Time travel. It's a genre of roleplaying that isn't all that common these days, what with the emphasis on the various subsets of the horror and dark fantasy genres that seem to predominate the roleplaying game industry. I've been a fan of time travel ever since I read the classic short story by Ray Bradbury called "A Sound of Thunder," in which a dinosaur-hunting expedition to the past makes one mistake, accidentally killing a butterfly, and changes the nature of humanity forever. There are plenty of novels out there that also explore the nature of time travel, and of course, there are the movies and tv series that have given time travel a reputation that is dependent on the viewer. The roleplaying game industry has done time travel to some extent, with the only real games surrounding it being the old FASA Doctor Who RPG and BTRC's terrific TimeLords rpg that allowed one to create oneself as a time traveller.
Up to this point, no roleplaying game has done time travel right, in my opinion. Notice I said, "Up to this point." Aetherco is a small company located in New York City that has just published the official release of Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet. The big appeal of time travel is that one gets to go back and fix things in the past that went wrong. Naturally, time travel is also fraught with perils, such as the potential for paradox, temporal loops, and other aspects of time travel that will give you headaches if you attempt to try to unravel them. The Continuum rpg is a serious look at time travel and its ramifications, and is a game where paradoxes, temporal loops, and going back to change history are adddressed, and handled very nicely.
Continuum has two basic premises, both of which impact on the game very strongly. The first premise of the game is that time travel is a social activity. Once the first time machine is constructed, it will be used and improved upon. Since time travellers can move up and down the timeline to any point in time that is desired, the first time traveller will travel in time and encounter a society of time travellers - called Spanners in the game - already in existence and using time machines much more advanced than her own. The second premise, based on the first, is that time travel is handled in a much more scientific sense, and the ultimate time travel machine is: Man. Spanners, as the game calls them, are humans who have learned how to travel time (called "spanning"), and time is full of spanners in different eras and historical periods. The society of time travellers is very rich, full, vibrant, and diverse. Naturally, there are those who would attempt to change history, and the most organised group of time travellers, the Continuum, relies a lot on self-control and local intervention by their members to prevent the Narcissists (their term for those who would rather reshape reality to match their own vision of it) from altering the ebb and flow of history.
A simple set of premises, really. How well do they execute? Very nicely. The Continuum rpg rulebook is set up very nicely, very elegantly, and has a lot of good material in it. This is a big book, with a lot of information in it, and densely packed. The layout of the book is quite simply wonderful, with two exceptions that I'll get to in a minute. The book is a standard 8 1/2" x 11" in size, and boasts a tremendous piece of artwork by Michael William Kaluta on the cover. The book itself is solid and well-bound, although after making the photocopies of the character sheets that I needed, the back page and the front page spines are beginning to loosen somewhat. The text in the book is laid out in a nice, two-column format. The examples provided and the fiction in the book is separated out in gray boxes, and is easy to read and find. At first, I thought that there was no Index in the book, but it is actually on page 221; while I think the Index should be more complete than it is, and could easily have taken up a full page on its own (rather than just one column), it would also have made sense to put the Index as the very last page in the book. One of the real problems with the book is the editing, which is somewhat spotty in places. There are words missing, punctuation either missing or used incorrectly, and other gaffes that mar the quality of this lovely book. The other problem that I have with the layout is that the text very often goes right into the spine a the center of the book, and this makes it more difficult to read at times. Otherwise, this book is well done, and is worth the price for the quality of the printing alone.
So what about the content of book? In one word, "superb." The book opens with a page devoted to the five Maxims of the Continuum. Nice, easy to reference, and simple to photocopy for the players. The contents of the book and the credits page is simple, not too messy, and has the typical value of these pages. The Contents section should have been placed on a page all by itself, but such is life. This is followed by the introductory chapter of the book, appropriately Chapter 0, called "Introductions". This chapter provides an overview of what the game is about, and then presents personal perspectives on time travel and how they came to work on the game by each of the authors. There's some insightful material here, and it serves as a good start to the book.
Next, we come to the meat of the book. The first chapter, "Invitations", deals with how characters become spanners, the basics for character generation, action resolution, and physical (as opposed to time) combat, and the fiction that deals with Cynthia Carmichael, a leveller (normal humans who can't span) who receives her invitation to join the ranks of the Continuum. This chapter is clean, simple, and gives the basic information on creating a character. The opening piece of fiction is quite long, seven pages, and gives the GM reading this material a good feel for the game, how characters are played, and some of the stuff that goes on. The Invitation to the Dance, the process of being invited to become a spanner is illustrated primarily here, and the authors have said that more will be covered on this in the first supplement for Continuum , Further Information. Until then, one has to make do with the scanty information that is found here and in the GM's chapter. Character Generation is nice and simple. The character has three primary Attributes (Body, Mind, and Quick), and a series of skills chosen from a set of some seemingly generic skills (but one does have to take specialities for each skill). While some would argue that the skill lists need to be more defined, I think the authors handled this rather well, given the vast number of skills that one might choose from when one thinks of all the different historical periods. There are some glaring omissions from the skills list, such as Repair, Psychology, and a few others, but these will hopefully be addressed in future supplements; creative GMs may add additional skills as they need them to the game. The character receives 25 points to allot to Attributes and Skills, and receives one free Benefit (an advantage of some sort that may or may not give a character all that much of an advantage in play, but hey, it's free). In addition, the character has the option of taking one or more Limits, each of which provide a couple of extra points to allot to Attributes and Skills or an extra Benefit. Make no mistake - the Limits presented here are definitely disadvantages. Finally, the chapter deals with Resolving Actions and Physical Combat, both of which systems use the Dreamcatcher mechanics (Aetheco's partner in this endeavour, although I'm still not sure what this means). Action resolution and physical combat resolution are somewhat different than in most roleplaying games, but are easily worked with after a bit of practice. A section on Healing and some weaponry and armour round out the chapter. The weapons list is somewhat limited, not having a wide array of weapons listed in it, and needs to be expanded upon. Perhaps there will be some material in Further Information on this stuff?
