proceed

So the first thing that happens in every game of Time Wizards is to set up what your characters are doing in an ordinary, boring day. In this case, it happened to be the same ordinary, boring day: my character was attending a lecture by The Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition's character, with pizza provided by the store for which Powersword Murderhobo's character was a delivery driver.

Social Techpriest, who had stepped up to GM, would describe the regular happenstances of each of our characters on the journey to the lecture in the form of simple "Verb the Noun" groups. Thanks to the dark and ancient magicks at work within my brain, I only remember some of these powers, but fortunately the ones I forgot don't actually matter.

My character, for instance, had the power "ignore the alarm", "run to the auditorium", "stumble through the shower", "lose the cool", and one more.

The Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition's character had "evade the question", "learn the auditorium", "ready the materials" (oh sweet Emprah, "ready the materials"), "deliver the lecture", and one more.

Powersword Murderhobo's character had "find the auditorium", "navigate the traffic", "make the delivery", and two others.

The story began with our characters flung back in time and space (by a gentleman who looked suspiciously similar to John de Lancie) to the ancient and mysterious year of 1938. Our mission, regardless of whether we chose to accept it, was simple.

We must find and kill Adolf Hitler.

We are given the choices of three cities to start in: Berlin, London, and Moscow. Being as we are an ambitious cadre of time-displaced reality-defeating murderhobos, we chose to start in Moscow for two reasons: one, we might get to take a swing at Stalin while we were there, and two, we felt it had the greatest capacity for shenanigans of the three choices.

Hey, it's Time Wizards, you can solve most of these problems in a single lucky roll. Picking the smartest option isn't always the most fun one.

So, in the midst of a large-scale military review for the benefit of Comrade Stalin, three 21st-century blokes appear in the middle of Red Square, surrounded by legions of Soviet troops. I'd like to imagine the pizza delivery uniform confused them the most.

So, confronted with one of the world's largest single collections of Mosin-Nagants, it was time for action.

TEMHI declares a Time Moment.

Now, if you're new to the concepts of Time Wizardry, a Time Moment is essentially when a group of Time Wizards decide to freeze time, step out of reality, and violate it with their eldritch tentacles of logic.

In this case, the powers used were Ready The Materials and Ignore The Alarm. Powersword Murderhobo declined to participate in this Moment.

Being as a massive military review for the rulership of a Communist state is a pretty orderly thing, the Chaos Rating was pretty low; the TM was rolling 4d6. (Our particular dice rules were set to make a bit more sense and involve a lot less slapping d4s).

TEMHI wins the roll, as do I. (In general, the players won a lot of rounds, due to the system in use being very much a work in progress.)

TEMHI decides that, well, we just wouldn't be ready if we didn't speak Russian. Knowledge is needed to produce something, so it's a material; thus, knowledge of Russian is a material, which can be "readied" by putting it into everyone's minds. (Keep that phrasing in mind; it's important.)

Our immediate communication problem resolved, I decided that the worst thing we could do right now is panic. We don't want to get alarmed at this predicament, or we'd spook the Soviets. So, we ignore our alarm at this situation and stand there, cool as cucumbers, Elwood and Jake in the aftermath of an explosion. A Communist explosion.

So as soon as the Time Moment ends, everyone in the world gains fluent knowledge of the Russian language, and three stone-cold motherfuckers stand calmly in the midst of a good chunk of one of the largest armies in history.

With our newfound fluency in their strange, proletariat tongue, we could address the officers of the Soviet army and talk down their surprise at the appearance of three people in strange, dubiously capitalist clothing.

The Soviets were bombarding us with question after question: who we were, what we were doing, et cetera. Which, naturally, we handled with all the grace and subtlety characteristic of Time Wizards: by declaring a Time Moment.

Seeing as an interrogation by the rank and file of the Red Army wasn't too conducive to killing Hitler and/or Stalin, TEMHI decides to Evade the Question. He wins the roll, and time resumes with a shout of "WE HAVE AN URGENT MESSAGE FOR COMRADE STALIN!"

The Red Army, suddenly feeling no desire whatsoever to interrogate us, leads us directly to Stalin's chambers (since our message is CLEARLY more important than interrogating us), and calls Stalin down to meet us.

This sounds fucking amazing.

>>42899116
>involve a lot less slapping d4s

That is at least 88% of the fun of LOS MAGOS DEL TIEMPOOOOO you bunch of anti fun faggots. Betting against each other to slap a fucking sharp piece of plastic repeatedly for a night is a time honored tradition

GM here (just back from watching The Martian), and I'll tell you why we weren't slapping d4s.

Namely, I'd win, pretty much all the time. On a gross scale of physical fitness, I'm a bit above average for someone living in a western nation. For an American, I'm a bit further above average, as I bike to and from work.

I also have long arms, and good reflexes.

If I, the GM, resolved conflict with players via any sort of physical activity, the GM would pretty much always win.

While there is a certain form of schadenfreude entertainment to be found in that, I also GM a game of Only War. This suffices for my need to kill PCs.

>>42899403

Of course the other 143% of the fun of TIME WIZARDS! is shenanigans. So please continue with the tale

No sooner is the Big Red in the room than we tell him (loudly, in earshot of all the other Soviet officials nearby) that we are spies sent to the West, who have returned to Mother Russia in order to avert a most devious plot against his life by Hitler's wicked Nazi minions.

As we explain this, it's time for another Time Moment. First, TEMHI decides to Ready the Materials; in this case, the materials are a high explosive device with a short fuse. (We'd realised from the get-go that Ready the Materials is a particularly bullshit power, but we got a LOT of mileage out of it.) Powersword Murderhobo then Makes the Delivery, placing the device right under Stalin's chair.

