1984: Time Master

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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The first roleplaying game about time travel was the quite appallingly useless Timeship: A role playing game of time travel and adventure, published by Yaquinto Publications in 1983. It was quickly followed in 1984 by two further time travel-themed roleplaying games. One was the surprisingly historical Time & Time Again, published by Timeline Ltd., the other was the classic, pulp action Science Fiction Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension from Pacesetter Ltd. It was one of three roleplaying games that the publisher, set up by a number of ex-TSR, Inc. employees, including Mark Acres, Troy Denning, and Stephen Sullivan, would release in 1984. The company’s first, and best known, was the classic horror game, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown, and it would be followed by Time Master and Star Ace: Adventures in Space, a classic pulp Sci-Fi roleplaying game. All three used the same mechanics and all three were extensively supported with supplements and scenarios. All three also remain in print, having become cult classics since their original publication.

As withe CHILL: Adventurs into the Unknown before it, Time Master was published as a boxed set. Behind its exciting cover of a man escaping on a flyer of some kind away from marching soldiers, battleships, and dinosaurs, the box contains three books, a map, a sheet of counters, and three ten-sided dice. The three books are the sixty-four-page ‘Travelers’ Manual’, the main rulebook, the thirty-two-page ‘Guide to the Continuum’, the setting book, and the sixteen-page ‘Red Ace High’, a starter scenario. The map is double-sided. One side depicts an area of wilderness in colour, whilst on the other is a depiction of facilities on an airfield. The one-hundred-and-forty counters are a mix of black and white and colour and show Time Agents, Demoreans, and a lot of military units, including vehicles across various eras, such as chariots, jeeps, artillery pieces, and futuristic flying craft.

In Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension, the Player Characters are members of the Time Corps, established in the seventy-second century to police, protect, and restore the timeline. Mankind constructed the first time travel devices in 7051. Although crude, their rapid adoption and use by world governments to erase and rewrite triggered the Time Wars which would last a century and only end with the signing of the Temporal Treaty in 7054. The major powers also agreed to set up an organisation which would protect the timeline, repair where necessary, and prevent tampering by outsiders, renegades, and rogue states. It was granted autonomy and it was planned that it would be disbanded when its work was done. Then the Demoreans appeared. The discovery of a shape-changing alien species from a Parallel world prepared to inflict untold damage to our timeline on Parallel T-0 in order to make it like theirs proved to be a shock and forced the Time Corps to continue its remit. The Agency recruits agents from 3,500 BCE to 7171 CE, but focuses on six ‘Event Windows’. These are Fifth Century BCE Athens, Rome from 61 BCE to 37 AD, Angevin England from 1154 to 1216, Tudor England between 1509 and 1603, Napoleonic France from 1804 to 1815, and France from 1940 to 1944.

The ‘Travelers’ Manual’ explains both the rules and the history of Time Corps and its procedures. Its Time Agents operate in the past and on other parallels according to certain laws. The Law of Identity states that nothing can exist twice at the same time, which means that a Time Agent cannot go on a mission in a period when he has already lived. The danger is that if he did, he would be caught in a ‘Loop Trap’ forced to relive his first visit to the period. The Law of Preservation states that timelines repair themselves, which negates the infamous ‘Grandfather Paradox’. The Law of the Time Barrier prevents time travellers travelling into the future, whilst the Law of Death states that if a time traveller dies, it is permanent. In addition, the Time Corps has its own regulations. These include not recklessly taking a Human or alien life; preventing the activities of Demoreans and renegades in the past, ideally killing the former and returning the latter to Time Corps Headquarters; not engaging in time travel without permission; not leaving any advanced technology or weapons in the past; not revealing the existence of the Time Corps; not investigating the origins or ancestry of another Time Agent; destroy Renegade equipment; and never to return to Time Corps Headquarters from a mission unless it has been successfully completed or the Time Agents are forced to abort it. It is notable that the Time Corps adheres to a code of ethics and does not recruit criminals of any kind.

