 Goto [ Index ] |
"Why review such an old game?"
Simply put, what with the rise of eBay, Amazon Marketplace, and the myriad other sites dedicated to second-hand books, finding older games is likely easier now than at any point in the past. However, even with something like the RPGNet Game Index to tell you what a game is, there's often no information on just whether or not it's any good — either as a game itself or as a general source for ideas.
Therefore, reviews of old games are potentially useful to somebody who comes across a copy and wonders "Is this worth buying?" Besides, the latest White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast book is almost guaranteed to get a review eventually; a quarter-century old boxed set from a company that's been out of the gaming business for just as long, on the other hand….
Timelord! Just the Basics, If You Please: The Physical Product & Background
Timeship is a boxed set that was published by Yaquinto Publications, the primarily war- and board-gaming arm of Dallas-based Yaquinto Printing, back in 1983, a time when it seems like every boardgame manufacturer was trying to grab a slice of the lucrative roleplaying market. Unlike most of those other companies, which took the obvious path and released a fantasy game, Timeship is a time-travel game. A genre that represents a relatively sparsely populated segment of the gaming market even today, perhaps because it is admittedly quite difficult to get right. (Which isn't to that say they didn't also go the fantasy path, as evidenced by their slightly better known RPG offering, Man, Myth & Magic.
The box itself features a rather bizarre cover illustration, showing a number of glowing-eyed, bald figures floating about above illustrations of an eye, a futuristic city, dinosaurs, a knight, and a clock. The back cover informs the reader that "THERE ARE NO MORE BARRIERS!" and promises that Timeship is "an imaginative and innovative roleplaying game." Big talk, but does it deliver? In short: no, but more important to discussion at hand is why it doesn't and whether anything worthwhile is found within.
Inside the box there is a 48-page booklet featuring a black & white reproduction of the box art on the cover, a four-sheet perforated set of illustrations and maps for use with the included adventures, a three-panel "Timelord Screen," and a very thick pad of character sheets. (A pair of d20s numbered 0 to 9 twice, one white and one not, were also originally present when the game was new, but I seem to have lost mine at some point.)
Everything evidences at best average production values for the time— about on par with Avalon Hill's various RuneQuest boxes: the booklet is cleanly laid out in two columns of bland typeface per page with few illustrations, the book has a paper cover, the screen is just sturdy enough to work, &c.
Overall, functional but nothing impressive.
Timelord! Let's Get Down to Business: The Rules of the Game
As should be evident from the content listing, the most important part of the box is the 48-page rulebook, which contains both the game rules and the three adventure scenarios. Opening the booklet reveals the table of contents and the start of the 4-page introduction. While most readers might be normally forgiven skipping rulebook introductions — what is an RPG, where to get dice (if necessary), &c. — Timeship's is about nothing of the usual sort and is probably the first clue that the game is a little, shall we say, odd.
Rather than all the otherwise mundane things that one would expect in a standard RPG intro blurb, Timeship's intro instead goes on about the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Sumerian manuscripts, and millennia-dead alien civilizations. Timeship's fictional conceit is that the isn't actually a game; rather it's an alien civilization's last memorial to themselves, transmitted via telepathy and recorded in Sumer before eventually being copied by a Hebrew merchant and deposited in a cave near Qumran. Approximately 2000 years later the copies were discovered by an archeological expedition and translated by Sumerian cuneiform-expert R. H. Brennan. Frankly, the entire thing sounds more like the basis for a Lovecraftian story than a roleplaying game, but there you go.
After the introduction, the book moves on to the beginning of the rules section, which covers the steps necessary to begin an adventure. This is all still in-character, and is presented as (the author's conception of) a translation of an ancient Sumerian manuscript. I'd try to describe just what this means stylistically, but it's probably easier to just quote directly from the rulebook at this point:
"The Group is gathered!
"And as a Group, you all must now select a Timelord
"It is in the nature of a Timelord that he may not directly venture into Time. He may not seek the thrill of battle, may not taste the flower of bygone ages. Thus, to become a Timelord involves great sacrifice.
