[Campaign Seed] Diner of Dreams.

[Catsmate]

Well, since Ashildr/Me and Clara appear to have teamed up, complete with a TARDIS of their own, here are a few ideas on a campaign based around them. Somewhat inspired by the obscure TV series Nightmare Cafe which featured a pair of humans, a mysterious boss, a travelling diner and solving problems.
Pretty sketchy at the moment, feel free to add any ideas or suggestion you have.


Ashildr.
Well she's (perhaps) a couple of billion years old, and had probably forgotten a vast amount (unless she's picked up some advanced tech to fix that problem) and seems to have a limited ability to operate a TARDIS. Hmm, she rather sounds like the First Doctor; a mix of knowledge, forgotten details about the universe, ruthlessness and poor piloting ability.

• Maybe a new Trait, similar to Resourceful Pockets allowing her to pluck a relevant piece of information from her brain? Save those Story Points.
  

Now that she's got access to a time machine does she backtrack on her own timeline? Can she resist meddling?


Clara.
Still almost dead. Perhaps Clara can only leave the TARDIS for limited periods (a plot device I know) without risking death, or at least starting to fade away. She's still the same Clara, more or less, perky, enthusiastic, a good runner (depending on her choice of shoes) and a bit of a meddler. But now she knows she's dead, how this this effect her?


The TARDIS.
An advanced TARDIS I assume, probably state-of-the-art for Gallifrey. What are it's capabilities? Is it capable of voice operation, like the Type 70 that Robert Knox had acquired?
Does it have a personality of it's own? Goals of it's own?
It seems to have an atrium circuit, producing the diner/cafe exterior, does this adapt to the location, tavern/inn/cafe/pub/diner.

• Does the food have any odd properties?
  

The Others.
Ashildr and Clara might need some assistance, a couple of Plucky Sidekicks of their own. And the diner will need some staff if they're to do a proper job of faking it. Waitress and cook perhaps, strays picked up in the course of their travels.

• For a whimsical note you could have a 'good' Dalek, perhpaps one of those infected with the 'Human Factor'? They'd have to deal with being very odd in many settings, or mistaken for a genocidal killing machine in others. Perhaps a nice hat would help?
• Did they pick up another Clara along the way?
• And of course there's Jenny, the Doctor's daughter; is she any good with a deep fryer?
  
• Ace waitress'd for a while...
  

Ideas.
Are the Time Lords looking for them? Or actively pursuing them? Do they have to stay on the run?
Does the cafe have a home base? Perhaps in a certain hidden street in London? Does Ashildr take them back there occasionally
What about Missy, will she turn up?
How much control do the pair have over ‘their’ TARDIS? Or is it the one in control of their travels?
People don't pay much attention to cafes in many urban settings, they tend to come and go, and if people notice their absence they just think they're mistaken.
Imagine what could be overheard in a cafe; criminal acts in the making, infidelities, conspiracies, tearful confessions, weird events being discussed. There have been plenty of books, TV shows and films that use this plot device.
Even Time Lords have been known to pour out their troubles to the person making the tea.
The cafe is still a TARDIS, and people might be interested in acquiring such a valuable piece of equipment.
Or does it attract other time travellers? Is it a meeting place for the odder kind of person, like Callaghan's Place?

• Better stock up on tea if the historians from St. Mary's are around.
  

Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?

[starkllr]

"Clara and Me" would make a fun campaign, wouldn't it?

One thing would be to clarify some details about Clara and Ashildr:

Clara's (almost) dead, but she might also be effectively immortal and even proof from any serious injury or damage. For the web of time to remain intact, she has to (sooner or later) go back to those last few moments of her life. And she has to be all in one piece, just as the Doctor witnessed her. Will Time itself repair any injuries that might befall her (as it does with Jack Harkness)?

What's the deal with Ashildr? Is she truly immortal? She has the nanotech inside her to repair damage and keep her young, but presumably enough damage could overwhelm its ability to keep her healthy and in one piece. Will it really fix her if she's decapitated? Or disintegrated? And surely someone who discovers the source of her immortality could come up with a technological means of switching off the nanobots and rendering her mortal again? Seems like the sort of thing a campaign's Big Bad might be working on.