Time Corps Agents have a Rank and Grade. The Ranks start at Trainee and finish at Timemaster, and there are ten Grades within each Rank. Each time a Time Agent successfully completes a mission, he is promoted one Grade. Once an Agent reaches the Rank and Grade of Time Master, Grade Ten, he retires from the field. A Rank Six or ‘Lifer’ Agent is granted access to ‘Fountain of Youth’ technology which prevents from aging when he is in the past.

Mechanically, Time Agent advancement is tracked at the end of a successful mission by rolling against its Significance Rating. Every mission or adventure has a Significance Rating indicating how important a person or a place or an object is in terms of the flow of history. For example, Pericles from Fifth Century BCE Athens has a Significance Rating of 350 and Charles DeGaulle from France from 1940 to 1944 a Significance Rating of 150. The Continuum Master—as the Game Master is known in Time Master—assigns a mission a total Significance Rating based on individual ratings and then tracks the Time Agents’ action over the course of the mission in comparison to this total. If the Time Agents kill NPCs or some how change history to how it should be, these Significance errors the total Significance Rating and the number of Success Points the Time Agents are awarded collectively with which the players can improve them.

In addition, the amount by which the total Significance Rating was reduced is the value against which the Continuum Master makes a Significance Check. This is rolled on ‘d1000’ and if the result is under the combined value of the Significance errors committed by the Time Agents, then they have changed time. These changes will vary from mission to mission, from scenario to scenario, and each scenario includes a Historical Changes Chart that lists the changes and their effects. For example, in the ‘Red Ace High’ scenario included in the boxed set, the Historical Changes Chart gives changes ranging from the early adoption of aerial and rocket power and World War II beginning in 1935 and ending in a devastating defeat for the Allies to the death of an ancestor of a Time Agent, causing a number of missions needing to be redone. These changes will not become apparent until the Time Agents return to Time Corps Headquarters, where they may be informed by their Time Corps Sentinel, who briefs them, or through the use of ‘Paranormal Memory’.

All Agents of the Time Corps possess ‘Paranormal Memory’, the psychic ability to remember what should have happened in history, in fragments rather than being crystal clear. It is not the only Paranormal Talent that an Agent might have. Others include ‘Memory Restoration’ which is used to repair and restore the memories to what they should be in the timeline, ‘Significance Sensing’ to determine how important an NPC is in history, and ‘Time Shift’, which enables an Agent to move time back, but in game terms, only as far back as the start of the previous round! The Demoreans possess different psychic talents, including ‘Dimensional Travel’ and ‘Shape Shift’. Paranormal Talents are powered by Willpower and are relatively costly to use, so players will need to pick and chose when their Agents deploy them.

An Agent in Time Master is defined by Abilities and Skills. He has eight Basic Abilities. These are Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Willpower, Personality, Perception, Stamina, and Luck. These range in value between twenty-six and eighty. The Basic Abilities have various uses, such as the basic chance to hit a target using a firearm for Dexterity, Willpower as the chance to overcome the fear of seeing a monster, Personality to persuade an NPC, Perception to notice things, and so on. Luck has more uses. First off, only Player Characters have Luck as a Basic Ability—NPCs and other threats do not. It is rolled to avoid certain death, spent permanently to avoid being shot, and of course, how fortunate or not, the Player Character according to the whims of the dice. Several other abilities are derived from the Basic Abilities. These include Unskilled Melee, Health, and more. The Basic Abilities can also grant bonuses to an Agent’s skills.

