Freelance Traveller

A Rift in Time

reviewed by Jeff Zeitlin

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2023 issue.

A Rift in Time. Joseph Mohr.
Old School Role Playing (no website found)
14pp., PDF
PWYW: US$3.00/UK£2.49

A Rift in Time is a good example of minimalism in RPGs. Mr Mohr provides little detail about the setting or the setup, but nevertheless gives the reader a good idea of what’s happening and what the players are supposed to do about it.

The patron has a theory about what’s causing the problem that has the sector in an uproar, but no proof that his theory is in fact correct. He also has a device that he thinks has identified the epicenter of the problem. He is looking to hire a team (the PCs) to go to that presumed epicenter, and – assuming that his theory is correct – stop what’s going on.

It turns out that the theory – which involves time travel – is, in fact, correct. The PCs are going to lack key information, and it’s only with a big helping of luck that they’ll manage to complete the mission ‘cleanly’. Without that luck, they might well end up doing the right thing, but might return to a situation where they don’t have a patron and won’t get paid.

The adventure is not really compatible with the standard Traveller setting, but it can serve as a ‘hack’ to get the players into almost any setting that you might want to try playing in.

As a pay-what-you-want title, it’s worth whatever you’re willing to pay, by definition. However, it’s far enough off the ‘main roads’ of Traveller that I’d be uncomfortable offering this to a table at a Traveller convention.