As a long-term campaign goal, Clara (or someone else, perhaps an old friend with a Blue Box and a slowly-returning memory) might try to more permanantly cheat her death in Trap Street. It's only a fixed point in time because the Doctor witnessed it, after all. Who's to say what he REALLY saw? A hologram? An android duplicate of Clara acting out her "death" ? It would be a tricky business, but certainly not impossible for someone with a TARDIS, to arrange a faked death for Clara that looks/looked all too real, satisfying the requirements of the Web of Time, and restarting Clara's heart.

[Catsmate]

Dec 10, 2015 14:15:58 GMT starkllr said:

"Clara and Me" would make a fun campaign, wouldn't it?

Absolutely, and a better title too.

Dec 10, 2015 14:15:58 GMT starkllr said:

One thing would be to clarify some details about Clara and Ashildr:

Clara's (almost) dead, but she might also be effectively immortal and even proof from any serious injury or damage. For the web of time to remain intact, she has to (sooner or later) go back to those last few moments of her life. And she has to be all in one piece, just as the Doctor witnessed her. Will Time itself repair any injuries that might befall her (as it does with Jack Harkness)?

That's a good point, of course Time could perhaps be flexible enough for a little trickery. Like replacing Clara's body with another (duplicate, different Clara splinter et cetera) at the instant the raven kills her. This could be a long term goal.
I rather like the idea of balancing a nearly immortal Clara, with Time protecting her by strange coincidences, with the restruction that too much time spent in one place and sh 'springs back' to the instant of her death.

Dec 10, 2015 14:15:58 GMT starkllr said:

What's the deal with Ashildr? Is she truly immortal? She has the nanotech inside her to repair damage and keep her young, but presumably enough damage could overwhelm its ability to keep her healthy and in one piece. Will it really fix her if she's decapitated? Or disintegrated? And surely someone who discovers the source of her immortality could come up with a technological means of switching off the nanobots and rendering her mortal again? Seems like the sort of thing a campaign's Big Bad might be working on.

Well Ashlidr is an enigma; I envision her as resistant to anything that doesn't immediately kill her. So disintegration or the destruction of most of her body would be permanently fatal. Decapitation might be briefly survivable, just long enough (and a few SPs expended) for someone to stick the bits back together and allow the nano to regenerate the damage.
And you're right that a sufficiently advanced society could directly attack the nano; in fact GURPS Ultra Tech has options for an arms race between layers of protective and attacking nanomachines. Maybe the Big Bad has to obtain a blood sample and then develop a counter-weapon.

Dec 10, 2015 14:15:58 GMT starkllr said:

As a long-term campaign goal, Clara (or someone else, perhaps an old friend with a Blue Box and a slowly-returning memory) might try to more permanantly cheat her death in Trap Street. It's only a fixed point in time because the Doctor witnessed it, after all. Who's to say what he REALLY saw? A hologram? An android duplicate of Clara acting out her "death" ? It would be a tricky business, but certainly not impossible for someone with a TARDIS, to arrange a faked death for Clara that looks/looked all too real, satisfying the requirements of the Web of Time, and restarting Clara's heart.

Yes, that's the kind of ultimate goal I'd expect for a campaign. Acquire a new body and the necessary bits to fake the death scene, I've done this in some of my games.
It's one of the reasons that most of the players refuse to rush to check on a supposedly dead person; to cheat the 'Observer Effect' and allow themselves or someone) the flexibility to alter what actually happened (or not, it kinda depends on your perspective on time ). It's all down to the essential fuzziness of reality at the quantum level.

[Catsmate]

Another idea, based on the time travelling diner, is to add Jenny (the Doctor's daughter) to the mix, as one of the primary characters: Clara, Jenny and Me.
One’s a duplicated Gallifreyan with some of the abilities of a Time Lord, but little experience; one’s an aeons old human, who's forgotten most of what she’s experienced; one’s a dead woman walking. Together they travel the universe....

The PCs in such a campaign aren't the main trio, rather they're bystanders, cafe patrons and people to needed to use the toilet and who got dragged along for the ride when the TARDIS dematerialised. Now they're working in a cafe/diner/bar/saloon that wanders time and space and hoping to get home. Or at least somewhere that could become home. Unfortunately they're in a TARDIS that's directed, with less than perfect control, by this trio. And possibly has opinions of it's own.
Have the players generate a number of characters, more-or-less mundane people from various places and times, who don't stay long (though hopefully they survive their experience).

