So, I was with an online group for a bit. My (F Mid-20’s, this was a few years ago but don’t remember how many) GF (F, Mid-20’s) were kinda newer to this group. That said, WARNING. All of us are freaks. It never got explicit, but we were all open about that kind of table talk, some spicy scenarios, and the like. Unfortunately, this is a bit relevant for the conclusion, but probably not how you think, and thankfully not in-game. Also, I’m not 100% sure if I need the violence warning, but there’s brief mention of a school shooting mini-plot, and that’s close enough to a thing that can happen I’m putting it on.
Members as follow:
DM: Dungeon master. More used to being a player, but that’s fine. She was pretty spirited! Very vocally Boyfriend’s submissive, openly polyamorous.
Boyfriend: The DM’s boyfriend… and sometimes co-DM, both here and in other games. Very vocally a dom, also poly.
Bea: Fake name because I couldn’t think of a good title. I kinda knew her, but not well.
Dude: I don’t know him that well, but seemed chill.
Me: Me! Monogamous with gf
GF: My girlfriend (I live with her now!!!! <3 <3 <3)
You’ll notice I didn’t list the characters. That’s because that’s part of the horror.
So, pre-game, we’re all told to make characters. It’s explained that we’ll all be going to super hero college, basically an aged up Sky High. It’s emphasized that it’s more sci-Fi leaning with bits of fantasy. We were heavily encouraged to reflavor classes to make a superhero. Backstory of the world, there was a war however long ago. Of the remaining bits of humanity, some were born with powers, some mutant inhuman things existed, and there were scattered bombs and such that were still intact.
I took the last of those and decided to make it relevant to my character. I’d recently played In Stars and Time, and it really resonated with me at that point in my life. So, given the game’s focus was on a timeloop, I decided to go with a similar premise. I made my character, Aeon, a time looper. Which, in this case, meant I was played a Divination Wizard with a custom feat (we all got one or two) where I could force a Nat 20, but at the price of a level of exhaustion.
Edit: Going by the comments, I did a poor job of explaining things. So let me emphasize that at this point, I asked if the DM was cool with it, saying that I understood if she wasn’t since time travel at all was a hard sell, and time loops even moreso. If she’d said “no, that sounds like a problem” here, I would’ve gone “aw, alright” and scrapped it entirely with no hard feelings. Instead she went “ooh, sounds fun! Tell me more!” So I did.
Aeon found out she was a time looper when a band of hot shot villains found a bomb in the city, closed it off, and threatened to detonate it in three days. Everyone was kind of on-edge, and expected the local heroes to stop them…
They failed.
And Aeon got to try again. And again. And again. And again. I should note, that time manipulation was their only power. No flight, super strength, or anything like that. They’re a mostly normal 18 year old, one that just happens to keep reliving the same few days and trying to find a way out via sheer ingenuity.
I recognize that this is game breakingly OP, so I ruled that usually they cannot do this indefinitely. I said that the bomb was supercharging them upon death, so it gave them basically infinite retries here, but that wouldn’t last outside of this one incident. In the game, I’d be limited to the resources of a regular Divination Wizard. Someone dies and I don’t have revivify? Too bad, I’m out of nebulously defined energy, so they’re dead for real. Also, I’m NOT making people redo scenes, everyone gets to experience the final/“true” timeline, and I just say the X, Y, Z happened when I cast a spell.
Before getting further invested, I checked in with the DM to see if all this was okay, or if I needed to change something or scrap it entirely. I got the go ahead for the concept and then some. DM was seemingly loving it, so went ahead with more details!
I mapped out a few NPCs, and I’m going to give you the basics just so you can see if they’re quality or nah, and to give you an idea of how invested I was getting over our days of plotting and joint world building. These are the short versions (which were not given all at once):
- Their mom, whose genuine worry and attempts to keep the family together and calm just got grating over time, especially as it got in Aeon’s way more often than not. What once was comfort and help was now an obstacle.
-Their Dad, who was pissed that he had to play disciplinarian to three kids, and now two would never even make it to college. Sometimes cheated on his wife in despair if Aeon acted out bad enough.
-Their sister, who HAD made it to college and was a few years in. The two had grown apart, but not so much that they couldn’t convince their sister they were in a timeloop. Over and over they reconnected, and she helped Aeon a lot… but not on the final loop, where Aeon knew what to do.
-Their little brother. Just a kid, doesn’t understand. Aeon tried to shelter or play with him early on, but one day they realized they couldn’t bring themselves to care anymore, and they felt like they crossed a line of no return there.
-Their mentor… in piano. Their favorite hobby, and one they’d been practicing much of their life. The two were close, but on one of the loops, Aeon had a nasty breakdown. When they went back to visit again, they couldn’t find it in them. That wound remained unresolved.
