Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Proposal: Time travel is an inexact science

3-8. Failed by Chronos Phaenon. Cannot be enacted without CoV

Adminned at 06 Jul 2006 10:41:15 UTC

Create a new rule titled “Precision”

All travellers have a skill in altering eir location in time called precision, which is tracked as an integer between 0 and 100 in the GNDT.  Any time that a traveller takes an action that would alter eir TL value, e must declare the TL to wihch the action would take em (destination TL) and a direction of error (either “+” or “-”) in the comment field of the GNDT followed by a DICE100 command.  If the result of the DICE100 is less than eir precision e must set eir TL to eir destination TL.  If the result of the dice 100 is greater than eir precision then the traveller has missed eir destination TL and the difference between the DICE100 result and eir precision is eir “error”. If the traveller has missed eir destination, e must roll DICE(error) three times; the results are “error t” “error x” and “error y” respectively.  The traveller must set eir TL to eir destination TL plus or minus error t years, error x months and error y days depending on the direction of error declared in the original comment field entry.

Create a GNDT category “Precision”
Set each Traveller’s Precision to 90

posted by TAE at 05 Jul 2006 18:32:01 UTC Comments (13)

Comments

Bucky:

05-07-2006 19:38:32 UTC

You can microjump 30 days and wind up 10 years off??  NO!

against

Hix:

05-07-2006 19:41:52 UTC

against What Bucky said.  Also, months is not a good duration to reference, since not all months are the same length.

Shadowclaw:

05-07-2006 19:42:58 UTC

Also against.  Any errors should really be handled a different way… hmmm, let me think…

Coldspell:

05-07-2006 19:45:57 UTC

against

Angry Grasshopper:

05-07-2006 19:46:05 UTC

for

I think it’s a great idea—ever see Twelve Monkies? ;)

Angry Grasshopper:

05-07-2006 19:46:37 UTC

Probably not, since the movie’s name is Twelve Monkeys, eheh.

TAE:

05-07-2006 20:23:37 UTC

Bucky, sure you can end up 10 years off so long as your precision is 90, but it is a 1/1000 chance (must roll a 100 on DICE100 to get a error of 10 and then a 10 on your DICE10 for error size).  90% of the time you end up exactly when you intend to go, you can never be off more than 109 years (in a universe with at least a 6000 year span), and you can either raise your precision or your influence to mitigate the problem.  As to your concern Hix, it is precisely because all months are not the same length that it would be a pain to have the calculation come out in days.  With the calculation coming out in years, months and days it will be relatively easy to figure out the error shift by adding or subtracting the years first, then the months and finally the days.

In addition Bucky, you could just propose an amendment to the microjump rule that immunizes it from the effect of the precision rule if it really worries you.  I would support that.  It just seems like it would be fun to have a random element in this dynasty, and almost all the great sources on time travel make it clear that time travel is an inexact science (how often did Dr. Who end up when or where he intended to?  12 Monkeys is another great example.)

I just can’t seem to get a break. =)

ChronosPhaenon:

05-07-2006 20:36:39 UTC

for I like the genral idea. It is too random as written, but I guess we can ammend it later.

Greth:

05-07-2006 21:12:01 UTC

against I like the idea, but not the current execution.

Kevan: he/him

06-07-2006 03:13:37 UTC

against I think we’ve got enough game stats.

Thelonious:

06-07-2006 08:27:40 UTC

for although a fix is required.  It say what to do if dice < precision and what to do if dice > precision but it doesn’t say what to do if dice = precision.

That can be fixed though.  (The obvious answer is that you’ve hit your destination.  If you went through the whole dice rigmarole, you’d discover that you’d hit your destination anyway because all the error dice would be 0.)

Rodney:

06-07-2006 13:59:47 UTC

against

ChronosPhaenon:

06-07-2006 17:40:14 UTC

against CoV