Playing a Dalek Campaign

[Myrddin Wyllt]

So I have some players that are interested in playing Daleks and I was wondering if it was possible to have Dalek Characters? Also, has anyone made any Dalek Species Traits?

[Catsmate]

Ah, players. Can't have a game without them but boy do they come up some weird ideas.

OK. First question, are these going to be "good" Daleks? Or are they part of the Great Plan to conquer, enslave and exterminate. If they're going to be Evil but more-or-less freewilled I refer you Second Empire and Way of the Wicked.

For "Good" Daleks are they a tiny minority within Dalek society? Like the humanised Daleks created in Power. Or are they just people stuck in travel machines, another type of cyborg?

[misterharry]

Well, I'd not say you categorically can't run a campaign with Dalek characters. But it's going to be lacking in subtlety and variety.

If they're playing standard evil Daleks, then maybe they're a special group operating behind enemy lines - whether that enemy is Time Lords, Movellans, humans or whatever. But bear in mind that Daleks are so much more powerful on an individual level than most other species. So maybe set it during the Dalek civil war (take your pick which one) so that they come up against their equals on a regular basis.

If they're good Daleks, how did that come about? Are they working against the evil Daleks? Or on the run from them?

A third option might be that they're Daleks in human(oid) form. Maybe like Dalek Sec. It gives them a bit more flexibility and maybe humanity, and less power.

[bandersnee]

If you wanted to go with the "good Dalek" idea, then there is some room for that in the expanded Whoniverse.  Big Finish did some audio productions call the Dalek Empire series.  I'd like to avoid spoilers, so highlight the text below if you don't mind having the end of the first series spoiled for you. 

After the Daleks took over most of the Milky Way, they decided to open a portal to another dimension to find other Daleks to help increase their potential to exterminate the rest of the known universe. And they successfully made contact. Unfortunately for them, the interdementional Daleks turned out to be obsessive law enforcers. From what I understand, the next series is pretty much a Dalek civil war between the good interdementional Dalkes and the Dalkes of this universe who want to oppress and irradiate the entirety of this universe.

You can purchase and download the series from the Big Finish website.

www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/dalek-empire

So, if you want your Daleks to fight on the side of good, there is some room for that if you follow the audio plays.  

[misterharry]

May 28, 2017 20:35:36 GMT bandersnee said:

If you wanted to go with the "good Dalek" idea, then there is some room for that in the expanded Whoniverse.  Big Finish did some audio productions call the Dalek Empire series.  I'd like to avoid spoilers, so highlight the text below if you don't mind having the end of the first series spoiled for you. 



You can purchase and download the series from the Big Finish website.

www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/dalek-empire

So, if you want your Daleks to fight on the side of good, there is some room for that if you follow the audio plays.  

SPOILER: Click to show

Yes, the "good" versions from Dalek Empire turned out to be at least as bad as the standard ones.

If you want genuinely good (and canonical) Daleks, then there are the humanised Daleks from Evil (who were revisited in an 8th Doctor DWM comic-strip).

[Myrddin Wyllt]

So How would I go about Making Dalek Characters?

[misterharry]

I'd say you have two choices. Either try to come up with a set of Dalek stats that come in within the usual 42 points for starting characters. Or ignore the usual build rules and give everyone a standard Dalek.

The former is difficult but not unachievable, providing you and your players are prepared to compromise a little and use classic series Daleks. If you've got the 1st Doctor Sourcebook, the Early Daleks are almost spot on if you add a couple of levels of Experienced (and you'll probably want to remove the Restriction and Weakness, as these are unique to the Skaro City Daleks) - in fact, I think you'll have a couple of spare points to play with. For the later classic Daleks from subsequent sourcebooks, you'll need to massage the stats quite a bit - as well as adding two levels of Experienced, reduce various Attributes and Skills by one or two points apiece, and bring the very high Skill scores down drastically. It can be just about done, though the Dalek's Skills are likely to be quite low.

If you don't have any of the relevant sourcebooks, start with the standard Dalek stats from the core rulebook. You can strip out its Forcefield, Flight, Self Destruct and Vortex traits for a start, and reduce its Fear Factor by a point to arrive at classic series stats. Then add a couple of levels of Experienced and massage the Attributes and Skills as above.

But if you or your players really want to use new series Daleks, the only way to achieve this is by ignoring the points cost for starting characters. Just come up with a set of stats you're happy with and let them go with that. Even so, I'd probably reduce the very high Science and Technology skills.

[Corone]

It does seem 'I want to play a Dalek' comes up a lot.
Although I usually suspect its because the player wants to kill everything and shout exterminate.
Fun for them, not the rest of the group.
So I'd be very interested in knowing the player's motives before allowing it.

Having said that, I keep thinking it would be fun to do a convention game where you are all Daleks.

[Stormcrow]

Here's how I would do an all-Dalek game:

Players keep score. Every extermination earns you the victim's Story Points as a score. (You can't use those Story Points yourself; they're just to keep score.) However, disobeying the Supreme Dalek (an NPC) or acting against the mission or the good of the Daleks marks you as defective. If you can't convince your fellow Daleks that you can be repaired, you yourself will be exterminated. Thus, it is typically not possible to sabotage your fellow players' ability to increase their scores.

You begin as a bog-standard Dalek with 5 Story Points. You can only use those Story Points is ways suitable to Daleks—you cannot, for instance, trade them by giving an inspirational speech. Your ability to interpret your orders is limited.

The GM will set up a star system with several alien races of varying capabilities that need to be conquered. You will NOT run into the Doctor or any well known NPCs.

The player who earns the highest score at the end of the game is the winner.