Time resumes, and as we wax on about the devilish Nazi swine, Stalin's chair explodes. We'd intended to kill Stalin, but unfortunately forgot that he was not, at the time, in his chair.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Stalin thanks us for averting this plot against his life, and I declare a Time Moment, with intent to Lose the Cool. I win the roll. (Again, the system as played this time was accidentally rigged in favour of the players.) I reason that there's been quite enough going on to piss off the Soviet Union, thus causing them to lose their metaphorical cool.

Suddenly, every single citizen of the Soviet Union is filled with a deep-seated, rage-fuelled hatred of the villainous Nazi fucks who dared attempt such an audacious attack on Comrade Stalin. Never mind that most of them didn't even know what Stalin was doing today, let alone that there'd been an attempt on his life. It was time for action, and Stalin quickly took to the stage to announce a large-scale assault on Germany, to the furious, vengeful cheers of everyone in attendance.

>>42899488
What the Social Techpriest forgets to mention is that I have spindly little hacker arms and have, in fact, been physically overpowered by a small dog. Some kind of Papillon mix. Physical glory is not the wont of the mathematician.

anyway writing next post time

>>42899507
This will definitely end well...

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>>42899563
... FOR AMERICA!

I so want to find people willing to play this. Please continue your story of joy.

Now, with an army of absolutely irate Communists primed to march on Nazi Germany, it was time for another Time Moment.

When all you have are Time Wizard powers, everything starts to look like a shenanigan.

We now will discuss the fact that all three of the Time Wizards in attendance have a power that mentions "the auditorium". We dubbed this "the auditorium combo" from the beginning of the session.

Powersword Murderhobo will Find the Auditorium. TEMHI declares that he will Learn the Auditorium. I will then Run To the Auditorium.

We all win our rolls. (Again, this iteration of the system was rigged harder than the 4CC.) Powersword Murderhobo declares that an auditorium is something you speak in, so the site of Hitler's next address is an auditorium, which he can find. It's an address in Berlin.

TEMHI declares that, in order to Learn the Auditorium, we must thus know everything about Berlin. So, per the power of Time Wizardry, he obtains total insight into the heart of Nazi Germany.

Finally, I note that a march is sort of like a fast walk. A run is also like a fast walk. Thus, the Red Army, which is currently marching, can Run To The Auditorium, where the Auditorium is Berlin, the site of Hitler's next speech.

So, the Red Army is transported to Berlin. All of it. After being instilled with a zealous, fanatical hatred for all things Nazi.

We are not part of the Red Army, so we remain in Moscow. Unfortunately, we do not know if this is enough to kill Hitler, so we set upon a plan to drive a nail in the coffin.

>>42899624
no spoilerinos

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>>42899685
You DARE to speak against the office's of the Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition?

HERESY

>>42899685
>Finally, I note that a march is sort of like a fast walk. A run is also like a fast walk. Thus, the Red Army, which is currently marching, can Run To The Auditorium, where the Auditorium is Berlin, the site of Hitler's next speech.
>So, the Red Army is transported to Berlin. All of it. After being instilled with a zealous, fanatical hatred for all things Nazi.
HAHAHAHA

Now, keep in mind, Russia is a big country, and at the time of World War II had what is quite possibly the largest single army in human history. (Depending on where you draw the line for "army", anyway.) They had almost 180,000 OFFICERS in 1938, let alone conscripts or enlisted.

This is a LOT of dudes suddenly transported away from the business of guarding gulags or warding off the walrus invasion of Siberia.

Just imagine being some smug, oily Gestapo officer, staring out of your snug Berlin office towards a giant wafting Swastika banner, muttering one of those Hollywood stock Nazi phrases to yourself in preparation for Brad Pitt swashbuckling through your door or some shit.

Then suddenly the streets are filled with Soviet soldiers. The buildings are filled with Soviet soldiers. Your desk is filled with Soviet soldiers. You're on the edge of shouting the name of CPSU Creed when you are shot by one of the suddenly-rampaging Soviets with a burst of Russian curses, which you somehow fluently understand.

This is what we have done to Berlin, and we are not finished.

We're not even THERE.

>>42899809
I'm just picturing an office desk filled with soldiers, now. All squashed in like sardines in a can.

>>42899869
>open a drawer
>SUKA BLYAT

Having unleashed ARMAREDDON upon Berlin, our hapless trio of masterminds of the most sudden invasion in history realised we hadn't actually done anything to ensure Hitler's death.

You see, as we had half-understood our hacked together Time Wizards fluff, Nature, Time, and The Sensible Order Of Things are resistant to the dabbling of Time Wizards; this is why we face against a malevolent, power-twisting force with a strong sense of irony on the off chance we fail our rolls. Hitler, being a key figure in history, could very well still be alive.

Thus, we set about The Plan. We had thrown Stalin (who held military rank at some point and was giving orders, and was thus Red Army enough that I could specify he went too) and his entire, fuckhuge army into Berlin and kicked up a lot of chaos, but we hadn't done anything to actually guarantee any Hitlerdeaths yet. Killing all of the Nazis but one really wouldn't do anything for our mission; it was just sort of a bonus.

We began contemplating how, exactly, we would make our entrance, when TEMHI declared a Time Moment to, once again, Prepare the Materials.

What materials?

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>>42899944
THESE Materials.

I can't remember the exact line of logic, but by god, the Holy Ordos prepared the FUCK out of Liberty Prime.

>>42899968
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HITLER GET FUCKED

>>42899968
Oh holy God.
Please tell me Mecha Hitler gets involved at some point.

As part of the preparation, the definition of "enemy of freedom" was expanded beyond merely its initial purview of fighting the Red Chinese to communists and fascists in general.

