Cover of the main rulebook

C°ntinuum: roleplaying in The Yet is a science fiction role-playing game about time travel created by Chris Adams, Dave Fooden and Barbara Manui and published by Aetherco/Dreamcatcher. The C°ntinuum also refers to a collective group of time travelers as a whole and the society they inhabit in the game. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game where players assume the roles of fictional characters via role-playing. ... Time travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity—whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammeds trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. ...

Unlike other time travel games (and fiction), which usually depict time travelers as either lone explorers or as an all-powerful "time police", C°ntinuum postulates the idea that time travelers or spanners would eventually evolve their own society, complete with its own laws, rules, slang, groups, art movements, and the like. Time travel would color such a civilization in the same way that any other major technology, such as television or the automobile, had changed the human race. Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... A small variety of cars, the most popular kind of automobile. ...

C°ntinuum thus begins by asking the question "If you could learn to span time at will...what form of civilization would you be entering?"

The C°ntinuum, the main spanner civilization, extends through the whole of human history (and beyond). A primary focus is to increase the knowledge and acceptance of the possibility of time travel by the human race so that at that point on the timeline when time travel is discovered, humans will be ready for it and the next step in their evolution. Another focus is the complete documentation of all of history.

Of course, there are those whose goals are not so noble, and so the C°ntinuum has members trained to "repair" the course of history. These time criminals are called "Narcissists", because they seek to remake history in their own image. Interestingly enough, a reprinting of the C°ntinuum main book with all the background material told from their standpoint is in the works.

C°ntinuum is famous for its interesting solution to almost every time travel paradox created to date: the concept of frag. Rather than tolerating paradox caused by time travellers interfering, or resorting to an infinite number of parallel worlds the universe simply begins to erase offenders. For other meanings of Paradox, see Paradox (disambiguation). ... A parallel universe, also sometimes called an alternate universe, or an alternate dimension, is a hypothetical universe which exists separately from our own. ...

To use the famous example of the Grandfather paradox, a Narcissist decides to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Though in his mind he has succeeded, he returns to find his grandfather very much alive and himself beginning to fade out of existence due to the conflict between his own perception and the actual passage of history (it appears to be based partly on the ideas in Alfred Bester's "The Men who Murdered Mohammed"). Too much of trying to change history and one simply disappears. Frag can also be generated on purpose, a favorite tactic in time combat. This article refers to the time travel paradox. ... Alfred Bester could refer to Alfred Bester a science fiction author Alfred Bester, a fictional character in Babylon 5, named for the author This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

The game is also noted for its immersion techniques to bring players "into the game". Players, not characters, are required to quote the Maxims of the C°ntinuum before advancing to the next level. Artwork in the books is also credited to spanners and often depicts the particular aspects of spanner culture. C°ntinuum itself claims to be an artifact of spanner culture, increasing public awareness of time travel to further the C°ntinuum's ends.

Sourcebooks

• C°ntinuum: Roleplaying in the Yet (ISBN 1929312008)- the main rulebook required for play
• Further Information : A Gamemaster's Treasury of Time (ISBN 1929312016)- resource book detailing various civilizations lost to "mainstream" history, but well-known to spanners
• Nªrcissist: Crash Free (coming soon) - the rulebook for players of the other side of the conflict

External link

• Official website (http://www.aetherco.com/continuum)