A while ago I found out about a card game called Chrononauts (Wikipedia, BGG) and this Christmas I finally got myself a copy. For fans of alternate history it has a really interesting premise: the main ‘board’ is comprised of events in a timeline, in the original game covering 1868 to 1999. Before I get to the point, I’ll give a quick overview of how the time travel mechanics work in the game:
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The idea is that you are a time traveller, going back and changing history which is shown by flipping cards at certain linchpins on the timeline (e.g. you can change the 1914 card Archduke Ferdinand Assassinated by flipping it to 1914’ Ferdinand Unharmed in Attack).
Of course changing history has repercussions, called ripples (I guess we might call them butterflies) in the timeline. So in addition to the linchpin cards you have ripplepoint cards. Linchpins are the causes, Ripplepoints are the consequences. If the original cause is prevented then that ripplepoint becomes a paradox. For example, there is a linchpin in 1915 The Lusitania is sunk. If you chose to go back in time to prevent this then it gets flipped to 1915’ The Lusitania arrives safely. This has a direct consequence: the next card is 1917 The US declares war on Germany, which of course becomes a paradox if the Lusitania survives.
To fix paradoxes, you use a separate card which comes from the player’s hand: a patch for the timeline to overwrite the paradox. In this case you want to obviously explain away the fact that the USA’s casus belli is no longer valid by changing the timeline, in this case using the card for 1917' which is simply Wilson keeps the US out of WW1.
And that is how the game deals with the timeline. I’ve deliberately skipped over most of how the gameplay works, as well as various additional mechanics. What is relevant is the way you win: the interesting one is that you are assigned an identity at the start of the game, and to win you have to have three events occur that define your timeline (in a sort of Homer Simpson-esc “close enough” approach to time travel). So if you were a KGB officer you might need the three events to be WW2 happens as in our timeline, Russia wins the Space Race and The USSR never falls (it’s always one event from OTL and two alternate, and I just came up with this one off the top of my head) to claim a victory.
The other main way to win is using artefact cards that you gather using your time machine (e.g. the Arc of the Covenant, the Beatles’ Reunion Album, Grey's Sports Almanac), again you are set three to collect at the start of the game, but they're mainly separate to the time line mechanics*. There are other mechanics too, for example if the Cuban Missile Crisis results in WW3 then that is considered as an UberParadox - the end of history, and if you have a victory requirement from after then you have to make sure WW3 is undone. Similarly if the timeline has more than 13 paradoxes at any time then the Universe implodes and everyone loses.
*The one interesting one is the Beatles Reunion Album – you can only play (acquire) it if you’re currently in a timeline when Lennon wasn’t assassinated. If the timeline then changes so that he becomes assassinated again (time travel grammar!) then it becomes super valuable. More of these sort of artefacts would be good.
In my opinion the game is quite fun. There are a few annoyances in the gameplay, for example cards that make you swap hands with other players or which change your victory conditions which totally mess up your strategy. Overall though the couple of times I’ve played it have been pretty good.
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So what am I doing here then? Well in my opinion there are a lot of problems with the game's timeline, and it’s something that I think the collective knowledge of AH.com could overcome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, with that all out of the way we can finally get to the point:
I think we should come up with a new timeline for an alternate* version of the game.
*heh
What we need is ~50 world events across history, say from say the Roman period up to around now. Roughly half should be linchpins, events that could be changed by some chap in a time machine (usually either assassinations, specific battles or disasters like the Titanic). The rest would be ripplepoints, events that would be altered by the timeline changing and would need to be fixed using patches.
I’ve made up an example set below:
I realise the irony of this example since I was complaining about the game being American-focused
. The patch I think also illustrates how they are supposed to in a sense mend the timeline, in this way future cards that refer to America (Apollo 11, the Manhattan Project) can be hand-waved in.
So in general the linchpins are things that either happen or don't, the ripplepoints are events that occurred in our timeline but don't make sense if the previous event doesn't happen, and the patches attempt to fix the timeline by coming up with a plausible event in the ATL to take place then instead. Of course you probably see an issue with these mechanics, in that linchpins can't have requirements, and ripplepoints can't have consensuses. That's something we'll have to deal with, unless we come up with a good way around it. We could also think about new artefacts that have dependences on the timeline, or other minor new mechanics like the WW3 UberParadox.
