History TabletopGame / Continuum

* FigureItOutYourself: "Further information not available here" is spanner lingo for this. In a time-travelling civilization, the importance of controlling information is the First Axiom.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Neither the Continuum nor the Narcissist views of morality have much to do with leveller morals. The Continuum exists to preserve the sanctity of the timeline, but its behavioral rules only apply to spanners, sadism in hunting Narcissists is lauded, and levellers have no rights that a spanner is bound to respect. Crashers, meanwhile, have no overriding morality at all, only their own goals and a loose ideology of crashing free and trying to find Yrne, and not only levellers but ''other crashers'' may be used freely as tools towards that end.

* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: The goal of pretty much any planned Continuum Gemini incident. Remember to respect your Elders.

* StableTimeLoop: Setting these up and fulfilling them makes up almost all of the action in the game.

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Better known as the Maxims and enforced by entire teams of the ''protagonists'' of the Continuum. When killing Hitler risks the vigintillions[[labelnote:*]]10^63s[[/labelnote]] of lives of the Inheritors, the decision of the Atlantean Council seems a lot more relevant.

* OmniscientMoralityLicense: The Exalted and Inheritors are not bound by the Five Maxims and can [[IDidWhatIHadToDo do whatever they need to do]] to protect the timestream. [[spoiler:To look at it another way, they have a different understanding of the Five Maxims. They can be trusted with perfect information of the future because they won't act improperly with it, they don't have to keep a span book because they all have perfect memory, they have full discretion when dealing with {{Masquerade}} breaches, and they're allowed to rehabilitate or execute Lost Causes without breaking the Fifth Maxim.]]

** the Foxhorns in [[TimePolice Time Policing]] and taking down Narcissists viciously,
** the Quicker in look into hauntings, strange phenomenon, and cleaning up after hopeless cases of [[TemporalParadox Frag]],
** and the Thespians in disguise and the periodic replacement of levellers or other time travelers.
* TeleportersAndTransporters: Every spanner can teleport some distance in space, whether or not they travel through time. This is "free" as far as their Span is concerned.

* WhatMeasureIsANonSuper: Levellers have no rights that the Continuum respects, and are often reduced to pawns in spanner games. Those who find out about the Masquerade get LaserGuidedAmnesia. By the way, [[IJustWantToBeSpecial humans who were taught to span without Continuum approval]], [[IJustWantToBeNormal even if they had no choice in the matter]], are KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade. (They're never Invited to Dance, because the risk that their masters may have planted their heads with time bombs is just too great.)

* FakeMemories: A possible result of telepathy or hypnosis, which can be useful to fix Frag, if what people remember and what actually happens don't quite match.

** Time travelers are called "spanners," and yes, they ''know'' that means [[GeniusDitz ditz]] in British slang. Down from the Industrial Revolution, they call themselves "spinners."

** Up is towards the "future," while Down is towards the "past."
** Levellers are non time travelers, since they exist on the same "level" of time.

* HopelessWar: From the crasher perspective, the war against the Swarm is this; even the Kings and Gods cannot defeat the Singularity. A crasher's objective is not to win, but to escape.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: One of the powers of telepathy (and for some reason, hypnosis). A tool used to protect reality and the Continuum. Also, all player characters start with amnesia, since they don't remember what happened during the months of training they had, learning to span.

* ManaMeter: Your Span denotes how far you can travel through time, before you need to sleep. It costs the same to travel Down as to travel Up.

* {{Nanomachines}}: Used extensively near TheSingularity, which may or may not have something to do with [[spoiler:time travel]]. Further information...