Skills range in value between forty-one and one-hundred-and-thirty-five, and have a base value derived from a Basic Ability, such as Dexterity for combat skills and Stamina for Swimming, or a number of Basic Abilities which are then averaged. A skill is ranked at either Specialist, Expert, or Master, and each provides a flat bonus to the basic skill value. This is either ‘+15’, ‘+20’, and ‘+25’ respectively. There is an emphasis on combat skills, both on foot and mounted, but the majority of the non-combat skills will cover most situations. Unlike Chill, this roleplaying game does include the Computer skill, but the skills are not organised in an always logical fashion, so that the Pilot skill is included under Heavy Weapons skills rather than the non-combat skills.* The skills are quite detailed in their use, especially the combat skills. So, although an Agent starts off with relatively few skills compared to Player Characters in other roleplaying games, this is offset by a player and the Continuum Master needing to know how they work.

* Thanks to Big Jack Brass for pointing that out.

To create an Agent, a player rolls three ten-sided dice, totals and doubles the result, and adds twenty to get the total for each Basic Ability. After working out the derived abilities, the player chooses a Historical Speciality for his Agent, typically that when he was born, and selects two more skills to reflect what he did before he was recruited by the Time Corps. He also selects a second Paranormal Talent.

Mathilde Berwick was a swordswoman and performer on the stage at the end of the nineteenth century. Her ability with both sword and as an actress have stood her in good stead as a Time Agent.

Mathilde Berwick

BACKGROUND
Date of Birth: September 14th, 1874 Place of Birth: Terra Haute, Indiana
Age at Recruitment: 37 Current Age: 40
Original Profession: Swordswoman & Performer Nationality: American
Education: High School Sex: Female
Height: 5’ 6” Colour Eyes: Brown
Weight: 135 lbs. Colour Hair: Brown

Strength 60 Dexterity 68 Agility 72 Willpower 66
Personality 72 Perception 62 Stamina 50 Luck 64

Unskilled Melee Skill: 66
Current Stamina: 50 Wounds: 13
Current Willpower: 66

SKILLS
Historical Speciality Level – Specialist Score – 79
Time Corps Stunner Level – Specialist – 83
Sword Level – Specialist – 81
Disguise Level – Specialist – 85

PARANORMAL TALENTS
Memory Restoration Level – Specialist Score – 48
Adaptation Speciality Level – Specialist Score – 48

Mechanically, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is a percentile system that really uses two types of roll. A General Ability Check is a simple roll against a Basic Ability to determine whether or not an action succeeded or not. A General Skill Check works the same, but for skill use. A Specific Ability or Specific Skill Check is used whenever a more nuanced result is required and the Continuum Master needs to know how many degrees of success were achieved. To do this, the player has to make a successful roll and the Continuum Master consults the TIME MASTER Action Table. She subtracts the value of Basic Ability or the Skill being used from the value of the roll and cross references it in the appropriate column on the TIME MASTER Action Table. This will give an outcome that is either a Limited, Moderate, High, or Complete Success. The specific outcome will vary from one skill to the next.

Combat in Time Master also uses the TIME MASTER Action Table. Initiative is handled with a roll of a single die and the winning side then uses the Art, fires missile weapons, moves, and then engages in melee attacks. The defending side has the chance to return missile fire. Once done, the defending does exactly the same. Unsurprisingly, this feels like a wargame rather than a roleplaying game. Attacks can be Specific Ability Check or a Specific Skill Check, depending upon whether or not the Agent has any skill ranks in the weapon he is wielding. What this means is that making a Specific Ability Check for an attack will give the Agent a lower chance to succeed and a lower chance to get a better roll, whilst someone with the skill will have a better chance of both. As opposed to Specific Ability and Specific Skill Checks, there is more nuance to possible outcomes. The attacker is rolling to determine the Attack Margin which will cross referenced on the Defence Column. The Defence Column is determined randomly for missile attacks, modified by the defender expending points of Luck or by the defender’s skill for a melee attacks. Unarmed combat results can be Scant Damage, Medium Damage, Harsh Damage, Crushing Damage, or Knockdown, and most of these inflict a loss of Stamina points, but some of these can also inflict a Scratch Wound and a Light Wound. Armed combat results include Scratch Wound, Light Wound, and Medium Wound, all the way up to Critical Wound. These inflict greater Stamina loss and possibly continued Stamina loss, depending on the severity.

