#time loops

[apolymorphus]

normally time loops freak me right the fuck out but tbh now all I want to do is do the wenis

[vraska-theunseen]

that episode of game changer was so successfully unsettling and horror-y like the glitches?? the static layered over the whole thing after enough loops?? the home videos?? the different camera angles??? i love time loops and horror movies and args this is tailored for me. incredibly it took until siobhan said "by the end of this i will know how to play the piano" for me to go TIME LOOP TIME LOOP TIME L. and trapp going "put your little hand in mine ..." as he trudges out for the fifth time and also that loop he repeats everything "grant" says it's all so good and so fucking weird. i said this for bingo but truly they deserve to win an emmy this season my god

[dontlistentothemmoose]

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol* moon’s stuck in a time loop. do you have extra ammo? this won’t be enough. nasa employee: enough for…what? astronaut: *finding extra clip of ammo, pocketing it, and getting back on the rocket-ship* don’t worry about it!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *emerging from supply closet with a space harpoon, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut:   oh hey u guys are back early astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: what?  nasa employee: how did you know what i was going to say?  astronaut: *punching in key pad code for base evacuation signal, getting back on the rocket-ship* i told you…moon’s stuck in a time loop. *red warning lights begin flashing*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *rifling thru bookshelf of operating instructions, selecting one that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. hey, do you have anything to eat? i’m starving. *opens random drawer, finds nothing, closes it* nasa employee: a time loo- uh, we don’t have food in here…we can’t…eat in the control room, only the break-room. astronaut: *sighs* nasa employee:…my lunch is in like 10 minutes, though, and if my lunch is actually STILL THERE and not STOLEN, AGAIN, i can share it with yo- astronaut: nah, that’s ok…no time. *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* or…too much time. but thanks, anyway. OK, bye! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: you’re…welcome? wait, a TIME LOOP?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: yup. nasa employee: …?  astronaut: *sitting down next to nasa employee* so…do you ever like…wonder what the meaning of life is? the secrets of the universe? nasa employee: aren’t you supposed to be ON the MOON?! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: hey, what the hell is that? astronaut: that’s the code red override klaxon. moon’s stuck in a time loop. oh, and there’s an explosion imminent. But don’t worry, we can deal with that tomorrow. So, you have any siblings? *pulls beer out of space suit, cracks tab* want a drink?

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early�� astronaut: do you know frank in IT? nasa employee: what?  astronaut: do you know frank, who works in IT?  nasa employee: yeah, but why are you guys back so early?  astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. call frank, tell him there’s a virus in the security patch and the system’s compromised. then get the hell out of the base.  nasa employee: wait what? what? where are you guys going?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* back to the moon. it’s stuck in a time loop. call frank!  nasa employee: *picks up phone* ugh, straight to voicemail. i wonder wha- *alarm begins blaring*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: *grim silence* nasa employee: i said, you guys are back early…hey, what are you…?  astronaut: *randomly opening drawers until they find a pair of scissors and some duct tape, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. *sticks head back out the door of the rocket-ship* by the way, if you go to the break-room in exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds, you’ll catch the person who’s been stealing your lunches for the past two weeks. nasa employee: what?! WHO IS IT?! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: *running for the break-room* FUCK!!!!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *sits down, sighs, pulls a beer out from their spacesuit* moon’s stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: …ok, and? hang on, how did you get a beer? you can’t have that in here. astronaut: what do you know about project floyd? nasa employee: I mean, the usual amount? i’m not really on the project anymore, why?  *alarm begins blaring*  astronaut: COME WITH ME TO THE ROCKET-SHIP, we don’t have ti-

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: yeah. moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. see you tomorrow. maybe. nasa employee: WHAT?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *sighs, rubs hands over face, and loads pistol, before getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. and, uh…you should call your mother like you’ve been meaning to. and tell her you’re not actually mad and that you will come to dinner tonight. you’re gonna be hungry. nasa employee: wait, what? WHAT?? how do you know my mom?! why am i gonna be - *alarm begins blaring* 

