Other Vortex Games Compatibility with DWAITAS

[FrostyMac]

I'm wondering about the compatibility between DWAITAS and other Vortex games as someone wondering if I should bother getting them just to add options for Doctor Who stuff. I know some people use(d) Primeval to enhance UNIT/Torchwood style campaigns, but is there any use for Pulp Fantastic and/or Rocket Age? And is the compatibility at all complicated, made redundant, or no longer applicable if using the 2nd Edition of Doctor Who? 

[secondattemps]

I know that a player in a campaign I am in worked with the GM to translate what I think is a Rocket Age trait to DWRPG 1e, the Academic Failure Trait. So it could be worth it, though it depends on you and the other players and what you want out of the other systems. As for 2e, it no longer has traits so that aspect would be pretty redundant imo.

[Catsmate]

I've used bits out of several other Vortex games; gadgets, traits and NPCs from Rocket Age, setting ideas and traits from Pulp Fantastic, and lots of bits from Primeval.
Personally we have not moved to 2e and have no plans to do so.

[grinch]

I’ve pinched lots of stuff from the other Vortex games for setting fluff. Rocket Age has some really great original alien races that you could use for generic NPCS and the like. Pulp Fantastic is actually a really good sourcebook in itself. One of these days I’d like to stat up the Justice Society of America for said system.

Personally, if I were to do an adventure based off Orphan 55, I’d replace the Dregs for the Future Predators. Mind you, the body count would be significantly higher…

[grinch]

To be honest, looking over the Primeval book there’s very little you’d have to change to make it fit for a Who setting. Connor and Abbey are practically already written up to be companion material and Helen Cutter could make for a great recurring temporally active antagonist in a post Time War game. Maybe she’s one of the few humans who briefly glimpsed the War and it unbalanced her?

And of course, Lester would make for a typical officious bureaucrat. Maybe he is even the new head of MI6 after Leighton Woodrow was killed after the events of ‘The Flood’

[spydalek]

Honestly, I recommend Rocket Age just for the setting. Could make for a fun detour into a parallel universe after a complication in piloting your time machine.

Plus, their Pluto is like the perfect place for a Cybertomb.

[Catsmate]

Aug 15, 2023 19:30:54 GMT grinch said:

To be honest, looking over the Primeval book there’s very little you’d have to change to make it fit for a Who setting. Connor and Abbey are practically already written up to be companion material and Helen Cutter could make for a great recurring temporally active antagonist in a post Time War game. Maybe she’s one of the few humans who briefly glimpsed the War and it unbalanced her?

And of course, Lester would make for a typical officious bureaucrat. Maybe he is even the new head of MI6 after Leighton Woodrow was killed after the events of ‘The Flood’

One of the expansion books had a couple of alternate settings which seemed to me to be excellent for a different Earthbound campaign. Certainly these seem to be perfect as the basis for independent groups, protagonist, antagonist or bystanders, to drop into a game.

You'e absolutely right about Connor, Abbey, Helen and Lester, they're ready-made for insertion into a campaign.

[Catsmate]

Aug 16, 2023 6:19:28 GMT spydalek said:

Honestly, I recommend Rocket Age just for the setting. Could make for a fun detour into a parallel universe after a complication in piloting your time machine.

Plus, their Pluto is like the perfect place for a Cybertomb.

Hmm, that reminds me a bit of Sky Pirates! and State of Change. Perhaps a small pocket universe?

[spydalek]

Aug 16, 2023 9:55:32 GMT Catsmate said:

Aug 16, 2023 6:19:28 GMT spydalek said:

Honestly, I recommend Rocket Age just for the setting. Could make for a fun detour into a parallel universe after a complication in piloting your time machine.

Plus, their Pluto is like the perfect place for a Cybertomb.

Hmm, that reminds me a bit of Sky Pirates! and State of Change. Perhaps a small pocket universe?

Oh, I was thinking something along the lines of how Ten, Rose and Mickey ended up in "Pete's World" after Ten forgot he told Mickey to hold down a button so he held it down a bit too long. That sort of parallel universe.

[Catsmate]

Aug 16, 2023 13:03:54 GMT spydalek said:

Aug 16, 2023 9:55:32 GMT Catsmate said:

Hmm, that reminds me a bit of Sky Pirates! and State of Change. Perhaps a small pocket universe?

