Chronicles of the Lost

[chickenpaddy]

BLAM!

A shower of sparks shot out of the capsule as Cheese dashed around the console trying to regain control of his TARDIS. Smoke billowed from various parts of the console, floor, walls, and ceiling. Several of the roundels that decorated the walls of the console room shattered, sending shards of glass and plastic flying across the hexagonal room.

“No, no, NO!” Cheese yelled as he dashed toward the navigations panel of the console. He began flipping switches and knobs and banged the console for good measure. He gave up and moved on to the chronometer panel.

“Grapes!” Cheese yelled. “Get over here, Grapes! I need help!”
At that moment, the TARDIS tilted dramatically, forcing Cheese the grab the console’s time rotor, which rose and fell erratically. A small, metallic, ovoid hemisphere rocketed out from one of the roundels, before unfolding into a spider-like robot and landing neatly on the console.

“Do you require assistance?” the small robot asked in a robotic lilt.

“Yes, Grapes,” Cheese replied, maintaining his grip on the rotor. “That would be very helpful!”

Grapes danced along the controls, and the TARDIS righted itself. Suddenly, everything went quiet. The console stopped sparking, the walls stopped creaking, and the smoke even seemed to let up a little. All that could be heard was the soft groaning of the TARDIS engines as the rotor rose and fell.

“Wow…that’s… Well done, Grapes,” Cheese stuttered, a little put off that a little robot could pilot the TARDIS than he, a Time Lord, could.

“Your appreciation is noted, but I didn’t do any…” Grapes was suddenly interrupted by:

GONG! GONG! GONG! GONG! …

The sound of a loud cloister bell filled the whole of the TARDIS. Many of the lights of the console began flashing red, along with any roundels that weren’t shattered. Cheese dashed around the console until he found the monitor. Then he gasped.

“Someone’s got a hold of us! We’re trapped!” Cheese exclaimed.

The TARDIS suddenly lurched to the side, sending Cheese spiraling into one of the walls and casting Grapes down the hall.

A little warehouse crate tumbled through time and space, streaking like a meteor to its unintended destination: Earth.

Doctor Who
Adventures in Time and Space

Chronicles of the Lost
Episode 1

Arrowdown
By
Alasdair Stuart
And
Paderic Waggoner

I just ran my first DWAITAS game as the GM. Luckily my players seemed to like it. That's saying a lot as I live right in the middle of the USA and barely anyone has heard of Doctor Who, and those who have aren't aware of its revival.

And yes, I ran Arrowdown. It seemed like a good starting point for myself and my group to get used to the system. Details to follow.

Attachments:

[chickenpaddy]

Sorry for the delay. Here's a series synopsis for you in the mean time:

Doctor Who:
Adventures in Time and Space
Series 1
Chronicles of the Lost

Series theme: mystery, action, comedy
Running plot elements: Cheese is missing, Grapes is the helpful medical robot/Whoniverse trivia regurgitation robot/plot steering wheel, small bits of a "Paradox Faction" tossed in, "They shall pierce the sky, as if with a lance!"
Chrononology: 10th Doctor era with 11th Doctor era elements (cracks in time, etc.), though the Doctor is not prominently featured

The non-Time Lord crew of a TARDIS wake up to find their Time Lord pilot missing and their memories erased. The must now search through time and space, searching for Cheese and recovering what happened, all the while finding pieces of a bigger plot developing

Episode 1 - Arrowdown (played twice, good and great reactions)
Setting: Contemporary Earth, English coastal village of Arrowdown
Antogonist: Nestene Consciousness, the Ring Master, Autons
Important NPCs: Teresa Monroe, Jim Baker, Teresa's husband, Grapes the robot

The TARDIS crew wakes up to find their Time Lord chauffer, Cheezipolaxitaurusmolinarus ('Cheese" for short), missing, their TARDIS damaged, and their memories of their past adventures wiped. To top it all off, they're trapped in a strange town with many secrets and filled with anachronisms.

Episode 2 - The Beasts of Balox (played, okay reaction)
Setting: Resort Planet Balox, 51st century, the planetary capital the City of Balox
Antagonist: Krillatanes, now with fur, poison barbs, and improved morphing abilities, and Faction Paradox (kinda...it's complicated)
Important NPCs: Time Agent Jack Harkness, Baloxians Liam and Knasser, Baloxian senators Fassipech of the Aquian party, and Lilakernat of the Helosian party, Grapes the robot, and "John Doe"

In search of Cheese, the TARDIS crew crash lands in the City of Balox, of the planet Balox, where they meet up with some helpful locals. Apparently they've been here before. However there are now new problems. People are dissapearing. The ones they do find have been killed by some horrible poison. Could this be the result of the corrupt Baloxian governemnt at work...or worse? Luckily they've got Agent Jack Harkness on their side, or does he have his own agenda? And what's up with the mysterious John Doe?