One week they're in 1908 London, disguised as a coffee shop, next they're in 2020s Portland serving up porridge to hipsters. The next they're overrun with engineers and patrollers from Hanrahan’s Bar because they have actual meat.
Occasionally someone stays long term, it feels right to them. And someone check off another item on their list...

It could be used as a plot device to gather a group of people with certain skills and abilities (shades of the You All Meet in an Inn trope, but with the inn/innkeepers doing the gathering). Perhaps to try and 'fix' Clara's small problem with being technically dead. Or to save the universe. Or just fix someone's life. The Callahans stories are a good example of this with a group of regular customers in a slightly unusual bar fixing problems ranging from personal despair to imminent destruction of the planet.
In fact maybe the TARDIS appears in Suffolk County on Long Island in the 1970's and a couple of the regulars from Callahan’s Place are feeling peckish. Or Lady
Sally’s develops a coffee-shop downstairs; initially the artists and clients don’t
much notice (thanks to the TARDIS’s camouflage). Then the weird stuff
stars happening…

Now while cafes and diners aren't a common trope in science-fiction bars are; Old Phoenix Tavern, Gavagan's Bar, The White Hart, The Shady Tree Inn, The Draco Tavern, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar And Grille. Just remove most of the booze and add some food.


And the name of this establishment? Why Doc's Place of course.

[Hedgewick]

Dec 11, 2015 14:54:14 GMT Catsmate said:

Another idea, based on the time travelling diner, is to add Jenny (the Doctor's daughter) to the mix, as one of the primary characters: Clara, Jenny and Me.

As soon as "Hell Bent" had finished, I knew where this would end.

There is a bar in the far-flung future (the Maldovarium?), at which Clara and Ashildr bump into River Song, Captain Jack, and Jenny...

I suppose we can just imagine where things go from there. It's a fanfic writer's dream.

[starkllr]

As a total aside...

porridge to hipsters

...would be a truly great name for a band. Just saying.

[zebaroth]

i would have Ashildr end up being a neo timelord like river song was say that a a skin cell form the doctor got on the bio med chip in
the billions of years Ashil has become a time lord she dose not know this until she regenerates for the 1st time
(wish i could share this with an ex friend of mine he would of got a kick out of it)

[boredeternal]

I was under the impression their TARDIS was around the same model as the Doctor's, i.e. The broken Chameleon circuit and book-like owner's manual.

[Catsmate]

Apr 21, 2016 17:25:05 GMT boredeternal said:

I was under the impression their TARDIS was around the same model as the Doctor's, i.e. The broken Chameleon circuit and book-like owner's manual.

I don't believe it's stated outright (though if others know better please correct me) so I'd assume it's at least (in game terms) a Modern TARDIS if not an Advanced one.
It seemed that the appearance was 'stuck' as a diner (or maybe the TARDIS liked the form). If I was gaming this I'd probly have it stick to a general diner/cafe design but change slightly to suit the location.

ETA: it seems that "Come Dine With Me" is one of the more popular fan spin-off ideas.

[starkllr]

I wish I had some (any) video editing skills. I'd love to make a fake trailer or credit sequence for "Clara and Me"

[boredeternal]

Apr 22, 2016 9:15:22 GMT Catsmate said:

Apr 21, 2016 17:25:05 GMT boredeternal said:

I was under the impression their TARDIS was around the same model as the Doctor's, i.e. The broken Chameleon circuit and book-like owner's manual.

I don't believe it's stated outright (though if others know better please correct me) so I'd assume it's at least (in game terms) a Modern TARDIS if not an Advanced one.
It seemed that the appearance was 'stuck' as a diner (or maybe the TARDIS liked the form). If I was gaming this I'd probly have it stick to a general diner/cafe design but change slightly to suit the location.

ETA: it seems that "Come Dine With Me" is one of the more popular fan spin-off ideas.

Looks like the 'Eighth Doctor Adventures' has taken the lead.  

[generalrose]

Apr 22, 2016 13:46:10 GMT starkllr said:

I wish I had some (any) video editing skills. I'd love to make a fake trailer or credit sequence for "Clara and Me"

It's not a title sequence, but I did put this together   


i.imgur.com/5ZskpMP.jpg

[starkllr]

Very nice!