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” starting to get back on the rocket-ship, but dropping everything with a horrendous clatter* FUCK! goddamn moon’s stuck in a time loop. *alarm begins blaring*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-  astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*  nasa employee: what? WHAT?! astronaut: *loading a single pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop, sweetheart.  nasa employee: what?!? astronaut: a time loop!!! i love you!!! get out of the base!!! stay alive!!! nasa employee: *presses fingers to lips, confused but intrigued, as alarm begins blaring* 

nasa employee:…. nasa employee:… nasa employee: ho hum what a regular day at the office *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: what the hell is that?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-  astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*  nasa employee: what? what?! WHAT!?!? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, then cupping nasa employee’s cheek with free hand* moon’s stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: the moon’s stuck in a what?! astronaut: a time loop, sweetheart, but we don’t have much time ourselves, so you have to listen to me RIGHT now nasa employee: *faintly* …“sweetheart”?! astronaut: in 2 minutes and a few seconds, you need to go into the break-room and find frank. nasa employee: wait, frank from IT? astronaut: yes. nasa employee: how do you know he’s gonna be in the break-room? i can’t just call him at his desk right now? astronaut: how do i know this?! because, one, time loop, ok? and…also…because…heismaybetheguywhohasbeenstealingyourlunchfortwoweeks nasa employee: that BASTARD i KNEW it astronaut: BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. hey! listen to me! go in there, catch him red-handed with your burrito, and tell him lunch is on you FOREVER if he goes RIGHT NOW and checks the last security patch - because there’s a virus and the whole system’s compromised. then you need to get the hell out of this base, ok? nasa employee: …ok. ok. and…and what about you? astronaut: *cocking pistol and getting back into rocket-ship with duffel bag* me? i’m gonna shoot for the moon.

EPILOGUE:

nasa employee: so, how many loops in total? astronaut: i mean, it was hard to keep track. somewhere around six months, if i had to guess. nasa employee: damn. astronaut: yeah. nasa employee: and in those six MONTHS, the best zinger you came up with was “shoot for the moon”? astronaut: hey, you know what, i had some other stuff on my mind! nasa employee: i mean, i guess. it sounded like you found time to flirt with me each time. astronaut: yeah, like i said. other stuff on my mind. *they look at each other, blush, and look away* astronaut: sooooooo. you’re sure your mom is cool with me coming over for dinner? nasa employee: can’t make the day any weirder. plus, i owe you for ratting out frank, right? astronaut: he did help us save the world; we can’t be too mad at him. nasa employee: you’ve had a little while to get over it, i might need some more time. and it wasn’t even your food! astronaut: ok, that’s fair. what if i buy you lunch to make up for it? nasa employee: hmm, when? astronaut: tomorrow? nasa employee: well, i’ll have left overs from my mom, and you might too if you play your cards right. day after tomorrow? astronaut: honestly, anytime is good for me.

*FADE TO BLACK*

[transfemmbeatrice]

time loops where you’re trapped and it keeps resetting and you’re trying to figure out how to escape. vs time loops where you are in control, you keep slamming the reset button in panic because no not yet, no not THIS, trying to find an outcome you can live with. are you the only one who remembers? is it worse if you aren’t? imagine trying to break out of a time loop and discovering the god you’re trying to please is your friend. they keep dragging you back through this because you’re not getting the outcome they want. maybe that’s the same thing you want. maybe it’s not.

[captainkirkk]

Currently thinking about the people who AREN'T stuck in the time loop and how jarring that must be

Imagine: You wake up to a morning like any other morning and suddenly you don't recognise your friend. Your friend has lived for years - decades, maybe - in worlds that you can't possible understand and it shows. You don't understand. Your friend was fine yesterday.

And even if you find out about the time loops, you have no memory of them. You can plan, but it's probably something your past selves have already tried. You can offer comfort, but you can't tell them anything they haven't heard before. And you can't go with your friend into tomorrow. You're just a ghost.

[peachdoxie]

A rival wizard traps me in a time loop. To escape their control, I make a time loop within the broader loop that is half the length of the wizard's loop. The wizard traps me in another loop that's half the size of mine, so I create another loop half the size of theirs. This goes on and on with increasingly smaller time loops, thus trapping us in a temporal version of Zeno's Paradox until the length of the loop is so small neither of us can consciously perceive the passage of time and our consciousnesses merge and we realize we are stronger together than apart and we break free of all the loops at once and usher in a golden age with our newfound unity.

[timeloopsbeloved]

thinking about year long time loops. its different than your average 24ish hour/daily time loop, because you'll probably notice that its still the same year after new years passes. and thats a whole year, which is way too much to be dejavu. then what? how do you know if youve broken the loop? you have to wait until the end of the year to see if you have. how much can one year bc changed by one person? would you spend the years trying to replicate the original or try to change as much as possible? you cant learn the year, its too long to memorise patterns and events but it is familiar enough that its unnerving. and the other people. its one thing to see the same people at the same party on the same day but to know someone and know that this year will be lost to them? that youre the only one that will remember this entire year of their life? i think a year long time loop would be way worse than a daily one

[clay-pidgeon]

they should put me back in the time loop. itd fix me.