Episode 3 - The Lonely Angel
Setting: Earth, 1875, Victorian London
Antagonist: a Weeping Angel (of course), the Cult of the Angel
Important NPCs: John Doe, Jackson Lake, Jackson Lake's son, Rosita, Grapes the robot

The TARDIS crew lands abruptly in Victorian London, where some strange goings on have occured. Time doesn't seem to be flowing correctly, and the mysterious John Doe manages to find the TARDIS crew again, with the help of Jackson Lake, his son, and Rosita. John Doe warns everyone that there is an angel on the loose, and not the good kind. It also managed to find itself some helpers. So, whatever you do, don't blink. Don't even Blink!

Episode 4 - Assimilate, Exterminate, Regenerate (working title)
Setting: the future, in space, on board the space station the HMS Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, called the "Brig" for short
Antagonist: Cybermen, Daleks, rogue Space Officers
Important NPCs: Grapes the robot, The Captain & Astrid, various Space Officers

Catching a hint of a Time Lord bio-signature, the TARDIS Crew lands on the HMS Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. There they find things in disarray. The the bridge is slowly losing contact with the lower levels, while the power to the rest of the ship is being mysteriously drained. Not to mention the Captian doesn't seem to have and name and is very interested in Cheese's TARDIS.

Episode 5 - Shadows Over Camelot (working title)
Setting: Medieval Earth, King Arthur's Camelot (dur!)
Antagonist: Carrionites
Important NPCs: Grapes the robot, Knights of the Round Table...possibly others

(Note: one of the players is playing a robot King Arthur from the future who believes he actually is King Arthur. Hilarity ensues...)
The TARDIS Crew arrives at Camelot, a city of legend and myth. Arthur is out doing....kingly things, leaving the knights in charge. However, things aren't going well. Withcraft and black magic have grown rampant in the city's underworld. The Carrionites wish to free their sisters from their eternal prison. It's up to the TARDIS crew to assert themselves and use the witch's own power against them...if they can.

(Note: As you can tell, stories aren't planned very well past this stage. I'll just write down what I do have planned so you get the basic gist.)

Episode 6 (part 1 of 2) - The Colony of Death
(Character Story - Officer Twelve - I plan to have one story for each character to develop in. Not all of the characters have these yet, but I'm not done planning stories yet)
Setting: Future, a slowly dying Earth colony on a lifeless planet
Antagonist: an alien race who is quite miffed that inferior humans dare settle on one of their lifeless space rocks, the aliens' "robots"
Important NPCs: Grapes the robot, John Doe, Kookaka, obsolete worker robots

The TARDIS crew has found themselves on a lifeless planet with a single human colony struggling to survive. Everyday they are attacked by an army of robots sent by some aliens who don't like people touching their lifeless space rocks. The only reason the humans haven't all died yet is because a single suspiciously Dalek-like entity called Kookaka and his guidence. It's up to the TARDIS crew to save the colony by stopping the mean ol' aliens and their army of suspicious looking robots. Wait...are the robots turning on the aliens?...

Episode 7 (part 2 of 2) - Deception of the Cybermen
Setting: future, an Earth colony under siege by the newly revealed Cyber threat
Antagonists: Classic Series Cybermen, Cybermats, anything with the Cyber- preffix.
Important NPCs: Grapes the robot, John Doe, the formerly antagonistic aliens, mining robots, Dalek Kookaka

The robots were Cybermen all along. Now the colonists have to be saved and the Cybermen stopped. They've been biding their time, waiting for their batteries to charge, so to speak. Now their hidden Cyberfleet is ready to begin conquer the universe again, and they've found their first influx of new troops, the Colonists!

Episode 8 - Circuits and Spark Plugs (working title)
(Character Story - Arthur Pendragon Mk. V)
Setting: 23rd Century Earth, British Camelot Theme Park
Antagonist: Clockwork robots, theme park officials
Important NPCs: Theme park robots, Grapes the robot, Robotic Freedom Corps, Grapes

The Crew finds themselves back on Earth, at a medieval theme park recreation of Camelot. There, the old robots made of curcuits and wires are being replaced by new more efficient clockwork robots. But, according to the TARDIS data banks, clockwork of that complexity wont be developed for another seven centuries! What's really going on here. What are the clockwork robots really after?