[markrand]

Is Clara actually Clara Oswald? If so, she can probably stay away from the TARDIS for a short time before whatever’s keeping her alive stops working.

She and Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter, are two of the diner waitresses.

The diner, its restrooms, the kitchen, and the office are the front of the TARDIS. To get into the control room, you have to go through a hidden door in the office.

[Catsmate]

Mar 14, 2023 17:27:45 GMT markrand said:

Is Clara actually Clara Oswald? If so, she can probably stay away from the TARDIS for a short time before whatever’s keeping her alive stops working.

She and Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter, are two of the diner waitresses.

The diner, its restrooms, the kitchen, and the office are the front of the TARDIS. To get into the control room, you have to go through a hidden door in the office.

I rather like the idea of there being several Claras working in the diner, from various eras and backgrounds. Clara Oswald (Clara'?) might well be unable to leave the precincts to avoid dying/fading away but the others might not be so limited.

• Soufflé Girl would be useful in the kitchen
  
• Clara Oswin Oswald had the requisite hospitality skills.

Possibly a campaign like the original Nightmare Cafe (or Quantum Leap) with the 'crew' having no real control over the materialisations of the diner/TARDIS; it arrives and they are there until they do whatever it is they have to do (the classic 'Set Right What Once Went Wrong' perhaps).

Maybe there's a cryptic information source¹ that gives them a clue (like the 'Clippings Book' in The Librarians series) somewhere.

It'd be a good vehicle for an 'ensemble cast' model with multiple PCs available for players, with various origins and backgrounds, people picked up in the various materialisations and accidentally (or deliberately²) taken along for the ride³.

Whenever the diner/cafe/inn/pub materialises, the 'front of house' changes form to blend in⁴, aided by a powerful  Perception Filter in the manner of an Atrium Circuit, while the main interior remains more-or-less static.

Any suggestions, or ideas for locations or staff?

1. I like the idea of a newspaper that changes form myself.

2. Rescued from various fates or a time traveller who got stuck somewhen and hitched a ride.

3."Another one!!? OK, who's turn was it to check the bathrooms before we left?"

4. Now I wonder what'd happen if it decided to emulate La Nouvelle Justine.......

[markrand]

I like the idea of the newspaper that changes form, too, like the one from "Early Edition".  People would generally assume that it was left in the diner by a patron who read it there.

[Catsmate]

Mar 15, 2023 13:28:32 GMT markrand said:

I like the idea of the newspaper that changes form, too, like the one from "Early Edition".  People would generally assume that it was left in the diner by a patron who read it there.

I'd forgotten about that show, but that's what I'm thinking. Though the variations would be greater, everthing from a broad-sheet onwards.

[soultaker666212]

What about, an idea for the staff, an android chef programmed with various recipes and cooks with accuracy, always making tasty food? Might be from some futuristic diner/bar/place to eat at etc and was taken in after the business closed down/was destroyed in an adventure/fired from their job somehow. The android could still look like a metallic humanoid or looks like an average human to blend in more.

[Catsmate]

Mar 15, 2023 14:20:54 GMT soultaker666212 said:

What about, an idea for the staff, an android chef programmed with various recipes and cooks with accuracy, always making tasty food? Might be from some futuristic diner/bar/place to eat at etc and was taken in after the business closed down/was destroyed in an adventure/fired from their job somehow. The android could still look like a metallic humanoid or looks like an average human to blend in more.

I like it! Though some of the recipes might be a little unsuitable for the period.

[soultaker666212]

Mar 15, 2023 14:58:29 GMT Catsmate said:

Mar 15, 2023 14:20:54 GMT soultaker666212 said:

What about, an idea for the staff, an android chef programmed with various recipes and cooks with accuracy, always making tasty food? Might be from some futuristic diner/bar/place to eat at etc and was taken in after the business closed down/was destroyed in an adventure/fired from their job somehow. The android could still look like a metallic humanoid or looks like an average human to blend in more.

I like it! Though some of the recipes might be a little unsuitable for the period.

Perhaps include some sort of advanced memory scanning with the android, allowing for it to scan recipe books and record the data, so when a customer orders say an apple pie for example, it could get the recipe for apple pie from some American diner cookbook it once read. Meaning that it can basically learn recipes based on scanning the information from a cookbook. Could be useful as well if they enter different time periods for example, say they land in Birmingham in 1865 for example, Clara may show it a cookbook for that specific era and it can then make the food from the cookbook provided it as the ingredients to do so.  

