Doctor Who

[jeregenest]

jeffwik leant me The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, an eighth Doctor Who novel. But I don't really want to talk about that.

Doctor Who is one of those pivotal shows or me, it is probably the first thing I was ever a fan of, and as a franchise and mythos it still holds a great deal of love from me. Not enough that I've seen any of the 9th doctor episodes (I should, folks seem enthusiastic about them). So, like anything else that interests me sooner or later my thoughts turn to gaming.

One could argue that I'm in a Dr Who inspired game already, but because worldofire started as something different it just doesn't seem very Who-vian to me. Part of that may be my ignorance of the 8th Doctor novels which seems to be a major inspiration for Faction Paradox material that is inspiring Jeff.

So this is how I'd do Dr Who.

First of all it would be troupe style. Everyone has a timelord character and some companions-- but not seperate timelords. Everyone has an incarnation. Then sessions would star a particular incarnation and his companions. Companions would be very flexible characters so there would be little limit to how many of them you play over time. If somone wanted a different companion every time they played that would cool. Someone else might only have a few which could even cross over incarnations.

The game world would develop along the lines of affinity diagramming. To start with there would be three cards: Society of Time Lords (or perhaps just allifrey), TARDIS and Multiple incarnations (might better phrase that), the second two going under the first one. Each player would then get to do one card with a keyword from the show's mythology. Like Dales or Omega. And that is it for world smilarity. After that during every adventure we' get to write new cards and move the cards around, building the cosmos that way.

Each sesson would be one adventure. Each adventure would be in the life of a one of the incarnations, going round robin through as many cycles as there is interest, all the while watching the affinity diagram grow and break up into sub-webs.

Comments

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Would a GM be necessary?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I envisioned it being a revolving job, though you could use some of the gm-less systems out there too.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

I've seen a hell of a lot of Doctor Who. A hell of lot. Pretty much all there is to be seen of every Doctor, pending surprises from the Beeb's secret vaults. But I've refused to read the novels, so I'm not considered a real fan anymore. Hopefully exposure to the Faction Paradox via Jeff's game will bring me up to speed, but I've got to say, from his last post on the subject, it doesn't sound very fun. And Doctor Who has got to be fun sometimes.

I like the idea of your game, but I gotta tell you, it's gotta be a small game, because too many companions has always been an issue. And you've got to sell me on how the Time Lord player plays the game without overriding or just plain saving the Companions every time. Considering it's an integral piece of the feel of the universe.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Even among FP material, Dead Romance is I think atypically bleak.

I'm beginning to see this as a three-person model: the Doctor, the Companion, and Everyone Else. Maybe instead of adding to the number of Companions, split the job of being Everyone Else. I'm also seeing this as an emergent-story InSpectres type thing. Though probably not with InSpectres rules. But then, I'm probably getting far feild from what Jere initially imagined, since this has little to do with affinity diagramming.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think you could have more than one Companion. It helps if they're friends.

Companions come and go, after all. The first Doctor had a companion who only survived a few episodes in the middle of a story (mind you, it was a many-parter). The third Doctor had all those regular UNIT folks hanging around (Sgt. Benton, Go!)

You know, I hope this Dr. Who craziness survives the terrible episodes coming. 'Cause I'd kind like to play in one of these games.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Okay, say you split it like this

Timelord
Companion
Companion
Local Authority Figure (there is always a local authority figure whose motivations are orthagonal to the Doctor's)
The Environment, the Daleks, and Everything Else (ie the GM)

And then rotate through, one role per session?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Yeah that works for me.

I'd set up a system where each role gets so many cards or definitions per session. Or maybe some "drama point" system which can be spent on cards or used for in session strangeness, such as bringing another incarnation in.

Nothing exists outside of a session for truth except for whats in the affinity diagram. That adventure with the Cybermen happened, but a fact crucial to the resolution of the sesson might not be important if no one bothered to add it to the diagram.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

So you gonna hook me up with 9th doctor episodes?

And I've seen every episode through the 8th Doctor movie. Some way more than once. Godbless public television and nothing better to do on Saturday night for 2-3 hours (my public television channel showed them as whole stories) for a couple of decades.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

[playground voice]Oh yeah? Yeah? I saw them all in episode format, like you're supposed to. And I've seen episodes you haven't, because there's episodes missing in color, or just missing, so they can't be turned into story format. Yeah.[/playground]

God I'm pathetic. I'm all proud of not having a life.

Still, watching that black and white, warbly, bad PAL<->NTSC copy of the Tenth Planet should count for something. I gave up having a Life to see it.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I'm a firm believer in 5 being the perfect number for any game.

And by it being trope style it doesn't matter if a compano get saved every session, cause everyone rotates the savior and saviee roles.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

How, by the way, did you feel about Henrietta Street?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

It was very, very confusing and the writing style didn't work for me.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I figured you'd either like it, or not, and I was right!

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Presentient are you?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I tried to like it, I even went out and read synospsis of all the 8th Dr novels before it trying to figure out what the hell was going on. But in the end this novel just didn't work for me.