The Spanning Situations FAQ

The Continuum roleplaying game has been in existence for about five years now officially, and there are many elements of the game system that have aspects to them that make the players, and GMs, think a little bit. This Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page is designed to answer some of the commonly asked questions about one of the more complex Continuum game elements - Spanning Situations.

Spanning Situations Frequently Asked Questions

I know Span Ones have a limited range of one mile, so can a Span One teleport in one mile "hops" across the country without needing rest? It seems to me that spanners can safely span *in the air*, allowing them to "fly."

Yes, this is true on the spanning part, but it's really like a series of parachute jumps sans parachute, starting with zero momentum and picking up speed until you decide to span again. Kinda jouncy. True Flight in Continuum is an Aquarian Skill (see "Levitation", page 116) but pales in effectiveness to spanning.

Most Span Ones live so close to levellers, they learn extreme caution, since spanning around incautiously gets you seen, fragged, or worse: stuck at Span One until you're old because no one trusts you with more. Use some of that money and buy a plane ticket. Relax and go slumming. Generate some alibis for crying out loud.

How exactly does the "Visitors at the door -- clean the corner of spanners-only stuff in an instant" actually work? I quoted the example to a friend, but he said that the chronies couldn't span Down to clean the place, or instruct their juniors to do so, since they already know that it's dirty when the visitors knock. What am I missing here?

When even a Span One can span away with 10 pounds of stuff 20 times in the period between the time when the doorbell rings and the spanner opens it, 20 seconds is long enough. Furthermore, not many spanners are going to be distressed if they have to throw a few shirts behind the sofa before they open the door. When it refers to "spanner-only stuff", the game text means suits of Aquarian Era powered armour, Gutenberg's printing press, and that brand-new Ming vase "you just had to have". In other words, anything that could not be easily explained in the locality.

If worse comes to worse, the character can Span out of the room to somewhere else, write in his Yet, "Show up at x time to clean room, and then return. Clean room, a point of frag from Slipshanking an elder." However, the chances are characters won't have to go through such extremes to throw out the empties from the last party.

It seems that, by its very nature, time travel always risks fragging _someone_. For example, I span Down a month and just walk down a street. Because I did that, unbeknownst to me, a leveller pedestrian had to move out of my way, slowing him down by a second.

Ah, but the spanner is a part of the universe, too. His being there is as "natural" as any of the levellers down there jostling their way to work. While the risks would appear to make a spanner fearful of fragging someone, that's like saying you're afraid to leave your house for fear of hurting yourself or other people. You just don't know what the next day will bring. Spanners can find out, but only Dreamers and Clairvoyants can find out from home. Sooner or later, even they will need to buy groceries - but at what store, and in what time period?

A spanner is not omniscient, certainly not about his Yet. This is both good (absolute foreknowledge is burdensome and maddening) and bad ("how did I cause/get that frag?")

While mistakes happen (see Continuum , "The Beer Crisis of William & Edward", pg. 55) they're usually between friendly spanners, and are easily rectified. It's hardly necessary for the GM to invent such events, when novice spanners are "learning the ropes" in a busy corner full of Span Ones.

This is also why it's *very* important to "call ahead" before stomping around a distant corner: An unknown spanner making even one serious mistake might be thought a Narcissist. Time Combat may commence if you're overly secretive with the local corner! But between the First and Third Maxims, the Societies and the Continuum function very smoothly.

I don't see how in the world you could possibly funnel spanners where you wanted them to go. You had an adventure planned jumping around ancient Rome and Greece? Well, your players just decided that they want to go meet Nikola Tesla. The most you can possibly do is give the characters a lead to go on (someone fragged them, mysterious object, find elusive spanner, etc.), but the ways and places and times that they go, following your lead, are completely up in the air.

GMs can have a great deal of power over spanner travels. For instance, if a GM wanted player spanners to visit ancient Rome for some adventure, he could make sure that one or all of them discover important events in their Yets that must occur at that level - or even better, seemingly innocuous events that they *must* perform, only afterwards leading them to discover the truly interesting meat of the adventure. And if he wanted to have them avoid meeting Tesla, he could have the local Piscean and other corners give them the cold shoulder - or the boot.

Spanners have the power to span time, and go where they will - just as we have the _power_ to enter the opposite sex's public bathrooms, or pass doors marked "Employees Only", or even to commit crimes. We just don't have the legit social _authority_ to do these things. Whenever spanners are mucking around outside a corner of theirs, the GM can apply NPCs to move any "trespassers" along.

Of course, smart GMs won't smush player enthusiasm unnecessarily. Faced with the Rome vs. Tesla problem, as GM I would probably have some dour Engineer (from the local corner) hand them a pile of creased blueprints muttering in broken English, "You see Tesla? You first make this sense, yes?" The blueprints are the plans to Nero's Golden House - complete, printed from AutoCAD on a huge mechanical plotter - and all the measurements are in _stadia_, with the text in Latin.

That should get them going where and when you want, because _they'll_ want to. This is the central truth of all entertainment.

Let's ponder another case of false futury. If a Thespian dresses up like me and shoots someone, then shows me the video of him/me doing so, does it enter my Yet to shoot that person under the same circumstances (down to being tapped?) That is, can foreknowledge create the Yet, rather than simply cement it? And what of the Thespian's shooting - would it still happen? Or would another source of Frag be inevitibly created (the Thespian and I both kill the same person...)?

Chris Adams had this to say on this one: "Bear in mind that the actual shooting is established by the videotape: the Thespian does it. When the tricked spanner shows up to do the shooting, he'll see the Thespian already at it. Then the Thespian has to explain himself.

"Unless... The Thespian keeps the ruse going, pretending to be the poor spanner's elder. Any number of awful things could be shown or recommended to the spanner, but as long as the Thespian keeps showing up, in the way, at the events, the spanner never has to do any of them.

"Taken to extremes, you may have a (suicidal) narcissist toying with you. But I wouldn't be surprised if a less murderous version of this was a hazing ritual among Thespians. The hazee would be furiously writing more and more events and Geminis down in his Yet, but in fact has to do none of these things, since none were his elder.

"I strongly suspect that when the Fraternity hazing is over - the masks come off, and his Yet is shown to be more simple than he thought - the new apprentice Thespian is taught a shorthand of keeping track of the "actors" (the actual spanner) and their "roles" (whoever they are disguised as), and to watch for the differences.

"For example, Ted has a holo projector, so disguised as "Rufus" he goes to an award ceremony, and sits in the audience. He sees Bill on-stage giving his elder the award for Best Supporting Actor. Knowing that both he and Bill are Thespians, he's cautious enough to write in his Yet card: "'Bill' gives me award for Best Supporting Actor."

After a few spans around, Ted shows up at a secret Thespian party, and sees himself. At first, Ted behaves in keeping with the Second Maxim, but after his elder says with a smirk, "So how come you get the award, and I don't?" Ted knows his "elder" is some other Thespian, and then Bill turns off his holo projector.

Ted asks, "So dude, you geminied just to give me an award?"

Bill replies, "No way! You go as me! Then you have to remember to lend me your holo projector."

So now Ted can elaborate: "I as 'Bill' give Bill as 'Ted' the award for Best Supporting Actor." and "Lend Bill holo."

"Knowing the cast as well as the crew is important, since things like the Second and Fourth Maxims are getting involved here. Toying with someone's Yet will out, and Thespians would run into this issue often more than most."

Special thanks to Chris Adams, Dave Fooden, Barbara Manui, David Trimboli, and the folks on the Continuum Mailing List for their help in the compiling of this FAQ information.

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