Episode 9 - Judoom!
Setting: Judoon prosecutor ship, in the middle of a meteor shower
Antagonists: Judoon Captain, electroform, The Wire?
Important NPCs: Flo the Judoon

The TARDIS Crew have been appointed by the crew of a Judoon prosecutor ship that is trapped in the middle of an Earth meteor shower to find out what is keeping the engines from starting. As the Crew searches the ship, something lurks behind the data streams and threatens to destroy everything, including the TARDIS.

Episode 10 - Blitzkrieg (working title)
Setting: WWII Earth, England during the Blitz (a seemingly popular stop for time travelers)
Antagonists: Sontarens, Nazis, Nazi Sontarens!
Important NPCs: Winston Churchill, John Doe

Britain's under constant bombardment by the Germans, and, with Project Ironside scrapped, Britain is crumbling under the pressure. Things begin to take a turn for the worse when the Germans begin to use strange new technology like nothing ever seen before. Can John Doe and the TARDIS crew intervene before history changes forever?

Episode 11 - The Oncoming Storm (part 1 of 3)
Setting: Undeterminded
Antagonists: Daleks, Davros?
Important NPCs: The Tenth Doctor (companion?)

The big Dalek story. Something to do with the Doctor and Daleks and...stuff. Working on it. Ideas?

Episode 12 - Project Lancer (part 2 of 3)(Series finale)
Setting: We return to contemporary Arrowdown, where it all began
Antagonists: a mix of antagonists from the past episodes, including Krillatanes, Cybermen (Cybus and Classic), Clockwork Robots, Autons, and others, also, the Paradox Faction (my little ripoff of "Faction Paradox")
Important NPCs: Teresa Monroe, her husband, Cheezipolaxitaurusmolinarus ("Cheese"), Grapes returns, former agent Captain Jack Harkness, Camelot theme park robots, mining robots

(picking straight up from Oncoming Storm). The Doctor vanishes while inspecting the TARDIS crew's TARDIS, which is suddenly pulled by some force back to where it all began... Arrowdown. There, a group of rogue Time Lords calling themselves the Paradox Faction are using Cheese to attempt the create the ultimate paradox. It's up to the TARDIS crew and a few old friends to fight through a rogue's gallery of their old adversaries and stop the possible end to all of time.

Episode 13 - The Paradox Faction (part 3 of 3)(season finale)
Setting: contemporary Arrowdown
Antagonists: Paradox Faction and other past adversaries
Important NPCs: Teresa Monroe, her husband, Grapes, Captain Jack Harkness, Jackson Lake, Flo, the Tenth Doctor, the Captain, Astrid, the Second Cheese ("John Doe"), various robots

The Paradox Faction have ripped a hole in time and space and killed Cheese. They now plan to restart the universe by unraveling the fabric of time down to its basic elements. Luckily the TARDIS Crew have allies of their own with experience with this type of stuff. Cheese regenerates, revealing himself to be the mysterious John Doe. Oh, and the universe is collapsing. How nice...

That's what I have. My whole series in some detail. Well, thoughts? Suggestions?

The TARDIS Crew:

Leo Nefriti - Earth, Nigeria, 2010
Leo is an important figure in Earth's history. He was known has an important Human Rights activist. That is, rights for humans, and none for aliens. Leo is an extreme Xenophobe, his hatred of aliens even extending toward robots, even human made ones. However, his dislike for all things alien and superior orating skills helped to unite the humans of Earth into a single entity. For that, he is pivotal in Earth's development. However, Cheese decided all this Xenophobia was bad for Leo's health, so he took him out to see the wonders the universe held in an attempt to change Leo's mind about his alien brethren.

Janette Hurst - Mars, Colony Gamma, 23rd century
Janette thought she would live her whole life on Mars Colony Gamma. Her career as a writer was going nowhere, she couldn't seem to catch a date, and Mars was incredibly boring. That is, until she met Cheese and his companion Leo. Now she travels the stars and marveling at all the strange, strange creatures. Plus, it's excellent writing material!

Officer Twelve - Earth, United States, 22nd century
Officer Twelve is the last of his kind. He is the last of a model of security droid shown off at the "Technology of Tomorrow" fair. They were supposed to be the new security, with state of the art technology and no compulsion to take breaks. However, like most "technologies of tomorrow", the people eventually outgrew the robots and the seemed more outdated than "state of the art". Not to mention the strange glitch that kept occurring in the language matrices of the robots, making them all sound like nerds who lived in their moms' basements. However, Twelve was found and rescued by Cheese, Leo, and Janette, being the only robot of his model to survive.