[Catsmate]

Mar 15, 2023 15:06:18 GMT soultaker666212 said:

Mar 15, 2023 14:58:29 GMT Catsmate said:

I like it! Though some of the recipes might be a little unsuitable for the period.

Perhaps include some sort of advanced memory scanning with the android, allowing for it to scan recipe books and record the data, so when a customer orders say an apple pie for example, it could get the recipe for apple pie from some American diner cookbook it once read. Meaning that it can basically learn recipes based on scanning the information from a cookbook. Could be useful as well if they enter different time periods for example, say they land in Birmingham in 1865 for example, Clara may show it a cookbook for that specific era and it can then make the food from the cookbook provided it as the ingredients to do so.  

Perversely I'm reminded of the ill-fated Nutrimatic Machine from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...........

[soultaker666212]

Another idea I had, this is specifically for the TARDIS part of the well the TARDIS. would be a hydroponics and farming sections. I like to imagine that both Clara and Me often provide their own food for the diner part, allowing for them to facilitate the various needs of different species, so to help with this they have set up some hydroponics/farming areas onboard their TARDIS. They could grow a plethora of different crops and plants, maybe even have stables and pens etc for animals for milk/eggs/meat etc. It could be maintained by someone they picked up on their adventures as well who has employed others or uses robots to aid them in maintaining the hydroponic bays/farms and could be a reoccurring character here and there. An adventure seed idea from this might be that somehow a Krynoid seed is now in the farm infecting the plants and crops inside of there and could overrun the TARDIS not just the ship part, but also the diner part as well.

[markrand]

I like the farm part and the multiple Claras. Most people would think they're siblings.

[Catsmate]

Mar 15, 2023 15:31:58 GMT soultaker666212 said:

Another idea I had, this is specifically for the TARDIS part of the well the TARDIS. would be a hydroponics and farming sections. I like to imagine that both Clara and Me often provide their own food for the diner part, allowing for them to facilitate the various needs of different species, so to help with this they have set up some hydroponics/farming areas onboard their TARDIS. They could grow a plethora of different crops and plants, maybe even have stables and pens etc for animals for milk/eggs/meat etc. It could be maintained by someone they picked up on their adventures as well who has employed others or uses robots to aid them in maintaining the hydroponic bays/farms and could be a reoccurring character here and there. An adventure seed idea from this might be that somehow a Krynoid seed is now in the farm infecting the plants and crops inside of there and could overrun the TARDIS not just the ship part, but also the diner part as well.

I remember the 'Food Machine' in a couple of early Who books, everything came out resembling a white Mars bar....

Though personally I'd expect foods to be assembled at the molecular level by nanotechnology, even if then used as ingredients for 'conventional' cooking.

[markrand]

Perhaps one of the waitresses is a cat burglar who got caught up in a mission and helped the others escape.

[markrand]

Our light-fingered waitress is tentatively-named Simone Granville.

[Catsmate]

Mar 16, 2023 13:07:22 GMT markrand said:

Our light-fingered waitress is tentatively-named Simone Granville.

Not quite as overpowered as Lady Christine I hope?

And she'd make an interesting complication for scenarios, lifting the occasional item that causes problems for the staff.

[soultaker666212]

Could use random NPC generators to make different customers and patrons to the TARDIS diner.

[markrand]

Mar 16, 2023 13:23:50 GMT Catsmate said:

Mar 16, 2023 13:07:22 GMT markrand said:

Our light-fingered waitress is tentatively-named Simone Granville.

Not quite as overpowered as Lady Christine I hope?

And she'd make an interesting complication for scenarios, lifting the occasional item that causes problems for the staff.

Simone is based on the recreational director/cat burglar from the "Hart to Hart" episode "Cruise at Your own Risk".  According to her, she was a world-class gymnast. 

Simone Griffeth, the actress playing Pamela Granville, the lady burglar, was, at 5'10", too tall to be a world-class gymnast, which she claimed that she once was.

[Catsmate]

Mar 16, 2023 14:21:03 GMT soultaker666212 said:

Could use random NPC generators to make different customers and patrons to the TARDIS diner.

True, there would need to be a good supply of bystanders and customers.