Infinite Worlds and GURPS settings

[Hunter Simon]

Originally Posted by knarf

The IW meta-setting is intended to open up possibilities, not restrict them, so I don't think anyone would mind if you went with the spirit, if not the letter, of the book.

And even if someone does "mind", who cares? It's your game, dude.

[WineShark]

The IW portion of 4e states that Homeline hasn’t discovered any star-traveling timelines yet, not that they don’t exist. There are even higher tech levels and “local dates” that exceed Homeline. It’s the parachronic secret that sets Homeline apart. (As well as Centrum and the bio/magic/psi-jumping Reich 5)

There’s a WHOLE lot of stuff beyond Q3-Q7 that Homeline doesn’t know about. So any given setting can simply be “beyond” Homeline’s reach and be a perfectly valid IW setting. You just have special rules for getting to/from there that go beyond simple projectors and conveyors.

The caveats that are in place in IW seem more for game balance and simplicity than anything else. (As mentioned above by Hite.) And as Simon says, “It’s your game, dude.”

[the adventurer]

I wonder how well a campain where the PCs land face first into TOON would go....

[Digganob]

- Not every world is known, and if it's true that there are an infinite number of them, they never will be.
- Time passes more slowly on other worlds, so why couldn't it pass more swiftly on others?
- The real origin of parachronic technology is uncertain. Was Dr. Van Zandt a traveller from a 3rd parachronic capable world? Or did a traveller from said 3rd world give/lose it to him?

- The IW setting is intentionally left with HUGE holes into which GMs can insert whatever they want.

[Brent]

I think I prefer Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development from Trek. Just find an alternate Earth somewhere else in normal space by normal space travel. But I do like Hite's Infinite Worlds for GURPS. Of course, I'll have to bring up GURPS Alpha Centauri as one of the worlds I want to use with Infinite Worlds. Still, it would be more fun to tweak Prime Directive to use some version of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I guess the history of the Alpha Centauri system would diverge before the things happen on Earth that happen in the game.

What about using Traveller/ Prime Directive, etc. in the distant future of the overarching Infinite Worlds setting? And of course you could incorporate more than one version of Traveller and PD, and have separate worlds that are simply the same world at a different time, or basically so.

Now that it's time for this book, I guess I'd better finally pick up the two corebooks.

[mearrin69]

Yep I think it's primarily about controlling the characters and keeping the plausibility. I haven't read it thoroughly yet (just got it last night!) but I seem to remember one section that mentions something about earth as the focus of divergence and how an interstellar situation opens up a lot more questions regarding this - even more infinite infinite worlds!

I think it also says go ahead and do it if you want - and don't mind the work!
M

[Andrew Hackard]

To get to a far-future timeline, put it on an inaccessible quantum and then have a conveyor/projector "accident" send the party there. They then have to find some trustworthy natives with the tech know-how to jury-rig a solution that lets them get back to Homeline. Of course, it's a one-shot thing.

[Kyle Aaron]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

I'd imagine interaction between Homeline and higher-tech Parallels could be similar to Earth's interactions with ultra-tech alien civilisations in Stargate SG-1...

I was thinking of IW last night while watching Stargate. In the end, there is no functional difference between travelling to different worlds in space, and different worlds in parallel.

The only time a difference arises is if there's faster than light travel, or if in the alternate world physics is different. Because with FTL travel, you can move between worlds in space, but not worlds in parallel; and with different physics, that could only be worlds in parallel, not worlds in space (since it seems reasonable to assume physics is the same across the universe).

So, you could have an IW campaign exactly like Stargate, provided physics is as we understand it here and today - FTL travel is impossible, and there's no magic, etc.

[roguebfl]

Remember SG-1 has FTL travel too it coming in latter when the Ga'ould (sp?) fish show up. now Earth has it now th the Asgard have given them a fix for the Prometheus' navigation system, and up their engine the now plan on sending the Prometheus to the Pegasus Galaxy to find out how the Atlantis expedition is going.

[my small nitpick is why doesn't Daniel as a Former ascended being have the Ancient gene?]

[LoneWolf23k]

O-k... Getting back on topic...

...Has everyone checked out the some of the Infinite Worlds designers' notes that Ken Hite wrote in this week's Pyramid?

Let's see.. We have the Coleopterans, who, essentially, just might be the Great Race of Yith in their future bodies. Then, we have the Promellans, who seem to be rivals/enemies of the Vortun from Atomic Horror. We've got the Hounds of Tintalos (with the serial numbers shaved off), a reference to the Philedelphia Experiment (you knew Ken was gonna squeeze it in somewhere), and finally some wierd time-travel accidents which just beg to be used...

The more I get hints about Infinite Worlds, the more I want it...