Idea: How To Have A Better Time Player (Or A Better Session In General)

[DistantRed]

Intro

So, I'm just gonna cut to the chase.
Roleplaying a time player sucks.

But does it have to suck? If my thinking is correct, no.

Why Does It Suck?

In Homestuck, time is badass. They exploit time, they manipulate time, they maintain time, they dominate time, they chase future and past time-trails, they go forward one second at a time through time, and they travel through time.

Doing such things in a roleplay sounds rather fun.
Roleplaying with somebody doing that sounds awful.

Imagine going back and forth making time time serve your will.

Imagine somebody else doing that though. Undoing everything you ever do if they dislike it, sabotaging everything you will do, and overall being ridiculous. Not fun.

How To Make It Not Suck

So what did I stumble upon? I stumbled upon a fun little game called. Microscope. Basically the game Microscope does something rather deceptively fun.

The game Microscope is made by a few people deciding on a beginning period and an ending period.

Those people then take turns either adding a period between those two, an event (an amount of time shorter than a period that's contained within a period), or a scene (a very short period of time contained within an event and is roleplayed).

How Can This Be Done With A Homestuck Roleplay?

Sburb sessions almost always have the same basic beginning:
A number of young adults of a race find a new game and enter it.

Sburb sessions also typically have one of two endings:
- Everybody dies
- New universe


Now, the ending period could also just be left undecided and merely only be done when people just want to end the session. The ending period could also just be something general as "the end of the game" and some great final event or final scene decides whether everybody dies or a new universe is created.

After the beginning and ending periods are decided, people could take turn and then vote on periods, events, and scenes.

There are three ways to do this in my brain.

- All players decide on all periods and major events that will be in the game then roleplay through it.
- All players take turns making a period, event, or scene.
- The time player(s) decide when periods and events and others vote to agree or disagree.

Maybe there's other ways to play it. I'm unsure.

With all of this decided, a time player can either modify the timeline, the time player can have "quests" they can complete to make a timeline a certain way, or the time player pretty much only does predetermined things.

This idea isn't completely perfect yet. It needs work, but I do feel like there's definite potential to this working.

A Better Session

So, even if you don't add in a time player, you can still have a better session with this. For one, just by starting it, you already have an ending. And this doesn't even stop you from normal roleplay. You can also roleplay in future or past events if you want. You can even talk to your past and future selves. A lot of time shenanigans are possible. And that's a lot of the fun of Homestuck.