* OffTheRails: One of the creators of Continuum related this story about an early beta Narcissist session: His character had successfully [[spoiler: crashed out of the main Universe]] and was trying to evade Quicker by going further out, but got captured. His crib-mates came to rescue him, but found a junior version of him pre-capture, near [[spoiler: the first crash gate]] and spirited him to safety. This effectively split one character into two, the one who got captured, and the one who was rescued from something ''that hadn't happened to him yet.'' It was at that point the group realized there was '''nothing''' in the rules preventing this. [[ShoutOut Take that, causality!]]
* OmniscientMoralityLicense: The Exalted and Inheritors are not bound by the Five Maxims and can [[IDidWhatIHadToDo do whatever they need to]] to protect the timestream. [[spoiler: To look at it another way, they have a different understanding of the Five Maxims. They can be trusted with perfect information of the future because they won't act improperly with it, they don't have to keep a span book because they all have perfect memory, they have full discretion when dealing with {{Masquerade}} breaches, and they're allowed to rehabilitate or execute Lost Causes without breaking the Fifth Maxim.]]
* PaintingTheMedium: So much. One of the more subtle cases : several footnotes on the Inheritors advise the reader to look for further information on page 210. That's the end of the [=GM=] section, but also is labeled Time Travel in the Real World. Use of "further information not available here" and the warnings about crasher propaganda throughout the rest of the book is less subtle, but still very effective.

* PhysicalGod: Even the weakest of the Exalted can travel 10,000 years in an instant, is [[TheAgeless immortal unless killed]], and has enough mental powers and Aquarian supertechnology to kill someone or erase their mind with a thought. An individual Inheritor is, at a minimum, orders of magnitude more powerful than that. [[spoiler: The same goes for the masters of Antedesertium.]]

** For Continuum spanners, Span serves as both power level and rank in the hierarchy, and the two are interrelated; spanners with higher Span can not only span farther and carry more than those with lower Span without having to rest, but they also receive access to better tech, longer lives, the potential for higher attributes, and (most importantly) access to further information.

* {{Railroading}}: This game has to examine it thoroughly, both from an in-character and out-of-character standpoint. Because YouCantFightFate, polite spanners avoid giving away too much information about someone else's future (the number one reason to say "further information not available here"). The GM, meanwhile, is advised to go out of his way to avoid filling spanners' Yets. The one ''big'' exception, however, is with [[spoiler: the Yet of the In-Between, where you can be destined to die, betray the Continuum, or become an Exalted, because of what you learned while you were first learning to span, which is hypnotically kept from you until you need to know.]]

** It's mentioned that, since leveller authorities have no hope of constraining a spanner, some spanners decide to abuse them freely, including theft, rape and murder. The Continuum is more-or-less okay with this, so long as you don't break ''their'' laws (which govern social behavior [[WhatMeasureIsANonSuper within spanner civilization]], not between spanners and levellers or crashers). ''However'', the book also mentions that there's a [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope short step]] between abandoning social taboos and abandoning the Maxims.

-->"The GM in the example points out that Oracle has a minimum Duration of 7 days. If you were to wait for Ben's Oracle, Amber would have to Stay Level this Sweep, too."

** The Antiquarians specialize in historical objects.
** the Engineers in technology.
** the Midwives in who's born when.
** the Moneychangers in currency (and making sure all spanners start out rich).
** the Physicians in medicine.
** the Scribes in storing knowledge and communication.
** the Dreamers specialize in communicating through dreams across eras.
** the Foxhorns act like TimePolice and take down Narcissists viciously.
** the Quicker look into hauntings, strange phenomenon, and cleaning up after hopeless cases of [[TemporalParadox Frag]].
** the Thespians specialize in disguise, and periodically replace levellers or other time travelers.

[-''Has nothing to do with ''Film/StargateContinuum'' besides also being centered on time travel. Not to be confused with the [[{{Webcomic/Continuum}} webcomic]] or the [[Series/{{Continuum}} TV series]] of the same name.''-]

** "Frag," the results of trying to change the known, or of someone changing your known Age or Yet. It starts with your memories getting mixed; then you start to fade out, and the Quicker have to clean up after you.

** A specific situation occurs when an individual is fragged, and a second individual then makes them late for the fragging event. The first individual takes both frags (the original As/As Not, and the As/As Not relating to whether or not they make it to the first frag), but the second individual may also fix a point of their own frag by doing so, so long as the point of frag was picked up in the current Time Combat. This is either called "the Statue of Liberty" or "the Fix," depending on which side you're on; for Continuum spanners, it's considered a trick play, but for Narcissists, it's a staple of their arsenal.

