The Time Deck

Ronin Time Bureaucrats is a game designed for improv. Let's face it: your Crew can travel through Space and Time, has access to impossible amounts of information and technological shenanigans, so they are going to go off the rails.

Yes, when looking for a cure for the Disease of Omniscience, they are going to jump across the Continuum to look for the Holy Grail. When attempting to fight the One-hundred Eyed Guardian of the Indolent Tree of the XVIIIrd Century, they are going start by finding a way to hire Herakles and Imhotep.

And that's all good, it's part of the fun. On the other hand, you, as a GM, need the ability to react to this quickly.

The Time Deck is a tool to help the GM do just that: improvise or brainstorm ideas, situations, outcomes, characters, places, descriptions... Of course, be warned, it may just as well be used by the Players to come up with even-more-sophisticated shenanigans.

This chapter consists in the cards themselves, and a few examples on how to use them. Don't expect sophisticated rules, though. Everything is a variant of: if you need an idea, draw a card, see if it inspires you.

Introducing The Time Deck

The Time Deck consists in 22 cards, loosely inspired from the Major Arcana of a Divination Tarot Deck.

All images are believed to allow reproduction and reuse.

Card	Additional interpretations
	Light. A Continuum Indirection materializing.
	The Time Commune. A Party.
	The Space·Time Fleet. A Time Citadel.
	The Most Benevolent Administrators. The Babylon Project.
	The Time Museum. Any kind of Paradox. A Future Sayer.
	The Time Brigade. The People's Time Liberation Army.
	Mad Science.
	Time Magazine.
	Escaping. The Foundation for a Time Encyclopedia.
	The Space Fleet. The Space·Time Fleet
	The Office of Time & Measures.
	The Agency for Continuity of Space & Time. The Time Museum.
	Perfect Polymorphic Provocateurs. The Time Adjustment Foundation, Time Magazine,
	The Time Hanse. The Time Museum.
	The Time Hierarchy
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	Time itself

As you can see, each card has:

• an image;
• a title;
• two interpretations, depending on how you hold the card;
• also, a few ideas of additional interpretations.

We'll use all of them for improvisation.

High-resolution, two-cards per deck, designed for printing as 11x15 photos.

Using The Time Deck

There are very few rules to using the Time Deck:

1. The Time Deck is about getting ideas, so there are no hard rules.
2. Anybody can use the Time Deck whenever they're looking for an idea.
3. Think up a question to which you need an answer. It can be as general as "What's going to happen?" or as precise as "What's on the desk?"
4. When you draw a card, choose its orientation before looking at it, then place it on the table.
5. Look at the picture, the title, the question mark facing you.
6. If you have an idea, use it. Otherwise, don't hesitate to discuss it around the table.
7. Draw more cards if you feel you need to.

...in a dungeon

As things are bound to happen, your Time Traveling Crew is being pursued by giant, pixellated Pac-Man Ghosts in the underground tunnels below the Castle of Arthur Pendragon. Just another day in the life of a Ronin Time Bureaucrat. Of course, the GM has no map for the dungeon, because how could have guessed that the Crew would decide to dig below the crypt by shoveling earth and rock through time and space using their Continuum Indirection?

Ok, so the Crew is running like madpeople and eventually stumbles upon a deadend. Wait, just a deadend? That's not very interesting.

What does the Crew find at the end of this corridor?

Let's draw a card. And the card is...

So, we may decide to use Great Progress?, X. Leaping like a Giant! and/or that weird human-faced moon with a bullet in its eye. Personally, I'd like to use Leaping like a Giant!, and interpret it as "After following that corridor for a hundred meters or so, you suddenly enter a giant cavern, much larger than anything you had seen below the castle so far. Unfortunately, that cavern is barred by a huge chasm, much too large for any human to jump."

Also, let's add some flavor/plot hook based on the illustration: "On the other side of the chasm, you barely see the outline of something that looks like a round statue head, facing you. It appears that the statue is winking at you."

Oh, wait a second. A round statue head? While being hunted by Pac-Man Ghosts? This just has to be Pac-Man! Here you go, you have a new plot hook for free.

For the moment, the Pac-Man Ghosts are arriving, so it's time for the Crew to do something!

