To "age" or not

[Math Mannaman]

Time travel and portals. The perfect DM tool to solve complicated campaign timeline conflicts and/or move the party to where you want them.

In my recent case, I ran an old D&D adventure as a side trek, called the Phantoms Wake. Anyone remember that one? Well, basically you seed in a magical astrolabe (a primitive sextant) and let the player’s mess with it. I play it like its an artifact – really old, and hard to identify. Eventually (when it is convenient for the DM) a PC will be using it when they find themselves and their party teleported on to a cursed ship. Good fun. After figuring out how to escape, they port back – well….

I decided to have them port to a random portion of wilderness in Tethyr, as to facilitate some planned adventures. As they hailed from Procampur, and thus far have spent the entire campaign in the Vast/Dragon Reach so far, this was quite a change. Also, as to mix things even more, I had them arrive 11 years later, than when they were. This was to help solve some FR timeline issues (I’ve been running lots of old 2e stuff), and I thought I would give them something unexpected to talk about.


Anyways…this is what I wanted feed back on. Should the PC have aged? I guess my first response would be no, as they passed through a window of time, a portal, so to speak. But then again, magic can be perilous, and maybe that was one of the latent effects of leaving that cursed ship…

Further, if they do age, what effects do they notice? Do they wake up with beards?

Our last session ended right when they ported into some random unfamiliar mountains –
I still have time to add in the ageing element, but regardless - I cant wait to see their faces when they find some GP - from a planned encounter of ogres - and it is stamped from Tethyr! Not to mention when they find out what year it is.

[Aegis]

Well, if you want to have a bit of fun with it all, have each player choose a percentile. Make it something like a 40% range. From there, have some fun, using the fickle nature of magic, time travel and portals. Say a play chooses 30-70 as their percentile, and you, as the DM, roll 71+, say they aged by however much over they were, divided by 2 (to a potential 15 years, in this case), and if you rolled under, perhaps the time travelling portal made them more youthful, in this case by however much under they were, divided by 3 (in this case, a total of 10 years can be lost). If you roll within their percentile, then they are unaffected.

Could give some flare to your game, and make it more interesting. At the same time, it allows you to play with both having them age in some manner, or remain unaffected.

[Magrus]

Why not make the magic transporting them have a temporary aging effect? They age say, two age-categories until the complete whatever main quest you have. Then they are restored. This alters their abilities quite a bit and makes them adjust how they act in the game for a while with their characters.

[Aramant]

A problem with aging them is that they'd lose their physical stat scores, but they wouldn't gain the pyschological ones. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma would go up due to world experience gained as a person ages, not through physiological changes. Though, being the DM, you're of course free to disregard that.

One interesting though complicated idea might be to have the PCs carry some sort of residual time rift with them. Being from the past, maybe they themselves don't age, but certain things they come into contact with become younger. For example, if they spend extended amounts of time with a cat, it could become a kitten. Though you'd have to figure out some kind of lifespan/timespan ratio or axis or similar nonsense so that they don't start turning old people into infants or something ridiculous like that.