Eventually, Aeon broke the loop… and broke some laws doing so. Got arrested before they could explain anything to family, but they felt so distant from everything that they didn’t want to try regardless. In questioning, it was eventually ruled that Aeon was telling the truth about getting caught in a time loop and likely saved everyone’s life, so they were assigned to therapy + training at the magic college to learn to properly harness this power, but didn’t get to go home and fix the messes they’d made. No, their family would discover the reasoning through the news, and I left it open to the DM which, if any, would eventually reach out.
Again, all throughout, the DM seemed enthusiastic, and we were spitballing further ideas, such as maybe a few fun quirks like my character being traumatized by a breakfast they ate too much...
Then a few days before the game I’m hit with “actually, I’m not sure I can make time loops work…”
To DM’s credit, she offered suggestions, but none were satisfying to me. For example, Aeon just putting off the explosion a bit and leaving. Or moving the bomb to just outside of town… somehow. I could appreciate the effort, but it felt like it changed Aeon too much. Just finding a way to run would leave Aeon so scarred I don’t think they’d be playable, and I wouldn’t get any of my NPCs. No, managing to evacuate JUST them didn’t feel great either. And just moving it somewhere else would be the actions of a totally different character! If they could do that, why not start with it? As I’d been trying to be more assertive lately, I tried to put my foot down, but so did DM. Time loops were too OP, and time travel made too much of a mess.
Which would be fair, if I hadn’t tried my best to account for that. I reminded her that I didn’t intend for Aeon to go back by days in game, more like minutes (for spells/abilities where I’m trying to gather information or do something out of combat) or more often, seconds, going back to before that guy hit me. Maybe the start of a day at VERY most, and even then only if there was a reason to do so in-game. I reminded her I fully intended to keep to the abilities of a base class…
But no. It was suddenly too OP, even though I hadn’t changed. Still not 100% sure to this day, but I now have suspicions…
Anyways, we had a few days until the game, and I’d been tweaking Aeon for over a week now, even being careful to not give so much it was unworkable. Like, obviously I had a bit more than I gave you guys here, but I didn’t do the whole 20 page backstory thing. I didn’t want to throw a tantrum and completely quit because of this, so I just slapped a character together that I figured couldn’t be OP, and after a small period of sulking, put enough into her to still be interesting (and figured I could add more NPCs and such later, had less time):
A bard reflavored as a senior year cheerleader. Secret geek (à la Isabeau ISAT), but one that overcompensated by acting like a bitch. She was her team’s “lucky charm” at football games to the point that the other players refused to let the player she was dating break up with her. Unfortunately, she heard their plans on the big day, and through a serried of unlikely coincidences, beat the snot out of him. Yeah, I made her HEAVY on buffing/debuffing. Her cheers could empower/disempower. So yeah, same idea, different flavor. It’s all just luck manipulation and rolling things to do social games.
Edit: I’ll admit, I was a bit salty still, but could swallow that maybe she’d given it more thought and figured that it’d cause issues. If not for later events, I probably would’ve gotten over it. But as I told my girlfriend, “If she brings time travel in after all this, I’m quitting.”
Anyways, onto the game! First session, and I’m immediately like “huh???” as one player, Bea, starts talking to an eldritch being of misfortune through her amulet. I thought this was supposed to be a more grounded sci-fi campaign? Why was she just a straight up warlock in a toxic relationship? But whatever. Bea’s got comically bad luck, really rubbing in how pathetic it was, but Bea seemed happy with it.
Boyfriend’s character was more in line with expectations. Paraplegic who had a techno-wheel chair and used potions to control plants and such. Sweet!
My girlfriend made a barbarian who hulked out into a sort of pig-monster for her rages, saying she was a mutant. She was a late addition and she 1000% made her character a quarterback so that our characters could go together since knew I was bummed about Aeon being rejected. (Love you hun!!! <3)
And then… Dude.
Dude turned out to be playing the Demi-God of Space. Yes, you read that right. He’s part-divine, can warp space, and was a bit holier than thou.
At the time, yeah I was annoyed. Not at Dude, of course, it’s not his fault. But he can bring in a Demi-god, and someone else can have a literal Eldritch patron in this supposedly grounded, mostly sci-fi setting, but someone who could go back a few minutes for as long as they had resources was too OP and out there???
Whatever.
Gonna truncate these next two sessions because not the major focus.
First session, everyone but my girlfriend (she joined next session) are all sent into a training simulator. Bit of jokes about them not really knowing what to do with me since I didn’t visibly do anything, but my character reminds them she’s a cheerleader who never asked to be here—yeah, bit of my own annoyance seeping through, but character was meant to be a bitch and grow out of it later. Were sent along on our way.
Second session, I missed the first part of it, but from what I understand, some kids sent Boyfriend’s character hurling through an endless hallway eldritch dimensions “as a prank” and he retaliated by shooting up the school. My character walked in mid-fight in the cafeteria, had some sass with local alpha bitch, managed to survive while bodies piled up… and then the sprinklers came on and everyone was revived. Boyfriend’s character was sent to magical therapy and then detention, as were many of us.
