Movie Night! Back to the Future 2 (1989)
Movie Night! We're playing 1989's Back to the Future 2! Inventing time travel is easier than fixing what happens when you give it to teenagers/players
$12.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Monday - 1:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
Campaign Length / 3+ Sessions
0 / 5 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
Play a movie as a TTRPG. Great for all players regardless of experience (even those completely unfamiliar with GURPS). Have you ever watched an action movie and thought, "I could do better than that." Now is your chance to find out. This is a game I've run a few times before for my various groups over the years. And we had an absolute blast. It's a fun setting with lots of weirdness and strange familiarity. And your standard timey-wimey paradox shenanigans. We're jumping into the sequel straight away. You might be asking why we aren't starting with the first film. I have two main reasons: 1. There is simply a lot more fun avenues to diverge from the timeline of the movie. In the first movie, they just head back to 1955. In this one, we go back and forth through all 3 timelines (55', 85', and the far off future year of 2015. With a brief touch to 1885) 2. We don't have to do a lot of narrative heavy lifting to get all the characters together on the same path. We can adjust the past slightly to include an all-new character and abstract what their story was. Its a wonderful familiar story and I think Zemekis is a great director. Now it's my turn. I typically run my movie, tv show, video game TTRPGs in the GURPs system. And this game in particular is a great intro to GURPs for anyone who hasn't tried it before. The system is quite simple and I make it effortless. If you dont want to engage with the chargen system, no problem, it'd take me about five minutes to make a sheet with whatever you want. Additionally, this game is written to be intended to be of fixed duration, but it could easily turn into a more open ended campaign. I would relish that opportunity. That natural intention is just because movies have endings and there are natural stopping points. But I have no problem picking this up for longer (It's happened). Our game basically starts where the movie does and then, as this game is a transformative work, will pretty much immediately diverge from canon. The game will include the characters from the movie and we start with the intro plot of "stop X person from agreeing to crime at the cafe 80s'," after that, things should organically pick up and diverge heavily. The ready made characters are: Marty, Doc, Jennifer. But we are not constrained to that, there are other side characters from the movie, Marty's family, Jennifer's best friend, a local cop (obviously played by Reginald VelJohnson), or whomever you come up with. My only requirement would be them having to have the same goal or parallel goal as the protagonists. (I even have super special secret characters you can play if you feel like getting a little experimental.) Heres the REALLY fun part. I have a system set up for time paradoxes. So if you do paradox, you might unmake the time space continuum (although its possible it would be constrained to just our galaxy).
Game style
Roleplay Lite
Sandbox / Open World
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(6)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
2 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Rule of Cool, Storytelling
Average response time: 11 hours
Response rate: 100%
About me
Well, hello there. I'm Daz. I've been playing tabletop games for 25 years, and I've been GMing regularly for about 20 of them. At this point, I've come to realize that I didn't really choose to GM. I have to. I _must_ It's much the same with writing: the ideas get into my head, and eventually they simply have to get out. My first games were a few rinky-dink affairs in high school, followed by my first *real* campaign in college with a few dear friends. Before long, I found myself imagining worlds of my own, strange characters with interesting backstories, settings, narrative arcs, and wild ideas that didn't quite fit into any existing box. So I decided to test my mettle and run a game for those same friends. We played a game that was a mix of Animal Crossing and Silent Hill. It was horrifying. But lots of fun! Twenty years later, I'm still at it. For most of those two decades I've been concocting plots behind my screen, running games across a wide variety of systems and settings. Along the way, I've become something of a student of the hobby itself: I love digging into the history of settings, understanding how mechanics have evolved, and figuring out what the intention was behind which dice are rolled. More importantly, I've learned that a good GM isn't simply the person who knows the rules or tells the story. A good GM makes it easy for everyone else to participate in creating the experience. That's something I've worked hard to develop over the years. I enjoy teaching systems by playing them rather than burying new players beneath a rulebook. I like games where the players and GM can actually talk to one another, reach a communal decision about what will make the game more fun, and then get on with absolutely annihilating the plot points I had planned for. I've developed guidelines and approaches that let players engage as deeply as they want to, whether that's bringing a character that is a challenge for the player to the table, or trying a bit of high RP when its a bit outside the players comfort zone. And while I certainly love a good fantasy campaign, I've spent much of my time GMing branching out. Cyberpunk. Low Magic. High Lethality. Grimdark. Heartwarming (Princess: The Hopeful anyone?). Some of the most fun games I've run recently have been one-shot campaigns inspired by movies, television, video games, and books. Both from things I discovered recently to things I loved when I was younger. How I would character myself being is GM is: An experimenter empath who tries to help the players tell the story they want to weave. I like discovering what happens when you take an idea seriously. I like finding the weird corner of a setting that nobody thought to explore. I like watching players take something I prepared, turn it sideways, and come up with something I never expected. (::sound of me dumping my session notes in the trash::) After 25 years, I'm still fascinated by this hobby. I still have worlds I want to build, stories I want to tell, systems I want to try, but also potentially develop. Probably with your help. So if this sounds like your kind of table, I'd love to have you along for the ride.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