Patrick O'Hara - Earth, Ireland, 19th century
In many ways, Patrick is your stereotypical Irishman. However, in other ways he isn't. With a single swig from his flask he can himself into the "cosmic ether" where he can view faraway places without ever moving and sometimes take brief glimpses into the future. Patrick joined Cheese and Co. after helping to avert an extraterrestrial threat, and has been an invaluable member ever since.

King Arthur Pendragon Mark V - Earth, Britain, Camelot Amusement Park, 23rd century
King Arthur is the One True King of the Britains and ruler of Camelot. He slays demons with his trusty sword Excalibur and is searching the cosmos for the Holy Grail. At least, that's how Arthur Mk. V sees it. In reality, he's an amusement park robotic recreation of King Arthur who's been nursing a developing a personality flaw. With the help of his robot Knights of the Round Table, he managed to escape the amusement park and was rescued from the authorities by Cheese, who Arthur believes to be a friend of Merlin's. Now he lends his sword and his authoritative abilities to Cheese's aid, slaying any beast that gets in the way of their quest.

Grapes the robot (NPC) - medical space ship, undetermined place, undetermined time
Grapes is the wisecracking Abbot to Cheese's Costello. Grapes always has something snappy to say, and rarely keeps it to himself. He views himself as superior to just about everybody/thing and seems to have a real "thing" for the TARDIS. Also, Grapes loves
grapes, hence the name. He will even go so far as to nearly short circuit himself trying to devour them. He also claims to know quite a few Time Lords. But that's impossible, because they're all dead....right?

Thanks, hope you like it.

Oh, and some info on the Faction Paradox stuff would be nice. They don't appeal to me as a series, but I am interested in using them as a big bad. Thanks!

[chickenpaddy]

Need some help. The group I'm playing with liked Doctor Who a lot. Or so I thought...

One of my players (my brother) revealed to me that the others thought it was okay...but not something they want to play a whole lot. One of them finds the Doctor Who setting frustrating, as he is under the assumption he has to have more Doctor Who knowledge to play effectively (I tell him this isn't so, but he doesn't listen). Another finds the DWAITAS rules system that I find fun and refreshing in its simplicity infuriating. He loves games with big complex rules systems and statistics (like DnD and WoW).

They've left DWAITAS and moved on to SpyCraft, claiming they might play DWAITAS again when they've got nothing better to do. Gee, thanks...

I know it's always the players' choice, but is there any way I could make DWAITAS appealing to them again? I'd hate to see all the time and effort gone into planning all go for naught.

[The Professor]

Something like that can be difficult to get players to go for, especially when they're dead set against the rules. If you try and push forward with the DWAITAS rules, you may end up losing players permenantly.

If it's the universe though, you're more inclined to, you could consider trying a different rule system and adapting what you need. It would make playing/balancing a Timelord a bit more difficult, but, if no one is a timelord, no worries there. you'd only have to convert what you need stat wise for what the players are facing.

[chickenpaddy]

Thanks for the tips. I'm already thinking about devising a two-tier hit point system (one for physical health, another for social conflicts). Also, I could look through the SpyCraft weapons book to get an idea of advanced combat mechanics, as this group is very action oriented.

[ugavine]

The beauty of Doctor Who is that players don't need any Doctor Who knowledge to play, but as you say, it's difficult for players to accept that. I guess most players like a little meta-game knowledge, it's something I have experienced myself. But after running a couple of adventures with someone who claimed to not be a Doctor Who fan he went out and bought the DVDs!

As for the rule system, like you I love the simplicity of the system. It's a refreshing change from rules heavy systems. But if that is really what the players are after try running it with Spycraft rules.

[chickenpaddy]

It's been a while, and, while we did get the first two adventures in, nothing came of the campaign and I doubt the players will return in the near future.

That was the bad news. The good news is I've managed to find a new group that really seems to like the system. I've retooled the campaign a bit, but it's still essentially the same. The players were travelling with the Doctor, but got separated and are now on their own, traveling via a Vortex Manipulator.

Also, I've put the 'new' campaign, now titled "Children of Time", on Obsidian Portal. I've already put lots of campaign info on it, but it's still a work in progress. Go ahead and give it a looksee at www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/children-of-time.

[Curufea]

Excellent! I'm on the OP too , I'll have to favourite you.

[chickenpaddy]

Thought you guys might like to know I've added quite a bit to the Obsidian Portal site and I've begun an extensive write-up for the first Children of Time Adventure.

Take a look, you just might like it: www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/children-of-time/adventure-log/arrowdown-episode