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Post by ubermutant on Jun 27, 2013 21:58:22 GMT
Greetings from England,
I have brought a few of the books now for fun but was talked into running a campaign starting last sunday at the local RPG club. We have a lot of veteran players who have played other DR Who systems and who are indeed, great WHO fans. Faced with this I was nervous of providing a good first game until I remembered how terrible the last few seasons of the show have been. I couldn't do much worse........
Onwards then to our loyal band of cutthroats and murder....oh this isn't D&D, ok, the heroic and cheery characters who make up our merry band. I declared no limits on character generation, any time, any place, any race. All our welcome in my game.
First there are our Timelords, Smiley and Quew. Smiley is a CIA spook, Prydonian of course, with a network of dodgy contacts and a sneaky streak a mile wide. He has already regenerated once under suspicious circumstances and has made many powerful enemies around the galaxy. Quew on the other hand is a very clever Arcalian Engineer with an unhealthy interest in things that should really be left alone. He has numerous items of suspicious and illegal tech he has ..... acquired, including a Tissue Compression Eliminator. Together they have gotten their hands on a Type 90 Battle TARDIS and are off for a jolly inbetween official missions.
Next up, the loyal crew of misfits and from the year 2015 we have Jack Dawe, an agent of Torchwood who is out to get as much alien tech as possible to take home for the good of the Empire. Jack has a number of tricks up his sleeve including an MIB Neuralizer and some psychic paper backed up by his Torchwood Issue automatic.
From Earths past, Seafa the Silurian. This feisty heterosexual female Silurian hides a dark secret beneath her cool exterior. She is a capable warrior who travels in the TARDIS for reasons not yet revealed. She has numerous weapons and the rare ability to spit a paralyzing venom.
From another dimension, Captain Jack Johnson,a steampunkesque starship captain with a serious drinking problem. His starship is currently crashed inside the TARDIS following some dimension crossing flimflam, leaving him stranded along for the ride.
Finishing off the gang is the hard and brutal form of Street Judge Jericho Chronos. Pursuing a suspect on the mean streets of Megacity 1, he ended up inside the TARDIS and was swept along when it dematerialised. He fully intends to return to duty as soon as he can and bring the so called time lords to justice (Kidnapping a Judge, Time Travel without a permit and so on) but in the meantime is acting in his capacity as an ambassador for Justice Department.
And finally, we have K-9 the Tin Dog, Smiley's loyal companion and assistant.
I think it speaks volumes for this game that such a diverse group can be assembled using the simple rules for character generation.
Now for the first seasons adventures, so far I have planned and written
Fire and Ivy: Nasty things are growing aboard the XL5, a Fireball Class patrol ship in the 51st century. Arrowdown: Time is going round in circles at the seaside. (rejigged pregen adventure) The Time Menders: Silver, a mysterious stranger, appears aboard the TARDIS seeking help from the Time Lords. LawMaster: Back in Megacity 1, who is the mysterious stranger taking control of Justice Department? Up the Down Elevator: Mysterious goings on at the Halfway Hotel (adapted from an adventure seed in the core set).
Several others including a Dalek episode are currently on the writing desk.
First playthrough report will come next
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Post by da professor on Jun 28, 2013 7:10:00 GMT
kewl
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Post by Marnal on Jun 28, 2013 18:01:33 GMT
Do I see some Sapphire and Steel sneaking in there? :-)
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Post by ubermutant on Jun 28, 2013 21:39:00 GMT
Cookies for Marnal, yes the Elementals are a force in my game universe. After his two friends got lost following a run in with the Transient beings, Silver needs to find someone who can help him break them out of the Time Spur they are trapped in.
One of my players is a huge S&S fan and is considering an Elemental as his next character. I statted Sapphire, Steel and Silver for fun before I wrote the adventure and they are easy to build using the rules in the system without having to invent anything special. I can post them up if people are interested.
Right, on with the action and Episode 1: Fire and Ivy.
