How to manage a Timelord ?

[Jade]

Hello all !

I will for the first time have a timelord (not the doctor) in my games, and I don't really know how to manage him.
The timelord is the pilot of his TARDIS and so the iplot of the adventures. And in several places he go, he knows lots of things about the world, the creatures, etc etc.

I need some advices to manage all of this. Should I talk a lot with the player before the game, about some knowledge his timelord has, or write a knowledge sheet about different things that I give in during the game ?

How do you manage timelords ?

[Rel Fexive]

Have a Time Lord character that doesn't know everything about everywhere.

[Jade]

Of course he does not know everything about everywhere, and he will have many things to discover by himself, but he still knows many more things that his companions

[garethl]

Not speaking from experience, but maybe let him roll for specific knowledge?

[Craig Oxbrow]

Talking with the player about how much the character knows in advance is definitely the best way.

Ingenuity + Knowledge rolls can go a long way to dealing with this at the table, but talking it through is preferable.

And his knowledge can be revealed to be incomplete or inaccurate - look how often the Doctor gets things wrong, and how often known monsters behave in unexpected ways and catch him off guard.

A Story Point "plot twist" use for throwing in details that are useful is another way to make the player use the Time Lord's knowledge sparingly. And you can always simply veto anything the Time Lord states - with or without an explanation.

"The Roman legions didn't have tanks!"
"No... and yet apparently they do..."

[Pertwee]

Remember that adventures do not have to happen sequentially. So he can go wherever he wants, but not everywhere he goes plays out as a adventure. Make that clear when he lands in an actual adventure, that he has been elsewhere since the last one. That way it doesn't seem like you're hijacking the TARDIS every time he lays his hands on the controls and that this particular time is significant. For a good example of this, remember the Doctor from the End of Time talking to Ood Sigma about how he had done a lot of travelling before answering the call at the end of 'Waters of Mars.'

Additionally, make a habit of asking at the end of an adventure 'where do you want to go after this?' It might sometimes give you a good hook for your next adventure and you can work it in naturally as a result of his decision.

As for the knowledge problem, keep in mind that the Doctor is the most experienced Time Lord ever when it comes to travelling away from Gallifrey, and he should never be used as a yardstick for the 'average' Time Lord character. As a PC, he is ridiculously experienced, and newer characters should be seeing the universe with a much less encompassing view of the whole of creation. Knowledge rolls are the key here and the inaccuracies brought about by alien intervention are, as mentioned, your number one tool for messing about with player knowledge.

[Curufea]

I agree with Pertwee - most Time Lords are xenophobic agoraphobes never eager to adventure into the outdoors, let alone other planets. The Doctor and the Master are exceptions. Going to the academy to become a Time Lord means they likely get a specialty subject alien race to study - all part of the academic approach to self preservation - know thy enemy. So this is a limit, and a starting point. Your Time Lord is likely to be an expert on one or two alien races, or areas of science or possibly history (ie knows all about the Rutan-Sontaran war for example) - so their adventures should start out there, and possibly expand as new things are encountered.