Anatomy of a Time Loop

From conception to execution, insight to the creation of the latest Stargate SG-4 episode, “The Working Hour,” and how a simple mechanic made the whole thing work.

At the behest of one of my players who wanted me to write up the genesis of a game mechanic used in my previous Stargate game, the more I wrote the more I realized that the backdrop of the creation process required a bit more explanation. Thus, this post was born. It feels a bit self-serving and I apologize for that, but it is difficult to discuss the creation process without including a bit of myself in it as well.

The Story Thus Far

For those that have followed Abulia Savant in the past you’ve no doubt read about the exploits of SG-4. From the beginning I made a conscious effort to try to mimic the show, not only in handouts, verbiage, and music, but also in the flow and the storylines. I wanted the players to walk away from a session — affectionately referred to as an “episode” — as if they had just watched an episode of Stargate but through the eyes of their characters. This led to my writing episodes in such a way that they became self-contained adventures, do-able in one sitting, much like watching the show. As a GM who’s always enjoyed long, complex storylines with multiple layers you have to try to understand what a painful reversal this was for me. Now I was writing short, to-the-point adventures on a weekly basis.

This led to plotting episodes in the guise of a “season,” tying them together through a storyline but keeping each one individual. The first season of SG-4 was actually over twenty episodes long! A few episodes in I scaled back the scope of the season to just 11 episodes, a much more reasonable number. Again, that’s 11 individual adventures, each on a weekly basis. From a creative standpoint it’s a lot of pressure!

The season format is built around a theme for the season, divided into sections of what I want to accomplish. The first season had a mysterious backdrop as to why SG-4 was selected to become a team as well as the continuing threat of the Goa’uld. When plotting a season I try to have two episodes focus on each player, two episodes that are pure “shoot ‘em up,” two that are pure role-play, and two with a humorous slant (plus a season-ending cliffhanger).

So, when cutting episodes from the first season I dumped them into a file to save for use in the second (current) season. One of those was tagged as a humor episode and had the rather brief idea dump of “A looping episode, much like “Window of Opportunity.” Still formulating but a lighter episode to take the edge off. This was pushed from S1.” That’s literally all I have to use when sitting down to write that week’s episode.

The Three Act Model

When writing an adventure in a serialized format to mimic a television show it only makes sense to follow the same writing model used in the show themselves. In this case that’s the three act model which you can read an excellent description of here.

Consider in a television show each twenty minute block consisting of one act. In the first act, what I refer to as the “setup” the characters are introduced and the groundwork laid for the story. I’ll often do a pre-title sequence teaser, just like the show; a quick five minutes of role-playing with a mini-cliffhanger leading to the main title credits. In act one we get the mission, are introducing NPCs, visiting a strange world, etc. Typically nothing bad happens in the first act but it closes on an important plot point.

The second act, the “conflict,” is where the rubber hits the road. This is where Something Bad Happens ™ and the player characters are tasked with solving the problem. Most of the interesting stuff happens in the second act. The end of the second act also has something of a mini-cliffhanger that ties back to the first act and leads us to the final act.

That act, act three, is the “resolution” or the “denouement.” This is the final battle against the Big Bad ™ that resolves the story and brings us full circle. Typically lots of shooting happens here, group hugs at the end, etc.

Making the Magic

I write an episode usually in one sitting and in three hours or less. I also write that week’s episode the week it going to be played. Aside from my love of procrastinating this is all very intentional: too much work in creating an episode invariably ruins the output. That is to say, to mimic the episode format and the three act model the act of writing the adventure must be concise and intentional; you can’t percolate an episode across four days because the adventure will inherently become more complex than you can fit in one session of playtime. In our case, that’s five hours if I’m lucky.

Having read the teaser above, I sat down to craft this adventure really only knowing two things:

- I wanted a lighthearted adventure in the vein of “Window of Opportunity” and
- The adventure was to focus around a looping period of time

However, at the same time, it had to be different than “Window of Opportunity;” I couldn’t just regurgitate that episode over. Some ideas that I bounced around:

- The three players’ characters would be the only ones affected by the loop; no NPCs to interject myself into their plight. They would be alone in their problem.
- The loop would take place at the SGC in order to keep it simple.
- Because we were playing the episode the weekend prior to Christmas I wanted to also make this a “Christmas episode.”

About this time I remembered that when I setup the second season and renamed all the episodes I named this one “The Working Hour” because of its reference to time. (I also have a time travel episode this could be plugged in to as well.) Suddenly the span of the loop – one hour – was set. I was totally fine with this as an hour is a reasonable amount of time and works well within the limitation of a role-playing session at a table; I can’t skip entire loops like they did in SG-1 or just play back snippets as filler. I have to involve the players along the way and a one hour loop makes it all very manageable.

Act I

I was set on the fact that I wanted the episode to start, pre-title sequence, at the point of the loop. In the hall, on the way to meet with General Hammond seemed as good place as any.

Also, like “Window of Opportunity,” I wanted a hook at the start of every loop that would serve as a signpost that the PCs had looped (again) and that would, over time, fill them with the sense of frustration and dread of having looped. This readily hit me by having the NPC member of SG-4, Captain Sheila Stone, run up with her Santa hat on and a pile of presents, taunting the characters. In this case, telling them that “Someone’s got a secret admirer!” in my most annoying voice.

The Hammond briefing and mission was a red herring; I wanted them to go through the motions. For the first loop this was very important as I wanted clear signs that everything was repeating as before. I also stole a page from “Window of Opportunity” – as homage – and would have an unscheduled gate activation with a returning SG team during the briefing.

At this point it became clear that I had two big issues to contend with, the first being the inability to “loop” the actual “show” to repeat sections like you would on television. Meaning that on every subsequent loop I’d have to remember to have all NPCs use the exact same dialog. Second, I needed a timeline at this point; events outside of the PCs scope had to happen at the same time, every time.

I still didn’t know what was causing the loop or how to fix it.

Act II

The first act ends with the PCs looping for the first time. The second act deals with every subsequent loop. In this way this adventure totally breaks my aforementioned three act model format. (Cue my running around screaming, out of my comfort zone!) In addition, act two is entirely open-ended; there’s no way for me to forecast what the PCs will do beyond a few obvious routes.

First, they’ll spend a loop figuring out they’re in a loop. That means repeating the briefing, the arrival of SG-12, etc and using the same dialog as before. Next, on some subsequent loop they’ll need to convince Hammond that they’re looping; this breaks the chain and creates new dialog. Hammond will send them to the infirmary to get checked out.

In fact, one of the largest problems with the episode is how much time the players will spend talking to NPCs and convincing them of their problem while trying to solve said problem. It seemed obvious that once they role-played an encounter that I could hand wave it for future loops. (Note to readers, this is an important issue we’ll discuss later.)

To avoid being trapped in act two forever by players content to pull a “Groundhog Day” I put in a limiter: at twenty loops their bodies would begin to atrophy. This then puts a deadline on the characters to solve the problem, forces the story along and creates a sense of urgency. It’s a necessary MacGuffin to keep things moving.

Act III

Here is the resolution and the meat of the episode. At this point I decided that the deus ex machina of the episode would be Captain Stone inadvertently causing the loop, especially since she’s present at said start. Speaking of presents, to keep with the Christmas theme I’d wrap the device as a present. Now, what was the device and where did it come from?

Neither of these items is very important as the story is about the loop and the characters, not the item. I decided to make it a “time bubble” device created by Thoth and found by Captain Stone on their previous mission. Looking like nothing more than an ordinary rock (Captain “Stone,” get it?), the device has malfunctioned and instead of encasing the wearer in a protective time bubble, it emits a temporal pulse that hits the PCs, causing them to loop. Sheila is unaffected because the “bubble” forms around her. The temporal radiation angle also ties nicely with my idea of making the characters become sick after too many loops. Enter temporal radiation poisoning!

Writing up the actual mechanics for breaking the loop is straightforward. My only concern is involving all the characters and I try to do that by making them the keepers of the information. It’s impossible to break the loop within the span of just one hour without help.

Finishing Touches

My last bit is writing important dialog and creating the timeline. Lots of these don’t get used in the adventure but I feel good having them there just in case. I also nab a present from under our tree to use as a prop for when Sheila shakes the gift. I do this intentionally for two very good reasons: Like “Groundhog Day” I want the players to begin dreading the loop. At first it will be cute but after ten or so times I want them to hate when I shake the present and in a high pitched voice exclaim “Somebody’s got a secret admirer!” It’s very important that the loop elicit an emotional response. Next, the shaking of the prop provides a tangible signpost to the players that the solution to their problem is right in front of them.

Now, what about that special problem I spoke of earlier?

A half hour before my players arrive I’m going over my notes and making sure I have everything down. It’s then that I realize I’ve made a critical mistake: by relying on hand waving role-playing encounters to move the story along I’m discouraging role-playing within the adventure! After the third loop or so the entire adventure will revolve around “I tell General Hammond what I told him last loop to believe us.” I’ve created my own loop of non-role-playing!

What I need is a way to allow the PCs to advance the story and “skip” sections we’ve already role-played through but not at the expense of other scenes. A “Get out of Jail” card if you will. Thus, a new mechanic was born.

The solution was to create a series of “scene cards” that the players would earn through game play through excellent role-play or the use of skills that would allow them to bypass repeating encounters. These cards would have a tangible value to the players and would sit in front of them, as a resource, to be playable during the game. They’d also serve as conversation points within the game and highlight the necessity to earn or resolve these encounters or else risk having to role-play through them again. From my standpoint it allowed me to give them a tangible reward for a job well done and also encourage role-play in order to earn more, at the same time advancing the story.

But I only have thirty minutes left!

Be that as it may, I crafted about eight of these scene cards in record time and printed them out on 4×6 photo paper as handouts. Two examples are included below.

In Play

So how did “The Working Hour” work? Fairly well I’d say. Act one was awesome and the players really liked it. Part of the problem with my group is that they think too tactically; they split up and started trying to solve the problem the moment they looped. Perhaps they drew too much from “Window of Opportunity” but the episode lost a lot of its lighthearted appeal with their laser-like focus on solving the problem, aside from Major Decker’s trying to burn down a Christmas tree. This led to another issue in that there were no “give up” loops; every one had them trying to eek out as much time and get as much accomplished as possible. This forced me to up their “radiation sickness” by about 10 loops, otherwise act three would have lost too much importance.

The resolution also didn’t work as I’d like, relying on one player to make a series of rolls (assisted) to solve the loop. I normally like to involve all the players in some fashion but “The Working Hour” was designed so that the player’s level of involvement is left to them. I was really sad that no one tried any crazy stuff like playing golf through the stargate or trying to get Sheila in bed for a loop. (“Can we hurry this up? I only have an hour!”)

Overall, a fun episode that everyone seemed to enjoy.

I’ve included the completed adventure and the scene cards as downloads if you’d like to take a peek.

Conclusion

And there you have it. It’s an unconventional episode that required an unconventional mechanic, as well as not adhering to the three act model that’s worked so well thus far. Fans of West End Games’ “Torg” may also note some similarity in my scene cards and the “Drama Deck” used in that game or the early “Whimsy Cards” by Lion Rampart. Subconscious inspiration, no doubt.

And for those with a flair for trivia, a large portion of my Stargate adventures draw their titles from songs or lyrics. I’ll even confess to writing an adventure of two with nothing more than a title known ahead of time; inspiration comes in many different shapes.

So, as penned by Roland Orzabal, a small piece of The Working Hour for your pleasure.

These things
That I’ve
Been told
Can rearrange
My world
My doubt
In time
But inside out

This is the working hour
We are paid by those who learn by our mistakes

An Abulia Savant post that has Stargate, role-playing, and Tears for Fears? Wow, it might be the best ever!