With the MECHANICAL CHAMPION OF FREEDOM primed and ready, Powersword Murderhobo decided to Make the Delivery, and dropped Liberty Prime from orbit onto Berlin, creating a massive crater outside the Kroll Opera House.

Now, imagine the life of another, increasingly-horrified Gestapo officer. Having escaped the lurking eyes of the SOVIETS, SOVIETS EVERYWHERE and fled through the chaotic streets to the nearest government facility, in hopes of sheltering in a bunker, he hears a loud, thundering "crash" as a massive wave of rubble is thrown into the air before his eyes.

Even if he's lucky enough to survive the shrapnel and cobblestones, he finds himself face-to-faceplate with a two-story colossus, staring down at him out of a single blue visor. On one shoulder, a familiar symbol, seen painted on the sides of photographed aeroplane.

The titan regards him for a moment as he stands there, awestruck.

The last words he hears are a booming, robotic "FREEDOM... IS THE SOVEREIGN RIGHT OF EVERY AMERICAN."

>>42900074
This just gets better and better.

Back in Moscow, having helped ourselves to some of Stalin's Borscht, we ponder whether or not we should actually go to Berlin any time soon.

I mean, it's not like Liberty Prime is guaranteed to kill Hitler. It just really, really wants to. After a few more bites from the Soviet leadership's ample plates of state-sanctioned caviar we finally decide to call a Time Moment.

I say that, well, an auditorium is something where a show happens. There's a hell of a show in Berlin right now, so it's time for us to Run To The Auditorium one last time.

In one of our many brilliant moments of insight, we'd never really thought that there might be DANGER in the streets of Berlin, and that it might be better to watch from a safe distance.

So, our trio of mild-mannered academic, sleepy student, and pizza delivery man are deposited in the centre of a pitched firefight between soldiers of the Red Army, the Waffen-SS, and a rampaging STEEL BEACON OF LIBERTY.

This, we agree, is not good.

With a nigh-simulatenous call of "Time Moment", we declare three powers: Powersword Murderhobo will Navigate the Traffic, I will Stumble Through the Shower, and TEMHI will Evade the Question.

It's pretty clear we all have the same idea on our minds. Powersword Murderhobo declares that, well, traffic is a lot of of things moving around in the streets. We're in the streets, and there's a lot of things moving around, so clearly we're in traffic. Traffic made of bullets and shrapnel, but traffic. To navigate something means to move through it, so clearly he can move us through the bullets, shrapnel, and Wilhelm screams without much consequence.

Having had my the-exact-same-idea thwarted, I decide to have Liberty Prime Stumble Through The Shower; the shrapnel and bullets are raining all around it. Rain can be described as "a shower", and stumbling is just an awkward form of walking; any bipedal robot is going to be a bit awkward. Thus, Liberty Prime stumbles through the shower, avoiding all the debris and desperate anti-tank rounds that might end its GLORIOUS RAMPAGE OF LIBERATION.

As we sit back and watch a now highly evasive Liberty Prime bring ruin upon the heart of one nation and the fist of another, we realise we still haven't actually done anything about that whole "Hitler" thing.

Can someone explain how complications work? It's the only thing I don't get. I get how they're determined, 1 for simple power, 2 for interpreted power, 3 for out the beaten path power, etc. But are these numbers to beat? Are they dice the tm uses? If so, what type of dice are they? I just don't understand consequences in regard to the roll phase.

Powersword Murderhobo declares another Time Moment, intending to Find the Auditorium again.

"Auditorium" ended up being a lot more general than we thought, since somehow we twisted it around to be a Locate Hitler spell.

Hitler, as it turns out, had loaded himself on a plane with some guards and was hightailing it out of Berlin. Around this point, the Social Techpriest mentions that the plan was originally to make it hard for the players to kill Hitler since capital-h History wants Hitler to kill himself after the capture of Berlin.

We appear in Hitler's plane after a quick Run To The Auditorium and are confronted by his guards, who are naturally confused and a bit trigger-happy from the entirety of the day's events. I signal for the other two to wait, and declare a Time Moment.

It's time to kill Hitler.

>>42900380
The version of the system we're using (largely developed by Social Techpriest with some input from the rest of us) is basically built from scratch, with only the logic bullshit of the original game intact, and is pretty heavily in flux right now.

We have a point system with two "pools", one for the amount of logic bullshit you put into your powers and declaring Time Moments, and one for the breadth of the effect and the number of d6 you roll. The exact balance between the two is still very much a WIP.

The TM rolls based on an "order rating"; one Order means one extra d6.

Enlightened with the knowledge that the only reason we haven't had trouble killing Hitler is because, for the vast majority of the session, we weren't really doing anything that would explicitly kill Hitler, we set upon a plan to bring about his demise.

Winning the dice roll (I honestly can't recall a single time we didn't. Rigged like a schooner.), I had Hitler and his guards Lose the Cool; Hitler orders the guards to open fire, and they do so wildly.

As soon as time resumes, I declare a second Time Moment, with the intent to Stumble Through the Shower. Winning again, I walk through the rain of bullets towards Hitler, who I use as a human shield. At this point, were time to unfreeze, the guards would kill Hitler, on his own orders, but the bullets would tear me apart as well.

Powersword Murderhobo dilates time (the only time this rule was used in the game, and without much of a framework in our system to make it different) to Make the Delivery: namely, to deliver me to safety, outside the guards' reach. He wins the roll, and time resumes. In an instant, I bob and weave through the bullets to grab Hitler and maneuver him into the firing line of his own guards, and then Powersword Murderhobo grabs me and runs out of the way before Hitler is shot up by his own guards.

As Hitler gave the order to open fire, Hitler has killed Hitler, and History is helpless to avert it.

Now we just had to deal with the problem of the guards, still furious from when they lost their cool, getting angry and shooting each other. And the pilots.