Smiley promised everyone a trip to Jupiter Station in the 33rd century for ice cream and lemonade. There were hearty cheers from the crew which died away when they arrived and the scanner showed a corridor filled with Ivy. All the scopes were reading clear so they stepped outside. The corridor was sealed at both ends with Blast doors and had 5 other doors leading off. The left hand end was covered in ivy and creeper, seemingly growing through from beyond the closed off door. Quick readings, intuition and scans told them they were on a spaceship and so exploring began.
After checking some of the side rooms and finding nobody about, the bulk of the gang decided to check the vine chocked door while Quew took a cutting of the vine back to the TARDIS (at this point disguised as a chicken soup vending machine) to check over in the lab. The main group found a space suit that told them they were aboard the XL5, a Fireball class patrol ship while Quew did a fantastic job (with a little help from the storypoints) and identified the plant as a highly dangerous Krynoid vine. He rushed out to tell the others just as the door popped open in a shower of torn vines and leaves.
On the other side stretched away another corridor, knee deep in growth with several large mounds of plant material swaying gently from side to side. As the group argued over what to do, the Krynoid mutants rose up and began shambling towards them. Panic ensued, Judge Chronos halted their advance with a stern challenge and Quew seized the initiative, overriding the blast door and dropping it back down. Faced with a hostile force pounding against the blast door, they jammed it closed, then retreated, only to see vines beginning to grow round the TARDIS. Quew decided to activate all the defences aboard......all of them. I did question it but as a GM I might have giggled like a child when he said, no, everything on. They all stood round and watched the TARDIS kick in its HADS device and disappear, only returning when the danger had passed. There may have followed a period of mockery and playful insulting in Silurian, human, binary and the officially permitted swearwords of Megacity 1.
With the vines growing around them they had no choice but to try the other Blast door and it was quickly overridden and an escape was made. The new corridor was brightly lit, clear of vines and covered by the two panic faced gentlemen with big laser rifles cowering behind boxes at the far end. Smiley called out that they came in peace, something he should have checked with the rest of the group because they were itching for action after the last encounter and with a yell of 5 Rounds Rapid! opened fire in the Do Stuff phase. Bullets and blaster bolts ricocheted off the walls scattering sparks and trashing the paint but missing the two crewmen. They responded with some fiendishly accurate fire, scattering the party and inflicting small lazer burns and shredding pride before Smiley and Judge Chronos managed to bellow orders to cease fire.
Advancing quickly with his hands in the air, Smiley started to smooth things over with his silver tongue and honeyed words but Lieutenant Ninety was having none of it and the group were placed in a side room until he returned with his CO, Captain Zodiac. They were checked over by a gorgeous female doctor and discovered to all be contaminated by Krynoid spores. This called from some painful and invasive medical treatment with radiation that left everyone short of a point of strength. They then had to explain themselves to the CO and another officer, Commander Zero. Fast talking, quick thinking and a few storypoints later and they were being welcomed aboard as saviours.
The ship was in dire straits after being infected by the mysterious plant creatures. They had originally responded to a distress call from the survey Ship EVE although by the time they arrived in system all that remained of it was wreckage. They recovered what they could from the ship but also from the abandoned survey camp on the planet it had been assessing. As they prepared to break orbit something went wrong in the hydroponics bay, not much could be made out over the screaming but it seems like the plants began to come to life. Now all contact has been lost with the Aft sections, the last they had was that Professor Matic and the engineering crew were trapped in the engine room and all the science staff were MIA.
While Dawe filled his pockets with portable tech and Captain Jack had a quick beer, a plan was simple. Spacewalk to the aft section, team up with the engine room crew, break out into the bio lab and create a simple but deadly dose of Space Weed Killer, whack it into some homemade sprayers and clear the ship. As a precaution Quew whipped up a couple of home made flame throwers and when no one was looking, K9 disabled Captain Jacks laser pistol after the good captain threated Smiley.
