This is an idea I’ve been wondering about for a while, and I think it would make a pretty cool game – seeing how people from different eras would handle being sent back in time to the same specific place. So think Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but you have a choice of people from maybe 5 different years who can be sent: 2014, 1964, 1914, 1864 and 1814, for example.
Imagine how differently people from those different years would approach the same situation. What would they value, what would they try to do, how would they approach conflict and compromise? Imagine how differently somebody from 1914 would likely deal with gender and ethnicity, for example, compared to somebody from 2014, and how differently somebody from those years would go about doing things depending on their own gender or ethnicity (which you could also choose). At the same time, imagine how much better somebody from 1814 or 1864 might be able to live off the land or build basic household goods than somebody from 2014. If the common destination point was, say, a medieval hamlet in Europe, then the 2014 traveler might not do nearly as well. Give somebody from the smartphone generation a live rooster and tell them that’s dinner and what happens?
You could play from different starting points and really see how differently things might end up, and also learn a bit along the way.
Paradox Factor has done time travel I know that but I think that’s the end in similarities between the two then again I haven’t played it so I could be wrong.
@distracteddad If you want a little quick inspiration, a cheap kindle book called “Off to be the Wizard” toys with that idea, albeit from a single perspective. Several people from different times have all found a “computer file” that controls the universe, and all of them …for some reason…decide to go to 13th century “London,” now called “Camelot.”
Pretty fun, short read! The characters from different eras are hilarious, and there are also characters in different times than 13th century london; 18th century england, Atlantis, feudal Japan, and China, to name a few, though the book takes place in “Camelot.”
I have a future game planned where travelers from the future go into the past recruiting you and some historic figures along the way on their mission. But that is at least 2 years away from being started. This idea is intriguing and I’d like to see where you take it!
“that is at least 2 years away from being started”
I have to say, I’m tempted to include, in any story about time traveling, a character who has so many things going on in his head he has stories that are 2 years away from being started. It’s like something out of Dr. Who.
@Distracteddad, Haha! I wish there was some master plan involved, but the reality is more dull. With two large games in production and a sequel to ‘The Race’ to write, I can’t start this story yet.