Thankfully, Powersword Murderhobo is up to the task, declaring his Time Moment to Navigate the Traffic. The air traffic, specifically; he intends to bring the plane down safely in a
French or Swiss airfield, and does so.

And then came the aftermath.

In the year 1938, an attempt on the life of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin by Nazi agents led to a rapid mobilisation of Soviet forces, launching a full-scale coordinated assault on Berlin by as-yet-unknown means. A pitched firefight between German and Soviet forces was interrupted by the arrival of a top-secret American superweapon, later identified at a press conference (held by the machine, at the request of a bemused President Roosevelt) as Liberty Prime. Adolf Hitler managed to escape Berlin, but was killed by one of his own guards, believed to be a Soviet assassin; the man could not be interrogated, as he and the other guard on the plane had killed each other. The pilot is believed to have landed the plane before succumbing to his wounds.

The three-way battle between Soviet, German, and American forces resulted in nothing less than the complete destruction of Berlin and the total rout of the Soviet army, crippling the two former states.

With the lack of any central power, the Nazi establishment collapses into infighting; a subsequent intervention by the French and English saw a feeble attempt to restore the Weimar Republic. The government was equal parts reactionary and anti-Nazi, and quickly passed a referendum to restore the Empire as a semi-constitutional monarchy under Kaiser Wilhelm III.

The destruction of the Red Army in its entirety crippled the Soviet Union, leaving its government with no means of projecting power either internally or externally, causing a collapse into protracted civil war. The Empire of Japan, seeing the collapse of one of its rivals, turned its attention away from China to seize the majority of eastern Russian territory; in the West, many Soviet member states broke away. The clear, anti-Communist sentiment established by Liberty Prime, coupled with the machine's incredible power, served as an impetus for these states to look to old or new forms of governance rather than emulate the Soviet model.

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In order to stem any more western Japanese expansion, the alliance of the United Kingdom, France, and the United States invaded to stem the infighting, creating a client government in Moscow, backed almost entirely by foreign forces due to the lack of military-age men in Russia. The incredible population loss from the decimation of the Red Army crippled the Russian economy, and it has still not completely recovered in the present.

In what some say was due to the insistence of Liberty Prime, American forces intervened in the Chinese Civil War in 1940 in favour of the Republic of China; a protracted conflict followed, eventually resulting in the ROC gaining control of the Chinese mainland, but with a Communist government remaining on the island of Taiwan. The ROC remains the primary ally of the United States in East Asia, relying on American support to ward off fears of Japanese invasion.

Once the world was finished reeling from the loss of two burgeoning superpowers, American scientists led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer revealed the mechanisms behind Liberty Prime's power source, a potent nuclear fusion reactor; blueprints of a civilian version were provided to both England and France, while reactors were built in Moscow and St. Petersburg to speed the time before Russia could exist as an independent state. The widespread adoption of fusion power saw a complete collapse in the demand for fossil fuels, particularly oil.

So ends the tale of three time wizards, two dictators, and one giant American robot.

Remember: Democracy is non-negotiable.

>>42900919
Truly, the Emperor moves in mysterious ways.

And with that said, I sleep now.

Perhaps some time in the future I can recall enough of the tale of how Wonder Steve (Man of Mystery), Brutus Gigantorus (Man of Muscle), and Boris the Turnip Farmer (Man of Mother Russia) saved Coruscant.

This was the perfect bedtime story. Thanks OP

ARCHIVE THIS FOR POSTERITY

Hah, this was great.

So you're using a custom system for this, right?

Do you have the rules you've used so far? How much saner are they? I've tried to get people to play some Time Wizards with me but the weird crunch has put them off.

>>42901686
Someone should update the Time Wizards page, at least.

Do it for AMERICA.

>>42900959
>Boris the Turnip Farmer (Man of Mother Russia)
kek

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bump for rules and MURRICA

>>42900919
You forgot to account for the effect of their no longer being any language barrier since everyone knew Russian.

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Are any of the original players still here?

Made a cover page for your rules if you post 'em.

Hint hint.

>>42906194
>612x792
If you're going to be using oil filters anyway you might as well make it bigger for those of us with high-DPI printers; they'll hide the worst of the upscale.

Props for an actual 8.5x11 aspect ratio though.

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Here we go.

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>>42906618
Okay. Sorry, new to photoshoop.

>>42906734
OP already said they weren't using Corgi Edition rules. As funny as those rules are they're really off-putting for people who aren't into /tg/ memes, and I don't know any 4chinners IRL.

With regard to rules: the current draft of the Sober and Serious Edition (only in Time Wizards can we associate that phrase with Putin on a fire-breathing shark) is still pretty beta.

I'll leave it up to STP as to whether anything gets posted here, since he's the one to jury-rig the rules in the firest place, but if people have any random questions or want more playtest storytimes I'm mostly free for the next forty minutes at least.

Well done, wizards, well done

>>42906993

>>42900959
>some time in the future I can recall enough of the tale of how Wonder Steve (Man of Mystery), Brutus Gigantorus (Man of Muscle), and Boris the Turnip Farmer (Man of Mother Russia) saved Coruscant.

It's the future.

So then it's time to talk about our second playtest, run after Social Techpriest's Only War game (the day after TEMHI's Dark Heresy game, because weekends mean ALL the gaming).

I honestly don't remember this one quite so well, so if TEMHI or STP are still around they should probably chime in to tell me I'm a shambling skellington when I fuck something up.

In order to get into the details of what went different and what was memorable about this session, we need to delve a little into S&S Time Wizards crunch as it existed at the time of Playtest 2.

After the first test, we decided that (a.) the current system was a few kiloboris past the threshold of RIG ROGGED in favour of the PCs and (b.) our previous stat system had a lot of one stat and FUCKING NOTHING of the other.

