How would you represent, both through mechanics and story, a

>>51799244
As the god of the setting in which towards literally no ill-will is had, and any disrespect is met with harsh reprisals of blasphemy.

The problem is really anticipating his ability to do so as a writer. You could have him interfere in things the players do publicly, but not privately. Subtle ways are best. Perhaps one player wants to use a catapult for an objective. Maybe suddenly an axle is broken before it's moved into position. How'd that happen? It can be fixed by the players, but when it was fine before, it gives the hint that something peculiar is about.

Unfortunately though, when it comes to combat, the ability to move through time AT WILL is probably only beaten in brokenness by greater wish at will. Literally nothing should be able to hit this foe, and by all means he should just be stabbing people in the kidneys ad they round the corner in that room 30 minutes ago. There's really no good way to play that out.

This character's tone travel, from a mechanics perspective, needs something else to function. Perhaps a lengthy ritual. Maybe a magical artifact that an observant player can notice and grapple away from him before he had another chance to activate it. Maybe this villain can only go back so far. Free movement through time can make for an interesting villain, but in a TTRPG, spells trouble and headaches for everyone involved. Especially you as a GM.

>declare war against BBEG
>you were never born

>>51799244
is this a jojo reference?

A villain who can move freely through time at will cannot be defeated since he can just kill any adversary's parents before they're born.

>>51799244

I don't know if this can be done well. A villain with free movement through time is going to use that power to screw with the party, but doing this convincingly relies a lot on knowing what will happen, and players will never do the expected things. The orchestration will railroad the campaign hard.

It'd be a lot easier to run a twist on it and severely limit the villain somehow. For example, if the villain can hop between two points in time, then the party can follow along and oppose him in both times. The party would get to actively see the things in the present undo damage in the future. Sort of like how Chrono Trigger spaces out all the era so they can't overlap.

Or maybe the villain was on a second (or later) round of a time loop, knows that straight up killing the PCs fucks everything up, and instead intentionally tries to derail them or fool them into helping.

Just random ideas.

>>51799284
This. A character like this cannot be a direct antagonist, as they can just unmake the party at any point.

>>51799284
Unless the PCs also can time travel. Then it turns into a pissing contest.

>>51799244
> How would you represent, both through mechanics and story, a villain who has free movement through time?
And future. Change the past.

>>51799244
There is no good way of doing this. Even the crazy sci-fi shows rarely ever go this far.

Doctor Who, Steins;Gate, that sort of thing.

Time travel is either a thing the characters have to obtain and has limited use, or it's a plot device to set up new plots at the drop of a hat so the main characters can adventure all over time.

If you give a villain that power, things get actively fucked.

Instead, have a villain who pretends he can time travel to screw with the players with clever tricks that make it appear he can manipulate time, when he actually can't.

>>51799244
Idk, seems too God-like, powerful, and boring. What if the villain moves through time, but not freely? The villain gets displaced in time and tries to adjust his plans/cause trouble for his enemies in the era he lands in. Just spitballing.
But freely travelling through time? That's Godhood. Your players will have to fight a god, which means you will have to give stats to a god, which means that a god in that campaign will cease to have any difference from a very powerful monster. I just don't think it makes for good storytelling or good gaming.

The only hope the PCs have to stand against him is to kill him before he knows someone is after him. Which is made doubly difficult by the capability to obtain warnings of attempts on his life from the future and plan accordingly.

Essentially what you've got is a game of information control, except that the moment the players screw up they get fucked.