Now this is mainly for my own interest, so I’ve no idea if this will catch on. Certainly I’m not suggesting we actually make a deck and sell it (I don’t want to be sued), but it would be cool to make a fan-made version similar to a lot of board games (alternate Risk or Monopoly boards, cards for Dominion or maps of Ticket to Ride). Maybe if we do really well we could approach Mr Looney and ask if we could get a print run of it. Or maybe no one will reply and the project will die off. No one really knows…
AH.com, let’s make a game!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For reference, here is a list of all the events in the Chrononauts timeline:
1865 Lincoln Assassinated OR Lincoln Survives
1868 Andrew Johnson Impeached (Paradox if: Lincoln Survives - Patch: Lincoln Impeached)
1912 Titanic Sinks OR Titanic Survives
1914 Franz Ferdinand Assassinated OR Franz Ferdinand Survives
1915 Lusitania Sinks OR Lusitania Survives
1917 US enters WW1 (Paradox if: Lusitania Survives - Patch: US stays out of WW1)
1918 WW1 ends (Paradox if: Franz Ferdinand Survives - Patch: European Economy Booms)
1929 Wall Street Crash (Paradox if: Titanic Survives - Patch: Titanic Explodes)
1933 Great Depression (Paradox if: Titanic Survives AND Lusitania Survives - Patch: Mild Recession)
1936 Hitler opens Olympics OR Hitler Assassinated
1937 Hindenburg Explodes OR Hindenburg Survives
1939 Germany invades Poland (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Germany attends New York World’s Fair)
1941 Pearl Harbor Bombed OR Pearl Harbor Not Bombed
1942 Wannsee Conference (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Nuremberg Race Laws Repealed)
1943 Manhattan Project Begins OR Manhattan Project Sabotaged
1944 D-Day Landings Successful (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed - Patch: Warsaw Hosts Olympic Games)
1945 A-bombs dropped on Japan (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated OR Pearl Harbor Not Bombed OR Manhattan Project Sabotaged -
Patch A: Allied Troops Invade Tokyo (NEED Pearl Harbor Bombed AND Manhattan Project Sabotaged)
Patch B: Nazis Win (NEED Hitler opens Olympics AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed)
Patch C: World Peace (NEED Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed)
Patch D: Tokyo Nuked (NEED Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Bombed AND Manhattan Project Begins)
1948 Israel Founded (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Berlin Hosts World’s Fair)
1950 Korean War begins (Paradox if: Hindenburg Survives - Patch: Zeppelin Factory Opens in Seoul)
1957 Sputnik Launched OR Sputnik Fails
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (Paradox if: Manhattan Project Sabotaged OR Sputnik Fails - Patch: World War 3 [Terminal])
1963 Kennedy Assassinated OR Kennedy Survives
1968 MLK and RFK Assassinated (Paradox if: Kennedy Survives - Patch: Vietnam Peace Accord)
1969 Apollo 11 Lands on Moon (Paradox if: Sputnik Fails OR Kennedy Survives - Patch: Cosmonauts Orbit Moon)
1974 Nixon Resigns (Paradox if: Lincoln Survives OR Kennedy Survives - Patch: President King Takes Office)
1980 Lennon Assassinated OR Lennon Survives
1981 Reagan Wounded OR Reagan Assassinated
1986 Challenger Explodes (Paradox if: Lennon Survives AND Reagan Assassinated - Patch: Marijuana Legalized)
1991 Soviet Union Collapses (Paradox if: Reagan Assassinated - Patch: Communism Re-invents itself)
1993 Waco Compound Burns Down OR Waco Siege Defused Peacefully
1995 Oklahoma City Bombing (Paradox if: Waco Siege Defused Peacefully - Patch: Koresh Opens New Hospital)
1999 Columbine Massacre (Paradox if: Lennon Survives - Patch: Guns Banned)
They're split into 4 rows of 8, and the expansions add another 5 rows (4 earlier, 1 later). So we could probably aim at 6-7 rows, so around 50 events. To start with, let's say something like 8 Ancient, 12 Middle Ages, 12 early modern and 16 modern (post 1900) events.
Let me know if you're interested in taking part!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The idea is that you are a time traveller, going back and changing history which is shown by flipping cards at certain linchpins on the timeline (e.g. you can change the 1914 card Archduke Ferdinand Assassinated by flipping it to 1914’ Ferdinand Unharmed in Attack).
Of course changing history has repercussions, called ripples (I guess we might call them butterflies) in the timeline. So in addition to the linchpin cards you have ripplepoint cards. Linchpins are the causes, Ripplepoints are the consequences. If the original cause is prevented then that ripplepoint becomes a paradox. For example, there is a linchpin in 1915 The Lusitania is sunk. If you chose to go back in time to prevent this then it gets flipped to 1915’ The Lusitania arrives safely. This has a direct consequence: the next card is 1917 The US declares war on Germany, which of course becomes a paradox if the Lusitania survives.
To fix paradoxes, you use a separate card which comes from the player’s hand: a patch for the timeline to overwrite the paradox. In this case you want to obviously explain away the fact that the USA’s casus belli is no longer valid by changing the timeline, in this case using the card for 1917' which is simply Wilson keeps the US out of WW1.
