Goto [ Index ]

Time & Temp is a new game that I heard about on Indie Press Revolution’s podcast and I knew immediately I had to try it out. The game is simultaneously about time travel and soul crushing temp work. Set in the modern day, the player characters are temps who work for Browne Chronometrics, a company that fixes temporal anomalies. Since the more important a person is, the more their presence messes up time, they logically send temps as the least important people imaginable back in time to fix problems. GMs (General Managers) are encouraged to push the “temping sucks” button frequently: PCs are assigned to a cubicle (sometimes two to a cubicle) with no work and a need to look busy, they are sent on assignments with insufficient training, and when they return, there’s a review process where the PCs are expected to discuss the shortcomings of their colleagues and themselves. The game’s packaging enhances the feel of being an office temp: in the Unbound Edition you get a standard manila office folder with a welcome letter, an employee handbook, and a number of cardstock handouts, which contain the actual rules. There’s also a management policy guidebook for the GM. Purchasers also get a .pdf so they can reprint all necessary materials. (The .pdf is also sold separately for a mere $10 at Indie Press Revolution as the Paperless Office edition.)

Where the setting has the GM doing all he or she can to demoralize the PCs and show them how unimportant they are, the game mechanics put players very much in the driver’s seat. Players have a great deal of freedom, and they’re playing against the game as much as against the GM’s plot. For any situation requiring a roll, players choose to set how much Effort they are putting into the task, or what Effect they are trying to achieve. The GM gets the one the players didn't choose. Effort and Effect are cross-indexed on a table to see what kind of die is rolled, and the result is written into a large grid. The players are trying to create sudoku-like patterns in the matrix with the numbers they write. If they can complete one of the patterns, such as a block of nine squares containing nine different numbers, they gain a synchronicity ability. Synchronicity abilities are time-bending effects such as “your future self left this for you,” or “you are so plugged into the zeitgeist that you are able to create a cultural trend at exactly the best moment to benefit your plans.”

The risk players incur is when the same number appears more than twice anywhere on the matrix, they start to take Paradox. Extra d20s are added to each roll, and if one of these Paradox d20s would add a third repetition of a new number, it becomes "locked." Every time a Paradox die gets locked, reality begins to break down and weirdnesses occur. (Suddenly people can't recognize you. Strange aliens appear, ask for a cigarette, disappear.) If four Paradox dice become locked, then the universe unravels and reality never happened. Everything ends and never was.

What about succeeding or failing on a task? That’s up to the players. If they choose, they can roll one die and never worry about failing—but they may end up with a bad number for the matrix. If they want a spread of numbers to choose from, they may risk failure or Incident and roll more dice. After seeing the dice, the players may choose to succeed, which means they take the lowest die. They may choose to fail, which gives them a higher die, and so on. Incident refers to consequences orthogonal to success or failure: is the character humiliated? Are there long term consequences?

Players may have abilities that apply to the situation, which allows them to take bonuses. Bonuses can be used to fudge the situation, such as allowing them to take a higher die without failing. Of course, the GM may have Penalties which can be used to cancel Bonuses.

I played half of one scenario with this game, and the game easily matched its billing. Time travel is a topic that's usually much harder to game than it sounds, but Time & Temp handles it easily. The basic mechanics are really simple, and the players figured out how to work the grid immediately. We found the players' high level of control refreshing, and things moved along at a good clip. There were a few glitches which I pass along for what they're worth. First, while the basic mechanics are simple, the rules take some study to figure out, and you really need to play it at least once to figure out how everything works together. The packaging, while very clever, makes it harder to figure the rules out, as the rule cards have no page numbers, and it's also difficult to find the rules you're looking for in play. It can also be jarring and difficult for everybody to mentally shift gears from "I'm a useless temp" to "I'm the powerful agent that has to fix this problem" back to "I'm a useless temp." Perhaps Mr. Ravachol wanted to emphasize this fault line between the two halves of the characters' existences, but it's a tough act to accomplish, as amusing as it sounds.

This game is going into my "I'll play this again!" stack. It's easy to write scenarios for, excellent for one-shot games, and can even be drafted into use when an important player can't show up for tonight's game and you need a fast substitute. Time & Temp isn't for everybody, but if you like a fast, breezy game with a sense of humor and a truly clever game mechanic that keeps everybody involved, it's a good use of your $20.