* TimeDissonance: Exalted tend to start thinking of a century of Age as a few birthdays ago. Late Aquarians, and Inheritors, don't even think of time linearly in the first place.

* TimeTravelTenseTrouble: Averted. The past and future only count from your own perspective, so if you've done something or will do it, you say that. For everyone else, you use the present tense, regardless of "when" it's happening. Since in a second, that could be ''your'' "now" too, this makes sense.
* TimeyWimeyBall: Averted. The rules of time travel are fairly straight-forward and don't deviate. [[spoiler: However, the rules for Narcissists are slightly different than the rules for Continuum spanners.]]

* UnstuckInTime: Not the worst thing Frag can do.

* AndManGrewProud: Antedesertium is an entire time span, of thousands of years, [[spoiler:where Africa is ruled by Narcissist kings of time and space, granting SchizoTech to the population, and [[MadScientist performing experiments on causality itself]]. They eventually look nothing like humans, and then their whole civilization collapses at Interregnum, a massive TemporalParadox laden no-mans land, where time travelers instantly Frag out if they try to span. Interregnum caused a massive axial shift that left the Sahara a desert.]]
* {{Atlantis}}: This is a Continuum city, and though chronologically close, is not part of Antedesertium. It's a meeting place where the council decides on all the rules and guidelines of time travel. Strangely enough, after obeying these rules for most of their lives, the player characters might sit on this council and [[StableTimeLoop decide on those very same rules]].
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Neither the Continuum nor the Narcissist views of morality have much to do with leveller morals. The Continuum exists to preserve the sanctity of the timeline, but its behavioral rules only apply to spanners, sadism in hunting Narcissists is lauded, and [[PunyEarthlings levellers]] have no rights that a spanner is bound to respect. Crashers, meanwhile, have no overriding morality at all, only their own goals and a loose ideology of crashing free and trying to find Yrne, and not only levellers but ''other crashers'' may be used freely as tools towards that end.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: The distinction between in- and out-of-character is completely smashed in the rules for advancing between Spans, since one of the requirements for advancing (which the GM is specifically instructed not to waive) is a certain amount of real-world time on the player's part playing ''Continuum'', including requirements for game session length. ''Not'' necessarily with any one character.
* CurbStompBattle: If Continuum spanners decide that a Narcissist has to be dealt with, that Narcissist will be fragged into nonsentience before he even knows he's under attack, and that's if he's ''lucky''.

* DeusExMachina: The Inheritors serve this purpose, but really only come out to work when things get really, ''really'' bad. Since their mere existence back in our time could screw things up, they never ''want'' to get involved, ensuring DeusExitMachina.
* EasilyForgiven: If a Narcissist who was originally a Continuum spanner isn't killed or fragged out, and they're willing to be rehabilitated, they'll usually be freely brought back into the Continuum after some correctional therapy. Incidentally, this does ''not'' apply to anyone who ''didn't'' start with the Continuum. Those are handed to the Foxhorns for disposal.
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Most of the Scorpiod Kings of Antedesertium look like this. One looks like a tear in reality; another looks like a massive dome several kilometers wide. The scary part? All of them started out as ''human Narcissists.'']] The Inheritors are "good", but match up to the trope from the sheer alien, unstoppable, and incomprehensibly more powerful viewpoint.

Cºntinuum is a TimeTravel [[TabletopRPG Tabletop RPG]] by the folks at [[http://www.aetherco.com/continuum/ AetherCo]]. It starts with the question, "If you could learn to span time at will, what sort of civilization would you be entering?" It moves on from there, and the results are [[ViewersAreGeniuses very well thought out]] -- but since it requires four-dimensional thinking, it can really [[MindScrew mess with your head]]. This has led to some calling it "The best time-travel game you'll ever read, but never actually play."

Basically, all of human history leads up to us inventing time travel; this includes all the time traveling going on before that, making sure history turns out right. That's the job of the Continuum: to keep history working smoothly.

Past that, and the list of tropes below, well, [[ArcWords further information is not available here]].