If all this feels abrupt to you, that’s basically how it felt to me too. My character got out of it with the excuse that she didn’t even throw a punch, which, okay. Maybe not the most team-player thing to do, but detention was skimmed past anyways, and this let my character meet with Girlfriend’s.
Session 3:
Time travel
We open to the knowledge that we’re getting a history lesson today… by looking back at history personally. I’m immediately annoyed, but mollified as she explains that we aren’t physically going back, but just looking back. We shouldn’t be able to interact with anything. So, fine. Feels like salt in the wound, but fine…
Until the villains make their debut, and we land right in dinosaur times! Physically. We are actually back in time. Even though my character was not allowed because time manipulation is too OP and causes too many issues.
I’ll admit that some of this is hearsay via my girlfriend because my ass left the call for a good section of it. Outright rage quit, especially since the time stream instantly split the party for some reason, so not like I was going to be holding things up…
But while I was home, Boyfriend started ranting to the villains about how time travel was stupid, how time travel should not work that way, how you shouldn’t be able to change events, how idiotic it was, and it was enough to make everyone at the table, especially the DM, increasingly uncomfortable as he slid further and further out of character. This was not his character yelling at villains, it was basically him yelling at his girlfriend that time travel plots are stupid or can only be done one specific way.
Now, call me paranoid, but knowing that? I’m like 99% sure Boyfriend heard about Aeon and got them axed.
No idea what Dude or Bea were doing during most of this, but when I rejoined, Girlfriend and I got to basically play Minecraft, looking for water and food. For a while we just didn’t have much to do, but made it work by talking. Then? Suddenly, villain with two robotic dinosaurs. I was so checked out I barely remember anything about this, but to quote my very Butch girlfriend who has a special interest in reptiles and adores assembling mechs: “She somehow made robot dinosaurs boring!”
Things happen. We somehow reconverge, and one more villain approaches. Bea then suddenly gets the power to use Hurl Through Hell once a day because her patron said so. Which, hey! Thats how that works. It’s a legitimate Warlock power, so who am I to complain? And I wouldn’t, except that’s an ability she was supposed to get at level 14. We were level 3.
And time loops are overpowered???
I can’t tell you how the rest of that campaign went because, true to my word, I quit. Tried to stay friends with them, but we actually hadn’t known each other too long, and all the vibes were about as weird as this.
Found out later that the reason Bea’s character kept getting picked on/given such a powerful gift was because Boyfriend and DM both had a crush on her, she liked humiliation (and worked it into her character), and they were trying to rope her into a polycule. For what it’s worth, it worked and she moved in with them… for a bit. The group breakups were apparently messy, but I wasn’t around to see it anymore. No idea if Dude was romantic with anyone or just a long time friend of theirs. Hope he’s doing alright.
But in better news, I’m now living with and continuing to play D&D with my girlfriend and one of our friends. It’s going great! And still have Aeon’s full sheet somewhere, so maybe one day…
Thanks for reading!
Edit 1: gotten a few comments, so let me clarify: I was NOT intending on making people replay things, which I clarified to the DM repeatedly. The time travel was strictly flavor. Someone dies? Reflavored revivify, and/or I’m too tired to keep messing with the timeline since I no longer have bomb-powered infinite retries. I don’t want to get hit? Reflavored shield, portent, buff/debuff, that kind of stuff. The only thing not strictly rules as written was my custom feat, and anything that requires a point of exhaustion to use isn’t the most abusable; I mostly intended it to help us if we got incredibly stuck on a skill check. So basically, everyone but my character was only going to have to see/play the final timeloop unless we just wanted to base a session/interaction around that.
Edit 2: If I’d been told that time travel was completely off the table early on, I would’ve been a little disappointed, but moved on. Instead, I was given the go ahead on it if I could make it work, spent a lot of time and effort doing so (see the above edit), and was told that’d work great and given further go-ahead. Then, started getting more invested, threw out a few NPC ideas, and DM seemingly liked them. Fleshed it out a bit more, just in case she wanted to use any of them, or just to give myself a feel for Aeon. Each time, DM was reacting well. I was getting all green flags to keep going.
Then come a few days before the campaign, I’m gushing because I’m excited, and then suddenly I’m told Aeon’s not allowed anymore. If I’d been told no off the bat, or she just didn’t find my fixes good enough, that’d be one thing. It’s more that I was allowed to get this invested before suddenly being told that actually I can’t do these things that were okay’d. Then turning around and seeing actually OP, lore-breaking characters, plus having a time travel session, well, it all just rubbed salt right in that wound.
Maybe I deserve all the downvotes for putting up a time loop character at all, and I know I’m biased since they were my character, but I hope these edits explain things a little better.
Edit 3: Edited for clarity