The original split had characters with separate stats for physical and metaphysical ability, but the problem is once you're a Time Wizard you really have fuckall use for physical strength, so Powersword Murderhobo's physically-built character didn't really get a chance to do anything unless we torpedoed the Order Rating.

Realising this was A Mistake, we rebalanced stat spreads into what I've described above: one that controls your Time Moments and bullshit logic chains, and one that controls the area of your effect and the number of dice you roll. We agreed that calling the second stat Will made a lot of sense, but we couldn't agree on the first one.

Until STP suggested that, as part of character creation, you pick the name for that stat, as the way your character rationalised their ridiculous reality-warping bullshit. (Since then, I've taken to calling the general name for this as "basis", but that's not really "official".) So a Time Wizard with a basis of Insanity just thinks that reality is refolding around them because, well, they're bat-shit crazy, while one with a basis of Ego might just think they're so fucking awesome that the world caters to their whims.

So, the time came to decide on our Time Wizards. I honestly don't remember too many of our powers from this playtest; the in-character shenanigans were really the highlight here.

Before becoming a Time Wizard, my character was Wonder Steve, Man of Mystery, a street magician. His basis was Showmanship; when he's using his Time Wizard powers, he just thinks he's pulling off a really, really good illusion. I swear, this wasn't a deliberate Stevie Wonder joke, it was just the first street magician name I thought of.

TEMHI's character was BRUTUS GIGANTORUS, CIRCUS STRONGMAN. His basis was that he was HUGE, and the universe must be reacting in awe of his MASSIVE, RIPPLING MUSCLES.

Powersword Murderhobo has better things to do on Sundays than fuck around with us, but we were joined by the other players from the Only War game.

One of them was playing a Soviet farmer (my brain tells me turnips), who was referred to by various stereotypically Russian names. For consistency I will call him Boris, entirely because of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Boris's basis was GLORIOUS COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY; clearly the world had recognised his pride in the collective and sent him forth to end the oppression of the proletariat by the laws of physics. (The fact that we had a Communist right after the previous game was basically a complete coincidence, since Boris's player wasn't part of the group at the first game.)

Our fourth member was playing a tabletop wargamer, whose name I cannot recall and thus is named Vorthos. His basis was just his character assuming that everything around him was just him getting REALLY into a game, with the time-freezing shenanigans being him stopping to take his turn and the like.

With our Wizards made (and again, I don't have powers lodged in my memory anywhere accessible), we found ourselves deposited on the massive ecumenopolis of Coruscant, from the Star Wars universe, currently under siege by some Star Wars EU invasion force that I don't know by name (my EU knowledge largely being second-hand).

Fortunately Time Wizards not only function, but prosper, when they have no idea as to the particulars of their situation. Our mission: the defense of the planet.

Leaving my office now, next update delayed by the drive home, ~15 min plus post writing probably.

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>>42907581
Keep it going, OP.

>>42907581
Really hope you have a PDF of your rules you can share.

I have returned for now. Were I to become in a Tie Wizard in the next few hours I would count Secure the Dinner and Proctor the Exam amongst my abilities, so my time is short, but let's try and get this done fast.

On the ride back from uni TEMHI has reminded me of a few of our powers:

Wonder Steve had Perform the Ablution, Showcase the Paraphernalia, and Scope Out the Crowd.

Brutus had Flex for the Ladies and Enter the Ring.

Boris had Eat the Gruel and Read the Propaganda.

Vorthos had Buy the Memorabilia and Unbox the Army.

>>42908249
If STP wakes up while I'm still home I'll see if he's put anything together since this morning, but I'll throw together a shitty LaTeX document of what we have right now if nothing else, so that some other people can take a whack at playtesting and suggesting things.

As soon as we're dropped into the chaotic streets of Coruscant, Wonder Steve takes one look at the sky and, with a flourish of his cape and hat, announces "Ladies and gentlemen, behold: the greatest show in the galaxy!" Amidst a shower of doves from his cape, the first Time Moment of the game begins.

I really can't stress enough how much fun it was to play Wonder Steve after our grim flashlight shootout with the greenskin hordes. Scenery is delicious.

Wonder Steve, seeing the menace of the attacking fleet in orbit of Coruscant, decides that this is a perfect time to Scope Out The Crowd.

Looking at Wonder Steve's pool of 16 will points (the square of his Will stat), I blow eleven: seven of them to expand my effect to the size of an entire planet, and four (his cap, since he had a Will stat of 4) to bring my dice up to 6d6.

I win the roll with some numbers to spare, and declare as follows: everyone on Coruscant is part of a crowd (free, since it's an obvious truth). Surface-to-orbit missile launchers have scopes (again, free). To "kit out" can mean to give someone equipment, thus to "scope out" can mean to give someone a scope. (One Showmanship.) Wonder Steve would thus scope out the crowd by giving every single person on Coruscant a surface-to-orbit missile launcher. (This cost another Showmanship point.)

Time resumes, and the people of Coruscant find themselves armed with exactly the weapons they need to rain fire on the surrounding fleet. On the plus side, the sudden need to consider defense has made Coruscant's attackers start pulling back; on the downside, debris is now raining all across the planet.

Promptly, Vorthos declares a Time Moment, and will Buy the Memorabilia. He blows a not-insiginificant amount of WP of his own, and beats the TM (helped along by all those missiles in the air dropping a die's worth of Order). Boris decides to join in on this Time Moment to Read the Propaganda, likewise buying a planet-wide effect, and also wins his roll.