Since it used the same mechanics, CHILL: Adventures into the Unknown also felt rather like a wargame. However, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension does not just feel like a wargame, it can be played like a wargame. The combat rules quickly go from brawls and swordfights to using tanks, artillery, and heavy weaponry on the ground and using aeroplanes and space-fighters in dogfights to account for the wide swathe of history that Time Master encompasses. It does not, though, confine them to the personal use and deployment by the players and their Agents, but includes rules for handling skirmishes and tactical scale battles, with the Agents expected to get involved. There is scope for roleplaying in these battles too, but they are designed to be fought out the hex map and counters provided in the box. Although a couple of pages long, the rules cover cavalry and chariot charges, the role of leaders, and more.

The ‘Travelers’ Manual’ is rounded out with details on the Paranormal Talents wielded by both the Time Corps and the Demoreans, the equipment used by Time Corps Agents like the Chronoscooter and the Time Corps Stunner, and rules for the Agents interacting with NPCs. ‘Guide to the Continuum’ is the setting book for Time Master. Shorter, it gives some details on military formations, what the Earth of 7192 is like, and what the Demoreans are like. This includes how to spot them, what their schemes are, and dealing with Demorean defectors. The roleplaying game’s six ‘Event Windows’ are also described here, given a two-page description each, a summary of the military of the period, a short political summary, and stats for major figures of the period. These are broad treatments, but enough to get started, and each was further supported by a decent bibliography for 1984. Lastly, there is some advice for the Continuum Master on how to run the game, including how to switch to parallels rather than the base setting of Earth and its history as we know it. There is no discussion of bringing in elements of fiction as would be done in later releases. It should be noted that much of the contents of the ‘Guide to the Continuum’ can also be read by the players as well as the Continuum Master.

The third and final book in Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is the scenario, ‘Red Ace High’. This is a starter scenario set during the Great War, at the Battle of Cambrais in 1917. The Time Corp has detected a Demorean penetration into the period and sends the Agents back to investigate. Female characters will outfitted to look like men. The Agents arrive just int time to rescue an English officer under assault by some Germans before soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton come to their aid. He enlists them in a plan to reconnoitre a German airfield on the other side of the trenches and it is here that the Agents discover the Demorean plan. The underhanded aliens have armed Manfred von Richton, the infamous Red Baron, with air-to-surface missiles, and plans to have him use them in the forthcoming battle to destroy the Allied attacks. It is a fun play around with history and definitely action-orientated, including participating and running part of the battle itself. However, it is linear and more experienced players are likely to want to look for means to defeat the Demorean plans than that is suggested.

In terms of design, Time Master aims for a universal mechanic with its TIME MASTER Action Table, and almost succeeds. The problem is that the results are not themselves universal, varying depending upon if the player is rolling a Specific Ability or Skill Check, an armed or unarmed attack, and so on. Plus, every skill has its own set of results, so that mechanically, Time Master, like CHILL feels overwritten and fussy. However, the TIME MASTER Action Table is printed on the back of both the ‘Travelers’ Manual’ and the ‘Guide to the Continuum’ books, so the Continuum Master can refer to the table on the back of the latter, whilst the results of various Specific Skill Checks can be consulted in the former.

Physically, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension is very nicely presented boxed set. The cover to the box is eye-catching, being both exciting and intriguing. The artwork is not good or at least not as singularly noticeable as that of CHILL, most of it being publicly sourced rather than commissioned. The writing, and consequently, the rules, suffer in places from being overwritten unfortunately. The work problem is the organisation as certain chapters do feel as if they should be adjacent to each other.

