Time Travel Thought

I have an odd idea which has probably been used in SF at one time or another, but I can't think of a good example.

A time traveller wants to get rich, so invests heavily in shares that were cheap in a time period he can reach, but he knows are going to get seriously profitable over the next few years. A typical example might be Apple circa 1995 - the price was usually around $1 to $2 from 1986 to 2004, then took off exponentially and is currently just under $350

Then he goes back to his own time, and discovers that the big rise never happened. Why? Because the investment caused a big enough blip in the share price that Steve Jobs decided to sell out, and the new owners never put the money into R&D that made Apple the giant that it is.

The idea here is that investment has always been risky, and there's a butterfly effect where pumping money into a company might change the conditions that made it successful.

Can anyone think of a story where this happens? And I'm not looking for the one where someone buys a few rare stamps and they suddenly aren't rare any more because the sudden demand means that more are printed!

Another RPG bundle offer - Tunnels and Trolls

A repeat of an offer of one of the clasic early fantasy RPFs, previously offered in 2018 but adding some new material:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Tunnels2020

Revived from September 2018, this offer once again presents the vintage Flying Buffalo FRPG Tunnels & Trolls -- the second fantasy RPG ever published -- in its 2015 Deluxe version, plus a slew of solitaire and gamemastered adventures from across all editions. Since its original publication in 1975, Tunnels & Trolls has stayed continuously in print, has never changed publisher or lead designer, and has remained rules-compatible across all editions -- an unequalled longevity record.

Founded in 1970, Flying Buffalo Inc. marks its 50th anniversary in 2020. Rick Loomis, Buffalo's founder and president passed away last August, a day before his 73rd birthday. At Rick's request, longtime company manager Steve Crompton and other FBI stalwarts have kept Flying Buffalo going, shipping orders and fulfilling outstanding Kickstarter obligations. "To celebrate our anniversary, we have released seven new or long out-of-print products for T&T and Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes," Steve says, "including Alice in Weirdworld, Overkill, Beyond the Wall of Tears, the Continent of Arabor campaign book, Grimtooth's Tomb of the Warhammer, and How to Write a Solo -- and we have more adventures currently in the works. We'd like to think Rick is pleased with our efforts."

T&T emphasizes roleplaying and gamemaster rulings over charts and reference books. In straightforward dungeon crawls, play is quick and exuberant. T&T is known, perhaps notorious, for its bumptious sense of humor, seen most prominently in its naming of spells, such as "Oh Go Away," "Alaka-Scram," "Poor Baby" (a healing spell), "Upsydaisy," and "Take That You Fiend." In a December 2009 Grognardia retrospective, Old School Revival blogger James Maliszewski confessed the spell names, in particular, made him snobbish about T&T in his early years: "Whimsy and humor were antithetical to 'serious roleplaying,' and so games that evinced either were seen as unfit for play by discerning gamers. [...] If I were to pick a single mistake I made in my gaming education to call 'tragic,' it would be my rejection of Tunnels & Trolls back when I had the chance to become better acquainted with it. [...] I've been missing quite a lot. T&T is a very cleverly designed game: complete, simple, and flexible, yet easily expandable. It's not math-heavy and looks to be quite amenable to the kind of off-the-cuff gaming I enjoy these days. It's also unambiguously old-school, as its rules demand both player cleverness and referee adjudication for satisfying use. [...]

"Older and wiser now, I no longer see silliness as necessarily antithetical to seriousness. Indeed, I often think it's an important complement to it. My games nowadays are filled with whimsical asides and comedic moments, in addition to grim and perilous encounters and philosophical musings. This isn't an either/or situation, at least not in the way I used to think it had to be. Gaming is supposed to be, above all else, fun and, reading T&T, you can tell that author Ken St. Andre had a lot of fun with his creation. That's as it should be with any RPG and, while I don't think Tunnels & Trolls should become a model for all other RPGs any more than I think that of OD&D, I do think the hobby might be a more enjoyable place for all if the ethos of T&T were more widely imitated. That, for me, is the greatest lesson I took away from my investigations into this venerable game, whose community, while smaller than that of my own preferred system, is no less enthusiastic, creative, and open to newcomers. [...] I still don't like the spell names, though."