Vorthos notes that the sudden and miraculous defense of Coruscant by the entirety of its populace, armed with hand-borne anti-orbit missiles that appeared from nowhere, is a rather memorable occasion, and thus anything produced by such an event would be memorabilia. (Free.) He then declares that when you buy something, you put it somewhere for storage or display (1 Gaming). Thus, he intends to store all the debris raining on Coruscant in a large display shelf, saving the citizenry below.

Boris, meanwhile, declares that what the people of Coruscant need is the GLORIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF COMRADE LENIN. Worldwide, the population of Coruscant are faced with an immediate, deep understanding of Soviet principles and their duty to the collective, rallying them together in opposition of their obviously bourgeois invaders. (This costs him 1 SOVIET FERVOR.)

You'll notice I'm talking a lot about point pools and how they play into things; this is to try and make more meaningful restrictions on what you do, to avoid a repeat of the Ready the Materials shenanigising, and generally because limited resources add some (small) element of challenge to a game. Per current crunch, WP regenerates whenever a player declares a Time Moment of their own (not just joining in on someone else's), and Basis recovers with time (though we're working on trying to come up with a more formal version of this, since there aren't really rules for the passage of time).

>>42908709
Please God keep going you magical son of a bitch

All this is so stupid and awesome that it somehow looks like one of the purest things in the world, OP, treasure these moments and breed more.

At this point, we decide to faff about a bit, with Wonder Steve declaring that it is the time for MAGNIFICIENT FEATS OF PRESTIDIGITATION while Brutus struck heroic poses and flaunted his HUGE for all the world to see. The show continued long enough to draw the attention of the local Jedi, already spooked by the sudden missiles and disappearing debris. We are brought in for questioning, Brutus flexing all the way to the station.

When we arrive, we are asked who we are, where we're from, and what in the name of the Force we're doing. As they seem unfamiliar with terms as "Earth", "the circus", and "the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", Wonder Steve tries a different tack, introducing the party as the latest and greatest circle of travelling performers to ever grace the surface of Coruscant. Why, look, this man has a power converter behind his ear!

Brutus immediately takes it upon himself to lift a nearby desk in a demonstration of his ENORMOUS STRENGTH, lending some credence to these claims. Halfway into Wonder Steve's boastful claims about his MAGICAL PROWESS, it's clear that one of the Jedi is having trouble controlling his sides.

With another flourish, I cap off my rant with a "Gentlemen, we have brought you what your world needs most: We have brought you ENTERTAINMENT!" At Boris's insistence, Wonder Steve appends "WHOLESOME, WORKING-CLASS ENTERTAINMENT!"

The Jedi falls to the floor, laughing hysterically.

"See? Look at this man! This man is having a good time! This man is entertained! Be like this man."

I loved playing Wonder Steve so much.

Now then, if I want to get across the bridge for a Bernie Wiseman without being smothered by a horde of undergraduates, I must be off. If the thread still lives, I will continue this tale when free from the strangehold of responsibility later this evening.

>>42908892
>All this is so stupid and awesome that it somehow looks like one of the purest things in the world
And that is why you play Time Wizards.

>>42909022
>a Bernie Wiseman
Kek. Enjoy your burger /m/otherfucker, hope you'll continue soon.

So, the rules of Time Wizards: Sober and Serious Edition, as of the latest setup.

First, as Archibald said, there are your two stats. The other night we played another game after our Dark Heresy game, in which the party commandeered a Hades Breaching Drill, and cut underneath a Heretek Forge-city, in order to take out the control center for their orbital guns.

On the way in, we cut through the sewer system. On the way out, we cut under a sewage treatment plant, causing a partial collapse.

This time Archibald was GMing, rather than me.

So, my character for the game was a sanitation worker, just called in to work overtime because some jackass cut a hole in the sewer mains.

Powersword Murderhobo's character was a white-collar worker for waste management, whose office had just fallen into the ground.

Thus, for purposes of this rules exposition, I will refer to one stat as 'bullshit.'

A character gets 10 points to spread between Bullshit and Willpower. It is recommended that neither stat be below three.

Your Posits/Pause Its are your ability to stop time, and conduct troll logic. They are equal to 2+3xBullshit.

Will points are your scale of and probability of succeeding in time bullshit. They are equal to your Willpowerx5. We're working on renaming something here so 'Willpower' and 'Will points' are a bit more distinct.

The maximum number of posits you can use in a chain of troll-logic is limited to your Bullshit.

The maximum number of dice you can roll is limited to your Willpower. The first two dice you roll each time is free, but every die after that costs you a point of willpower.

The scale for an effect also depends on Willpower expenditure, and works as follows:
0 Will: Yourself.
1 Will: Someone else or a person-sized object.
2 Will: A house.
3 Will: A city block.
4 Will: A town.
5 Will: A city.
6 Will: A small country (or large state in the USA)
7 Will: A Continent.
8 Will: A planet.
9 Will: A Solar System.
10 Will: A Start Cluster.
11 Will: A Galaxy.

12 Will: The Universe.
13+Will: Time Masters' discretion.

Order rating is now defaulting to 5, to make it harder for players to always win at dice.

Willpower currently recharges at a rate of 'every time *you* call a time moment, regain 1/2 your Will Points.'

So, a 'balanced' Time Wizard has Bullshit 5, for 17 Posits, and 5 Willpower, for 25 Will Points. He can roll a maximum of 5 Dice against the TM (which would cost him 3 Will Points as the first 2 are free), and spends more Will Points for affecting Scale.

Now, this last bit is important. Every time a player beats the TM and gets the affect they desire, the TM takes a counter for that player. These counters may be spent during any future power use by that player, at the TM's discretion, to add another die to their roll against the player, *or* increase their die size.

Die increase goes d6->d8->d10->d12->d20

So, if the Order Rating is 4, and the TM spends 4 such counters, he can go from rolling 4d6, to rolling 6d10, changing his range from 4-24 to 6-60, and average from 14 to 33.