* CantTakeAnythingWithYou: 'Darter' Narcissists are built old or crippled tech, and thus can not take anything with them while traveling time. Not even MagicPants. In the less naked version of the trope, carrying technology Down from its original time zone is frowned upon. Trying to bring powerful nanotech Down before its invention tends to result in a visit by the Engineers or Inheritors before you leave.
* ClockRoaches: Not really, but the Inheritors can act like this sometimes. They look a lot like TheGreys, and they tend to show up exactly where and when things get really messy.

* TheFuture: Up to AD 2221 is fair game, albeit a little heavy on the implied CrystalSpiresAndTogas and nanotech. Going past AD 2222 is not advised, and all eras beyond AD 2400 are the realm of the Inheritors and the Exalted. Further information not available here.
* FutureBadass: The advantages Favored Exalted, All Too Easy, and Death At Span Four all can be earned by Span Threes, and mean a known Gemini with a future and extremely powerful version of themselves. To a lesser extent, [=GMs=] may elect for a Gemini to come with a higher Span version of the character, although this is usually done rarely.
* FutureMeScaresMe: Most Threes, and all Fours or Exalted are ''not'' friendly things to encounter as a One's Gemini. At best, they've experienced decades or centuries of the spanning life, and count as human only by the loosest definition. And that's ignoring the possibility a future Narcissist self, or of seeing your own demise...
* HaveWeMetYet: While spanners normally ask for the time before talking to even long familiar spanners, encounters can sometimes be muddled enough for this to occur.
* HelpYourSelfInTheFuture: The goal of pretty much any planned Continuum Gemini incident. Remember to respect your Elders.

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Better known as the Maxims, and enforced by entire teams of the ''protagonists'' of the Continuum. When killing Hitler risks the vigintillions of lives of the Inheritors, the Decision of the Atlantean Council seems a lot more relevant.
** Lampshaded in the rules book: The description of the Thespian fraternity says something like: "Please don't ask us how many times we've had to impersonate Hitler." [[spoiler:[[ArcWords Further information is not available here.]]]]

* InSpiteOfANail: Not all fragging actions are successful; span Down a few years and take a book from the library first, and it might not stick if the variation is trivial or if the targeted spanner replaces it. [[spoiler: The Narcissists can and do make small changes to their Yet, since the Inheritors only change back rather than change, and don't put much emphasis on nonhuman things.]]
* MeanwhileInTheFuture!: Doesn't apply for levellers or physical combat, but Time Combat sweeps can quite easily involve six spanners in a half-dozen different levels.
* MultipleChoicePast: The Scorpiod Kings do this intentionally to protect Antedesertium from the Continuum (as well as for ideological reasons). They know that, to spanners, Information Is All, so they ensure that spanners have access to a lot of possible histories and no way to verify any of it, and are thus prone to fragging themselves when they try to attack.

* RetroactivePreparation: The game calls it "slipshanking," and while it is useful, your [=DM=] will insist your Elder self actually set-up the preparation, or take a Frag penalty.
* ScrewDestiny: Worse than blasphemy; this is a Narcissist's attitude, and goes against reality itself. [[spoiler:According to the physical laws the Inheritors created, at least. According to the Narcissist previews, {{Alternate Universe}}s are a bit more lenient.]]

Has nothing to do with ''Film/StargateContinuum'' besides also being centered on time travel.

Not to be confused with the [[{{Webcomic/Continuum}} webcomic]] or the [[Series/{{Continuum}} TV series]] of the same name.

If you'd like to join up, always remember to follow the Five Maxims. In particular, information is all; knowing too little or too much of your Yet (your subjective future) can bite you. When meeting yourself, always respect your Elders. [[TheMasquerade Never let the levelers know what's going on]]. And never, ''never'' try to [[YouCantFightFate change the known]]. That's what the Narcissists do, and you ''don't'' want the [[TimePolice Foxhorns]] after you.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Neither the Continuum nor the Narcissist views of morality have much to do with leveller morals. The Continuum exists to preserve the sanctity of the timeline, but its behavioral rules only apply to spanners, sadism in hunting Narcissists is lauded, and [[PunyEarthlings levelers]] have no rights that a spanner is bound to respect. Crashers, meanwhile, have no overriding morality at all, only their own goals and a loose ideology of crashing free and trying to find Yrne, and not only levelers but ''other crashers'' may be used freely as tools towards that end.

