This coming Sunday I start a mini-campaign of INFINITE WORLDS. If you don't know what that is - it is a setting published by SJG for GURPS. Its also sort of the 'catch-all' or house-setting for GURPS.


This group of players is new to the setting. One of the players has done a scan sort of reading of the book and suggested that they all bne members of a SAR team that works for Infinity.

Do any of you guys have good ideas or suggestions for this kind of alternate timeline-hopping game?


- Ed C.

It's the default setting of GURPS 4e right? Where you have officers of like multi-worlds secret services or something?

Quote from: Benoist;381989It's the default setting of GURPS 4e right? Where you have officers of like multi-worlds secret services or something?

Yes.....sort of.

For those of you not that familiar with INFINITE WORLDS,this might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Infinite_Worlds

Or maybe this:
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/infiniteworlds/

..and sort of maybe this as well:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=5255


- Ed C.

You could always crib the concept from World of Warcraft's Caverns of Time. No, wait, come back, let me finish!

The whole concept behind the Caverns of Time is that a group of elder beings are meddling with time and making events roll out differently than they are "supposed" to. So it's the job of the players to go in and make sure that one way or another, things transpire as they are supposed to -- mostly by fighting agents that appear and try to kill key figures, etc.

So you could have various "lynchpins" of time that have to remain as they are, otherwise the timeline gets thrown into utter chaos. And since you have parallel worlds with parallel timelines, that might include the team having to do things that seem utterly counterintuitive (i.e. "you have to make sure Hitler survives WWII" or something. Oops, Godwined myself.)

And of course you have a built-in enemy in the form of this other agency that's trying to disrupt the timeline, presumably to further their own agenda -- surely they have something to gain by the timelines altering radically. Maybe some of the key figures along these timelines have been replaced by enemy agents. Maybe there are enemy agents inside the player's very organization. It's like Alias with time machines!

I Metal,
They are a SAR team working for the Infinity patrol.

Doubt, they would hit such an off-the-scale parallel on their first trip or two.

- Ed C.

You could use one of my Star Trek plots that I cribbed from *mumblemumble* that might work, especially if you substitute the Time Corp non-interference for the Prime Directive. Called it "The Daybreak Society".

Basically a world where overpopulation threatened to wipe out the whole planet, so they came up with the idea of dividing into 12 segments of population that would be "awake" for one month of the year while the other 11 slept, conserving resources. The whole thing was controlled by computers, of course - and nobody in any of the segments knew about any of the others. Essentially over time and generations, they just grew used to living only one month of the year (without knowing that was happening of course, since they never experienced the other segments), with only idle curiosity about the unused but fully functional buildings world-wide. They knew about their over-populate past, and how the computer regulated everything, they just didn't know how, or suspect their hibernation.

What happened was that the team met and was talking with the current "awake" segment, and they were invited to a big "end of the month" party, part of the local culture you see. During the evening of festivities, however - someone murdered one of their crew. The local officials agreed to help in any way they could, of course, and swore to begin the full investigation the first thing in the morning.

Well....

The crew ended up drugged at the end of the night (just like everyone else in the segment) but since the computer didn't recognize them, they weren't put into storage, and woke up the next day with a huge hangover a huge complication - an empty city, with another segment waking up to a normal day, 1/12 of a world away.

Now, since they couldn't hang around for 11 months and wait for their friends to wake up, they had to solve the mystery themselves. They couldn't wake up the segment out of cycle without breaking the Prime Directive, and if they woke everyone up somehow, they'd end up killing billions as they starved to death.

So. Use that as you will.

Oh wow... Infinite Worlds seems REALLY bland and nondescriptive.
Are all GURPS settings that way?

Quote from: Phantom Black;382014Oh wow... Infinite Worlds seems REALLY bland and nondescriptive.
Are all GURPS settings that way?

There is a reason I put the phrase Constructive Suggestions in the thread title....

If you are biased against GURPS - then why post in a GURPS-related thread?


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;382017There is a reason I put the phrase Constructive Suggestions in the thread title....

If you are biased against GURPS - then why post in a GURPS-related thread?


- Ed C.

Sorry if you got me wrong. This is a sincere question.

And why do they call it "parachronic", shouldn't it be "paradimensional" instead?

It isn't about time travel, is it?


@topic:

The question is:
What do you, as a GM, want them to do, being part of a SAR team?

I mean, you could just give them a low-risk low-skill job at first, or you could use any ideas that are in this setting book, or you could maybe roll on some generator charts to inspire you.
If not, just borrow ideas from Sliders.

Quote from: Phantom Black;382019And why do they call it "parachronic", shouldn't it be "paradimensional" instead?

Parallel timelines. Hence, parachronic. *shrug* Seemed obvious to me.

After reading the Wikipedia article linked in the OP, I am convinced that the SJG folks are much, much better than I will ever be at designing alternate histories.

So I don't think I can help you. Sorry, Koltar.

But thanks for the link anyway, it made my day.

Well, the guys of Reich 5 could have a breakthrough and invade some other alternate timeline? First they would act secretly, trying to hide the fact they reached the timeline in question. Some event would go terribly wrong, and the PCs would be asked to investigate. They search for the reason why the weird event occurred... and they discover a circle of guys from Reich 5 who have been pulling the strings all along to trigger the event.

They have to deal with the situation at hand, possibly find a way to restablish the timeline, and later, as the campaign evolves, they'll have to deal with Reich 5 itself and its parachronic ambitions.

Benoist,

 IF - and its a very big IF I introduce Timeline-hoppers from Reich-5 it won't be until the last game sesssion or thereabouts.

Nazis are such a major villain , that it seems way too soon to introduce in the first or second game session. Also, one of my players is Jewish and that one may or not be in the mood for hints of Nazi atrocities in a mostly escapist fun roleplaying game.