Time Dialation works much as it did in prior editions, though an additional Posit is charged to activate it. The same basic effects as regular power use occur, except the ultimate effect is intensified, either doubled or squared.

Those are how the dice mechanic parts of the game work at this point.

For how your power selection works, once you've determined your character's Bullshit/Willpower balance, and the name for your Bullshit. (Showmanship, HUGENESS, GLORIOUS SOVIET IDEOLOGY, 'giving no shits,' or as one player put it, 'I'm a damn wizard. It's effing magic.') It is then time to declare what your character's profession is. Once this is done, the GM will walk you through a boring day in your life. That it is largely boring and dull is important, because what you do determines your power selection.

My character for the game Archibald ran started at:

Tuesday 6 AM:

and did the following things:

Hear The Alarm.
Crush the Clock.
Wear the Shirt.
Find The Pants.
Heat The Bread.
Fill The Glass.
Consume the Breakfast.
Grope for the Keys.
Close The Door.
Start The Car.

Arrive at the Office.
Fill the Tub.
Get the Soaps.
Rinse the Mop.
Git the Call.
Find the Spillage.
Wear the Breathing Mask.
Cleanse the Sewage.
Change the Gloves.
Wash the Hands.

From these, he selected the following powers:

Crush The Clock.
Close the Door.
Consume the Breakfast.
Rinse the Mop.
Cleanse the Sewage.

And our game was henceforth conducted with this power set. Tomorrow night Archibald may write up the results of this game, after finishing the current game write-up later tonight.

If he can successfully escape the underclassmen.

>>42909672
>13+Will: Time Masters' discretion.
It is now officially my mission to find cause to use this.

>>42909458
>in which our intrepid band of acolytes drove a Tauros Venator
>in which the party commandeered a Hades Breaching Drill
Are all of your sessions characterized by whatever vehicle the party steals?

>>42910000
The one thing I can think of is if you were playing in a setting a la Magic: the Gathering or Planechase and you had to do something to the entire multiverse.

Which only raises the question of what 14+ is for.

>>42910077
>Magic: the Gathering in Time Wizards
Finally, the pre-mending planeswalker RPG we've been waiting for: just use your Magic deck in lieu of verb the nouns. No basic lands, discard and draw when you use a card, shuffle your graveyard into your library when you have nothing left to draw.

>>42910077
>Which only raises the question of what 14+ is for.
All multiverses?

>14+ happens
>you phone a random DM playing at the other side of the continent to add this event in his campaign

>>42910077

Let me put it this way; Archibald and I made watching the Blues Brothers mandatory for those of our group who hadn't seen the movie, due to all the references we were making.

And, you know, it being a hilarious movie.

Due to in-game shenanigans, I intend for my Tech-Priest to specialize in tweaking the hell out of mundane technology for three reasons:
1: The event that shall be known as 'The Table Heresy.'
2: Because when we get our hands on a Leman Russ, it's going to need a top speed at *least* triple than the listed cruising speed (35 KPH).
3: When we hit Ascension, we will need a vehicle capable of flight, high ground speed, and burrowing, all while carrying at least four party members and being movable via Teleportarium.

It's also the Social Tech Priest's objective to start a holo-drama series intending to up the general public's perception of The Inquisition. Think a fusion between Top Gun and Top Gear, with some BURNING BLOOD thrown in.

>>42909672
Hope you toss this together in a PDF for 1d4chan, it looks like it smooths the whole process out considerably.

File: inquisitor_by_remton-d6avv3h.jpg (433 KB, 550x850)

433 KB JPG

>>42910077
Well, active combat recently broke out, so having unusual methods of getting into the target city have proven necessary.

I will note that these were the first two sessions where the choice of vehicle had an appreciable effect on how the session went.

>>42910077
>Which only raises the question of what 14+ is for.
Other games of Time Wizards.

I also just felt obliged to explain why my AdMech character has the name he does.

He's a Factor of the Lathes, which means he can buy Fellowship, which he has at 56.

He has about 14 Peer talents.

He's got +10 Charm, has Command, Diplomacy, etc.

And he has no Mechadendrites whatsoever.

>>42910473
>And he has no Mechadendrites whatsoever
Hew

>>42910473
>And he has no Mechadendrites whatsoever.
Ew

>>42910473
>And he has no Mechadendrites whatsoever.
Isn't that some kind of tech heresy?
On a side note for some reason I was banned for some underage post on /v/ I have never posted on /v/ and I haven't been under age for awhile

>>42910500
>>42910970
>>42911121

Not Tech Heresy, but certainly unusual. The thing is you have to pay in XP to use Mechadendrites, and none of them have been *useful* to what he's doing as the Party Face yet.

I LIVE AGAIN, UNMENACED BY THE SPECTRE OF FIRST-YEAR CALC

So when I left in search of dinner and responsibility, the party had just announced to a small group of the Jedi of Coruscant that we intended to bring them the joys of street entertainment after arming the populace against an orbital bombardment.

No sooner are we settled in than do we hear news of the arrival of a second invasion fleet elsewhere in Republic space; the Jedi, recognising that despite our apparent insanity, at least some of our number were in some way involved in the large-scale Force disturbance that conjured the planet's newfound arsenal of missiles, so they arrange for a vessel to take us to the new battlefield.

We are quickly shuffled to a small, fast shuttle preparing to launch. Wonder Steve takes one look around the party's new craft and decides that it is COMPLETELY unsuitable for a proper showman. Far too greebly and utilitarian; no sir, none of that! I declare a Time Moment, with intent to Showcase the Paraphernalia.

I narrowly win the roll, and declare that the paraphernalia in question are the miscellaneous decorations of an elaborate circus caravan, as well as a massive, mahogany stage with all the appropriate lighting and pyrotechnics, outfitting the ship to be a flying stage show.