...designing a NPC

So, while the Queen of Chandernagor is waiting for the Ambassador of Shangrila to land, the Crew has decided to rollback time, scout ahead and investigate around the seediest part of Chandernagor, looking for anything that could help the Ambassador negotiate a better peace treaty. So, here they are, finally facing their contact... whom the GM knows nothing about, because that entire story was supposed to be an escort mission starting only after the Ambassador landed.

What does the contact look like?

Ok, no need to go much further. The contact is a human being (let's say female-looking) "with an extremely sophisticated hat that looks like an umbrella and a feather, as well as a moving cape that looks extremely uncomfortable for walking. Also, spines on her back."

What does the contact want?

This NPC is obviously into partying (maybe the meeting point is some kind of garden party/orgy?) and might be after something related to Innocence?, so something related to the judicial system of Chandernagor. Maybe that person wants information to exonerate a jailed relative? Or wants help to break someone out of jail? Or we can put all of this together: someone the NPC knows is prisoner of their own dreams, trapped by some drug, and she's after a cure that the Crew will need to steal or barter or promise to get her cooperation.

...designing a place

So, after deftly eloping with the bomb and made sure that it explodes in their ship instead of in the crowded city, the Crew is shipwrecked on yet another alien planet. Quick, it's time to use the Time Deck!

What does the planet look like?

Oh, joy, it's an enigma! Obviously, a planet filled with puzzles and brain-teasers. So "As you exit your escape pod, you stumble upon the remainings of a huge cardboard statue of a bull-headed children-friendly creature. You seem to be in the middle of some kind of glass labyrinth. Judging from the music, it looks like you have landed in some kind of amusement park! Apparently, you've done some damage while landing."

Note that if the card had been facing Mysteries?, the players might instead have been instead landed on some kind of holy planet, or inside a cathedral.

Let's add some flavor.

What is happening right now on that planet?

So, an obstacle overlooked, people drowning in the sea...

"Might be quite some damage, indeed, if you hear the panicked screams that somehow manage to drown the music. Looking at your feet, you see water. It's at ankle-level, but you could swear that there was no water a few seconds ago. Oh, yeah, memory confirmed by observation: it's rising pretty fast. What do you do?"

...desiging a plot

« I can hear the players coming up the stairs and I have no idea for the session. I am doomed!

• Have no fear, fair GM, and put your faith in the Time Deck! »

A good plot needs:

• a place;
• a hook;
• a stake.

Where and when does the story take place?

Apparently, it's a battlefield, or some kind of revolution. Given the flag, it could be a French Revolution, but let's draw a second card to keep it surprising.

What kind of revolution?

Ok, so the story is set in a madhouse, during an uprising. Or maybe a madhouse in which political opponents are kept? Let's combine both: the story is set during a riot inside a psychiatric clinic – the patients are actually opponents to the regime, sent there to be renormalized.

What is happening?

So something new is born. Possibly a new life-form, or a new technology, or a new type of government. Let's see what..

What is being born?

Moses crossing the Red Sea? Ok, so it's obviously a new religion. Or perhaps a god? Nah, let's stick with religion.

So, a new religion is being born in that psychiatric clinic. Maybe this can be connected with an existing religion or antagonist that the Crew has encountered in a previous Mission. Maybe the Crew is interested in anthropology. Let's wait for the stake until we commit to a specific manner of involving the Crew.

What's at stake?

Well, the religion is already a lot, but let's ask the Deck:

Ahah, communications trouble!

So, in some future, that religion will manage to erase all information on <insert something of interest to your Crew>. Apparently, this has been a dogma since the first day of the religion. Which explains why the Crew will need to time-travel to that specific psychiatric clinic, during that specific riot, to witness the birth of that religion and find out why this <insert something of interest to your Crew> needs to be erased from memories.

We got ourselves a plot!

&c...

Truly, as there are no rules, there are no limits to what you can do with the Time Deck. Use it whenever there is a lull in the story, or to explain why one of the players couldn't join today, or how a new player + character managed to join while you were obviously alone in a locked chamber, to help a player with character creation, etc.

If you feel like it, you can even use the Time Deck in place of dice resolution. Assume that the action succeeds-by-default if the character has sufficient points, fails-by-default otherwise, then draw a card and describe what happens. Any success can be turned into a failure with the right card, and vice-versa.

Or, simply, use the numbers on the deck as a random number generator.

As usual, remember that the objective is to have fun, so make sure that everybody is on the same wavelength!