"To compensate, a Timelord will eventually acquire the powers of a Creator. From his vast energies are whole worlds spun. The Timelord is the Judge of nations — and you all. He is your Guide, all you who now desire to venture into Time.
Choose well. By secret ballot, mortal combat, or whatever system is most favored by your culture.
"Choose wisely. For the Timelord henceforth holds your lives within his hands.
"Choose quickly. Already there are stirrings in the grey depths of the timestream.
"When you have chosen, honour your new Timelord by the gift of this, his TIMESHIP. It is not lawful for others to read further.
"GREETINGS, TIMELORD!"
As a purely aesthetic choice it's certainly interesting, but can quickly become annoying. From a functional standpoint — evaluating the text as an attempt to impart game rules to the reader — it's certainly less than ideal at best, and at worst a truly poor idea. While a number of games may choose present setting information in-character, there's a reason why so few of them choose to present the rule mechanics in such a manner. Thankfully the style calms down after about 4 pages, where it's replaced by the "Commentaries on the Timeship" — still in character, but this time in the character of notes by the document's translator. But before I get to talking about that section, one of Timeship's odder rules choices crops up.
Probably the most important number on a player's character sheet is the one labeled "Personal Energy." Personal Energy, or PE, is the jack-of-all-trades stat for Timeship. Among many other things, it represents a character's health. ("We tell you, Timelord, so that you may tell your Voyagers: within a Capsule, total loss of ENERGY is equivalent to death. Teach them the formula: ENERGY ZERO = DEATH.") Since this is a game from 1983, it should come as no surprise that the number is therefore generated by rolling some dice — 3d100, for the curious. What should probably come as a surprise are the following two things:
- The number is rolled for not during character creation, but rather before the start of each adventure. (Each adventure has a GM-determined "Gateway activation cost" that must be paid before it can be attempted. This is defined as being when the group's Group Energy, a number equal to the sum of all member's Personal Energy, meets or exceeds the Gateway cost. Any Group Energy left over after paying the cost can be then used to generate equipment for the group. The GM is advised to be determine the Gateway activation cost based on the number of players, how difficult the adventure will be, and how much equipment they wish the players to possess.)
- The player is permitted to keep rolling as many times as they like until they get a result that they're happy with.
All this just raises the question of " Why not just tell the players how much energy they have?" — either separately or as a pool to divide up among themselves. Otherwise the dice really don't seem to matter, given that the players can keep rolling them until they finally get a result high enough for their liking.
Timelord! This Is All Getting Far Too Meta: Commentary on the "Commentaries"
The majority of the 8-page Commentaries section is taken up by lists of equipment, their damage bonus or protection rating (for weapons and armours, respectively), and the energy costs required for the characters to bring them into the adventure. (Any equipment other than what the players possess at game time must be generated by the expenditure of either Personal or Group Energy.) The other three pages are concerned with the myriad ways that the various types of energy may be expended.
In addition to the aforementioned Personal and Group Energy, two other types of energy are added to the list. The first is Combat Reserve Energy, which is a pool of points against which damage is initially deducted until it (CRE) is exhausted. Afterward damage is instead deducted from Personal Energy. This value is determined by rolling 2d100 at the start of every adventure. However, unlike Personal Energy, this value may only be rolled for once per adventure.
The second is Permanent Energy, the game's nearest equivalent to XP. Successful completion of an adventure — dubbed a "Capsule" in Timeship-speak — nets the character a GM-determined amount of Permanent Energy that may be added to the character's rolled Personal Energy at the start of every subsequent adventure. Death or failure to complete an adventure results in a deduction of Permanent Energy, with negative values permitted.
As for spending energy, Group Energy may only be spent in three ways: activating the "Gateway" at the start of each adventure, generating group equipment, and the movement of vehicles brought by the characters into the adventure. (With the distance moved per point of Group Energy being determined by the GM.)