Your post is a possibly useful one tho.


- Ed C.

TimeCorp style ideas.

There is a big bad group trying to adjust history to fit it's own want. The aim of the group is to promote totalitarianism. You could change this but works in play as all the groups they help will end up being 'bad-guys'. You could more subtle and have them aiming for Anarchy but the problem then is that in the specific scenarios you have the PCs supporting the opressive regime against the freedom fighters which is a harder game to play.
The big bad's reveal their overacrching plot slowly so at the beinging the PCs know of no link and it's only as the pattern emerges that they uncover the whole picture.


Scenario 1 - Robin Hood
A timeshift has occured so that the Sherrif of Nottingham has managed to catch Robin Hood early in his career.
As a result the underlying trend has occured such that the Barons feel less resentment at King John and so The Magna Carta is never signed. An early keystone in the move to democracy in Britain/Europe.

The PCs need to go back free Robin and remove the enemy agents who have been assisting Nottingham possibly with addition of high tech weapons. Introduce an agent who tries to escape.
Side idea - Robin is a complete Shit and its only the PCs intervention that sets him on the path to robbing from the rich and thus folk hero-dom.

Scenario 2 - American War of Independance
A timeshift has occured in which the British have defeated the American War of independence through the adoption of new High tech intelligence devices. (More interesting but harder to play would be altering the timeline earlier on such that the British adopt a more Liberal stance and grant the American's their own house of representation and so remove the cause of rebellion).
The PCs need to make sure the Rebels win a major battle (just pick one) and so ensure a victory for the evil colonists (slight bias in there ) They need to work out the Briish has superior intelligence from high tech means and the tech matches that from scenario 1. If the agent from scenario 1 escaped he comes back here. If he was killed then have a second agent. In any case you have to give the PCs some data that links sceanrio 1 and 2 and the underlying plot arc.

Scenario 3 - the 300
This one is less clear cut and if your PCs are history buffs remove it and replace it with the Peloponnesian War. The 300 option is more 'cinematic' and polularist.
A timeshift has occured in which the invading armies of Xerxes crush the Greeks led by Sparta at the battle of Thermopylae due to high tech weponry.
The effect of this is to crush nascent Greek Democracy.
 (The alternate option where the agents assist Sparta to wipe out Athens and seize control of all of Greece is more hisotrically acurate but less dramatic and possibly the 'wrong size' as a historical choke point).
The PCs have to lead a party of 300 brave Spartans to hold off the Persians whilst the Greeks reform. Of course their real plan is to infiltrate the Persians and remove the usurpers and their tech.
Here you expose the whole stroy arc and have the players trace the bad guys back to their own timeline.

scenario 4  - the end
This is where the PCs go the Big Bad's home time space and wipe them out. Ideally they do this before the Big Bad has any time to go back in time and make any of the changes and so the first three scenacrios then cease to be in a neat little time paradox that gets rid of all those beer cans the PCs left back in Sherwood forest.
You put all the agents in that the PCs have already killed but from their timelines this is earlier so they have no idea who the PCs are.

Probably some holes in that and its a bit simplistic. I always prefer making PCs kill inocent children to serve the greater good rather than killing the obvious bad guys once they are already bad

Well, since the group wants to be a SAR team then you should have them start out with some fairly easy search and rescue missions.

1)  A group of geologists studying the Grand Canyon on a Alt that never developed humans or any other sentient life has missed several check ins.  The team has to go looking for them.  Possibilities for this include - the group has lost much of it's gear due to sudden flash flooding (maybe there are injured), the group came upon some illegal travelers who were up to no good (fossil rustling, growing drugs, etc.) and has been captured by them.  Complications that you can make for any of these would be - search by air is very dangerous due to really chaotic wind currents over and in the canyon, the team has moved off the river and is not near where they should be, and lots of others I'm sure you can think of.

2)  A group of sociologists/anthropologists studying on a inhabited world (let's go Stone age/Bronze age for the tech and culture levels) has sent an emergency signal.  No information about what has happened is known as the signal was abruptly cut off.  Several possibilities here - the group could have been taken prisoner by some of the people they were studying and is in need of armed rescue.  This might require just a serious show of force or some pretty hefty fighting (a fun complication could include the scientists not wanting or having a fit over the team using 'excessive' violence).  A fun alternate could be having the natives having kidnapped one of the scientists or one of their children due to the victim looking like the image of one of the natives deities.  In this the victim is in no actual danger, just the natives don't want to give their 'god' back of course.

3)  Then there is the more standard tourist rescue.  Perhaps the tourists were on a dinosaur safari and some big critter has stepped on their transportation.  Or perhaps the tourists have been caught up in a war or major civil unrest in a world that's anywhere from Roman era to late Medieval time period.

If you want to put some real pressure on the SAR Team, then have these rescues occur on right fter the other so there is little rest time between missions.

Hope this helps.

Quote from: Phantom Black;382019Sorry if you got me wrong. This is a sincere question.

And why do they call it "parachronic", shouldn't it be "paradimensional" instead?

It isn't about time travel, is it?


@topic:

The question is:
What do you, as a GM, want them to do, being part of a SAR team?

I mean, you could just give them a low-risk low-skill job at first, or you could use any ideas that are in this setting book, or you could maybe roll on some generator charts to inspire you.
If not, just borrow ideas from Sliders.

You should know that even the slightest implied criticism of gurps (HALLOWED BE IT"S NAME!) can and does send some of it's players into paroxysms of shrieking outrage.

As to a gurps IW idea, how about copping that movie "Daybreakers"? On a parallel world  where vampires became overpopulous and depleted the human population transdimensional travel is discovered, resulting in an invasion of vampires across the timelines.