And that is how the game deals with the timeline. I’ve deliberately skipped over most of how the gameplay works, as well as various additional mechanics. What is relevant is the way you win: the interesting one is that you are assigned an identity at the start of the game, and to win you have to have three events occur that define your timeline (in a sort of Homer Simpson-esc “close enough” approach to time travel). So if you were a KGB officer you might need the three events to be WW2 happens as in our timeline, Russia wins the Space Race and The USSR never falls (it’s always one event from OTL and two alternate, and I just came up with this one off the top of my head) to claim a victory.
The other main way to win is using artefact cards that you gather using your time machine (e.g. the Arc of the Covenant, the Beatles’ Reunion Album, Grey's Sports Almanac), again you are set three to collect at the start of the game, but they're mainly separate to the time line mechanics*. There are other mechanics too, for example if the Cuban Missile Crisis results in WW3 then that is considered as an UberParadox - the end of history, and if you have a victory requirement from after then you have to make sure WW3 is undone. Similarly if the timeline has more than 13 paradoxes at any time then the Universe implodes and everyone loses.
*The one interesting one is the Beatles Reunion Album – you can only play (acquire) it if you’re currently in a timeline when Lennon wasn’t assassinated. If the timeline then changes so that he becomes assassinated again (time travel grammar!) then it becomes super valuable. More of these sort of artefacts would be good.
In my opinion the game is quite fun. There are a few annoyances in the gameplay, for example cards that make you swap hands with other players or which change your victory conditions which totally mess up your strategy. Overall though the couple of times I’ve played it have been pretty good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what am I doing here then? Well in my opinion there are a lot of problems with the game's timeline, and it’s something that I think the collective knowledge of AH.com could overcome.
- The base game only runs from 1868 to 1999, which is a little limiting. There have been two expansions - Early American Chrononauts which covers the American Revolution and the US Civil War, and The Gore Years which adds a few more cards to cover the past ~10 years. Making a remake of the game to cover a longer time period would be amazing.
- The game is very Americo-centric. The last three events are the Waco siege in '93, Oklahoma City in '95 and Columbine in '99 (consider that the game was made in 2000), none of which I really know anything about. The USSR collapsing is a ripplepoint (a consequence) in 1991, which is paradoxed by Regan being assassinated in 1981. The Berlin Wall is never mentioned, neither is the Russian Revolution or anything relating to outside the US and Europe, aside from Pearl Harbour, the Atomic Bombings or the Korean War (all relevant to America of course). As you might guess, the expansions Early American Chrononauts and The Gore Years don't exactly help. Though in the author’s defence they are at least explicit, in fact Early American Chrononauts was designed with the intention that it could be used for teaching kids about early US history through the medium of alternate history and time travel, which I think is laudable. But again I think a remake that covered more of world history would be a great idea.
- The third complaint is some of the questionable alternate history choices. Preventing the Hindenburg Disaster somehow stops the Korean War (but doesn’t affect anything else). The Titanic surviving prevents the Wall Street Crash. Various other things too. In part this is a consequence of focusing on such a small period of history, and wanting to include notable time travel staples (such as the Titanic) whilst also having to have them link in to the wider timeline. One thing I do like in the AH vein is that there are 5 different ways for WW2 to end, depending what combination of the three linchpin events occur (Hitler rising to power, Pearl Harbour and the Manhattan project). Still, I think it’s something that could be improved along, especially since we have some pretty great AH writers here.
- My biggest problem with the game is that the author (Andrew Looney) has let a few of his own political and personal biases into the game. For example, saying the author is quite the fan of John Lennon is an understatement (remember the Reunion Album). In the game if you prevent Lennon’s assassination in 1980 he goes on to successfully lead a campaign to get marijuana legalised in 1986, then become a US senator and manages to repeal the Second Amendment by 1999 (not just restricting gun ownership, the card is literately called Guns Banned), which prevents the Columbine Massacre. Not only is clear wish-fulfilment, but the idea of an Englishman being elected to the US senate and managing to outlaw the Right to Bear Arms is just hilarious. I’d love to see an attempt at that TL made here. A different example: Preventing JFK’s assassination stops the Vietnam War. I don’t know much about that period of American history, but it turns out that Kennedy actually supported intervention in Vietnam. The reason does the author give for him preventing it is that Kennedy was assassinated by the military-industrial complex, and so he must have been anti-war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, with that all out of the way we can finally get to the point:
I think we should come up with a new timeline for an alternate* version of the game.
*heh
What we need is ~50 world events across history, say from say the Roman period up to around now. Roughly half should be linchpins, events that could be changed by some chap in a time machine (usually either assassinations, specific battles or disasters like the Titanic). The rest would be ripplepoints, events that would be altered by the timeline changing and would need to be fixed using patches.