Personal Energy, on the other hand, has numerous ways in which it can be spent, with each of the following costing 1 or more point of Personal Energy per action:
- Generating the PC's equipment at the start of the adventure.
- Striking or attempting to strike a blow in combat.
- Dodging or attempting to dodge a blow in combat.
- Healing Combat Reserve Energy at the rate of 1 point of Personal per 5 points of Combat Reserve Energy. (Not permissible during combat or if CRE is at or below 50% of its initial value.)
- Taking damage when CRE is depleted.
- Powering transportation-mechanisms when Group Energy is exhausted.
- Powering "Wild Talents"s; — psychic abilities whose likelihood of appearance, precise ability, and costs are determined by the GM.
- Moving. (With the number of feet of movement per point of PE being, you guessed it, determined by the GM.)
Needless to say, Personal Energy is a bookkeeping nightmare. (As a corollary to the above: there is only one way to regain Personal Energy during an adventure. If the character willfully destroys a piece of equipment created via the expenditure of PE they regain an amount equal to the original expenditure.)
Finally, the rules discuss combat. If one were to go by just the rules present in the rulebook, combat is actually a fairly simple affair: each character has a set of numbers rated between 0 and 100 detailing their ability to use a variety of different types of weapons from unarmed combat all the way to artillery. The appropriate To Hit Number is modified by the exact body location being targeted (all attacks in Timeship are called-shots), and success is determined by rolling equal to or above the resultant number on 1d100. If the roll was successful, damage is determined by adding the weapon's (if any) damage modifier to the difference between the target number and the value rolled. (And subtracting the target's armour value, if they're wearing any.)
Initiative is based off the character's Speed Factor, which for PCs is a 1d100 roll made at the start of every adventure. The character with the highest Speed Factor acts first in combat, and for every 10 points of Speed Factor above 50, the character is permitted to attempt one extra attack per combat round. (Though for PCs the PE cost for the strike attempt still remains.)
All in all a simple enough, if extremely bland, combat system. Except, of course, that that's not all of it. Once the GM's screen is opened up, the rulebook's single column of 12pt. font suddenly morphs into two and a half columns of 9pt. font, complete with rules and tables covering mechanics and modifiers for distance, attacking in numbers, attacking targets from different angles, for when targets or the attacker are moving, and how to perform NPC attacks (which are done differently from PC attacks). Once it's all worked out it's really not that much more difficult. It's still basically "modify the To Hit Number based on circumstances and roll over it," and it's certainly still well within the realms of (perhaps heavier) rules-medium crunch. But at the same time it's certainly not the simple-but-uninspiring system that it appeared initially. (Though it is, admittedly, still pretty uninspiring.)
Which brings us to the next in the game's list of flaws, and possibly the second biggest one: the screen contains numerous rules never mentioned in the rulebook. It's on the screen that you'll find the only mention of these extra combat rules & modifiers. Likewise, it's the only place where you'll find descriptions of potential wild talents, notes on performing various physical feats, and the modifiers to apply when characters attempt non-combat tasks of varying difficulties. While the last of these are certainly nice to have on the screen, their use seems somewhat limited in that they only apply to situations where one of a character's physical ability scores (more on these in a bit) is being tested. For any cases where the test involves some sort of skill, as opposed to a raw physical characteristic, the game rules are as follows:
I'll point out that the above is not a slip-up of the "substituting player for character" variety but, as with physical abilities, more on that in a bit.
Timelord! Isn't This Labelled "Secrets"?: The GM's Advice Section
Following the rules, the book begins the "Timelord's Book of Secrets," which consists of basic advice for the GM. It's a fairly informal section, with a tone that is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that it begins with a header proclaiming "HI, TIMELORD!" It consists of the author, Herbie Brennan, finally dropping character for the most part and discussing in a fairly chatty manner a few extra bits of rules arcana, some advice for running adventures, and the difference between Timeship and your standard RPG. As this review is getting long enough as is and I haven't even reached the adventures yet, I see no point into going into it save to mention that the general advice is functional but basic, and to point out the two most interesting points from the other topics.
