How would you build a Time controller?

AngryGhost · Post by **AngryGhost** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:03 am

Really the above, but of varying levels

eg

freezing people in place, bullets (immobilise?)

rewinding time to x point

age an object (via speeding up time around it)

higher powers - freezing an entire area in time.

time travel (either way)

Post by **BASHMAN** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:37 am

Rewinding Time? Maybe Clairvoyance? The GM would have to play along heavily though.

I remembered playing in an RPG once (it wasn't BASH!) where my character had a Clairvoyance ability that allowed her at any time to say "but it was all just a vision" and essentially state that the game rewinds back in time to the point she wanted it to.

As a Narrator, if I even allowed this, it would require the spending of a Hero Die, considering it as a Power Stunt.

The effect in game, was AWESOME for a one-shot though. The villain was giving his monologue about how he "already flooded the earth 30 minutes ago" in his undersea lair. I said, "You may want to check your instruments" and stated that I foresaw this and 24 hours ago had teams disarm the bombs from the various key places on earth, so that when he hit the detinator 30 minutes ago, it didn't do anything. The images on the TV screen showing flooding was footage that I had fed into his computer. It was pretty awesome- but I would only allow this during a 1-shot. It would be annoying for a player to do this every week.

Otherwise, if you want to go back in time, you need the Time & Space (Cosmic) power. It's expensive for a reason. That power could cover most of these that you mention, in fact.

Aging an Object/person would probably be Special Attack. Metal rusts and crumbles, wood rots, flesh ages and withers, etc.

Some other useful powers for Time themed characters:

Clairvoyance
Danger Sense ("I saw that coming... yesterday in fact")
Martial Arts Mastery, Attack Weak Point, & Weapon Technique (it isn't really that you are that practiced with fighting, it's that you know exactly when to strike / block/ dodge, etc)
Sense X (X being Temporal Distortions)
Immobilization (Time Freezing people)
Super Speed (You freeze time for a few seconds and do stuff; to the frozen people, you look like a blur of speed)

AngryGhost · Post by **AngryGhost** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:52 am

coolness - I was thinking it might be cool for an npc. I had a player ask me if they could control time. I said no.

can of worms I thought

Post by **BASHMAN** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 5:31 am

I allowed one of my Heroes to get Time & Space power. It was a great plot vehicle for me to send them to various alternate universes and points in history.

He does not have a great deal of control over the power yet; so it is basically working like "Sliders" TV series whenever he uses it with the ultimate goal of them finally getting back to their own time/dimension.

So far, they've gone back to WWII, a Fantasy Feudal Japan type world, and next are going to a dystopic modern USA where the robots created to protect humans from mutants have gone haywire.

AngryGhost · Post by **AngryGhost** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 5:48 am

that sounds so cool

Profetadelpesar · Post by **Profetadelpesar** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:38 pm

Raising this from among the dead because a doubt hited me.

Of course, Super Speed or Teleport can be used to mimic many effects of time travel- without having to spend a Hero point or risk being trapped in the wrong time!

That's the book.

Otherwise, if you want to go back in time, you need the Time & Space (Cosmic) power. It's expensive for a reason. That power could cover most of these that you mention, in fact.

I allowed a character who stop time and teleports in time. We use Dimentional Teleport 3; the dimensions are moments in he past/future and instead of actually stopping the time, the character slides off the Time continuum (so it is included in the Dimensinal Teleport), everything seems stuck in place, and she is the only source of acting energy. She has to reenter the Timeflux if wants to affect anything.

For past/future moments I rule the inertia of history idea, so major changes to the timeline are more difficult, maybe impossible. The future is still subject to changes. Of course the player must understand the kind of power she has and commit not to abuse it (same for GM). She is the daughter of the Time God and is responsible for guarding the continuity of Time, so there's not much to worry about changes to the reality, since the powers comes into play only so often and primarly used for getting info (not to saving a former Hero life at hands of his Archenemy, but to questioning him about those last minutes in which he discovered the truth about the evil device, taking a last talk to that friend and not letting him know is about to die, etc. Just some example).

I like a lot the "I ruined your evil plan 35 minutes ago" aproach of Clarivoyance Bashman mentions, and will think on reasonable limits to incorporate it to the campaign (once every other issue, the HD cost, and the like).

M.