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Steve Norledge reviewed Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 61 (January 1985). Initially, he had doubts that a roleplaying game could successfully handle the difficulties of the genre, including needing to have an understanding of the theory of time, the freedom of the players wander through wreaking havoc on history, and the unlimited scope offered by the genre. However, he was impressed, saying that, “Overall, I quite liked Timemaster – it is an unpretentious little game, simple and yet provides the best yet framework for time travel rolegaming. It is eminently suited to the ‘one-off’ style of play, and, yet, with effort, would also be a good campaign game (though it would have a very episodic feel to it).” before awarding it a score of seven out of ten.

It was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 25 (April 1985) by Jim Bambra. Although highly critical of ‘Red Ace High’, which found rushed and flawed, he concluded that, “With its infinite variety of settings Timemaster has a lot of potential. Players can experience many different situations and save the world numerous times over.”

Russell Grant Collins reviewed Time Master in Different Worlds Issue 39 (May/June, 1985) in ‘Game Reviews’. He opened with, “In my opinion, TimeMaster has one of the most workable backgrounds of all the recent time travel games. It deals with a time patrol in the far future which is defending its past from aliens bent on destroying it and freelance time travelers who aren’t careful enough about what their actions are doing to the fabric of time.” before awarding the roleplaying game three out of four stars and finishing with, “The bottom line on this game is that once we got used to the system, my friends and I enjoyed it and plan to play it in the future. It is by no means perfect, but still enjoyable. For those who are interested in that sort of thing, TimeMaster is supposed to be totally compatible with Pacesetter’s other adventure games, Chill and Star Ace.”

Warren Spector reviewed the roleplaying game for Space Gamer Number 75 (July/August 1985), as part of the Featured Review, ‘The Pacesetter Line’. In general, he had issues with the finicky nature of the rules, especially those for combat, but of Time Master in general, he said, “Time travel RPGs seem to be in a mini-renaissance these days. If you’re into this sort of game (and I confess, I’m not), Timemaster may be a good choice. It’s got a fairly interesting unifying theme; the game does an excellent job of making time travel seem plausible, and the “Guide to the Continuum” is a gem. In this most open-ended form of roleplaying, providing players direction is no simple task. Timemaster does a fine job.”

The roleplaying game was reviewed in ‘Gaming’ in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine No. 86 (Mid-December 1984) by Dana Lombardy, whose conclusion was, “Time Master is a well-presented game. Whether you’re just looking for new ideas to incorporate into your current role-games, or want to try a fresh system. Pacesetter’s new game is worth getting.”

It was reviewed by Bruce Probst in ‘Snapshot’ in Breakout: The Australian Gamers’ Quarterly No. 21 (March-May 1986). He was highly critical of the roleplaying game, especially its combat system, highlighting the fact that weapons offer very little variation in terms of damage, the need to refer to the rulebook for every skill use despite the inclusion of the TIME MASTER Action Table, the nature of the background which limited the actions of the Time Agents, and so on. He concluded that, “In summary, I cannot recommend Timemaster unless you are willing to devote a lot of effort to make it work. On the other hand, if you simply enjoy playing a game, without regard to illogical backgrounds and terrible rules, then I can envision Timemaster, as being quite fun. It has a lot of promise; given more thought, it could have been a really great game.”

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With its “Join the Time Corps and you can become the Master of Time” tag line and set-up, there is a bracingly simple quality to Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension that appeals straight out of Science Fiction or television. Yet whilst the roleplaying game does set up and have the Player Characters as Time Agents, it hampers the play of Time Master with poor organisation and often fiddley rules requiring the players and the Continuum Master to the rulebook despite the fact that everything is rolled on a universal table. Where Time Master does help the players and the Continuum Master is providing clear, simple Laws of Time and Time Corps protocols, that help guide both in playing and running the game without it tipping over into chaos and causality. Ultimately, Time Master: Adventures in the 4th Dimension had and has the capacity to be a lot of fun, and make time travel roleplaying accessible, but it does not quite help itself achieve its aims. In the hands of a good Continuum Master, it would be a very different matter.