[misterharry]

Here's a thought: how can Daleks exterminate each other? Their exterminator does Lethal damage, equivalent to 8 points, and yet even ignoring Forcefield, their Armour resists 10 points. If I understand correctly, a Fantastic result for Lethal is still only equivalent to 8 damage (though there's a specific mention of increased damage against vehicles or structures).

Is this how others interpret Lethal damage against Armour?

[Stormcrow]

"This armour only protects against bullets or other physical weapons. Lasers or other energy weapons are unaffected by such armour, though protective forcefields defend against everything."

[misterharry]

That section talks about "armour" with a lower case "a", and then goes on to say "Alien armour, such as Dalekanium and the forcefields that Daleks employ are covered in Chapter Five: All the Strange, Strange Creatures", implying that the Armour traits for aliens is different. And there's nothing in the trait's description to say that it doesn't work against energy weapons - sure, you can infer it if you wish, but it's not actually stated.

[Stormcrow]

Then any Lethal damage done against Daleks cannot penetrate Dalek armor, and any scenes in Doctor Who to the contrary never happened. Daleks cannot exterminate each other.

[misterharry]

The sarcasm is unnecessary. I'm just commenting on what the rules actually say, which does not necessarily reflect what we see on screen. If you're not capable of having a discussion without getting sarky, then I won't bother continuing.

[Marnal]

There are several occasions on screen where a Dalek Neutralizer blast is capable of one-shotting another Dalek.

IIRC I read a line in one of the RPG book about Dalek armor values are ignored when judging damage from a Dalek neutralizer.

[Stormcrow]

That's not snark. If you're looking for rules to support one Dalek exterminating another, you've just proved there aren't any. If you're looking for someone to give you a wink-wink-nudge-nudge way of looking at the rules sideways to give you an out, I gave you one.

If Marnal is right about a sourcebook giving you a "but Dalek guns don't count" rule, then whoever wrote that rule also figured out that Daleks can't kill Daleks, and created an arbitrary exception.

[knasser]

Firstly, to get it out of the way, there is a Dalek section in my DW:Supplemental linked in my sig. It's entirely unofficial but I'm quite proud of it and it solves some of the difficulties with Lethal results and Dalek armour. It also shows how I handle different types of Dalek (Drone, Scientist, et al.) for a little inspiration if that helps. I think regardless of the rules, it is important that we find some way for Daleks to be able to exterminate each other. There are too many canon instances plus it's a rare military that designs a defence without also thinking about how it can be over come. So my suggestion is to simply add a trait to the Dalek's exterminator of "Penetrates Dalek Force Fields". This doesn't make the Dalek any more (or less!) lethal to PCs and so doesn't unbalance anything, but does allow Daleks to kill each other more easily. If a GM is comfortable with it, you can even make it a flat "Penetrates Force Fields" trait as it's seldom going to come up against non-Dalek PCs and it's nice to find ways to make the Dalek weapons more dangerous than simple 4/L/L which is what most aliens have. Adds a little more bite to them.

Anyway, the meatier question (imo) is how to run an actual Dalek campaign. The critical question hasn't been answered yet: are these good Daleks or regular xenocidal ones? I think only when that is decided can meaningful advice be provided. But if you just want to make Dalek characters, I would make the character the actual Dalek mutant inside. That way you can sometimes have them separated from their transport devices. Also, given Daleks can kill just about anything and are very hard to damage themselves, I would probably design adventures filled with mystery and politics - challenges that can't be solved by blowing them up, basically!

[Marnal]

The events of "Evil of the Daleks" off some possibilities for a meaningful Dalek Campaign. Or the PCs could be members of the Cult of Skaro.

[knasser]

Aug 9, 2017 0:35:29 GMT Marnal said:

The events of "Evil of the Daleks" off some possibilities for a meaningful Dalek Campaign. Or the PCs could be members of the Cult of Skaro.

Ahhh, now if a player came to me and said they'd just watched Evil of the Daleks and wanted to play a Dalek, then I would be filled with GM-ish joy!

But I rather fear most times a player wants to be a Dalek they just want to roll around exterminating things. The modern Daleks have much to recommend them but I do miss the old Machiavellian hiding-behind-the-curtain plotters. I want the shock of seeing one surfacing from the Thames or appearing unexpectedly in a funeral home.

[Stormcrow]

I ran an adventure once where the companions landed at Lindisfarne, 793, on the day of the infamous Viking raid. The Viking ships appeared over the horizon, then out of them swarmed a horde of Daleks, screaming EXTERMINATE! The players were a weeee bit surprised.

[Catsmate]

Aug 10, 2017 13:53:36 GMT Stormcrow said:

I ran an adventure once where the companions landed at Lindisfarne, 793, on the day of the infamous Viking raid. The Viking ships appeared over the horizon, then out of them swarmed a horde of Daleks, screaming EXTERMINATE! The players were a weeee bit surprised.

I like it! I assume they were updated Daleks that could fly?

[imajica]

Aug 10, 2017 13:53:36 GMT Stormcrow said:

I ran an adventure once where the companions landed at Lindisfarne, 793, on the day of the infamous Viking raid. The Viking ships appeared over the horizon, then out of them swarmed a horde of Daleks, screaming EXTERMINATE! The players were a weeee bit surprised.

But what did the Monk do then?

Sounds great!

[Stormcrow]

I think you're confusing that with the battles of 1066. "The Time Meddler" takes just before the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

[Stormcrow]

The plot had to do with a biological weapon the Daleks were developing. They were turning humans into werewolves. Their latest experiment had escaped; they were looking for it at the monastery. It was one of the monks.