The first of these is Brennan's declaration that any physical items that the players bring to the game may be possessed in-game by their character at no energy cost. (This is accompanied by an anecdote about a player who showed up to a gaming session wearing a vintage gas mask and carrying a sword. It also advises the obvious: that any item deemed to wild or dangerous should be disallowed for obvious reasons.)
The reason for the above is also the second one, and one you may have picked up on from my perhaps none-too-subtle hinting. The primary difference between Timeship and your standard RPG is this:
Well, rather, sort of— there are some rules related to changing your in-game appearance (including height, gender, race, and even species), as well as rules related to understanding and speaking foreign languages, so that the characters can more easily blend in and interact with whatever society the adventure concerns. All other features of the character, however, are supposed to be based on the aforementioned honest evaluation of the player's abilities.
As with so many other parts of the game, perhaps the best way to describe this idea is with the phrase "interesting but flawed." It's far too easy to see why players might not be interested in playing themselves, and with the wrong group the "honest assessment" could quite easily lead to arguments should a player be believed to be overly generous in estimating their abilities (or a GM underestimating them) that might make a group long for the simplicity of good old fashioned rules-lawyering.
Timelord! Who Are You to Say If I Know the Death Touch?: Character Creation
That said, not everything is so open-ended. Jumping ahead to the back cover of the book reveals the rules for character creation. These consist of lowering or raising the various To Hit Numbers from their default value of 60. These changes are based on the player's actual ability with the various combat methods and the fact that there is a limit to how many points may be deducted from the To Hit Numbers. (A total of 40 points may be deducted from the THNs with no limits as to how they are distributed. A further total of 30 points may also be deducted, with no more than 10 of these points being deducted from any one ability, and with each point deducted in this manner requiring a corresponding increase in a different THN.)
In addition, the character creation rules also discuss the Physical Ability scores. (And is the only place you'll find these referenced outside of the GM's screen and the character sheet.) There are 8 of these, representing Speed, Endurance, Intelligence, Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Running Ability, and Jumping Ability. Each begins at a score of 50, and characters are allowed to spend up to 50 points to increase them in an attempt to better represent their own perceived ability.
These physical scores raise two rules questions/quibbles/problems: the first is why the Speed Factor (from back in the combat section) is needed if there's a defined stat called Speed. By eliminating Speed Factor and just using Speed in its stead, the number of dice rolls (Personal Energy, Combat Reserve Energy, Speed Factor) needed before the start of an adventure could be cut down by up to one third. The second is that for a game with so few actual rules, it seems anywhere from merely inconsistent to downright incoherent to have some of the numbers on the character sheet (the To Hit Numbers) be 1d100 roll-over, while the other numbers (the Physical Abilities) are 1d100 roll-under.
Timelord! Are You Certain the Natives Are Friendly?: The Adventures
The rest (and majority) of the rulebook is taken up by a trio of adventures. On the whole I frankly don't find them to be that good, but they're worth covering anyway if only to illustrate just exactly what the author expected characters to do in the game. (Oddly enough, the number of typos and other proofing errors increases the further into the adventures that you read. Make of this what you will.)
The first of them, "Murder at the End of Time," is admittedly my favourite. A murder mystery set in the far future, it somewhat evokes the feel of parts of classic Star Trek episodes like "Shore Leave," "The Savage Curtain," or "The Squire of Gothos". (The murder victim is Dracula, the scenery and NPCs are a mixture of fictional and historical places and people, and the entire location is quite clearly artificial.) It presents a largely roleplay-intensive scenario, and the best way to describe the tone for this entire scenario as written is fairly silly. If you and your group are fine with silly, then it's good. If not, it could undoubtedly be played straighter for a significantly more sinister overtone.
Regardless of the manner in which it's played, its biggest flaw is that there's no real for the players to suspect the culprits. With no evidence that definitively points to any one of the NPCs in particular, as the players' Personal Energy dwindles down towards zero (since even movement costs PE points) it seems likely to end in a manner reminiscent of playing one of Sierra's later King's Quest games: with the players trying every possible solution in the hopes that one of them will be correct.
