23 ready-Made Time Travel RPG Adventures

This is the big list of pre-written adventures that I think will work in a GURPS Infinity Patrol or other Time Patrol-style setting, usually with minimal modification. I’ll discuss what I was trying to do with this list next, but feel free to skip all that text and just scroll down for the actual list.

Notes on Finding Adventures

There are quite a few pregen adventures, worldbooks, and settings available for this kind of time travel campaigning.

I’d say time or dimensional travel is the GURPS default campaign setting and has been very well-supported. There are around 30 capsule settings listed in the 4e core book (GURPS Infinite Worlds), plus 6 GURPS Infinite Worlds worldbooks (some of which contain several settings each). GURPS has around 10 Hot Spot or Setting briefs (4e) that are quite detailed and include adventure seeds. Then it has a whopping, staggering 40 culture/period books that range very widely from GURPS Imperial Rome to GURPS Swashbucklers. As an aside, some creature books are obviously relevant (GURPS Dinosaurs), some equipment books are obviously relevant (the GURPS Low Tech series), plus some books of GURPS supplemental rules are quite useful (like GURPS Power-Ups and GURPS Powers), not to mention repositories of characters and templates (GURPS Who’s Who).

I recently read TimeWatch — a very well-written Gumshoe RPG with cheap time travel as the central concept — and I am considering putting together a time patrol campaign with some of these ideas.

The Problem With GURPS and Time Travel

For me the problem with the resources I mentioned above above is that the GURPS time-travel-relevant adventuring books are mostly the ingredients you can use to write your own adventures, rather than actual adventures. They are often very brief “seeds” or directories of settings or period-specific equipment or stats for historical figures. GURPS does not publish very many complete pregen adventures.

Yes, it has published some for this kind of campaign (specifically, it has published exactly three in 3e GURPS Time Travel Adventures). However if we want a good spread of detailed adventure material we will need to look to other systems or other settings in GURPS, and use the majority of GURPS worldbook material more as a background reference.

In the time travel RPG hall of fame there are also some good adventures for the recent RPG TimeWatch, for out-of-print cºntinuum (yes that’s how they spell it — it is difficult to find), and for TimeMaster (a classic game that has recently been re-released). The good news is that if you just want the adventure material and aren’t worried about stats, these adventures are often so close to a GURPS Infinity Patrol / Time Watch etc. sort of setting they can be dropped into your gaming without much effort.

A big caveat is that I have not run these. I prepared this list to give myself a menu of what I’d like to do with a Time Travel campaign. I did skim them all, and I read a few of them carefully. I rejected quite a few contenders on this basis. So there has been a very slight amount of quality control in assembling this list, but that’s all.

The Big Time Travel Pregen Adventure List

1. GURPS Time Travel: Time of the Tyrants — Nazis from the future try to change evolution in the Cretaceous. (Free online.)
2. GURPS: The Green Madonna of Port Royal — Buccaneers tussle over a powerful manuscript in the Caribbean of the 1660s ($4 PDF. This is easily adapted to a time travel campaign, although it is not explicitly about time travel).
3. GURPS Espionage: Operation Endgame — Adventure amid the collapse of the U.S.S.R.! Ensure that nuclear weapons and a top KGB agent don’t fall into the wrong hands. ($9 PDF. This has enough material for an entire USSR campaign, with four linked adventures. It is easily adapted to a time travel campaign.)
4. GURPS: Time Travel: Titanic! — On the doomed liner Titanic in 1912, ensure that key historical figures do not survive. (This is 1 of 3 adventures from GURPS Time Travel Adventures. Out of print. I found a used copy for $20.) [Edit: Now re-released as a $9 PDF!]
5. GURPS: Time Travel: A Nile Elation — Everyone knows the Great Pyramid at Giza was destroyed in 1973 by a nuclear bomb, right? (This is 1 of 3 adventures from GURPS Time Travel Adventures. Out of print. I found a used copy for $20.) [Edit: Now re-released as a $9 PDF!]
6. TimeWatch: The Sphinx and the Madman — Your own future self has made horrible choices. Something must be done. ($9 PDF. This is 1 of 3 adventures from the TimeWatch adventure collection The Valkyrie Gambit.)
7. TimeWatch: Recruiting Call — Recruit Amelia Earhart to the TimeWatch organization. (Ch. 11 of the TimeWatch core book. $25 PDF.)
8. TimeWatch: Queen of the Nile — Someone is interfering with the birth of Jesus. (Ch. 11 of the TimeWatch core book. $25 PDF.)
9. TimeWatch: The Once and Future Photobomber — A time traveler has misbehaved, causing their true love to never be born. Can you help them? (Ch. 11 of the TimeWatch core book. $25 PDF.)
10. TimeWatch: The Valkyrie Gambit — Nazis! Dinosaurs! Nazi Dinosaurs! And a racist composer. Can you restore the timeline? ($9 PDF. This is 1 of 3 adventures from the TimeWatch adventure collection The Valkyrie Gambit.)
11. TimeWatch: The Buffalo, The Pirate and the Consulting Detective Victorian London is shocked by an assassination, but even more puzzling: How can Sherlock Holmes be investigating since he is fictional? ($2 PDF.)
12. TimeWatch: Disturbing Circles — In 2026 an asteroid threatens Earth. Could Archimedes have the solution? ($4 PDF.)
13. cºntinuum: Plum Pudding and Other Such… — “A Christmas Carol” was Dickens’s narration of true events, and someone is out to change them. (Available as a free PDF download to buyers of the core cºntinuum book, now out of print I think)
14. cºntinuum: The Dead Hand of St. No-One — In 1993 a time-traveling future saint is looking for his own severed hand, ensconced in a requilary (Available as a free PDF download to buyers of the core cºntinuum book, now out of print I think. I can’t find any way to obtain this unless you bought the original game.)
15. TimeMaster: The Cleopatra Gambit — Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, c. 40 B.C.E. Is there a plot afoot to murder Queen Cleopatra? Or worse… ($4 PDF.)
16. TimeMaster: The Assassin Queen — Shakira Valley, India, 1856. An agent is missing and someone has revived the cult of Kali! ($4 PDF.)
17. TimeMaster: Terrible Swift Ford — Sift the radioactive rubble from a 1985 Ford Bronco with forward-firing rockets after the U.S.’s Second Civil War. ($4 PDF.) Idea: This adventure can easily be combined with materials from the GURPS After the End series for a longer post-apocalyptic scenario. For more of a Mad Max feel, add GURPS Autoduel.
18. TimeMaster: Temples of Blood. Time-traveling renegades have penetrated Cuba in 1519, allied with Cortez. ($4 PDF.)
19. TimeMaster: Sea Dogs of England — Cannon broadsides from ships of the line must be used to affirm England’s place against an ascendant Spain. Not in history, but in time. ($4 PDF. This is a more comedic adventure.)
20. TimeMaster: Partisans From the Shadows — Poitiers, France, 1941: a partisan under the Nazi occupation has a mysterious agenda. ($4 PDF.)
21. TimeMaster: Crossed Swords — Cardinal Richelieu has transferred his allegiance in a dangerous way. ($4 PDF.)
22. TimeMaster: Clash of Kings — Alien agents want to eliminate the legend of King Arthur. Meet Merlin and The Holy Grail as you unravel their plot. ($4 PDF.)
23. TimeWatch: Font of Knowledge — A renegade 31st century hyperintelligent AI works with Leonardo da Vinci to turn Florence, Italy into a steampunk robot utopia. (FREE short adventure available on the TimeWatch page at Pelgrane Press for Free RPG Day.)

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