Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 26, 2005 7:57:00 GMT -5
Quickly - unique system, great concepts, not for every group.
Summary: As the name indicate Timestream is a game about time travel. The basic premise is to have fun telling a time traveling story and not get bogged down in all the scientific facts and paradoxes. Characters are created from any time frame and abilities are determined solely by the players. The characters are connected to each other by a set of Anchors (important people to the characters), with each player having an association to another player's anchors.
Players take the roles of one of three types: Travelers (who can go forward and back through time, bring others to another time, or view the past or future), Time Manipulators (who can change the time around them, slow things down, speed them up, or even loop time), and Thralls (a mix of the two but they serve a master who can dictate what and when they do things).
The core rules are a system for time travel and manipulation and rules for determining the outcome of conflicts.
The time travel rules are excellent, using a system of Time and Strain. Players spend time to manipulate time and gain strain as they do so. Build up enough strain and you could get popped back to your own time (and your body will suffer for it). It is also possible to be pulled right out of time and end up in a rather interesting Limbo.
The conflict rules are simple, and actually fairly elegant. Very different from most systems, a conflict can be anything from a simple exchange of words to a full out war. Players roll 2D6 and add an Arena (a stat or skill in most system), the DM rolls 2D6+modifiers for any NPCS (this can include non human things, like a lock on a door, or the weather, etc). The highest roller determines the outcome.
The good: Making characters was a lot of fun actually. Once you create your anchors you draw a Relationship map tyeing all the players together with the anchors. This was a great tool I will probably 'steal' for any other game I run. We also made a rather amusing map that I will have to keep for some time. The book was very well written and easy to read. The inclusion of an index I was highly thankful for. The concepts in this are great, and the 2 types of time travel are well done and appeared to work well. The goal and obstacle system was very interesting.
The bad: Making characters took a long time. This can be good or bad, but seemed to take longer then expected (it was also amusing to see a group with post secondary educations having such a hard time with basic math). It was our first time trying the system though and I am sure it will be quicker next time. The goal and obstacle system is interesting but we found it difficult to come up with these as it was a pretty unique concept for us. Some goals ended up being too easy to achieve and some were just too hard or near impossible. Some of the art in the book was sub par. The timescape logo itself looks over compressed. The conflict system puts a lot of power and work on the players, this would not be bad in all groups and may even be great, with our group it was very different from what we are used to. At times it worked great, others it was difficult.
The Ugly: What do I do with all this. The biggest problem we had was figuring out what to do with everything. We have a bunch of time travelers with cool abilities, we know what we can do, but now what to do with it. There is little direction or suggestions on what to do with this system in the rulebook. A sample adventure or more in depth look at what to do with the game would have been appreciated (there are sample settings but they are about a paragraph long). Our particular game just kind of died when we got everyone together in the same time period and went "now what?". I feel in a future game we will sit down and decide on a basic setting, style, and theme before making characters and this will alleviate this problem. Even though we weren't supposed to be worrying about paradoxes we did spend a lot of time 'discussing' time (how can we go into the future to when the war ended when we haven't been there yet so don't know when it ends?)
The really ugly: There is a paragraph in the back of this book that actually pissed me off. The designer states that his game has no Golden Rule, and that every rule in the game is there for a reason and basically that if you don't like it go play something else. Okay it's cool and all to think your game is perfect and not want people to modify your Mona Lisa, I'm sure every developer feels that way, but you don't have to explicitly state that. This game will be purchased, once it is purchased it is the property of the purchaser, as the new owner they can do what they like with it, and will.
Overall: this is a very unique system with some great concepts. It is a great treatment of the time travel genre. There was some difficulty trying to figure out what to do with this once we got moving. The large amount of group storytelling being done mainly by the players themselves is very different from your traditional game and will not be for all groups.
Any of the players have anything to add?
Summary: As the name indicate Timestream is a game about time travel. The basic premise is to have fun telling a time traveling story and not get bogged down in all the scientific facts and paradoxes. Characters are created from any time frame and abilities are determined solely by the players. The characters are connected to each other by a set of Anchors (important people to the characters), with each player having an association to another player's anchors.
Players take the roles of one of three types: Travelers (who can go forward and back through time, bring others to another time, or view the past or future), Time Manipulators (who can change the time around them, slow things down, speed them up, or even loop time), and Thralls (a mix of the two but they serve a master who can dictate what and when they do things).
The core rules are a system for time travel and manipulation and rules for determining the outcome of conflicts.
The time travel rules are excellent, using a system of Time and Strain. Players spend time to manipulate time and gain strain as they do so. Build up enough strain and you could get popped back to your own time (and your body will suffer for it). It is also possible to be pulled right out of time and end up in a rather interesting Limbo.
The conflict rules are simple, and actually fairly elegant. Very different from most systems, a conflict can be anything from a simple exchange of words to a full out war. Players roll 2D6 and add an Arena (a stat or skill in most system), the DM rolls 2D6+modifiers for any NPCS (this can include non human things, like a lock on a door, or the weather, etc). The highest roller determines the outcome.
The good: Making characters was a lot of fun actually. Once you create your anchors you draw a Relationship map tyeing all the players together with the anchors. This was a great tool I will probably 'steal' for any other game I run. We also made a rather amusing map that I will have to keep for some time. The book was very well written and easy to read. The inclusion of an index I was highly thankful for. The concepts in this are great, and the 2 types of time travel are well done and appeared to work well. The goal and obstacle system was very interesting.
The bad: Making characters took a long time. This can be good or bad, but seemed to take longer then expected (it was also amusing to see a group with post secondary educations having such a hard time with basic math). It was our first time trying the system though and I am sure it will be quicker next time. The goal and obstacle system is interesting but we found it difficult to come up with these as it was a pretty unique concept for us. Some goals ended up being too easy to achieve and some were just too hard or near impossible. Some of the art in the book was sub par. The timescape logo itself looks over compressed. The conflict system puts a lot of power and work on the players, this would not be bad in all groups and may even be great, with our group it was very different from what we are used to. At times it worked great, others it was difficult.
The Ugly: What do I do with all this. The biggest problem we had was figuring out what to do with everything. We have a bunch of time travelers with cool abilities, we know what we can do, but now what to do with it. There is little direction or suggestions on what to do with this system in the rulebook. A sample adventure or more in depth look at what to do with the game would have been appreciated (there are sample settings but they are about a paragraph long). Our particular game just kind of died when we got everyone together in the same time period and went "now what?". I feel in a future game we will sit down and decide on a basic setting, style, and theme before making characters and this will alleviate this problem. Even though we weren't supposed to be worrying about paradoxes we did spend a lot of time 'discussing' time (how can we go into the future to when the war ended when we haven't been there yet so don't know when it ends?)
The really ugly: There is a paragraph in the back of this book that actually pissed me off. The designer states that his game has no Golden Rule, and that every rule in the game is there for a reason and basically that if you don't like it go play something else. Okay it's cool and all to think your game is perfect and not want people to modify your Mona Lisa, I'm sure every developer feels that way, but you don't have to explicitly state that. This game will be purchased, once it is purchased it is the property of the purchaser, as the new owner they can do what they like with it, and will.
Overall: this is a very unique system with some great concepts. It is a great treatment of the time travel genre. There was some difficulty trying to figure out what to do with this once we got moving. The large amount of group storytelling being done mainly by the players themselves is very different from your traditional game and will not be for all groups.
Any of the players have anything to add?