A fake out campaign.

[jay042]

I had this idea...


I'd been talking with some friends who were interested in doing another roleplaying game. The first thought was to do a Dungeons and Dragons game, but the more I thought about it, the more I'd like to try out Doctor Who.

I'd gotten some game world development done for D&D, and I didn't want to abandon that, so I'd thought maybe I could pull a fake out. I'd use the Who rules, but I wouldn't tell the players it's a Doctor Who game. I'd play the situation as typical Medieval RPG, but when the alien bad guys show up, it hits the fan and one of my players (who by mutual arrangement, will have their first character die in game) come into the game as the resident Time Lord.

I want the role play experience of this game to truly be characters who truly find themselves completely outside of their realm of comprehension. I want them to come to the realization of what's really happening midway through the first session.

I was just wondering if anyone has tried anything like this?

[Craig Oxbrow]

It's possible, and your players might find the surprise entertaining, but the "bait and switch" game is generally not well regarded, selling the players on one game and then delivering another. Even if it does not sour any of the players on the game immediately, they might have characters particularly suited to staying in their medieval-style setting rather than travelling through time and space.

If I wanted to use some medieval-world fantasy elements in a Doctor Who game I'd make it a visit to Earth in the Middle Ages by a group of TARDIS-travelling PCs instead.

[ugavine]

I have to agree with Craig.

While a great idea in principle I've never seen the bate & switch tactic go down well with groups. So just make sure you're 100% your group will go with it, and want to role-play Doctor Who, before dropping it on them.

[Cut]

I think such an idea goes down best with experienced gamers, that want to enjoy the game more than the actual setting or rule-set. I'd love that, but from the top of my head I have to agree with ugavine and Craig. It's risky and my alienate the players if you're unlucky.

[atomicpif]

Hello, first time posting on these boards.
Anyway, I'm actually trying something similar in my Dr. Who game tonight.

We've been running time traveling adventures, but a few of my players have thier roots in D&D, so I'm going to take them tonight to an apparantly medieval village, and make them think they are in some middle ages earth town they've never heard of until they get in trouble and someone throws a fireball at them. From there it will be a race to find out what is going on, and ultimatly lead them through a dungeon where lies at the bottom a transmat that leads to the planets moon.

There they'll discover that it's not earth at all, but a planet far away where some race has built this artificial moon to project an energy field around the planet, giving anyone with latent telekinetic abilites a huge boost and a catalyst to manifest thier thoughts in all manner of ways. Since it's the moon that provides the power, 'mages' will have built classic mage towers to practice in, since it's higher up and easier to perform thier arts.

Kinda campy, but it's a genre cross over I've been wanting to try for a while.