Time War: History Gets Torn a New One (Interest Check)

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

You ever wonder how easily the little things change history? How the modern world was shaped by the tiniest occurrences. A spot of rain stopped France from ruling the world, a heart attack saved Europe from the Mongol hordes, a man wanting a sandwich plunged the Earth into The Great War. And after all that wondering, have you ever paused to thought what would happen if those things didn't happen? How the world would be shaped up to be then?

Well two gloriously diabolical masterminds have both wondered, pondered, and have unfortunately taken action about it! The two rival scientists Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla have entered a war, one that stretches beyond our thinking of traditional war, but one that instead is a war through and for Time itself.

The two enemies, now fighting more out of spite than any actual goal, have begun to rend Time asunder and rearrange it as they see fit, hoping to either erase the other from existence, or ruin history enough that the other will finally concede.

But you can't wage war with just two men. Both Tesla and Edison have formed teams made of History's most notorious and celebrated, hated and hailed, and cunning and ruthless figures, to help them defeat the other someway somehow.

So this is an RP taking place throughout human history, where you will be able to play as the world's most renown and celebrated (or cursed and hated) people ever to live.

Due to the bum rushing (not literal) time travel can play on a story, it will most likely be spread out in Episodes, with 7 episodes a season with a season finale being the 8th and 9th.

Each episode shall have the teams fight against each other, each trying to either change a historical event or keep it the same. At the end of the episode a team shall be declared the winner, and have all the bragging rights to go with it.

If you are interested in signing up for the real thing, let me know, and if you have any question, feel free to ask.

 

[Gamebrother1337]

What time periods or events did you have in mind?

 

[fenrizz]

A few questions:

* Is this played on the forums?
* What rule set it used?
* Is there a schedule?

 

[ThreeWords]

How will the Pvp function? Also, how radically can I change history?

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

What time periods or events did you have in mind?

And are people allowed to jump between time periods (eg. going to the future to grab a machine gun, and using it to take over a Norman fort?)

 

[Pappytech]

Okay, my interest is certainly piqued. I'd like to hear some more about combat rules and whatnot, but this does sound quite fun.

 

[Arrogancy]

This is very intriguing. Two masters of science and bitter enemies threaten to rend the fabric of time and space just to spite each other. You, sir, have stumbled onto something great. That said please elaborate more on the rules and what limitations there may be.

 

[CplDustov]

Sounds great. I am certainly interested. but would need to know more about the technical aspects

 

[HarmanSmith]

I came hoping for a Doctor Who thread, but this works too. The premise is certainly interesting in theory, but I don't see any way it could be played out in practice. The first and most obvious question is why either party would bother with anything other than trying to kill the other one's mother, since erasing the enemy's leader pretty much means you win by default. If you want the story to hold up under any kind of scrutiny, you'll have to get imaginative and set some very specific rules.

I would suggest setting up a thread to make a more concrete premise, like ask people to find plot holes and add an explanation to fix it.

For example, Edison and Tesla would have had to have discovered time travel simultaneously or one of them discovered it, took over the world, then the other stole/invented his own time travel device to start the whole war thing.

How about you use a variant of the Half-Life plot; cosmic beings using Edison and Tesla as their champions in a proxy war. Said eldritch abominations impose rules to prevent abuse of the system, like no interfering with the birth/life of the other, "battles" take place at predetermined events in history with each side having a specific objective to complete that would change history in their favor.

So yeah, you have a lot of work to do if you want it to be good, but I see no reason why it couldn't be awesome.

 

[ThreeWords]

The first and most obvious question is why either party would bother with anything other than trying to kill the other one's mother, since erasing the enemy's leader pretty much means you win by default.

Perhaps directly erasing your reason to act creates a paradox. Maybe the only way to use time-travel for profit it to create situations which chain-reactions to your benefit....

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Can we make characters from the future?
Love to play as A Terminator in the 1950's....

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

What time periods or events did you have in mind?

Currently I was thinking of a few scenarios

The Battle Of Waterloo
The Conference of Vienna
The Assassination of Julius Ceasar
The French Revolution
The Hundred Years War

The actual plot of the events shall be determined later, as this is simply interest gathering at this point.

A few questions:

* Is this played on the forums?
* What rule set it used?
* Is there a schedule?

*Yes
*Common Rules shall be instilled, along with special PVP rules that shall be determined in this topic
*Most likely not, and if so a very loose one.

How will the Pvp function? Also, how radically can I change history?

The PVP will (as my current idea is) be that two players shall PM each other their posts, and I shall (probably with other judges) determine who was the winner of that post. However, the winning player must then rewrite or edit their post according to how they were just attacked by the other player.

And are people allowed to jump between time periods (eg. going to the future to grab a machine gun, and using it to take over a Norman fort?)

No probably. Each episode will be isolated to a single time period.

This is very intriguing. Two masters of science and bitter enemies threaten to rend the fabric of time and space just to spite each other. You, sir, have stumbled onto something great. That said please elaborate more on the rules and what limitations there may be.

That is what this topic is for my good sir.

I came hoping for a Doctor Who thread, but this works too. The premise is certainly interesting in theory, but I don't see any way it could be played out in practice. The first and most obvious question is why either party would bother with anything other than trying to kill the other one's mother, since erasing the enemy's leader pretty much means you win by default. If you want the story to hold up under any kind of scrutiny, you'll have to get imaginative and set some very specific rules.

I would suggest setting up a thread to make a more concrete premise, like ask people to find plot holes and add an explanation to fix it.

