First adventure suggestions?

[wintersweet]

Hello! I've got a date set for my first DWAITAS game. Hurrah! There are a few complications: It's been years since I GM'd anything. I've neither played nor GM'd DWAITAS before. Of the 6 likely players, one has extensive gaming experience, one has some AD&D experience in the past, and the others are totally new to the whole concept.

For the first game, I want everyone to use the pre-gen characters that come with either of the boxed sets, and I want to do a one-shot. But what kind of scenario? I want one that's fleshed out enough that I don't have to do too much planning and improvising (just for this first one), but I'm not really attracted to any of the full adventures in the current boxed set. And I don't want one that too closely imitates a classic adventure, as most of us know the classic series very well. I'm thinking maybe somebody's original adventure would be a good choice...

Do you have a suggestion for a one-game first adventure? I'm open to reconsidering anything in the boxed sets or to an original scenario by somebody here. (Some of them look great! It's just hard to judge what might be good for new players and what might be too complex.)

Thank you!

P. S. Someone already said he really wants to play K-9. That'll make my life interesting...

[starkllr]

I wrote up a scenario that I used for a first adventure, called Games of Chance. It's here:

dl.dropbox.com/u/5069296/Games%20of%20Chance.pdf

The quick pitch: the TARDIS arrives in Las Vegas at the height of the Rat Pack era. It's detected a temporal anomaly in the city, and it's up to the PCs to find and deal with it.

The anomaly is a time-travel device brought back by a fugitive alien from 500 years in the future, who was fleeing because her race was about to be wiped out as collateral damage in the Sontaran-Rutan war.

The longer pitch: The device manfunctioned, and she was injured, and saved by a down-on-his-luck stage magician with heavy gambling debts. In return for his help, the alien gives the device to the magician. It's no longer capable of time travel, but it will allow the user to see everything for an hour in the past or the future - anything he looks at, he can see what it/they were doing, or will do.

He's used this device to turn his act into a hit, and he's now headlining a show in one of the big casinos. Unfortunately, he's still got major debts, and now Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack are after him, too, for upstaging them, as well as a couple of mobsters.

To make matters still worse, a scoutship from the fugitive alien's race has detected the device. They don't know what it is, but they know it's theirs, and they're coming to collect it. Obviously, if they obtain technology that's 500 years advanced to them, it won't be good for the Web of Time.

So the PCs have to outwit mobsters, Frank Sinatra, an armed alien patrol, and a man who just as to look at them to know what they'll be doing for the next hour...

[Craig Oxbrow]

This reminds me, I really should turn one of my convention adventures into a PDF for situations like this. The closest I've come is adventure hooks, like this one based on an unmade idea of Russell T Davies's.

In lieu of that, try Curse Of The Cyclops, the demo adventure for Time Lord, the previous Doctor Who RPG.

The original Doctor Who RPG had several published adventures, all of them a bit long for a one-shot and all long since out of print. But I mention them because one of them, The Hartlewick Horror was originally a Call of Cthulhu adventure! It demonstrates that you could easily borrow an adventure from a completely different game. Cthulhu is a particularly good choice as it's full of alien monsters and horror tropes and there's usually a clever-ish solution to be found in the adventure design. I've done this myself with large chunks of adventures for Traveller and Golden Heroes among other things.

[hobbitfan]

What you might be able to do is brainstorm first which K-9 to use and then figure out a game based around meeting him and helping him out. You might have completely different ideas that spring to mind running into Romana, Leela or Sarah Jane's K-9s.

You could maybe do a 50th anniversary story a sort of "Three K-9s" where the party has to get all three versions together to access something hidden inside K-9.

[wintersweet]

The K-9 idea would be fun if it weren't going to be a one-shot, but I'll think about it anyway!

I'll feel more comfortable adapting other scenarios (and writing my own, which is what I always used to do!) after I'm more comfortable with the rules and know how to balance things better. Thanks for the suggestions, though -- I'll check them out anyway.

I'll look into the other suggestions and Game of Chance, thanks!

[Dr Steve]

Mar 30, 2013 17:36:25 GMT starkllr said:

I wrote up a scenario that I used for a first adventure, called Games of Chance. It's here:

dl.dropbox.com/u/5069296/Games%20of%20Chance.pdf

I ran the two adventures the last two weeks. It went very well. The second part was a little short, so you might want to add a scene.

[Dr Steve]

Mar 30, 2013 20:30:20 GMT Craig Oxbrow said:

The original Doctor Who RPG had several published adventures, all of them a bit long for a one-shot and all long since out of print.

I am trying to use a Time Lord adventure, but there are a lot of differences. Has anyone made a conversion document?

[Dr Steve]

Mar 30, 2013 3:19:37 GMT wintersweet said:

Hello! I've got a date set for my first DWAITAS game. Hurrah! There are a few complications: It's been years since I GM'd anything. I've neither played nor GM'd DWAITAS before. Of the 6 likely players, one has extensive gaming experience, one has some AD&D experience in the past, and the others are totally new to the whole concept.

My first two games were the scenarios in the box, which are very good for new GM's. I would do those. Hopefully, non of your players have the game and have already read them. There are some great resources on here for adventure seeds and complete adventures. Even the longer ones, you can split into more bite sized campaigns that you can run over several meetings.

I try to get make sure every is clear that the universe is one where the Doctor encourages non-violent, creative solutions. It's more about role playing than rolling dice. As to allowing someone play K-9, or a unique creation, I encourage great flexibility, within the starting point system, which has created some very interesting outcomes. As the team get to know each other and how they like to play there will be a natural deferring of action to the one who is best suited to a task, or encounter.

The best advice is to always keep the story in your mind and allow the players to mold the timeline as they see fit and live with the consequences. The story in your head is not a fixed point in time, but merely a possibility from which an infinite combinations can hopefully resolve.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Jul 23, 2013 21:48:17 GMT Dr Steve said:

I am trying to use a Time Lord adventure, but there are a lot of differences. Has anyone made a conversion document?

Here you go, hope that helps.

[Eryx]

Try this: It's called Curse of the Conqueror.

homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/album/conqueror.htm