History TabletopGame / Chrononauts

** A bit of ''Player'' Appeal is [[http://wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Chrononauts/Mysteries.html mentioned]] on the Loony Labs website, with certain players going out of their way to kill RonaldReagan or save JohnLennon, even if they have nothing to gain from it.

* EdutainmentGame: The game is apparently very popular among history teachers for "sneaking in learning", especially the ''[[TheAmericanRevolution Early American Chrononauts]]'' spinoff, which covers a very specific timeframe.

** GambitPileup: Except that patch might be just the one someone else needs to get home, but then someone ''else'' renders the whole thing moot by [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct killing Hitler again]] because they want to play the German cake...

* ButterflyOfDoom: Most of the linchpins have direct effects within a few years. The one that has the longest delay is saving AbrahamLincoln from assassination. Lincoln abolishes the Jim Crow laws if he lives, which kicks off the black [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement civil rights movement]] en masse a century early, which eventually leads to Martin Luther King Jr. (if he's also saved from assassination) becoming RichardNixon's Vice President 100 years later, and then the first black president of the US after Nixon is impeached.

There's also ''Early American Chrononauts'' that focuses purely on early US history; the two games can be combined to make what the developers call ''Uber Chrononauts''. They also released a small expansion set called ''The Gore Years'' that focuses on more recent events, and can be added on to the base game or the uber version, and another one called ''Lost Identities'' which adds more ID cards.

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The patch for 1962 is WorldWarIII: the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into global war, and humanity is wiped out. This creates what the game calls Uberparadox - as long as it's active, no events afterwards can be affected (though it and all potential issues after it count as a single paradox for the "all lose" scenario) and no artifacts from The Future can be played (artifacts already in play are unaffected). Only two characters look to have this patch active - a [[EvolutionaryLevels hyper-evolved cockroach]] and a SpaceAlien exploring the past of the destroyed Earth.

* {{Prequel}}: ''Early American Chrononauts'', which can be combined with the main game to make what the developers call "Uber Chrononauts".

* RocksFallEveryoneDies: If 13 paradoxes are active, then everyone dies and loses (unless you have Crazy Joe from the expansion pack, who wins in this scenario). In Uber Chrononauts, this kicks in if any block of four adjacent rows has 13 paradoxes.

* GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel: If Hitler's alive and Pearl Harbor is canceled, you can patch 1945 so the Nazis win.

* AmericaWinsTheWar: See the conditions under GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel.

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: '''Extremely''' averted - Hitler is extremely vulnerable during the 1936 Olympics, and it triggers five different potential paradoxes. If two different players are both trying to win via the "return to your timeline" goal and they each involve different quantum states of Hitler's existence, expect to see Hitler assassinated and saved from assassination repeatedly.

** The brontosaurus is named "[[StealthPun Emily]]"[[hottip:*:after Creator/EmilyBronte]].

* {{Solitaire}}: A single-player game variant involves getting a number[[hottip:*:The default number is 8.]] of time travelers back to their home times with one pass through the deck.

* RetroactivePreparation: The "Memo from Future Self" card effectively works like this, instantly negating the last card another player played. The German Chocolate Cake artifact can also be used as a Memo and the image on the card shows it having a postcard attached. Though, WordOfGod says that it is not the postcard but the cake itself, and that the cake is just so good that it distracts the other player from [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble doing what they just did]].

** The "Purple Submarine" Beatles Reunion CD can only be played if John Lennon survives, but it can be used as a substitute for ''any'' artifact toward fulfilling your mission.
*** Caveat: The Beatles Reunion CD can only be played if Lennon survives his assassination, but it can only be substituted for another artifact if he dies.

* RocksFallEveryoneDies: If 13 paradoxes are active, then everyone dies and loses (unless you have Crazy Joe from the expansion pack, who wins in this scenario). In Uber Chrononauts, this kicks in if a given block of four rows has 13 paradoxes.

* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Averted; among the future artifacts you can acquire are a cure for cancer, a matter duplicator, and Infinite brand super-batteries.

** The brontosaurus is named "[[StealthPun Emily]]".

* GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel: If you prevent Pearl Harbor and Hitler wins, this trope comes into effect.

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The patch for 1962 is WorldWarIII: the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into global war, and humanity is wiped out. This creates what the game calls Uberparadox - no events afterwards can be affected as long as it's active (though it and all potential issues after it count as a single paradox for the "all lose" scenario). Only two characters look to have this patch active - a [[EvolutionaryLevels hyper-evolved cockroach]] and a SpaceAlien exploring the past of the destroyed Earth.

* ButterflyOfDoom: Most of the linchpins have direct effects within a few years. The one that has the longest delay is saving Abraham Lincoln from assassination. Lincoln abolishes the Jim Crow laws if he lives, which kicks off the black civil rights movement en masse a century early, which eventually leads to Martin Luther King Jr. (if he's also saved from assassination) becoming Richard Nixon's Vice President 100 years later, and then the first black president of the US after Nixon is impeached.

* AuthorAvatar: Andy, one of the player IDs, is named after the game's creator.

** The "Purple Submarine" Beatles Reunion CD can only be played if John Lennon survives, but it can be used as a substitute for ''any'' artifact with regards of your mission.

* RetroactivePreparation: The "Memo from Future Self" card effectively works like this, instantly negating the last card another player played. The German Chocolate Cake artifact can also be used as a Memo and the image on the card shows it having a postcard attached. Though, WordofGod says that it is not the postcard but the cake itself, and that the cake is just so good that it distracts the other player from [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble doing what they just did]].

* {{Discontinuity}}: Used InUniverse by [[CanonDiscontinuity a card of the same name]] - all players switch hands (though not identities, missions, or played items) with each other. Beyond simply the effects of potentially getting other players' patches or the like, you also effectively make it that you, and not someone else, patched the timeline so many times.

* ShoutOut: To several other time travel stories, including ''BackToTheFuture'' ("Grey's Sports Almanac") and, of course, H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine." Most are found on the identities (like Crazy Joe's post-time line restaurant). The creator keeps a (somewhat incomplete) list [[http://wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Chrononauts/Mysteries.html#13 here]].
** There's now a licensed ''BackToTheFuture'' version of the game, with different rules for changing time linchpins and a new rule for winning: you change the timeline and then ''stop Doc Brown from inventing time travel in the first place'', thereby locking the timeline into '''YOUR''' version.

* TimelineAlteringMacGuffin: Grey's Sport's Almanac, in a ShoutOut to the former TropeNamer and [[BackToTheFuture possible ur-example.]]

* TimelineAlteringMacGuffin: One of the collectible artifacts that can be retrieved has this title in the illustration.

[[http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Chrononauts/ Chrononauts]], created by Looney Labs (creators of {{Fluxx}}), is a card game about TimeTravel.

* GraysSportsAlmanac: One of the collectible artifacts that can be retrieved has this title in the illustration.