A spacewalk later they were in the aft compartment talking to Professor Matic. They didn't seem to notice that no one else was about and instead got straight on with fighting their way to the Biolab to prepare the weed killer. Although Smiley was dragged off his feet by a nasty creeper and almost pulled into certain doom they were able to get there and begin manufacturing the weed killer. We finished there for the night but had this been a classic episode of WHO, the camera would have panned from the group huddled round the lab equipment to a small vent in the wall with a tiny creeper poking through..............
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Post by ubermutant on Jul 8, 2013 13:40:30 GMT
Roll titles...... Fire and Ivy: Part 2
All players present except for Captain Johnson who was last seen drinking himself into a stupor in the workshop.
The sudden bursting of vines from the air vents took everyone by surprise and mass panic swept the room. Panic that is except for the stern chin of Judge Chronos who issued a firm challenge to the vines to cease and desist. The thorny tendrils lashed round the room menacingly. Seafa gave it a blast from the flamethrower but somehow oly managed to set the wall on fire. The smouldering vine thrashed about, not realising the gang would take this as the perfect time to test their new super space weed killer. Pfft Pfft when the home made spray gun and the vines mulched backwards, turning yellow and pulpy. K9 unleashed a few laser bolts into the decaying growth before Agent Dawe jammed a live power lead in after them, a cascade of sparks finally setting off the fire extinguisher, flooding the room with Halon gas. Everyones vision was obscured but the vines were beaten back! Dawe held a metal plate over the hole while Smiley used his sonic screwdriver to weld it shut.
Wary of any more vines, K9 plugged into the computer and drew up a schematic of the ship, producing a hard copy from his rear mounted printer. The gang were excited by the armoury next to hydroponics and decided to go there before they tackled the big nasty plants. K9 cut the oxygen to Hydroponics, set of the Halon system in there in an attempt to damage the plants and locked off the doors for some reason before trundling after the others.
Out into the corridor and using some blasts from their homemade flamethrowers the group made progress. At this point they began chatting about what to do next. IC chat about what happens next does not pause the action and Seafa was yanked off her feet by a vine before being pulled away down the corridor. Chronos was able to keep pace and tried blasting it with some GP ammo but couldn't get a target. The rest of the gang came running, Smiley keeping back after his early injury. Seafa wasn't about to let herself get pulled into danger and managed to pull her spraygun round, giving the vine a full dose. It instantly began to decay and dropped off her leg, leaving her sprawled on the ground.
A kill circle was formed while everyone regrouped. Quew and Smiley popped the amoury door after a few minutes tinkering and Quew stepped inside......only to be caught in a gravity trap. Without the correct ID badge, he would be trapped in a gravity field until a crewmember with authorisation came along to free him. There was some mockery at this point but Chronos once again proved his voice was his best weapon and shouted an order at the computer in his most official sounding tone. Momentarily confused, the field deactivated, giving Quew just enough time to leap backwards to safety. No help would be forthcoming from the armoury. At this point discussion began again and no one noticed the creeper edging from the gaping hole in the bottom of the hydroponics lab door. Agent Dawe was the unlucky fellow although quick thinking from Smiley had the vine cut before it could drag him to certain doom.
With some trepidation the team approached hydroponics, sending a couple of blasts of flamethrower under the door for good measure. They activated the door switch.....and remembered K9 had locked it shut. Smiley offered to cut the door but K9 began trundling back to the biolab instead. He plugged himself into a terminal, ignorant to the vines growing round it. Smiley watched as his tin dog unlocked the door and tried to break free. Another dose of the precious weed killer was used to enable his escape. Angry, K9 launched a volley of blasterbolts into the computer terminal and surrounding wall, wrecking it but splattering the plants growing within.
Judge Chronos and Seafa wrenched at the door, it seemed to be held closed by a force within the room. Slowly it inched open, vines and leaves cracking and breaking as it did so. They could glimpse the room beyond, a huge tangle of vegetation and K9 once again bravely rolled forward. He reasoned that if he entered through the big hole in the bottom of the door, he could laser the vines that were preventing it from opening. A sound plan the others agreed and in he went.