For example, Edison and Tesla would have had to have discovered time travel simultaneously or one of them discovered it, took over the world, then the other stole/invented his own time travel device to start the whole war thing.

How about you use a variant of the Half-Life plot; cosmic beings using Edison and Tesla as their champions in a proxy war. Said eldritch abominations impose rules to prevent abuse of the system, like no interfering with the birth/life of the other, "battles" take place at predetermined events in history with each side having a specific objective to complete that would change history in their favor.

So yeah, you have a lot of work to do if you want it to be good, but I see no reason why it couldn't be awesome.

THAT is an excellent idea.

I may just have to steal that bit if you don't mind.

Can we make characters from the future?
Love to play as A Terminator in the 1950's....

No fictional characters. You may only play as actual historical figures.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I DIB ANDREW JACKSON!
http://www.cracked.com/article_15895_the-5-most-badass-presidents-all-time.html

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

Fuck yeah.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

This looks like it could be pretty awesome.

However, if there is going to be PvP what happens to the losing party of a battle? Do they die and have to stop taking part? because after several episodes i imagine half the people will be dead, so i suggest that when someone loses a fight or whatever, instead of dying their character switches teams.

Either that or they just go a different character, but then dying wouldnt really have any consequence.

 

[Arrogancy]

What time periods or events did you have in mind?

Currently I was thinking of a few scenarios

The Battle Of Waterloo
The Conference of Vienna
The Assassination of Julius Ceasar
The French Revolution
The Hundred Years War

I would also add:

The Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of the Bulge
The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand/The beginning of World War 1

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

This looks like it could be pretty awesome.

However, if there is going to be PvP what happens to the losing party of a battle? Do they die and have to stop taking part? because after several episodes i imagine half the people will be dead, so i suggest that when someone loses a fight or whatever, instead of dying their character switches teams.

Either that or they just go a different character, but then dying wouldnt really have any consequence.

This is going to be the more problematic of problems I suppose.

Because the cast ins going to remain practically the same from Episode to Episode, combat will usually end up being non-lethal in ending.

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

What time periods or events did you have in mind?

Currently I was thinking of a few scenarios

The Battle Of Waterloo
The Conference of Vienna
The Assassination of Julius Ceasar
The French Revolution
The Hundred Years War

I would also add:

The Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of the Bulge
The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand/The beginning of World War 1

All good suggestions.

 

[HarmanSmith]

I'm not sure how set you are on the rules, but I have a few ideas you can play around with.

Since part of your hook is how little things can have huge effects on an outcome, I think it would be pretty fun to base the game mechanics around that. Basically, players take turns altering some part of the situation to sabotage the enemy or tip the advantage in favor of your team.

Take the Franz Ferdinand assassination for example; Gavrilo Princip killed Ferdinand after his motorcade passed a cafe where Princip was eating after a failed assassination attempt earlier that day. Player one calls the cafe and makes a bomb threat, so the cafe is closed for the day and Princip is not there to see the motorcade and kill Ferdinand. Player two can reasonably assume the Princip went somewhere else to eat and diverts the motorcade toward where Princip is eating instead, using some means like creating an obstruction in the road or giving the driver bad directions (Ferdinand's driver had gotten really lost that day in reality, which lead to the original assassination). It goes back and forth like that until the other side runs out of ideas. The desired goal is to create a Rube Goldberg level sequence of events that at least sort of logically follow from one to the next.

I would say no directly murdering anyone, lest you have players calling "rocks fall everyone dies", which would ruin the whole thing. You are only allowed to alter facets of the situation then explain how that would lead to a different outcome.

As for the historical personalities recruited for the respective armies, I haven't quite got anything for that one. To be fair I recently finished playing Ghost Trick, which has very similar mechanics to what I was just describing, so maybe I'm a bit biased. It's your creation, do whatever you want with it. Just make specific rules that prevent the players from screwing with the system or winning too easily.

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

I'm not sure how set you are on the rules, but I have a few ideas you can play around with.

Since part of your hook is how little things can have huge effects on an outcome, I think it would be pretty fun to base the game mechanics around that. Basically, players take turns altering some part of the situation to sabotage the enemy or tip the advantage in favor of your team.

Take the Franz Ferdinand assassination for example; Gavrilo Princip killed Ferdinand after his motorcade passed a cafe where Princip was eating after a failed assassination attempt earlier that day. Player one calls the cafe and makes a bomb threat, so the cafe is closed for the day and Princip is not there to see the motorcade and kill Ferdinand. Player two can reasonably assume the Princip went somewhere else to eat and diverts the motorcade toward where Princip is eating instead, using some means like creating an obstruction in the road or giving the driver bad directions (Ferdinand's driver had gotten really lost that day in reality, which lead to the original assassination). It goes back and forth like that until the other side runs out of ideas. The desired goal is to create a Rube Goldberg level sequence of events that at least sort of logically follow from one to the next.

I would say no directly murdering anyone, lest you have players calling "rocks fall everyone dies", which would ruin the whole thing. You are only allowed to alter facets of the situation then explain how that would lead to a different outcome.

As for the historical personalities recruited for the respective armies, I haven't quite got anything for that one. To be fair I recently finished playing Ghost Trick, which has very similar mechanics to what I was just describing, so maybe I'm a bit biased. It's your creation, do whatever you want with it. Just make specific rules that prevent the players from screwing with the system or winning too easily.

If you keep this up I'll have to make you Co-Gm.

This is a great suggestion man.