The Inside Scoop on Gaming

If only . . . . If only I'd paid more attention in class, if only I hadn't said something the way I did, if only I'd gone to the doctor earlier. If only I had a time machine . . . .

That's the appeal of time travel. You get to go back and fix the things that went wrong. Of course, it's also fraught with the potential for paradox, temporal loops, and other messes that will give you a serious headache if you try to unravel them. Aetherco's Continuum is an attempt to look seriously at time travel and its ramifications on the world. Paradoxes, time loops, and going back and changing history are all addressed, and done well.

The basic conceit of the game is that once a time machine is invented, it will be used and improved upon. Since time travellers will be able to move to any point in the timeline, the first time traveller will travel into the timeline and find a society of time travellers--Spanners, to use the game term--already in existence and using machines infinitely more advanced than his own. In Continuum that machine is the human body, once you learn the trick of time travel.

The rules are based on a build system for characters, and task resolution is performed with a single d10, with potential for dramatic successes, dramatic failures, and "divine intervention" (actually the intervention of other Spanners). Combat looks sufficiently deadly to appeal to the simulationist in me without becoming an exercise in chart-juggling. Advancement in skills and attributes is handled either "on-screen" by using them in play, or "off-screen" by spending time studying. Continuum has probably the best system I've ever seen for studying skills, and it's essential to the game.

The star of the game, though, is the way time travel is handled. In Continuum you can't change the past. If you screwed around in school and failed your classes, you can't go back and give yourself the answers. Well, you can, but you accumulate "frag". Frag is what happens when you don't keep in line with established history--you hurt yourself, not the universe. At the extreme end of getting fragged, you become little more than an ineffective ghost of yourself, trapped in time and space. What you can do is mess around with time in other ways. If you need to deliver a speech on the migratory patterns of zebra mussels or learn kung fu, span away and take all the time you need to learn what you need to know (incidentally, it'll take a character about 8 1/2 years to become a kung fu grandmaster) then come back, older but wiser, to do what needs doing.

Time tricks are part of the rules. If you're in a serious situation, and even learning a new skill won't be enough, an older version of yourself can drop by and save your bacon. The problem is you've created a loop that won't be resolved until your future self comes back and saves your past self. Characters (and players) are expected to keep careful notes about their Yet--their known future--so that they don't step on their own toes and frag themselves. For instance, I go out and buy myself a VCR. I span back a week and take my own car for a drive, and it breaks down. I get it fixed, but then my bank account doesn't have enough money for the VCR. I'm fragged until I can figure out how to get the money back in my account before I buy the VCR. The end result of this is Time Combat, where two spanners try to frag each other into submission or nonexistence. You can even avoid your own death, once. The trick is that at some point you have to go back and really die--death is in your Yet.

Continuum is probably the best look at "realistic" time travel I've ever seen. Great care is taken to explain how time works, how time travel and alterations to the past don't work, and there's even an appendix detailing time travel theories in the real world. The authors aren't physicists, and the game doesn't delve deeply into arcane mathematics. It looks at the society that would form in a world where time travel was a reality (albeit a well-kept secret).

I do have a few minor problems, of course. The knowledge that the timeline unfolds in a certain way sort of eliminates the danger of those spanners, known as "narcissists" who try to change the universe to their own vision. They're dangers to themselves, and they can be dangerous to others, but they don't seem to be dangerous to the timeline, which is already established. Some rules seem to blur the line between player and character too much for my taste (a requirement that for promotion from Span 1 to Span 2--which determines how powerful a Spanner you are--the player as well as the character be able to recite the Maxims (the laws of time travellers) by heart seems ridiculous. Poorly-organized players will have a hard time avoiding fragging themselves.

Still, there's enough adventure in this game to make up for a couple of quibbles. Now if only I hadn't spent all that money on all those RPGs that I don't like . . . .

