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Post by Kit on Nov 5, 2010 17:28:34 GMT
Has anyone run this adventure? What changes, if any, would you make to it?
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Post by chickenpaddy on Nov 7, 2010 3:00:40 GMT
I've actually run it twice. Now, first let my say I run games very loosly. I don't usually care overly much about creature statistics, and make up the numbers on the fly using a base template (however, once the number is made up, I stick with it)
Now, Arrowdown is a pretty decent adventure. I went more or less by what it said. It's straightforward enough and had no trouble running it. The only things that were iffy were when Jim Baker (and NPC) stole a characters wallet and I had to convince the characters to chase him down. It works better if it's an important gadget or anachronistic item (like a Time Agent's Vorex Manipulator). Also, instead of saying that the rift in time-space is from a Dalek (which confused my less Doctor Who savvy players), you could relate it to Eleven's Crack in Time or just a naturally occurring rift that's flaring from Nestene intervention. Just my two cents...
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Post by Kit on Nov 7, 2010 4:44:04 GMT
I've actually run it twice. Now, first let my say I run games very loosly. I don't usually care overly much about creature statistics, and make up the numbers on the fly using a base template (however, once the number is made up, I stick with it) Now, Arrowdown is a pretty decent adventure. I went more or less by what it said. It's straightforward enough and had no trouble running it. The only things that were iffy were when Jim Baker (and NPC) stole a characters wallet and I had to convince the characters to chase him down. It works better if it's an important gadget or anachronistic item (like a Time Agent's Vorex Manipulator). Also, instead of saying that the rift in time-space is from a Dalek (which confused my less Doctor Who savvy players), you could relate it to Eleven's Crack in Time or just a naturally occurring rift that's flaring from Nestene intervention. Just my two cents... Thanks! I too was considering eliminating th Dalek as cause for the rift. I need to re-read this and decide which to use as my first episode for a UNIT game, Arrowdown or Knasser's Whitsun War.
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vortexman
2nd Incarnation
Dont Blink
Posts: 22
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Post by vortexman on Nov 7, 2010 14:14:46 GMT
I would begin with Knasser's Whitsun War myself.It seems nicer and better thought out.
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Post by Krimson on Nov 7, 2010 16:34:14 GMT
I ran it but pretty much changed everything except for the main NPC (can't remember her name offhand) and the name of the town. This was because I KNEW one of the players read through the adventures.
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Post by realspy on May 16, 2011 13:35:49 GMT
I ran it, and it turned out to be quite fun, but the adventure has some inconsistencis and some missing key points you have to deal with.
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Post by thewatcher on May 16, 2011 23:06:07 GMT
*****Spoiler alert if you want to play Arrowdown*****
I ran it in two sessions with the PCs playing the 10th Doctor, Donna Noble and Capt. Jack. I pretty much ran it out of the book with add hock elaborations as I went. Had an excellent group of players that relished the chance to play these characters with no small slice of ham. The Doctor clicked onto key clues almost immediately but this just fueled curiosity and they pretty much investigated all the locations and got a lot out of the adventure. We had a classic cliff hanger between the two sessions in the Ghost Train ride when the Autons twitched into life. There was some dramatic tension in the group when Jack was trying to deal with the Torchwood matters behind the other PCs back. There was some action when the autons attacked the town and the group were saved by two time displaced Vikings now resplendent in their red plastic windsheaters pillaged from a tatty seaside shop. These same Vikings were demanding spam in the Cafe only moments before. In another scene the party split up when searching the Monroe Building. One location, the attic, was left for the GM to flesh out. In my version Donna decided to gaze into the oily black pool and became transfixed. Suddenly she heard a voice from it exclaim "Silence will fall!"; she got the hell out of there fast. In the end the Doctor destroyed the Nestene Intelligence by collapsing seawater in from the ceiling using his sonic screwdriver and they managed to save Alan only for him to die tragically in Teresa's arms. The Doctor wasn't having any truck with that so he traveled back in time with Alan's corpse at the night Alan (supposedly) was struck by the Nestene meteorite, dragged the living Alan out of the car and into the Tardis replacing him with his future corpse moments before the Meteorite hit. Events transpired as they were meant to only the Nestene resurrected the corpse but Alan was alive and transported to the present and into Teresa's loving arms; timey-wimey stuff happened and everyone lived happily. I thought the adventure was a great vehicle for 'Getting' what DW:aiTaS is all about. I haven't run Jadoom and feel that it has a more specific style and 'humour' that didn't gel with me.
