Okay, so my SO has developed a gaming addiction, and we're looking at
working our way through my shelves of games on nights we want to game
but can't stir up our regular groups. (Hard life for me, eh? :)
We've done half a dozen Shadowrun sessions, and determined:
- One player games CAN work
- One player games can be VERY different (for good or ill)
Next up on the list is Time Travel, and she's agreed to let me use Fudge
as the system (yay!).
Now, Time Travel happens to be a favorite genre (genres?) of mine, and I
have a bajillion resources for it. When I sat down to consider what
sort of genre rules and tech rules to use, I realized I have the
opportunity to play a TT game that pretty much CAN'T be done when I have
multiple players. (I don't have to remove a party's ability to blip
about the timeline independant of each other, as a major example. The
tech might allow a player to blip out, do 6 months worth of RP, then
blip back to the second after they left and continue the conversation.
Not practical in a group game, but doable in a single PC game.)
I tend to like games where you can play with the tech to solve problems
in different ways, but not to solve EVERY problem. I'm still at the
rough planning stages, but I wondered if anyone had any ideas I hadn't
stirred up yet, either on fun things to do with a single PC in TT, or
just advice for single PC playing in general.
Here're my ideas thus far:
* A small portable device for travel
* Device should have a reasonable security to prevent use by others, but
not flawless for a sufficiently clever opponent.
* Device might have an odd limitation, such as requiring a local (to the
device) time between uses, to create tension and require answers beyond
just "blip!". Oh the fun if she gets two or three such devices! ("Okay,
so I pop to a few hours from now and grab Number 2 and Number 3 while
they're charged, and leave #1....oh hey, here's a #1 already charged, it
must be from some other time. I'll just borrow it for a while and
return it to now when I'm done.") I must remember to have some way to
destroy them after THAT adventure :) 30 minutes sounds useful...not so
much as to prohibit use of the device, but enough to get her in local
trouble where it can't help.
* The character will be unable to directly or closely indirectly
interfere with her own past/future actions. (Observer Effect, with
Conspiring Events)
* Exception: A timeline can be modified so as to cause a future
disturbance, which will build paradox on the character. (Or indeed,
upon any temporally displaced mass).
* Temporally displaced mass, when removed from the protective field of
the device, will start to suffer chronic decay, where it reflects
causal changes (this allows "newspaper from tomorrow" tricks, as well as
"I prevented my birth, and I'm starting to cease to exist".) The rate
of onset is based on....something fun :) Characters with mild changes
will get mucked up memories, mental issues, etc.
(I'm thinking of starting her like this, as a just-decayed character
with spotty memories)
* A (secondary?) device will have general temporal trivia and the
ability to transfer a wide array of languages into the characters mind
(with variable success). The trivia will probably affect "homeline"
history for the character.
I'm still working out who the character reports to and the general
motivation (Spiders and Snakes is a possiblity, as is the cliched
reporting to your future self, but I'm still rolling it all around and
I'm not worried as of yet).
Anyone else?
--
SwiftOne / Brett Sanger
swiftone@swiftone.org
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