Post by Eternally Lost Zeppo on Apr 16, 2012 19:15:00 GMT
I was at the Nationals this weekend, and one of the GMs running the Doctor Who category had an interesting way of handling the 'who gets to play the Doctor?' conundrum.
Basically, the Doctor's sheet was placed in the middle of the table. Everyone was given a countdown timer and were allocated 5 minutes of 'Doctor Time' in the morning, and another 5 in the afternoon. Whenever we wanted to do something as the Doctor, we started our clock, and stopped it when we were finished. When the Doctor wasn't being held by a player, he was run as an NPC by the GM. It this was a pretty fun way of avoiding people fighting over the Doctor's character sheet, and worked really well.
I'm definitely going to try it myself, but I'm wondering if this is just a nice gimmick for a one-shot game, or if it's something that could be adapted for a campaign.
Here are some thoughts I've had so far about how to implement it:
- People get 5 minutes per game session. (Assuming that, like me, you only really run 3-4 hour sessions in the evening.)
- People can spend story points to get extra Doctor Time. Maybe one point for 15-30 seconds of additional time?
- As an alternative or fun addition to the above, my own idea about sharing the role of the Doctor between players involved passing around a sonic screwdriver prop as a 'talking stick', and this would be passed on to another player when the rest of the group felt it was time for someone else to have a go.
So, any thoughts on this idea, and what potential there is for using it in a campaign?
Basically, the Doctor's sheet was placed in the middle of the table. Everyone was given a countdown timer and were allocated 5 minutes of 'Doctor Time' in the morning, and another 5 in the afternoon. Whenever we wanted to do something as the Doctor, we started our clock, and stopped it when we were finished. When the Doctor wasn't being held by a player, he was run as an NPC by the GM. It this was a pretty fun way of avoiding people fighting over the Doctor's character sheet, and worked really well.
I'm definitely going to try it myself, but I'm wondering if this is just a nice gimmick for a one-shot game, or if it's something that could be adapted for a campaign.
Here are some thoughts I've had so far about how to implement it:
- People get 5 minutes per game session. (Assuming that, like me, you only really run 3-4 hour sessions in the evening.)
- People can spend story points to get extra Doctor Time. Maybe one point for 15-30 seconds of additional time?
- As an alternative or fun addition to the above, my own idea about sharing the role of the Doctor between players involved passing around a sonic screwdriver prop as a 'talking stick', and this would be passed on to another player when the rest of the group felt it was time for someone else to have a go.
So, any thoughts on this idea, and what potential there is for using it in a campaign?