# Loner: The Path Not Taken tags: #game/rpg/loner-path-not-taken ![[Loner - The Path Not Taken (cover).jpg|300]] **Loner: The Path Not Taken** is the time-bending supplement for **[[Loner]]** — what happens when the same moment gets lived again and still comes out different. It adds two optional ways to play with time without touching a syllable of the core rules: **Time Loop Mode** (replay a critical stretch of story, carry knowledge forward, and try to force a better outcome) and **Time Leap Mode** (step sideways into alternate timelines where choices already changed everything). Same tags, same oracle, same resolution — just a different shape for time itself. ## Setting There's no world here; there's a *time-web*. The book tracks your story on a flexible diagram of checkpoints, fixed points, leap branches, paradox stress, and echo selves — versions of you that never should have existed. It's a toolkit for stories about memory, identity, regret, and consequence, deliberately leaving **Loner**'s core rules alone. You'll carry knowledge across a reset, meet allies who have become strangers, and face the question of what remains when the past stops behaving. ## Mechanics The core is the shared Loner Oracle; the supplement is a bolt-on framing layer. **Altered tags and shifting selves** handle how a protagonist changes when timelines branch. **NPCs across timelines** keep the supporting cast coherent when the world forks. **Scene frames for temporal play** give you ready-made structures for loop and leap sessions, and the appendices provide sample twist effects for time play plus prebuilt time-web examples and a blank sheet. Every reset should cost something, and the book is clear that not every timeline survives being rewritten. It's the most cerebral of the Loner dials — a philosophy experiment wearing a time-machine costume. ## Editions A single 2026 supplement (released April 2026). *In the library.* ## References - [Loner: The Path Not Taken - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/566121/loner-the-path-not-taken) - [Loner SRD (free full text) - Zotiquest Games](https://lonersrd.zotiquestgames.com/) - [Loner - Official Website](https://loner.zotiquestgames.com/)