How Do You GM?

[Escher]

Just for interest, I've always wondered how other GMs run games.

A few questions:

1. What's your NPC body count like?

NPC death is part of the show, more so in the classic series. I think this is in keeping with the series feel. If I'm feeling particularly sadistic, I'll have a prologue and allow a player(s) to take on the role of an NPC who will snuff it before 'the titles roll' if it’s relevant to the story. Once I had part of a space station crew of 8 get iced (literally) by a sentient cloud of frost before the TARDIS arrived. My players took on the roles of the unfortunate extras, believing they were playing ‘a new campaign’ using the DWAITAS rules. Their expressions were priceless as I cued the Doctor Who theme ‘sting’ as they perished.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

I grab it by the horns. I ran an adventure called 'Secret of the Sontarans' where it was revealed that the clone warrior race has a secret hidden ruling elite of females, that are highly intelligent, tall, willowy, bald and non-violent. They decided to clone the race when it was made sterile in the first few months of the war with the Rutans.
Logical and brilliant, the females developed a stratagem that would allow the continuation of their species in a time of perpetual war. They also constantly cloned themselves, allowing virtual immortality.


3. Do you use props?

My Doctor player uses the Future Sonic Screwdriver and a wallet of ‘psychic paper’.

We use the Character Options action figures and TARDIS model for flavour. Not in a ‘tactical figures way’, just as rough guides for positioning, cover and such.

I also use music and sound effects like ambient backgrounds that I loop on media player. It really adds something extra. I have suspenseful or mysterious tracks cued up and also action tracks for when combats take place.


4. What tools do you use?

I use a Kindle Fire for graphics/illustrations of locations and people/aliens for use in play, to show the players.

Google Earth helps for location shots, as does Deviant Art . com and Flickr for alien worlds etc.


5. What pace are your sessions?

Mine are fast and loose.

[Eryx]

1. What's your NPC body count like?
It does tend to happen, just like in the show. I've not run DW:AITAS enough to build up a decent body count however.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?
I don't really see the point to running DW if you don't respect the continuity (unless you are an alternate universe). Mine tend to be set around the time of the original cancellation back in the late 80s.

3. Do you use props?
Only the occasional hand written notes and maps.

4. What tools do you use?
Mainly the internet for reference.

5. What pace are your sessions?
Depends on the story being told.

[Craig Oxbrow]

1: Not that high, really. Maybe an NPC or two to show how a new monster works or demonstrate that Daleks are involved, maybe an NPC or two in the pre-credits. Occasionally an entire planet, but I don't really count those in the averages as the people aren't named.

2: I respect continuity as much as the show does - as a source of ideas to be adapted or discarded as necessary. That said, I'd probably leave the popular monsters as-is because the potential angry fans are sitting at my table.

3: Nah. Usually I'm GMing in a public space (a student union, with a university games society) and I don't generally go for that anyway, nice as the available props are these days. I won't draw a map if I can avoid it. Sometimes handouts...

4: So I find things online in advance and print them out. Or doodle them at the table. Ain't got no smart tech.

5: Generally fairly fast and loose too.

[olegrand]

1. What's your NPC body count like?

Pretty average on the whole, I guess, since the heroine (Lady Penelope) usually manages to avoid the worst case scenarios when the thtreat of mass slaughter is part of the plot, but I never hesitate to kill an important NPC if this death serves the story or creates an interesting situation in dramatic or psychological terms.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

I've chosen a mixed approach: I tend to use the vast "past history" of the show as a source of background elements, characters or plot ideas, but I've also freed the campaign from excessive / obsessive continuity issues by using a future incarnation of the Doctor (as a non-travelling NPC mentor) and developing my own versions of the "future timelines" for various characters (like Ace or Professor Litefoot). The basic idea is to utilize the series (and all the spin-off medias) as sources of ideas for the campaign, rather than trying to shoehorn the campaign into some form of "official continuum".