(Modified due to discovering the spell-checker)
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Post by thewatcher on May 16, 2011 23:14:22 GMT
In a nutshell I didn't really change anything but the Players did by reacting to dramatic cues and coming up with an ending that took me by surprise; which I was happy to go along with in the spirit of the game.
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Post by Eryx on May 17, 2011 20:22:01 GMT
I ran it when the game first came out and it worked really well. My players at the time throughly enjoyed it. They got a little lost trying to work out where the rift had originated from but otherwise it played well, unlike the other suggusted scenarios in the main box.
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Post by realspy on May 18, 2011 9:15:31 GMT
The other scenarios are not good ?
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Post by Eryx on May 18, 2011 12:12:14 GMT
Arrowdown as written is fantastic. It worked straight out of the book. The others don't. They are really basic seeds that need a through GM write up IMO. After Arrowdown I tried running the scenario set aboard the Judoon ship and it really fell apart because the information ande details needed for the scenario are so thin.
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Post by Kit on May 18, 2011 17:06:50 GMT
I would begin with Knasser's Whitsun War myself.It seems nicer and better thought out. It is excellent
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Post by renegadetimelord on May 19, 2011 13:24:59 GMT
I ran the adventure, but changed everything except Teresa's name.
I set it in Kettleness, in Lancashire, which has some great legends around black dogs, as well as pleosaur bones. I replaced the Autons with Zygons, who crashed near the Torchwood monitoring station, striking a cliff face. The interaction between the weird temporal stabilising equipment in the Torchwood place (installed to protect it from a rift splinter) and the leaking Zygon ship's engine caused major anomalies that the characters had to resolve to allow them to escape. Weird timewarps provided an opportunity for cameoes by villagers from the 19th century, a rail track dug up in the 1950s, and a Roman signal tower.
The players seemed to enjoy it - so, I'll save that one for the future to use again with other groups.
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Post by Marnal on May 21, 2011 15:46:13 GMT
I ran it. But set it on Hawaii [the homeland of one of the PCs] and used Vampire's instead of Autons. And farm animals instead of a carnival. I dropped the Dalek from the time rupture, but otherwise kept the plot with the NPCs in the resturant and their backstory with Torchwood identical. Indeed the couple was the parents of another of the PCs who was on the scene because the orphan was trying to track them down. By the end she joined the other players.
Marnal Gate
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Post by angelicdoctor on Nov 10, 2014 15:57:30 GMT
I've actually run it twice. Now, first let my say I run games very loosly. I don't usually care overly much about creature statistics, and make up the numbers on the fly using a base template (however, once the number is made up, I stick with it) Now, Arrowdown is a pretty decent adventure. I went more or less by what it said. It's straightforward enough and had no trouble running it. The only things that were iffy were when Jim Baker (and NPC) stole a characters wallet and I had to convince the characters to chase him down. It works better if it's an important gadget or anachronistic item (like a Time Agent's Vorex Manipulator). Also, instead of saying that the rift in time-space is from a Dalek (which confused my less Doctor Who savvy players), you could relate it to Eleven's Crack in Time or just a naturally occurring rift that's flaring from Nestene intervention. Just my two cents... I just ran this adventure yesterday with my group. It was my first Doctor Who game as well. I, too, tend to run my games fast and loose. In retrospect, I would have jettisoned the Dalek were it not for the fact that the image of a 'pepper pot' being excavated adding that extra level of excitement in the group. It was a bit confusing trying to explain how this element caused the temporal rift but more so was trying to explain the motivations of the Nestene Consciousness. During game play, I was hard pressed to recall why the ejection of the NC would end the issue with the rift. It was the only part of the adventure that really didn't seem to make sense. Not that presence of a living liquid plastic makes all that much sense in the first place. I completely ejected the Jim Baker scene as well. It was an unnecessary element of the story. imho, and was not missed. Over all, however, it was a really enjoyable adventure and a wonderful first Doctor Who game in what I am sure will be many more.
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Post by Hedgewick on Dec 1, 2014 19:22:55 GMT
This was the first adventure in our role-playing campaign--though it was given the title "Ghost Town." The scenario, its setting, and most of its major scenes remained intact. The game master did make a number of minor changes, however. The Autons and the Nestene Consciousness were the primary adversaries. The Dalek was dropped--though it has since been revealed that something else was put in its place, an element tied to the original mythology of our campaign. (It's possible the Nth Doctor will be revisiting Arrowdown to investigate further.) As our campaign takes place in a timeline that offers an alternative to New Who continuity, Torchwood was dropped as well, swapped out for UNIT Special Operations. As others have said, this is a fine adventure, and, looking back, I think that it was well chosen by our game master as the premiere of the campaign.
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