I intend to have a free individual or group session(s) 0 to do chargen and chat about expections (this doesnt have to be at the scheduled time, and really shouldnt take long.). Players can choose from some sheets I have created for the characters that appear in the movie. They may also create their own characters. I have all the character sheets for the characters in the movie made. They are not balanced. Its meant to be more narrative focused and as such, not all characters are as competent as the others. If you want to play a character but don't want to use the one I made, thats perfectly fine, feel free to use the chargen guidelines right here. Guidelines: Standard GURPs chargen, 100 pt character, 40 max disadvantage. No magic/supernatural/psionic elements. If you take a disadvantage, I do expect you to play it when it comes up. Characters are from 1985 (or are they...) in or around Hill Valley, could be passing through. Generally should have a reason to help resolve the plot, but if you just want to be tossed in, I can do that. Maybe Marty has a whacky nerdy friend. Generally, Marty, Doc, and Jennifer are involved, but we can adjust them or change them as needed. This narrative is intended to be transformative in nature, as in, within moments of starting the game, we are likely to diverge from the path of the movie. Indeed, I will be changing aspects of the narrative/Big Bad Evil Guy significantly. I would recommend you build the character from an RP perspective vs minmaxing. This is a soft guideline. Minmaxxed characters have weak points usually, and this is a game with possible character mortality. As this is a one shot, the focus is more on the story telling/narrative/vibe. Watching the movie is very helpful, but not required for enjoyment. Although the Movie is considered a classic for a reason, whether or not you play, you should check it out. As this is an action movie with firefights, you might find your character at the wrong end of a gun or time paradox. A total party (or universe) wipe is very possible although not intended. Player characters might pass on from their mortal coil, it is possible. Although I would fairly characterize myself as a somewhat forgiving GM. I have employed, in the past, a sort of quickload system, where we all pick a point earlier and go back to see if doing something different would change things, in the case of a TPK. Naturally flagrant violations of causality are not allowed, as I dont need the time police on my doorstep. Lastly, if you want to want to research the theme and vibe of this game, check out the action movies of the late 80s and early 90s and some modern as well: Back to the Future 1, 2, and 3 Rick and Morty (in setting, not theme. content warning there) Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Journey Pleasantville Blast from the Past (starring the wonderful Brandon Fraser) oh! and the telltale game, as well as the PC game "No Time"
What to expect
Preparing for the session
I typically run voice over Discord, I'll be making a server specifically for this game, its the most stable I've found for VoIP. And I run rolls on Roll20 typically. But dice as you know, are fickle, and if dice rolls are not random-seeming enough on Roll20, I also allow dicebots on discord or any other public facing dice roller. For GURPs, I use GCS (GURPs Character Sheet generator) to keep track of point expenditures and dice rolls. But you are not required if you are familiar enough with the system. As long as I have a sheet that follows all the chargen guidelines, it's fine. If you happen to be brand new, that is absolutely not a problem at all! I'll walk with you through the steps of the sheets, the system, and general play. Genuinely, it takes 10 minutes to go through it all, and I promise you, you will not feel left behind when we are done. In the case that you are new and do not want to engage with GCS, excel, or any other automated methods. You can just chat with me for ten minutes and we can knock one out very quickly. I'll send you the finished PDF and we'll be set to roll.
What Dazzle brings to the table
You can expect us to have a free session 0 which might come individually with just us speaking over voice chat. We'll probably be typing messages now and then as well. If a group session 0 is possible, it may seemlessly move into a session 1 if there is time left over (still free until the next session). During that time, we'll be chatting about your expectations, what kind of story you might want to have, what kind of story you DON'T want to have, discussing the character or characters you are bringing to the table/the character you are getting from me (I have the standard crew already statted out). Make last minute adjustments to your sheets like freebies and unique attributes you might have from your past. Maybe a storytime if anyone has a cool story to tell about TTRPGs (I have a collection). Lastly, this is GURPS, which in the book states, if you use absolutely every rule in the GURPs books/system, the game is unplayable. GURPs by definition is pick and choose how realistic you want to be. We're gonna fall right in the middle between rules as written and rule of cool. But the very basics of GURPs are fairly concrete. We'll follow them, and if we find any problems, we'll take a minute to discuss. My philosophy is that we discuss how the letter of law may have failed, and what change would suit the spirit of the law, if the spirit is insufficient then we discuss and agree as a group what new rule feels fair for all involved.
Homebrew rules
If I ask you to roll dice and I say the words, "Just don't roll a critical failure." and then you roll a critical failure, you are allowed to cuss me out. But seriously, not really any homebrew. I just reference back to consensus based rule alterations, only when they are required.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Dazzle creates a safe table
I do not have a physical NO-card to put down in front of everyone, but I can have one on the roll20 board. I have a direct message with all players. And simply stating "Veto" or some version of "I'm not comfortable with this" will illicit me to move on from the scene or merely abstract the events down to the necessary story bits prior to the moving on. Session 0 is typically as far as I've ever needed to go for the tempering and setting of expectations from everyone. I'm very accommodating. And if you are uncomfortable by any subject, let me know your limits whenever you feel comfortable sharing them. I can voice them as if they were my own to everyone else. And we'll probably agree on those limits anyway. I tend to shy away from gratuitous descriptions of the unpleasant or grotesque if they aren't completely necessary. Basically, anything down in the content warnings is negotiable.
Content warnings
Safety tools used