Game Intro
Time Traitor is a role-playing game for 4-8 people, but it differs from ‘traditional’ role-playing games in two key areas:
It is a game of limited duration and scope. It is meant to be played in two six-hour sessions (though this hourly limit may be broken, if necessary), each session separated by no less that two weeks. Time Traitor is, as written, not meant to be an ongoing narrative.
In the second half is explicitly competitive. There are ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in this game, in the sense that one of the characters (and possibly more than one) are going to be branded traitors, and traitors in this game are sentenced to death. If this is a concept that your group doesn’t relish, this may not be a game for you. However, the players are all winners, because hopefully a fun time is had by all.
Time Traitor is a game about the vagaries of memory and consensus – the idea that history is written by the winners, and anyone who tampers with that does so at their own peril. It draws inspiration from Back to the Future, 12 Monkeys, Minority Report and to a lesser extent, Primer. These make for excellent pre-game viewing for inspiration.