Oh, I was thinking something along the lines of how Ten, Rose and Mickey ended up in "Pete's World" after Ten forgot he told Mickey to hold down a button so he held it down a bit too long. That sort of parallel universe.

Ah, though the Solar System for Rocket Age clearly has rather different physical laws from ours (or the Whoniverse).

[grinch]

Aug 16, 2023 9:50:05 GMT Catsmate said:

Aug 15, 2023 19:30:54 GMT grinch said:

To be honest, looking over the Primeval book there’s very little you’d have to change to make it fit for a Who setting. Connor and Abbey are practically already written up to be companion material and Helen Cutter could make for a great recurring temporally active antagonist in a post Time War game. Maybe she’s one of the few humans who briefly glimpsed the War and it unbalanced her?

And of course, Lester would make for a typical officious bureaucrat. Maybe he is even the new head of MI6 after Leighton Woodrow was killed after the events of ‘The Flood’

One of the expansion books had a couple of alternate settings which seemed to me to be excellent for a different Earthbound campaign. Certainly these seem to be perfect as the basis for independent groups, protagonist, antagonist or bystanders, to drop into a game.

You'e absolutely right about Connor, Abbey, Helen and Lester, they're ready-made for insertion into a campaign.

It’s actually rather eerie who well they fit the Whoniverse.

Personally, if you wanted to focus on Primeval’s idea of prehistory breaking into the modern day (circa 2006) you could even use this recurring enemy from one of the comics.

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Saurian_(Extinction_Event)

He’s the sort of figure Helen Cutter would probably join forces with at some point. You could even say he used to be an ordinary human scientist but became affected by Anomaly tainted dinosaur DNA and slowly mutated into his current form. To return and menace UNIT! Perhaps in the Whoniverse, he was the one who ended up creating the Future Predators?

[Catsmate]

Aug 16, 2023 19:32:16 GMT grinch said:

Aug 16, 2023 9:50:05 GMT Catsmate said:

One of the expansion books had a couple of alternate settings which seemed to me to be excellent for a different Earthbound campaign. Certainly these seem to be perfect as the basis for independent groups, protagonist, antagonist or bystanders, to drop into a game.

You'e absolutely right about Connor, Abbey, Helen and Lester, they're ready-made for insertion into a campaign.

It’s actually rather eerie who well they fit the Whoniverse.

Personally, if you wanted to focus on Primeval’s idea of prehistory breaking into the modern day (circa 2006) you could even use this recurring enemy from one of the comics.

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Saurian_(Extinction_Event)

He’s the sort of figure Helen Cutter would probably join forces with at some point. You could even say he used to be an ordinary human scientist but became affected by Anomaly tainted dinosaur DNA and slowly mutated into his current form. To return and menace UNIT! Perhaps in the Whoniverse, he was the one who ended up creating the Future Predators?

Excellent!

[drinkplentyofmalk]

I'm glad that someone else made this thread, because I might make one vaguely similar: to everyone who has the other Vortex system books: would you say the combat is handled well (either if you've played it, or just read the rules)? I love the Vortex system's versatility to want to homebrew it into some other narrative fiction universes, but I'm not enough of a game designer to figure out how to make combat more of a focus.

[misterharry]

Aug 22, 2023 21:41:26 GMT drinkplentyofmalk said:

I'm glad that someone else made this thread, because I might make one vaguely similar: to everyone who has the other Vortex system books: would you say the combat is handled well (either if you've played it, or just read the rules)? I love the Vortex system's versatility to want to homebrew it into some other narrative fiction universes, but I'm not enough of a game designer to figure out how to make combat more of a focus.

I purchased each of the other Vortex rules games for background and ideas, but I've not played any of the them.

Rocket Age and Pulp Fantastic are both basically the same as the DWRPG, with an Action Round going Talkers - Movers - Doers - Fighters in that order (with highest Coordination first).

Primeval does it differently, with each character/creature taking one action in the following order:

• Fast creatures (things like predators)
  Humans and other average-speed creatures
  
• Slow creatures (slow-brained herbivores and domesticated animals)

Within each group, characters and creatures act in order of Coordination. But the important thing is that most dangerous creatures get to act before characters - so there's no option to talk your way out of a fix with a velociraptor (not that that would work anyway) or even start to run! For Doctor Who aliens, I guess you'd need to classify them as fast, average-speed or slow.