[lenislynx]

Oh, Siffrin….

[thingscanalwaysgetworse]

Time loops fuck me up so much like especially when they know they’re on their last one. Like this is it. It’s freeing to finally be out of it, but it’s also terrifying. They’re entering a world with no more do-overs. A world where they can die. But it’s still worth it because they will be able to experience new things, to really live, to meet new people. To experience the future. Which is terrifying, but since the future can also bring change, this means that when they get out of the loop, they can experience a world where things can get better.

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

*obviously most time loop stories have an exit condition. This is for every loop except the final one

**so if the character manages to avoid the thing for x amount of time, they can skip the first x hours of the loop going forward

[onewholivesinloops]

as far as i'm concerned every story can be improved with the addition of a time loop

[theresattrpgforthat]

any recommendations for time loop games? or if not anything involving time travel?

thanks :)

THEME: Time Loops

Hello friend! Fear not, I have a good number of time loop and time-loop adjacent games for you!

Project ECCO, by Elliot Davis.

Project ECCO is a game of time travel and cosmic horror—a solo journaling game with a twist. Time travel across the pages of a planner, writing in and marking up the dates based on prompts as you go, ultimately creating an artifact of your travels through time. 

You work for the mysterious organization known only as The Agency , tasked with tracking a time-consuming entity throughout an entire year. 

In the end, will you destroy the Entity? Do you dare question the Agency? Can you find yourself?

As a solo roleplaying game, Project ECCO is great if you can’t get a group together or if you want more narrative control over your story. This game involves travelling back and forth through time, but there’s also the possibility of ending up in a time loop. You can use different kinds of resolution mechanics to represent different kinds of time-travelling technology, such as a d6, a pack of tarot cards, and a coin.

If you want to listen to a dramatized play of this game, you can listen to the actual play of this as recorded by My First Dungeon!

Reset, by Alfredo Tarancón.

THE END IS NIGH. AGAIN. 

You're trapped. But not in a place, exactly, but in a moment. Something terrible is about to happen, and your mission is to prevent it. Unfortunately, every time you try, something goes wrong. Something changes. And you fail. Over and over again. You're caught in a time loop, and the only way out is to prevent the Event. But you're at your breakng point, and you won't be able to endure many more cycles. The human mind isn't prepared for something like this.

How many Resets do you have left before succumbing

WELCOME TO THE LOOP

RESET is a role-playing game in which you play as time travelers who must prevent a terrible Event from taking place. You belong to an organization that has the ability to send a team to Key Moments in history to try to prevent them from occurring. But it's not easy. The technology allows you to create temporal loops that help you decipher the mysteries behind the Events, but there's a limit to the number of times a person can experience the process. If you fail to decipher the events that converge to trigger the Event, your mind will end up being destroyed, as well as your body, jsut another victim of the Event. You can only exit the loop by preventing the Event… or by dying.

Breathless games are great for setting tension, using dwindling resources represented by different-sided dice. These dwindling resources alongside a time loop that can only go on for so many repetitions means that this is likely a good candidate for game groups that want suspense, and high stakes.

Time To Drop, by Marn S.

YOU are a member of a heist crew about to pull off ONE LAST JOB. You and your crew are under the impression that you only have 24 HOURS left with one another - 12 to finalize your preparation, and 12 to pull off the heist itself.

You and your crew are wrong.

You are about to find yourselves trapped in a loop of those same 24 hours, living and reliving them as many times as it takes to identify every complication, refine your plan, and get it right. No one besides your crew will remember the previous loops as clear as day, but make a strong enough impression on someone in one loop and it might carry to the next. What you do here matters. What you do here has to matter, if you ever want to say your final goodbyes and get out of the game for good.

Time to drop. Fuck shit up.

Time To Drop is a GM-less tabletop game where you and your friends take on the roles of a heist crew trapped in a time loop, trying to get their final job right and ride off into the sunset with the goods. You'll use dice and a tarot/oracle deck to determine and overcome Complications such as your Mark, and the Guard of the goods you're after, ally with NPCs, and spend downtime phases working through your feelings about the crew splitting up.

