Tag: timewatch

South American Diving River Elephants [Timewatch].

Blame this.

south-american-diving-river-elephants-google-docs

South American Diving River Elephants

(This writeup is meant for use with the TimeWatch RPG.)

Stats: as per Mastodon (pg. 161), with the addition of Oracle (1) and Psychic (Mind-Reading) (2)

Well, of course you’ve never heard of them.  They’re not just extinct; they never existed in the first place.  When Timewatch came across these critters, they were already close to dying out on their own – seriously, who thought that a species of five-ton animals could be evolutionarily suited for diving into piranha-infested waters? – so naturally the organization grabbed all the Diving Elephants that they could, on the principle that it didn’t matter, right?  And then they went back further in time, and grabbed all of those Diving Elephants, and then they did it again, and again, and eventually TimeWatch decided to eat the temporal instability and simply grabbed the species from the start, thus preventing Diving Elephants from meeting their dubious destiny with applied evolution at all. Continue reading South American Diving River Elephants [Timewatch].

Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

Tachyon Tagger – Google Docs

Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

A Tachyon Tagger typically looks like a small wand.  When pointed at something else, the Tagger irradiates the target with a stable particles that travel backwards in time.  This means, effectively, that any scanners that can detect these particles will be able to track down the item in the past. The exact ‘frequency**’ of these particles can be specifically set, allowing for only someone with the right ‘signature’ to track the item; or it can be set to be detectable by all scanners. Either way: the temporal range for these particles is about two thousand years before they decay, and most scanners will only be able to pick them up within a thirty mile range.  Amusingly, the user has to jump back in time in order to confirm that the Tagger worked: this device cannot be used to track an item into the future. Continue reading Tachyon* Tagger [GURPS 4E, Timewatch]

Eddie Peasantsbane. [TimeWatch]

I have gotten the word that the TimeWatch folks don’t mind free fan-based stuff, so: enjoy.  Obviously: this dude is a time traveler, he’s designed to be a pain in the neck, and he’s blissfully unaware of just how much of a disaster he’s being. Enjoy!

Eddie Peasantsbane

TimeWatch ranks this rogue jumper as being somewhere between a nuisance and a problem; strictly speaking, he’s definitely a problem – but Eddie Peasantsbane is far too useful as a Horrible Example, and as a reason to stamp down on human beings with intrinsic time-jumping abilities.  He is, in fact, the literal poster child for the campaign to report and register all humans who don’t need an autochron to time-travel. All of this, paradoxically enough, gives Eddie Peasantsbane just a little bit more leeway in which to operate.  Not that he realizes that.

Continue reading Eddie Peasantsbane. [TimeWatch]

Meant to note: TimeWatch is now available for sale.

TimeWatch is Pelgrane Press’s time-travel RPG (uses GUMSHOE), and the books are very very pretty and very very nice. I got the books early via the Kickstarter, and I think that it may very well become the go-to game for time travel campaigns (not that there are all that many RPGs that concentrate on that, of course).  Plus, I have a campaign concept rattling around in my head that I know that the game will support. So, check it out.

“Which Side are You on?” #evilpelgrane

Blame this. Blame this, blame this, blame this.  The tune and lyrics are parodying an unholy amalgamation of Pete Seeger and The Dropkick Murphys, by the way.  Because it amused me to do so.

(TimeWatch is a fun looking game, by the way: and it was actually a tough call on which side to go for. But you don’t write songs: you follow them to where they are going.)

Continue reading “Which Side are You on?” #evilpelgrane

So I was about to put up something that was Timewatch related…

…(Timewatch being that time travel RPG coming out Very Very Soon Now) and then I remembered: I don’t actually have the rights to put up any of that material. I should check up on whether they’re going to OGL it, although I should probably contemplate… I dunno, try to sell them it?

Anyway, the basic concept was pretty simple: imagine a past Golden Age. Then smash it. From the broken pieces, construct our own timeline. Now imagine how the few temporal refugees from said Golden Age are going to feel about that. Did I mention that some of them could give a Grey Lensman a run for his money?

Anyway, your party’s job is to stop them from reversing their horrifying apocalypse. Have fun!

Hey, if you backed the Timewatch RPG Kickstarter…

…the digital files have dropped. Check your email account. The physical books are at the printers, so they should be toodling along at a near-future point.

Timewatch, for those who don’t remember, is a time travel RPG using GUMSHOE rules. It’s finally coming out, which is nice, because I’ve been looking forward to it. There’s a couple of things that I’d like to write for that particular game line…

Coming down to the *wire* on the TimeWatch Kickstarter.

I know, I know: those of you who don’t play RPGs are bored.  To which I reply: neener, neener, I want this book in full color*.  Besides, it beats obsessing over international news, which is awful right now and getting worse.

Moe Lane

*I also want the opportunity to pitch some of my ideas and writing on this to the people running what has suddenly become a rather more open and content-hungry project, so it’s in my best interest if they’ve got a whole bunch of space that needs filling with words, yes-no?

Now, what we have here is an interesting TimeWatch Kickstarter dilemma.

We’re at the 23 hour-mark-and-counting before the end of the TimeWatch Kickstarter; the current pledge total is just below $82K. At $85K a new stretch goal opens up: to wit, a 96 page Guide to the Annotated Timeline supplement. If it unlocks, a backer at my existing level gets the PDF for free, and the printed copy for an extra $20 (as an ‘add-on’).  So: if I toss in that $20, the Kickstarter will be $20 closer to the total; but if the Kickstarter does not hit its total, then I will have to take that $20 and hopefully apply it towards another add-on (but if I had wanted that hypothetical add-on in the first place I’d have simply increased my backing in the first place), or go to a higher tier at the last second.

It’s a definite exercise in game theory, no?  What’s my optimal strategy, here?