You’ve got a time machine, high-powered weapons and a whole lot of history to save. Welcome to TimeWatch!

The air smells like death, and 100,000 rotted skulls are piled up in a mountain before you. “I think this is where 13th century Paris used to be,” you say. “The mongols never stopped at the gates of Vienna. No wonder history changed; they’re still riding across Europe and pretty much destroying every city who doesn’t submit.”

Your partner draws her pistol, checks the historical record on her holographic tether, and frowns. “Looks like the Khan never died of alcoholism,” she says, “Let’s find whoever decided to save his life. We head back five years to Karakorum, in 1241?” You nod and fire up your autochron. Purple chronal energy snaps into shape around you, and once again you’re whirling through time, headed back to save history and the future of humanity.

Welcome to TimeWatch, the new GUMSHOE game of investigative time travel from game designer Kevin W. Kulp. TimeWatch takes Robin D. Laws’ superb GUMSHOE rules and tunes them for improvisational GMing and fast-paced play, including:

– player-powered pool refreshes that keep your characters in the action by rewarding exceptional play
compressed, self-explanatory character abilities that provide bonuses for specialization
investigative abilities that encourage clever, imaginative tactics
– an initiative system that allows time-traveling agents to choose who goes when in a fight
a Preparedness ability that lets your future self bring you hidden gear and nick-of-time solutions when you need them most (the “Bill and Ted” method)
– time chases across multiple eras of history, as you race through the river of time on the heels of your fleeing foes
– rules that embrace using paradox and time-travel to your advantage when solving mysteries and battling foes; leave yourself a note from the future, or have your future self clock in to lend a hand when you need it the most
– campaign styles that range from serious alternate-history investigation to high-powered pulp action, with stopovers at conspiracy, horror and cinematic hilarity. If you like, recreate your favorite time travel movies or TV shows
– customizable rules that let you jettison time travel in exchange for adventures in parallel universes
fast-start character templates for pick-up-and-play games
– character creation that lets you craft an agent from any era of past, future or parallel history. That includes non-human agents such as uplifted gorillas, synthetic androids from the future, highly evolved psychic dinosaurs from the past, and more
– Multiple alien and parallel universe adversaries, with uniquely motivated bad guys from all eras designed to give your agents a challenge
– alternate-history-based and parallel-universe mission seeds, making it easy to build missions and run scenarios
– extensive GMing, adventure design, and player advice designed to help you master the game and start playing immediately

Find out more information and support this project at Kickstarter.com!

Tags | pelgrane press