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet
Author: David Fooden, Chris Adams, Barabara Manui Category: game Company/Publisher: Aetherco Line: Continuum Cost: US $19.99 Page count: 226 ISBN: 1-929312-00-8 SKU: ADC1001 Capsule Review by Kevin Mowery on 09/07/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Modern_day Historical Far_Future Conspiracy	If only . . . . If only I'd paid more attention in class, if only I hadn't said something the way I did, if only I'd gone to the doctor earlier. If only I had a time machine . . . . That's the appeal of time travel. You get to go back and fix the things that went wrong. Of course, it's also fraught with the potential for paradox, temporal loops, and other messes that will give you a serious headache if you try to unravel them. Aetherco's Continuum is an attempt to look seriously at time travel and its ramifications on the world. Paradoxes, time loops, and going back and changing history are all addressed, and done well. The basic conceit of the game is that once a time machine is invented, it will be used and improved upon. Since time travellers will be able to move to any point in the timeline, the first time traveller will travel into the timeline and find a society of time travellers--Spanners, to use the game term--already in existence and using machines infinitely more advanced than his own. In Continuum that machine is the human body, once you learn the trick of time travel. The rules are based on a build system for characters, and task resolution is performed with a single d10, with potential for dramatic successes, dramatic failures, and "divine intervention" (actually the intervention of other Spanners). Combat looks sufficiently deadly to appeal to the simulationist in me without becoming an exercise in chart-juggling. Advancement in skills and attributes is handled either "on-screen" by using them in play, or "off-screen" by spending time studying. Continuum has probably the best system I've ever seen for studying skills, and it's essential to the game. The star of the game, though, is the way time travel is handled. In Continuum you can't change the past. If you screwed around in school and failed your classes, you can't go back and give yourself the answers. Well, you can, but you accumulate "frag". Frag is what happens when you don't keep in line with established history--you hurt yourself, not the universe. At the extreme end of getting fragged, you become little more than an ineffective ghost of yourself, trapped in time and space. What you can do is mess around with time in other ways. If you need to deliver a speech on the migratory patterns of zebra mussels or learn kung fu, span away and take all the time you need to learn what you need to know (incidentally, it'll take a character about 8 1/2 years to become a kung fu grandmaster) then come back, older but wiser, to do what needs doing. Time tricks are part of the rules. If you're in a serious situation, and even learning a new skill won't be enough, an older version of yourself can drop by and save your bacon. The problem is you've created a loop that won't be resolved until your future self comes back and saves your past self. Characters (and players) are expected to keep careful notes about their Yet--their known future--so that they don't step on their own toes and frag themselves. For instance, I go out and buy myself a VCR. I span back a week and take my own car for a drive, and it breaks down. I get it fixed, but then my bank account doesn't have enough money for the VCR. I'm fragged until I can figure out how to get the money back in my account before I buy the VCR. The end result of this is Time Combat, where two spanners try to frag each other into submission or nonexistence. You can even avoid your own death, once. The trick is that at some point you have to go back and really die--death is in your Yet. Continuum is probably the best look at "realistic" time travel I've ever seen. Great care is taken to explain how time works, how time travel and alterations to the past don't work, and there's even an appendix detailing time travel theories in the real world. The authors aren't physicists, and the game doesn't delve deeply into arcane mathematics. It looks at the society that would form in a world where time travel was a reality (albeit a well-kept secret). I do have a few minor problems, of course. The knowledge that the timeline unfolds in a certain way sort of eliminates the danger of those spanners, known as "narcissists" who try to change the universe to their own vision. They're dangers to themselves, and they can be dangerous to others, but they don't seem to be dangerous to the timeline, which is already established. Some rules seem to blur the line between player and character too much for my taste (a requirement that for promotion from Span 1 to Span 2--which determines how powerful a Spanner you are--the player as well as the character be able to recite the Maxims (the laws of time travellers) by heart seems ridiculous. Poorly-organized players will have a hard time avoiding fragging themselves. Still, there's enough adventure in this game to make up for a couple of quibbles. Now if only I hadn't spent all that money on all those RPGs that I don't like . . . . Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet