It's just a question of time - a Mephisto review
Out of Time
It is hardly surprising that the topic of time anomalies is used in a supplement for Tales from the Loop. However, Out of Time is “out of time” in two aspects. On the one hand, time anomalies are addressed here and used as a hook for a small campaign; on the other hand, this volume is set between at the change of the decade from Tales from the Loop with children in the 1980s and Things from the Flood with teenagers in the 1990s.
The central element of the book is the Out of Time mini-campaign, which consists of three adventures: The Animal Ark, Summer Camp, and The Storm in the Hourglass. This three-part adventure campaign begins with the children investigating the disappearance of some animals and thus discovering strange events. In the second adventure, they spend time at a summer camp, which soon leads to even more confusion and danger rather than relaxation.
Finally, at the end of the campaign, a catastrophe must be prevented, which also links to the remaining adventures and clarifies the previous events.
Out of Time offers a varied, but also challenging campaign for the player characters, which increases the challenges from adventure to adventure. Even the game master needs a certain amount of imagination and mental flexibility to fully understand the complex sequence of events in the adventures, which use the usual tropes and concepts of the genre to create a tricky puzzle.
In addition, the three adventures form a transition between Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood: while the first episode still appears to be an exciting mystery episode, the finale has much darker tendencies and threatens more than just the existence of the player characters. Although all stories can be played as Tales from the Loop adventures, a transition between the systems is offered as an alternative.
While the small campaign constitutes the majority of the book, Secret Places is a so-called Mystery Landscape for Tales from the Loop. Ten locations are described as mini-scenarios that can serve as a starting point for adventures and can be played as part of the Mystery Landscape according to the players’ interests and priorities. Each of these ten scenarios entices the player characters with mysterious events and thus leads to a short story. However, it is up to the player characters to decide which of these secrets they would like to explore and how they go about it.
The chapter The Mystery Machine, on the other hand, provides tables for randomly rolling certain framework conditions and ideas for your own mysteries and thus getting a corresponding starting aid. These tables can either be used as a source of inspiration or to fill in gaps, such as determining the personalities of corresponding non-player characters or similar.
The book concludes with the chapter Mixed CD of Mysteries, in which eight additional scenario ideas are presented. These adventure outlines are somewhat more detailed than the Mystery Landscape, but do not reach the length of the three campaign adventures. As these adventures are set in the 90s, they are better suited to the follow-up role-playing game Things from the Flood, not only for this reason but also thematically. Some mysteries here are somewhat darker and more dangerous, and they address themes that are better suited to teenagers in Things from the Flood. I really liked the idea that each adventure is named after a song from the 90s to do justice to the title of the mixed CD, which also contributes to the basic atmosphere.
From my point of view, Out of Time is an excellent adventure book that offers a lot of exciting game material for both Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood with its three-part campaign, the Mystery Landscape and the adventure mix CD. Placing the supplement on the border between both systems fits the thematic focus and can be used to draw the transition between the optimistic 1980s and the darker 1990s. Out of Time is a highly recommended addition to both Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood games.
(Björn Lippold)
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