I’ve made up an example set below:
I realise the irony of this example since I was complaining about the game being American-focused
. The patch I think also illustrates how they are supposed to in a sense mend the timeline, in this way future cards that refer to America (Apollo 11, the Manhattan Project) can be hand-waved in.So in general the linchpins are things that either happen or don't, the ripplepoints are events that occurred in our timeline but don't make sense if the previous event doesn't happen, and the patches attempt to fix the timeline by coming up with a plausible event in the ATL to take place then instead. Of course you probably see an issue with these mechanics, in that linchpins can't have requirements, and ripplepoints can't have consensuses. That's something we'll have to deal with, unless we come up with a good way around it. We could also think about new artefacts that have dependences on the timeline, or other minor new mechanics like the WW3 UberParadox.
Now this is mainly for my own interest, so I’ve no idea if this will catch on. Certainly I’m not suggesting we actually make a deck and sell it (I don’t want to be sued), but it would be cool to make a fan-made version similar to a lot of board games (alternate Risk or Monopoly boards, cards for Dominion or maps of Ticket to Ride). Maybe if we do really well we could approach Mr Looney and ask if we could get a print run of it. Or maybe no one will reply and the project will die off. No one really knows…
AH.com, let’s make a game!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For reference, here is a list of all the events in the Chrononauts timeline:
1865 Lincoln Assassinated OR Lincoln Survives
1868 Andrew Johnson Impeached (Paradox if: Lincoln Survives - Patch: Lincoln Impeached)
1912 Titanic Sinks OR Titanic Survives
1914 Franz Ferdinand Assassinated OR Franz Ferdinand Survives
1915 Lusitania Sinks OR Lusitania Survives
1917 US enters WW1 (Paradox if: Lusitania Survives - Patch: US stays out of WW1)
1918 WW1 ends (Paradox if: Franz Ferdinand Survives - Patch: European Economy Booms)
1929 Wall Street Crash (Paradox if: Titanic Survives - Patch: Titanic Explodes)
1933 Great Depression (Paradox if: Titanic Survives AND Lusitania Survives - Patch: Mild Recession)
1936 Hitler opens Olympics OR Hitler Assassinated
1937 Hindenburg Explodes OR Hindenburg Survives
1939 Germany invades Poland (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Germany attends New York World’s Fair)
1941 Pearl Harbor Bombed OR Pearl Harbor Not Bombed
1942 Wannsee Conference (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Nuremberg Race Laws Repealed)
1943 Manhattan Project Begins OR Manhattan Project Sabotaged
1944 D-Day Landings Successful (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed - Patch: Warsaw Hosts Olympic Games)
1945 A-bombs dropped on Japan (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated OR Pearl Harbor Not Bombed OR Manhattan Project Sabotaged -
Patch A: Allied Troops Invade Tokyo (NEED Pearl Harbor Bombed AND Manhattan Project Sabotaged)
Patch B: Nazis Win (NEED Hitler opens Olympics AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed)
Patch C: World Peace (NEED Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Not Bombed)
Patch D: Tokyo Nuked (NEED Hitler Assassinated AND Pearl Harbor Bombed AND Manhattan Project Begins)
1948 Israel Founded (Paradox if: Hitler Assassinated - Patch: Berlin Hosts World’s Fair)
1950 Korean War begins (Paradox if: Hindenburg Survives - Patch: Zeppelin Factory Opens in Seoul)
1957 Sputnik Launched OR Sputnik Fails
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (Paradox if: Manhattan Project Sabotaged OR Sputnik Fails - Patch: World War 3 [Terminal])
1963 Kennedy Assassinated OR Kennedy Survives
1968 MLK and RFK Assassinated (Paradox if: Kennedy Survives - Patch: Vietnam Peace Accord)
1969 Apollo 11 Lands on Moon (Paradox if: Sputnik Fails OR Kennedy Survives - Patch: Cosmonauts Orbit Moon)
1974 Nixon Resigns (Paradox if: Lincoln Survives OR Kennedy Survives - Patch: President King Takes Office)
1980 Lennon Assassinated OR Lennon Survives
1981 Reagan Wounded OR Reagan Assassinated
1986 Challenger Explodes (Paradox if: Lennon Survives AND Reagan Assassinated - Patch: Marijuana Legalized)
1991 Soviet Union Collapses (Paradox if: Reagan Assassinated - Patch: Communism Re-invents itself)
1993 Waco Compound Burns Down OR Waco Siege Defused Peacefully
1995 Oklahoma City Bombing (Paradox if: Waco Siege Defused Peacefully - Patch: Koresh Opens New Hospital)
1999 Columbine Massacre (Paradox if: Lennon Survives - Patch: Guns Banned)
They're split into 4 rows of 8, and the expansions add another 5 rows (4 earlier, 1 later). So we could probably aim at 6-7 rows, so around 50 events. To start with, let's say something like 8 Ancient, 12 Middle Ages, 12 early modern and 16 modern (post 1900) events.
Let me know if you're interested in taking part
!