Sadly, the best plans often overlook the obvious and just as he finished lasering one side clear, a huge vine wrapped round his fragile metal frame, picked him off the ground and began slamming him repeatedly against the deck (for 10 damage......).
Eager to save their loyal robotic chum, not realising Smiley had a crate of 10 more aboard TARDIS, Chronos and Seafa leapt to his rescue, spraying the vines with the weed killer and hacking him free with the judges BOOTKNIFE! They grabbed the dog and legged it along with everyone else. The reason for the hasty retreat? Quew had produced another gadget from under his coat. This one was a large canister with a big wick sticking out of the top and some Gallifrayan symbols which loosely translated as Bomb. Lighting his incendiary, Quew lobbed it into the room and jumped for cover as a huge fireball slammed back into the corridor. With the Halon already triggered, there was nothing to stop the inferno that followed. It was some time later that a group of rather sooty time travelers were able to peek back round the hatch to see the carnage their device had wrought.
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Post by ubermutant on Jul 10, 2013 8:45:17 GMT
Inside was a scene of carnage, the previously vine tangled room was filled with charred ashes and debris. The firebomb had cleared a big chunk of the room, but had also filled it with smoke so visibility was very bad.
Agent Dawe leapt in to the left, locating the hydroponics growth control station. He emptied his sprayers weed killer reservoir into the feed intake and cranked up the machinery to begin pumping it into the grow trays where they evil Krynoid had taken root. Quew was drawn by his insatiable curiosity towards the large tree like plant still smouldering away, barely visibile through the smoke. The rest of the group were busy cutting vines and clearing a path to make sure the plant was dead.
It was not. Quew found himself looking up at a tall plant stem with beautiful purple flowers and a large cluster of pods at the base. Before he could react, a huge lashing vine covered in poisonous thorns (and rolling disgusting amounts of damage) smashed the visor of his spacesuit, forcing glass into his face and leaving him stunned and blinded. Hearing a strangled yelp through the smoke the dream team of Chronos and Seafa ran to his aid, arriving to see their friend being held in the air by vines wrapped round his ankles. Below him, the seedpods had opened to reveal a gaping toothy maw. At this stage Chronos challenged the vine to release their friend and come quietly or there would be trouble! (If you have the excellent Judge Dredd RPG produced by Games Workshop, turn to page 103, Plants, now).
The Krynoid flared up menacingly and with no time to hesitate, they both pumped their remaining weed killer into the exposed innards!
This, combined with Dawe's work was too much for the plant to bear, it dropped Quew on the deck, shrivelling and turning yellow as it slowly and painfully began to die. Seeing it weak, the team were all over it and a combination of more weed killer, flamethrowers, laser blasts, shotgun fire, stamping boots and pointy sticks and it was all over.
They had done it, the Krynoid menace was halted, the remaining crew saved and with the danger past, the TARDIS sheepishly returned to the ship. After spending 24 hours clearing the remaining creeper while they received medical attention from the gorgeous Dr Venus, there remained but one thing to do. While Agent Dawe wiped the crews memories with his engram eraser, Smiley and Quew used K9 to delete any record of their involvement, instead hading the credit to the courageous Captain Zodiac. With the loose ends tidy they made a quick exit, stage left, only pausing to drop one of XL5s beacons warning the planet was infested with a dangerous life form and should be avoided at all costs.
Then it was off on the next adventure!
I thought the scenario went rather well, the players enjoyed it immensely and there was plenty of action. They didn't go down the science route as much as I thought, clues were dropped about the sudden growth of the Krynoid occurring at the same time as the ships main drive fired, a flaw in the drive was releasing radiation and by countering it with a different type would have killed off the plant a lot more easily. One good thing about the action route is that the players have learnt to respect the systems lethal nature very quickly. One or two hits and suddenly people are suffering and there are no healing potions or magic spells to make you better.
Next Episode: The Time Menders
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