Thoughts on Time Travel in RPGs

I just finished watching the show Dark on Netflix. I enjoyed the first season, the second it started to get iffy, and I was highly disappointed in the third. I would say save yourself the trouble and just make the third season up on your own. Or just watch the first season as it was far better than the other two. I digress. This isn't meant to be a review of the show. The rest of my post will have spoilers, you have been warned.

The game I am currently a player in has had a few moments of time travel in it. They were well done, often involving a witch who would show us the past or future for our characters. The GM has had our characters suddenly awake in another time, not really knowing the situation we are in. Once we woke as our future selves, in positions of power, but not having knowledge of the intervening time. We had to piece together what was going on. Or we are thrust into the past and trying to figure out what happened. These are short moments that help give us insight into the story.

**Spoilers in

3...

2...

1...

The show Dark has an interesting aspect where the characters run into older versions of themselves who are trying to shape their own past to make sure the future goes they way they want. The concept of the show is that the future influences the past just as much as the past influences the future. Certain character end up in these chicken and egg like loops where they are related in some way to themselves. One character’s daughter is also her mother (it gets weird). The big bad guy in the story is also the main character, just having aged and time travelled so much that he was unrecognizable. His motivations were foreign and counter to his younger self.

While watching I couldn't help but think about the way this sort of idea could be used in a RPG. The idea of having the big bad of a campaign or story arc be the characters themselves, but older, is an interesting idea. What would happen that the characters end up opposed to their younger selves? Another idea I had was a twist on the old fighting a mirror version of yourself (looking at you Ocarina of Time). What if older versions of the player characters show up, ensorcelled somehow to fight the current PCs? How would it feel to fight an older version of yourself? I also thought it would be interesting to flip the roles part way through the fight, so that the PCs are fighting their younger counterparts. Having the older PCs be somewhat more advanced, with some increased skills/stats/advancements/whatever, or some sort of corruption, would signal the change and show the players what they are up against. Assuming the PCs survive the encounter, they could then work to figure out what happened and try and prevent ending up the same way. I was thinking that the switch could be part way through a fight or triggered by a die roll every round (even the PCs are their current selves, odd their future evil version).

As with Dark, planning a whole campaign involving time travel, where characters interact with different versions of themselves would be very complicated to map out. I'm sure it could be done, but it would be a lot of work. What are your thoughts dear reader? Have you used time travel in your games? To what effect?