Which worked out great for a couple of moments, before the ship's furious captain burst through the door.

As the captain was a young woman, Brutus immediately declared a time moment, and decided to Flex for the Ladies to sate the captain's fury. He beat the TM, and successfully distracted the captain from the state of her ship by focusing her attention on his rippling muscles.

Which worked out great for a couple of moments, until the captain's irate husband burst through the door.

TEMHI has reminded me, as relevant to this part of the story, of another of Brutus's powers: Box the Bear.

As soon as the angry husband, who we recognise from his clothing as a Jedi, bursts into the room, he declares a Time Moment. He intends to Box the Bear; I decide to get in on this with an attempt to Perform the Ablution.

He wins his roll. The TM burns some revenge points against Wonder Steve, and I lose my roll hard.

Brutus goes first; I can't remember the logic of the particulars, but he justifies that the Jedi is a bear, and thus he can Box the Bear by transforming the Jedi into a cardboard box.

Meanwhile, Wonder Steve's haywire power performs the ablution by noting that Brutus, and the marital strife he brings, is something that should be cleared away from the ship owners' presence. And since things are usually washed into the sewer, this places him into a sewer beneath Coruscant. A small, narrow one, completely unsuited to any person, let alone one the size of Brutus. Were time to resume, Brutus would die, so we do the only thing we can: dilate time.

Two powers are used: Vorthos's Unbox the Army, and Brutus's Enter the Ring. Both are successful, since the TM doesn't have much wrath against either of them.

Vorthos, recognising that turning her husband into a box would not endear us to the captain, noted that a Jedi was basically a one-man army, so he could transform the box back into a Jedi, therefore "unboxing" him in the same way that the transformation "boxed" him.

As starships are vaguely round, Brutus declares the ship we were in to be a ring, and thus Entered the Ring by teleporting right back to the ship.

Of course, these last two powers were used when time was dilated: per how we'd decided to handle time dilation, this means their effects are magnified.

The instant time resumes, Brutus vanishes and the Jedi transforms into a box. No sooner does this happen than Brutus reappears, transforming the room everyone is in into a fully-equipped championship boxing ring as he does so. The box opens and the Jedi steps out of it, and even as this happens the box transforms back into an identical Jedi.

An air of awkwardness fills the ship as we move out of the suddenly present boxing ring and into a different hold. Sensing the tense atmosphere, Boris decides to call a Time Moment to Eat the Gruel. A simple victory later, and Boris decides that we're simply cross because we're all very hungry, and everything will be smoothed over once we're feasting on the finest slop that the rural Soviet Union can offer. With our hunger sated and all our immediate problems thus solved, we set off through hyperspace to our next destination: another pitched space battle.

Let's just imagine the life of an ordinary Republic X-Wing pilot at this moment: they're fighting for their lives against a hostile invasion, faced by superior numbers, and likely going to be shot down as motivation for some Jedi kid. Right as you've made peace with your life, your radio bursts to life with a loud shout of

"LADIES AND JEDIMEN, IT IS OUR PLEASURE TO PRESENT THE GREATEST SHOW ON CORUSCANT!"

as the most gaudily-decorated ship you've ever seen drops from hyperspace, with a man standing on a massive, mahogany stage on its prow. Wearing a top hat and cape over his space suit. Behind him is the largest man you've ever seen, wearing a suit modified to be skin-tight and furiously flexing his muscles.

The first man bows, flips his cape open, and doves in tiny dove space suits float off into space.

and I now realise that I have forgotten to re-namefag after wandering off to /m/ for a moment

Seizing the inadvertent distraction of, well, everyone created by the rather flamboyant arrival of the party's ship, Vorthos pitches a single crate out the airlock and declares a Time Moment, again to Unbox the Army.

In this case, he decides that a space fleet is a type of army, and clearly the newly-spaced crate is a box. So, he opens the box, which has contained an enormous fleet from the history of the Republic (again, the specifics elude me due to my limited knowledge of the EU). This more or less mops up the attacking fleet.

And that's about the end of the tale of our second Time Wizards: Sober and Serious Edition playtest.

I'll try and cook up a PDF for anyone who wants to try what we've got so far; if this thread's still up once I'm done tossing it into a readable form, I'll post it here, otherwise I'll throw it on 1d4chan.

>>42915594
>PDF
Please do, this sounds fun as hell and more practical than the original slap rules.

Bumping for promise of PDF.

Bumped, in the Emperor's Name!

File: wizards.pdf (5.55 MB, PDF)

5.55 MB PDF

Well, here's my texted-up version of Time Wizards: The Sober and Serious Edition.

It's a bit of a pain to read right now, the text version of the Great Wall of China, but that's because it's almost 2 AM here and I must sleep. I intend to make things look nicer when I have a bit more time, but this should at least be playable.

There's a few modifications I've tossed in there over Social Techpriest's version, mostly a formalism for recovering Posits, that's strictly "oh hey we need a way to do this" hacks that are untested.

The PDF has my usual 4chan email address provided, so if you play this and don't storytime it here at least let me know what's up.

>>42918771
>archie.m.vist@gmail.com
YOU
YOOOOOOOOU

/m/
draws
mazinger
when

>>42918867
THE FUTURE

Well, there's rules now.
For the love of god someone who can into archives and 1d4chan please save for posterity.

>>42918999
Archived on suptg, but that doesn't save the pdf. Does one of the other archive sites do that, or will we need to upload to 1d4chan fast?

File: Beware of fools at dusk.jpg (91 KB, 650x650)

91 KB JPG

>>42918999
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Time_Wizards#Time_Wizard_Archibald_and_The_Sober_and_Serious_Edition

BEHOLD