The second chapter is "Spanning", and this is the most interesting chapter of the book to some extent. This chapter covers the basic information and details about personal knowledge and behaviour that the character knows at each level of Span. Each element and each level of Span is illustrated through the fiction that continues to follow Cynthia Carmichael's life and times. The material here covers all the bases that player characters will want to know, and then some, and is chock full of details that cover everything from what it feels like when one spans, the process of keeping track of Age, the various time periods of history (called the Eras, and divided into zodiacal time periods), the matter of Gemini incidents (encountering an older version of oneself), the various Maxims that govern the Continuum, the roles and responsibilities of being a spanner as one increases in level of Spanning, the Yet (esssentially, what will happen to the character in their own subjective future), and all other manner of information and material about what it means to be a Spanner. The chapter deals with corners (places in spacetime where spanners can meet with others of their kind and interact without fear of being discovered by levellers) and frag (when a blatant violation of causality results in a paradox and causes an effect in spacetime). And that's just the material covered for one level of Span! There is all sorts of other material in this chapter for higher levels of Span, both fascinating and full of ideas that will allow GMs to blossom forth with ideas for stories and campaigns within the context of the Continuum setting. There is material on the Fraternities (groups within the Continuum who have an interest in specific areas) and all kinds of other elements dealing with spanning that I don't want to mention for fear of spoiling the game for those who might want to play this.
Chapter Three is called "Struggling", and presents information oriented more towards the GM. This chapter deals with dreaming and communication abilities, psychic abilities, some basics on the Narcissists, and Time Combat. Useful material all, but the real challenge for the GM and players alike in this chapter is the material on Time Combat. After reading the book through three times, I still don't have a complete understanding of Time Combat, but it's something that comes with practice. Very complex, very fitting for a game of this scope, and very much an essential part of the game that actually deals more with information about an event, place, or target than it does with actually "attacking" them. This chapter also deals with all manner of material about various other subjects, much of which is for the GM, and introduces some new concepts for the GM to play with as well.
Chapters Four through Six, "Mastering", "Knowing", and "Details" are strictly for the GamesMaster of Continuum , and contain material for the GM pertaining to the first three chapters, as well as new perspectives on a variety of subjects presented earlier. In addition, details about the various historical periods are provided for the GM, along with advice on how to run the game, dealing with players and their characters, and various other subjects. There is even a small section that addresses the issue of the powergamer and munchkin player types, and the rules makes solid suggestions on how to deal with various issues and elements of time travel within the context of the game. The book is rounded out by information sources and a bibliography of works that might prove interesting and useful to the GM running the game. I really can't say all that much more about the content of this section of the book, since it will spoil the game in many ways for players and those contemplating playing in the game.
Continuum is probably the best realistic look at time travel and time travellers that I have ever seen. The game has a vocabulary and language all of its own, and one must throw off the trappings of time that one is used to dealing with when playing the game. Spanners don't tend to think in terms of past, present, and future in the same way that levellers do, and this is something that the players will have to come to grips with. Players are expected to keep an accurate track of incidents in their Yet and the places and times they've spanned to, or they risk fragging themselves in a serious fashion. So the game requires a bit more work on the part of the players to play in that regard. That said, Continuum takes great care to explain how time works, how time travel and changing history *don't* work, and there's even an appendix detailing time travel theories in the real world. This set of rules isn't interested in the mathematics or physics of time travel - it is a game that looks at the society of time travellers that would form in a world or setting where time travel does exist, and thus is an almost sociological approach to time travel.
When it comes right down to it, Continuum is the most playable of the time travel rpgs out there, and is the one that is done right. Not everyone will like the approach that the authors of the game have taken to time travel, but it is a game that has many twists and turns during the course of telling the stories about the player characters. Predictability, not a strong element when it comes to time travel, is present to a small degree (after all, player characters do learn something about their Yet as they continue to play), but in some ways that makes the game all that more enjoyable. There is continuity in this game, a facet that is more important within the context of the time travel rpg than any other roleplaying game out there. Make no mistake, Continuum is a complex game that has many aspects to it. Whether one likes the premise and concepts found in the game or not, it is without a doubt the *best* time travel rpg out there.