time with the acid and insert it inside the robot's battery.
You can make a time travel dungeon as convoluted as you want. But make sure to follow one very important rule: they can't travel to a specific time in the past or future, they can only travel back and forth exactly 100 years relative to their current time. This way, they can't meet themselves and nothing they do can be undone. Anything they kill stays dead in the timeline, and only the past may affect the future. It's the only way to avoid a paradox. If for any reason the party splits in time, the players left behind may wait until the others travel in time again, or they could also travel in time to rejoin. It's impossible for them to be lost in time.
That last part can serve as a puzzle. In the future, there's a broken down room with a locked door. The only way to open it is to pull two levers at the same time. Unfortunately, the mechanism was ravaged by time. In the past, the levers are in two inaccessible rooms. The two rooms are completely walled off. The only way to access them is to wait for the walls to erode. They have to access them in the future, go back to the past while in the rooms, pull the levers, then go back to the future. But they have to pull both at the same time, so the party needs to split. There's no way to communicate by speaking due to the walls blocking sounds. They need to use magic to do it, such as telepathy or the sending spell. If they don't have a mean to do it, place such a mean inside the dungeon, perhaps some kind of magical timer that is basically useless outside of very situational uses such as this one. This allows you to not give a powerful magic item you don't want them to use outside of the dungeon.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
Oh wow. That is honestly really good stuff. I never actually thought about splitting the party between the 2 time periods, and I definitely want to use that now.
And yes, it would be back and forth 100 years relative to current time, so no time paradoxes :)
Its a bit complicated, but if your players are experienced, they might complete it, like I said complicated, but it is super creative and I would actually use it, I think its great content to run in a session, if your players love puzzles, then this is a great idea.
Are talking about the ''past car'' episode?
A reply to the reply about infinity train
I think thats what it was called. Its the season with the bell thats sad about its hotel guest leaving. Infinity really has some great material to steal from for D&D.
Yeah each car has some great puzzles and dungeons ideas.
I know this game has probably gone and went, but I would highly recommend looking into the Titanfall 2 mission, “Effect and Cause.”