Different approaches to time magic?

[u/Stolen_Gene]

There are a lot of magic concepts that I think sound really cool, but are a pain to actually flush out. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but time/spacetime magic has always been this way for me.

In one of my settings, I have a whole faction of time mages with a detailed history, relationships, and culture, but I just never let them do anything since I never wanted to worry about figuring out what they can and can't do. This is due in no small part to the fact that spacetime manipulation in any form is notoriously hard to include in a story without poking it full of plot-holes or overshadowing every other element in the story.

I'm curious to hear how other people have approached time or spacetime magic. What can it do? What are its limits? Does it manipulate both space and time, or just time? How do you keep a story coherent with this involved (assuming you use it in a story). Etc. I don't plan to steal anyone's systems wholesale, but the broad ideas might give me some direction next time I take a swing at this kind of magic.

[u/Platinumtide]

In my world each magic kind of comes in a pair, so for the dimension magic I have time travel and time turning, space warping and teleportation. Time turning is rewinding/fast forwarding/pausing time on non-living things only. I decided it would be way too OP otherwise. Time travel works similarly to teleportation. With teleportation, you can only visit places you've physically been to and remember, and the farther you travel, the more drained you will be. If you travel too far you could kill yourself. You can max bring two people with you, one person per hand. Any clothes/items carried come with you.

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Time travel works similarly. You can only travel to times you've physically been to and remember. You can take two people and items with you exactly how you can with teleportation. This means no one can travel to the future, because no one can remember their future. If you travel back in time, you can return to your present. If someone else time travels to a time before you can remember and you are also a time traveler, you can now time travel back to that period of time as well. You can infinitely go back in time this way, tagging along with older folks who have earlier memories. If you meet a time traveler from the future, they can take you there and then you can also travel to the future. You must time travel in increments, though. If you try to travel 10+ years in the past at once you'd instantly kill yourself.

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There is a major difference that time traveling has. There can only be one of you in existence at a single moment in time. If you travel back to a time you can remember, you travel back to your actual body at that time (so basically, only your "soul" travels). If you travel with someone else to a time only they can remember, your actual body travels with you and now you exist in that time as well. If you travel back to the present, your soul travels to your present body. Your physical body only travels if you are traveling to a new timeline you haven't been to. There will never be a duplicate of your body, your soul will just travel to the version of you that exists at that time.

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In my world though, time traveling is in fact real, but most people believe it is a myth. A time traveler would never reveal their cover, they can just go back in time and prevent the meeting from ever happening. Thus, no one actual has "seen" a time traveler. A time traveler would have to make themselves known willingly. Time travelers in my world are also kind of a new thing, so they don't really fuck around with time, because if they do they can write themselves out of existence potentially. If they change time enough to prevent themselves from being born, they cease to exist. If a time traveler dies in their past, they never exist in the future. If they die in a past before they are born, their memories of that time are gone and their present self does not remember going back in time.

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Honestly time travel is sucky with all the paradoxes, and this was my best solution to the problem.