T&T is famous for its solitaire pick-a-path dungeon crawls. Flying Buffalo produced the first solo RPG adventure ever -- Buffalo Castle -- and followed with dozens more. This Tunnels & Trolls Bundle presents Buffalo Castle and no less than eleven more solos -- most in their recently upgraded Deluxe editions -- along with several gamemastered modules, the 2015 Deluxe rulebook (funded in a powerhouse January 2013 Kickstarter campaign), and Ken St. Andre's standalone spinoff game Monsters! Monsters!

We provide each ebook complete in .PDF (Portable Document Format). Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these books have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this offer's pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries daily to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.

The total retail value of the titles in this revived offer is US$106. Customers who pay just US$9.95 get all thirteen titles in this revival's Solitaire Collection (retail value $53) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:

• A fun 64-page manga-style set of Tunnels & Trolls quickstart rules (retail price $5), produced by T&T Adventures Japan (where T&T is big) and presented here in English translation. A perfect intro to the game, this booklet gives all the rules you need to play the solos in this collection, plus a solitaire and two gamemastered scenarios.
• Four starting T&T solos: Battle School (retail $3), Buffalo Castle, the first solo RPG adventure ever published for any game (retail $3), Sea of Mystery (retail $4), and Sorcerer Solitaire (retail $4).
• Three mid-level T&T solos (retail $4 apiece): Agent of Death, Naked Doom, and Sewers of Oblivion.
• Three killer T&T solos: Arena of Khazan (retail $4), Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon (retail $4), and perhaps the most fondly remembered of all the solos, Michael A. Stackpole's City of Terrors (retail $5).
• Goblin Lake Deluxe (retail $3 - previously presented in our November 2016 Old School Revival 4).
• New in this revival! Elven Lords Deluxe (retail $6), Mike Stackpole's 1990 follow-up to City of Terrors, in an expanded edition with new art by Liz Danforth. (Customers who bought this offer during its original September 2018 run automatically receive Elven Lords too.)

Those who pay more than this revival's threshold (average) price, which is set at $19.95 to start, also get this offer's entire Gamemaster Collection with ten more titles worth an additional $53:

• The latest and greatest version of the rules, the complete 386-page Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls core rulebook from 2015 (retail $20), plus the Deluxe GM Screen (retail $1) -- both previously in the OSR 4 offer.
• The T&T First Edition rules (1975, retail $2), and the 1976 First Edition of Ken St. Andre's standalone spinoff game based on T&T, Monsters! Monsters! (retail $7), where you play monsters guarding your dungeon home from so-called heroic intruders.
• Adventurers Compendium (retail $5): An 88-page collection of nine solo adventures and three gamemastered scenarios unearthed from Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine.
• Four classic T&T gamemastered scenarios: The Complete Dungeon of the Bear (retail $4), Dwarf World (retail $3), Seven Challenges of Kartejan (retail $2), and Uncle Ugly's Underground Doom (retail $3).
• New in this revival! Vault of K'Horror (retail $6): Mike Stackpole sends mid-level characters on a looting expedition into a tomb of ancient vampires. (And previous purchasers also receive this new addition.)

Tunnels & Trolls resources

• The official Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls website
• T&T designer Ken St. Andre's old blog (well, one of them), Atroll's Entertainment
• Liz Danforth's Oakheart website and her Mages and Sages Patreon page
• Vin's T&T Trollbridge (fan forum)
• Eposic, the Troll Mystic
• Garen's Tunnels & Trolls
• Darrgh's Den

Last time I said

I only played T&T a couple of times, since everyone I knew was using D&D, but it does have a lot going for it if you want a fantasy system with an emphasis on dungeon-bashing and don't mind its sense of humour. It works reasonably well, it's a fairly streamlined system that can be picked up fairly easily, and it only uses six-sided dice, always a hit with those who don't like endless confusing polyhedra. It isn't really my preferred style of gaming any more, but for those who do like this sort of thing there's a lot for your money, and some good stuff in the bundle and available on line for the system.

I don't see any reason to change any of this.