The Tick Tocks are an exclusive secret society in an Ivy League college. Their name is owed to their long-term pet project, a device that allows time travel; only recently, c. 1925, has it become something other than a joke. Now the Tick Tocks can travel back into history (not forwards, though) and... well, what should we be doing with this?

Threats:
Time Agents (they're not too happy about our collegiate pranks with the timestream)
Alumni (do we let them in on this? what if some of them want to use it for other things?)
Hubris because obviously.

Locations:
Counterweight Lodge, our sanctum sanctorum, time nexus and party house
The Meridian Club, where we meet Rhode Island's finest
Constantinople, 1490 - under siege by the Turks. You end up here even when you don't mean to.
Flanders fields, 1910, where we go to soak up the poignant innocence about to be shattered
The Brown University Campus
Periclean Athens, because we didn't learn all that Greek for nothing
The Provost's Office
The Haberdashery, where we go for period-appropriate attire

Players:
Anthony Hearthshire (Nathan), Perspective. A nervous historian, afraid that all these hijinks will get people killed.
Tavistock 'Diffy' Wickers (Sam), Touchstone. Hearty chap who aims to be a great temporal adventurer (or else wants to escape from a century that he doesn't cope with very well.)
Verity P. Wickers (Emily), Perspective. Tavistock's older sister and one of the few women admitted to the Society. Keeps the time-machine running. Afraid of risk, but also irritated by Tavistock's erratic and excessive chaperoning.
somethingorother Braithwaite (Paige), Power. President of the Society. The Society are all snobs, but Braithwaite is so tied up in his snobbery that he refuses to converse in any language but classical Greek. Inclined to tamper with the timestream to make events suit his odd preferences.

In Crossroads #1, we asked whether the Society would let alumni in on their time-travel secret. (No.) In Crossroads #2, Braithwaite had rescued a young Athenian philosopher from execution, and we needed to decide whether to send him back to certain death. (No, but Braithwaite took his place and averted disaster.)

This was a pretty atypical Kingdom - the usual arc of the games I've played before has been towards crisis and possibly-averted collapse. Here, we nearly destroyed all of time and space, but we didn't ever come close to destroying the Society. Partly this might have been because there weren't many clear-cut, black-and-white opposition stances; a lot of the Society's members vacillated or were confused a lot of the time, so we didn't have very many big showdowns between characters. There weren't any roles stolen - at one point Tavistock almost seized Power, but was willing to be satisfied with an inconclusive duel instead.

So this was a fun session, but we didn't make much use of the meatiest of Kingdom's mechanics.

Frederick Braithwaite.

I don't really feel like it was a problem that we didn't engage with the overthrow mechanics much. That can be a problem when you are just using your OOC negotiation skills to reach consensus, but that wasn't happening here. I actually think the Wickers kids were exerting a ton of soft influence through Touchstone and Perspective powers to push Braithwaite into making the decision we wanted, thus removing our need to overthrow him. I certainly had plans in place if he stepped out of line. So I think it's still Kingdom's rules working, to make an interesting simulation of a relatively calm kingdom.

Also, I was entertained by the wish/fears: "I fear the Kingdom will start letting in the common Rabble." "I fear the Kingdom will stop being fun." "I fear the Kingdom will destroy the space-time continuum."

Yes, I don't think it was a problem exactly - but not a typical arc for a Kingdom session, to be sure. I was talking more in terms of 'wow, if this was your first time with Kingdom, FYI it's not normally like this' rather than 'crap, what did we do wrong?'

Yeah, I'm with you Sam: there's a natural human tendency to make one-shots apocalyptic and burn the Kingdom to the ground, but there's no need to play it that way. I really like seeing a more low-key Kingdom. Very nice.

I also love the premise of your Kingdom. Really great.

I actually think the Wickers kids were exerting a ton of soft influence through Touchstone and Perspective powers to push Braithwaite into making the decision we wanted, thus removing our need to overthrow him. I certainly had plans in place if he stepped out of line. So I think it's still Kingdom's rules working, to make an interesting simulation of a relatively calm kingdom.

Exactly. Well done.