Games featuring the Doctor

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

I'm preparing to run a one-shot of DWAITAS as a 'filler' adventure between sessions of our Marvel X-Men game at the RP society.

Thing is, I'm concerned about how powerful the Doctor's character sheet looks in comparison to your average starting character. Whether you're going with the 10th or 11th Doctor, all his attributes are pretty high and he's got a ton of skills.

Besides all that, I want to use a hypothetical 12th Doctor, so that people don't get hung up about portraying the character properly.

So how has it balanced out - having the Doctor as a player character - in other peoples' games? And how should one handle statting up a 12th Doctor? I'd appreciate thoughts on this issue, thanks.

[korith]

There have been a few ideas thrown around on how to deal with this. I think it really comes down to one of 3 options:

-The Doctor is an NPC
-Give the Doctor to the player who will make things the most fun for everyone
-Everyone gets a shot at the doctor

The first two are fairly straightforward. The last option calls for some creativity. Some options include:
-Spend story points to "steal" The Doctor for a moment (eg, 1 Story point for an action, 3 story points for a scene). If multiple players want to play The Doctor at the same time, a bidding war may be declared if a compromise cannot be reached.
-Players may suggest The Doctor's course of action in a given scene, and in a case where multiple courses are suggested, it may be taken to a vote
-Any player whose character is absent from a scene with The Doctor gets to play him. (If multiple characters absent, control must be shared as per the above)
-Round-robin control. Each scene, control of The Doctor is passed to the next person.

In one thread (edit: this one), it was even suggested to use a sonic screwdriver prop as a "talking stick"; whoever holds the screwdriver gets to play The Doctor

[Craig Oxbrow]

The game hypothesises that the Doctor progresses (losing and gaining a few things along the way) so the Twelfth Doctor should have another level of Experienced Time Lord to add on, but does Eleven really seem more capable than Ten, to use the current example? I'd say he was operating on a lower power level, myself.

Story Points and special abilities can go some way to narrow the gap, but lowering the Doctor's power level smewhat seems fair to me, not least from a game perspective.

[brainsnaffler]

All good suggestions have been mentioned here.

I guess it comes down to the dynamics of your group.

Personally, I choose to emphasise that the Dr Who game (and all other RPG's for that matter) are about creating a cool story. So, I do have a single person playing the Doctor and the other player's don't mind because: as per option 2 of Korith's reply, they make it fun for everyone.

I encourage my Doctor to delegate tasks to the group and / or I find narrative ways to split them up so they can't rely on the Doctor's skills all the time. Both are methods used frequently in the TV series.

So long as people are having fun and joining in to make a really good "episode" does it matter what skills or stats the Doctor has?

[Marnal]

You could try starting the Doctor with no Story Points at the beginning of the adventure. [Or just give him 1 or 2].
And start the companions with 12 SP [even if that sets them above beginning level characters].

Never tried it, but its how I always envisioned dealing with this issue.