From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 03 Dec 1993 - 18:53:52 EET
I'll take this opportunity to say that *in general* I have similar feelings about time travel. Most fiction which depicts time travel leaves glaring holes in the plot (which are never exploited by the characters, of course). It does not lend itself for use in RPGs (because there the characters *will* exploit those loopholes).
But in the special case of Glorantha I think that time travel is at least *feasible*. The basis of mythomagic in Glorantha relies on making changes in the past to affect the present. Ok, so these changes are generally assumed to occur in GodTime, but I don't see any good reason why changes cannot be effected in gloranthan RealTime too. The existance of two temporal dimensions is part of what makes Glorantha unique.
>When I first heard the theory that perhaps some of the demigod-like beings
>at the battle of Castle Blue were actually heroquesters coming back in time
>to influence the past, I immediately didn't like the whole idea.
The fact that such evidence appears in the background to Glorantha surely makes time travel more reasonable. Time travel is refuted in the real world because, if it was ever possible, we would expect visits from time travellers and strange paradoxical effects such as people appearing in history from nowhere, or folks vanishing from history because their past is destroyed. It's apparent that in Glorantha this sort of thing *does* happen (Who was that seventh Lightbringer?) so time travel is less of a paradox.
>I am perfectly happy using even the hint of time travel purely as a
>dramatic device.
Absolutely. This is how it should be used. Just because I'm prepared to speculate about the mechanics of time travel doesn't mean that I advocate players exploiting it on an everyday basis. Quite the opposite. Methodical exploitation of Heroquesting is dangerous for Glorantha. Methodical exploitation of time travel would be more so. Both are best left well alone by sane and sensible people. (Sadly, most Heroquesters are either insane or ill-informed IMO; even the best intended plans to "save the world" can result in catastrophe when mortals dabble in this sort of thing. Best leave well enough alone.)
___
CW.
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