You’re going to need dice and a tarot deck to play this one. Time to Drop combines heist fiction with time loop fiction, putting a series of complications in front of your team that they’ll have to overcome if they want to get away scot-free. If you want an action-packed game with just enough structure to help you get from one point to the next, this might be the game for you.

What’s So Cool About Time Loops? By Max Kämmerer.

“What’s so cool about time loops?” Lots of things, honestly. But what is cool about your time loop? Play to find out! Climb out the trenches of a war. Celebrate a family holiday. Take your final exams. Experience the day a meteor crashes into the city. Play the championship-winning game. Or witness the assassination of a politician. Again, and again, and again…

At least until you manage to break the loop…

To do something in this game, you start with 2d6 and add or subtract dice according to helpful and unhelpful circumstances. Roll an 8 or higher and you succeed! For the GMs, there’s a page of advice as well as a roll table of suggestions as to scenarios that might be taking place or various reasons why the time loop started in the first place.

WSCA games are usually pretty simple, which means that you can make the stakes as big or a small as you like. If your group wants to navigate a small-stakes, everyday complication, you can do that, but you could also use this game to tell a story about highly-trained professionals in a doomsday situation.

Thrown for a Loop, by DMan1198.

Your players live in a highly advanced town filled with brilliant scientists and a state of the art super-collider, that seems to be having an issue. Now the day keeps resetting, and your players are the only ones that seem to be aware of it. Can they find the answer to why the day is resetting, or are they doomed to relive this day forever?

This is a pretty bare-bones document, but the premise is interesting. You are all citizens of a little town, with various roles that may help you figure out how to stop the time loop. The game relies on d100 rolls, so you’ll probably need a couple of d10s and that’s about it.

This is a game for folks who either want to collaboratively create their own town or have the GM come up with a town for the group to explore. The document has the basic rules of how to resove actions and a list of character types, but not much else.

Too O’Clock, by Xander Hinners.

Hey! Have you ever seen a sitcom or cartoon bottle episode where all its wacky hijinks are based on the main character being trapped in a time loop? TOO O'CLOCK is made specifically to model those episodes! You and a friend toss coins to shape your show's antics around the weekly aeso--

Hey! Have you ever seen in a story where a character trapped in a time loop uses their infinite redos to their advantage, to (re-re-re-)try achieving a goal with another character? TOO O'CLOCK is made specifically to model those scenes! You and a friend toss and collect coins to disco--

Hey! Have you ever been stuck repeating your life, trapped for what feels like a trillion seconds, echoing your experience over and over until every detail is etched into your skull and eroded again by its endless tides? I have. It's why I wrote TOO O'CLOCK; part memoir, part warning.

Too O-Clock follows the story of a single character as they try to navigate a time loop, using coins or another binary form of resolution. The story is a collaborative narrative, with the players able to take on different roles at different points. The game has 7 different iterations, with the 7th iteration looking very very different from the 1st. This game is a great candidate for a table that really loves the tactile sensation of moving tokens, flipping coins, and keeping track of stacks to help you map how far you’ve gone.

You Might Also Want to Check Out...

My Time Travel rec post!

[revryebread]

What if a time loop game but you aren't the hero who will save the day, just another person locked in it?

A TTRPG inspired thematically by Majora's Mask, and mechanically by Fiasco, Texas Hold 'Em, and ERS!

The end is coming. You may not know for certain, but someone does. They’ve seen it, experienced it, lived through it. They’ve seen you and your community die. But, at the last second, they were able to turn back time and come back to this moment, a few days before the end. Maybe this time, they can set things right.

You are not that person. You are here, days before an encroaching disaster, just trying to survive. You see it, your friends see it, but the people who could be making decisions aren’t doing anything about it. What are they even supposed to do? How do you fight something like this?

--------------------

Dawn of the First Day is a game about time loops and surviving in an end time. It’s not about stopping  the end of the world, but it’s about doing your best to make the best decisions you can while leading up to it. It’s about how people come together to help their community in times of trouble. It’s also about how some people turn against their neighbors to help themselves.

To play, you'll need a deck of playing cards with the jokers still in it. This game is inspired by Texas Hold 'Em, Fiasco, and ERS. It draws inspiration for it's theming from Majora's Mask.

I made it watching Katbamkapow and Jack De Quidt play Majora's Mask on twitch, and then finished it while listening to Select & Start's retrospective on Majora's Mask!

[trek-tracks]

Recommended by 9/10 doctors and 8/10 Guardians of Forever, to be eaten every morning in a repetitive, strangely familiar fashion until you go insane