The second adventure, "The Destruction of Gomorrah," revolves around the PCs being sent back in time to find out what was the real cause behind the destruction of Gomorrah. This adventure is easily my least favourite of the bunch, in that it falls into a style of published adventure that I particularly dislike: there are no notable NPCs defined, only one or two truly interesting locations, and for the most part seems to involve the PCs wandering from randomly-rolled building type to randomly-rolled building type encountering randomly-rolled inhabitants of the city until they either discover an exit back to their own time or have their in-game forms perish in the destruction of the city.
There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that. The temple to Moloch, one of only 5 non-randomly-determined locations, contains a secret trapdoor that hides an atomic bomb and a fairly simple logic puzzle. (Solving the puzzle reveals that the city was destroyed by aliens.) For the curious, the other non-random locations are a guard house, the palace — which immediately burns to the ground if successfully entered, the park — which merely means a different random encounter table is used, and the slave market where the PCs start the adventure.
As should be expected from the scenario name, the random encounters and location tables contain a high incidence of events centering around sex and/or violence, and some groups may want to avoid it for that very reason. (But if they do they'll never find out what the percentage chance of catching lice from sleeping with a Gomorran prostitute is. I only wish I was making this up.)
The final adventure, "Assassinate the Fuhrer!," conforms to what I'm certain is an unwritten rule of time-travel: every game on the subject must include some reference to killing or attempting to kill Hitler. This particular adventure consists of two distinct parts: the first part is the party traveling to the Reich Chancellery, and subsequently the Führerbunker, through late-Battle of Berlin Berlin. It's similar to "The Destruction of Gomorrah" in that it's largely random building and encounter tables, though this time it's improved by a number of named NPCs who are described (including several fairly-notable Nazis attempting to escape) and who serve to elevate this part of the scenario slightly.
The second half involves gaining access to the bunker and assassinating Hitler. Though dressed up in different scenery, the room and NPC descriptions provided make it exceedingly likely that this section of the adventure will turn into little more than a fairly standard dungeon-crawl, only with Nazis instead of orcs. If you like this sort of thing, it's all right but not great. If you don't then it's quite obviously not even that.
Timelord! Could You Get to the Point Already?: The Conclusions
Overall, I will admit that I have a soft spot for Timeship. It's a strange little game that tries so hard to be different, but with each of these attempts winds up making itself even less appealing as an actual game: the in-character rules results in poor rules organization and occasionally unclear or obscure explanations, and playing as yourself, while certainly unique, results in a game that can't help but feel deliberately episodic and is unlikely to appeal to most potential players anyway. Add to this the odd organization choices (rules on the screen found nowhere else), and the at-first-glance seemingly-simple rules that turn out to either be surprisingly more complex (combat) or inconsistent (abilities' roll-under vs. everything else's roll-over mechanics), and it quickly becomes clear that the best description for the game is the aforementioned "quirky but fatally flawed."
Though I'd like to rate it higher, I have to give it a style rating of 1: though the layout itself is fairly clean, in the end it's far too poorly organized and often deliberately more unclear than it needs to be for it to receive anything higher.
On the substance front it fairs slightly better, in that I feel that it's worth a 2. As an old-school game the rules-system itself isn't worth salvaging, and those uninterested in old-school systems could easily replicate the basic themes using any one of a number of modern rules-light systems resulting in a far more consistent final-product.
However the adventures, though roundly bad, may have something worth rescuing. With a bit of tweaking to make the proper solution a bit more likely to be arrived at, "Murder…" could easily provide an evening's entertainment to a group in the proper mood for some silly fun. (Who can't see the humour in a murder mystery where the victim tags along because he likewise wants to know whodunnit?)
Likewise, the Führerbunker section of "Assassinate…," though perhaps too dungeon-crawly for some, could easily be re-statted and transported into a properly themed World War II game.
That all said, much like its namesake, I could find no redeeming qualities in "The Destruction of Gomorrah."