** Levelers are non time travelers, since they exist on the same "level" of time.

* HandWave: Hypnosis gets used a ''lot'' when people screw up. Also, the explanation for time travel feels a lot like one of these, due to the bizarre physics. Of course, it could also just be [[UnreliableNarrator false information]], since [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis the book is supposedly meant to help ease levelers into accepting time travel]].

* {{Masquerade}}: The whole point of the Fourth Maxim: don't let the levelers know if it's not time yet. Obviously, things happen, and you have to make an Invitation to Dance; this is how new spanners enter the fold.

* {{Muggles}}: Call them levelers.

** It's mentioned that, since leveler authorities have no hope of constraining a spanner, some spanners decide to abuse them freely, including theft, rape and murder. The Continuum is more-or-less okay with this, so long as you don't break ''their'' laws (which govern social behavior [[WhatMeasureIsANonSuper within spanner civilization]], not between spanners and levelers or crashers). ''However'', the book also mentions that there's a [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope short step]] between abandoning social taboos and abandoning the Maxims.

* SpySpeak: "What time is it?" and other variations are a callsign; other spanners know what you're supposed to respond with. Levelers will just answer how you'd expect.

** the Thespians specialize in disguise, and periodically replace levelers or other time travelers.

* WhatMeasureIsANonSuper: Levelers have no rights that the Continuum respects, and are often reduced to pawns in spanner games. Those who find out about the Masquerade get LaserGuidedAmnesia. By the way, [[IJustWantToBeSpecial humans who were taught to span without Continuum approval]], [[IJustWantToBeNormal even if they had no choice in the matter]], are KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade. (They're never Invited to Dance, because the risk that their masters may have planted their heads with time bombs is just too great.)

A copy of Continuum and a pre-release copy of Narcissist can both be found [[http://www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/3178900 here]]

Has nothing to do with ''StargateContinuum'' besides also being centered on time travel.

* FashionsNeverChange: Averted, heavily. Ones and Twos can only travel a year and a decade at once, respectively, but most clothing will ''still'' attract attention. Threes and higher usually end up running from an angry mob if they aren't careful about keeping with the times.

* OutOfTimeOutOfMind: Heavily averted. An Exalted-Span One Gemini incident might have the two looking near identical, but the Exalted's centuries of experience ''will'' show up, even if the telekinesis doesn't.

* WhatMeasureIsANonSuper: Levelers have no rights that the Continuum respects, and are often reduced to pawns in spanner games. Those who find out about the Masquerade get LaserGuidedAmnesia. By the way, this also applies to [[IJustWantToBeSpecial humans who were taught to span without Continuum approval]], [[IJustWantToBeNormal even if they had no choice in the matter]].

* TemporalParadox: "Frag," the results of trying to change the known, or of someone changing your known Age or Yet. It starts with your memories getting mixed; then you start to fade out, and the Quicker have to clean up after you.
* TheTimeTravellersDilemma: The reason the Inheritors won't let anyone change the future.

* TimeyWimeyBall: Surprisingly Averted. The rules of time travel are fairly straight-forward and don't deviate. [[spoiler: However, the rules for Narcissists are slightly different than the rules for Continuum spanners.]]

* PhysicalGod: Even the weakest of the Exalted can travel 10,000 years in an instant, is immortal unless killed, and has enough mental powers and Aquarian supertechnology to kill someone or erase their mind with a thought. An individual Inheritor is, at a minimum, orders of magnitude more powerful than that. [[spoiler: The same goes for the masters of Antedesertium.]]

* WriteBackToTheFuture: This is a common solution to being "stuck" in the past while your Span recovers; the Scribes specialize in this. Also, taken to extremes, a way of "instant messaging" with fellow spanners.

* ViewersAreGeniuses - running/playing a game that requires 4-dimensional thinking is ''very hard''. And then there's Narcissist...

* YouWillBeBeethoven - par for the course for the Thespians.