3. Do you use props?

No, but I use photographs (taken from a huge variety of sources - movies, TV shows etc.) for EVERY major NPC or creature in the episodes (which does involve quite a lot of preliminary research and web-surfing). I've been using this approach in almost every RPG I've run during the last decade, and it really works wonderfully well in play, giving each NPC / creature an immediate image in the players' minds. Of course, we also apply the same logic to player-characters. So far, Lady Penelope has had three incarnations, each with its own "actress": Jamie Murray, Cate Blanchett and Rachel Weisz. (A sidenote on regenerations: when Penelope regenerated in play, we took a 15-minute break during which the player HAD to choose her character's new appearance - the fact that she had minutes rather than hours or days to ponder about her character's new face creates a very nice element of haste and uncertainty, and resuming play right after this 15 minute scene (even if it is only for a single final scene) really emulates the sudden weirdness of the regeneration process. Back to "props", I also use a lot of background music in my scenarios - mainly from the new DW series and from Torchwood, with the occasional period movie soundtrack for historical episodes.

4. What tools do you use?

I never consult any rulebook (or any other form of reference book) during play. I see RPGs as an immersive process; once play begins, players stay "in character" and the GM is fully immersed in the ongoing scenario. Outside play, when working on the episodes, I mainly use the Tardis Wikia website, as well as various books on the Whoniverse, most notably the third edition of AHISTORY, various BBC sourcebooks and, of course, the C7 books themselves.

5. What pace are your sessions?

Pacing really depends on the pace of the story itself. Duration of play, however, is pretty constant: a single episode / session usually represents from 3 to 4.30 hours of play - which may seem short, but keep in mind that it it a solitaire / one-and-one campaign; the occasional "crossover" episodes which involve another player are always longer, usually in the 4.30/5.30 region. I like to keep my game sessions tightly-packed, avoiding "time outs" and keeping the players fully alert and immersed for the final scene.

[Escher]

Sept 28, 2013 10:33:52 GMT olegrand said:

So far, Lady Penelope has had three incarnations, each with its own "actress": Jamie Murray, Cate Blanchett and Rachel Weisz. (A sidenote on regenerations: when Penelope regenerated in play, we took a 15-minute break during which the player HAD to choose her character's new appearance - the fact that she had minutes rather than hours or days to ponder about her character's new face creates a very nice element of haste and uncertainty, and resuming play right after this 15 minute scene (even if it is only for a single final scene) really emulates the sudden weirdness of the regeneration process.

This is a great idea. I'm definately using this method from now on.

[Siskoid]

1. What's your NPC body count like?
I probably should have kept count. I don't really know, now that you ask. I seem to remember it as an occasional death and an occasional massacre, but not a constant thing.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?
I've run two seasons, with two different "Shepherds" (that's our Time Lord), so to emulate two different "eras" of our show, I've forced myself to construct the seasons completely differently, and this includes how I treated continuity. Season 1 was built entirely of pre-fab adventure scenarios (Arrowdown and campaign notes for a Unisystem Doctor Who game pre-DWAITAS, tweaked for my purposes). We accepted right away that more Time Lords could have escaped the Time War, and the only real continuity plug-in was our heroes visiting the last days of the Time War as shades so they could witness our Time Lord leave, Doc8 turn into Doc9 etc. Season 2 started after I got the 1st Doctor sourcebook, so this time around, I let myself be inspired by old stories to create new ones. This meant our heroes were more or less doing what the 1st Doctor originally did (100,000 BC, The Daleks, Inside the Spaceship, Marco Polo, Invasion of the Daleks, The War Machines and twist, The Curse of Fenric were poached, twisted, mangled, and re experienced with a new TARDIS crew. Basically, I decided the Time War had screwed up time so that the Doctor may remember these events, but they'd been undone, and time had healed itself by getting the Shepherd's TARDIS to those locations. Season 3, who knows?

3. Do you use props?
Certainly! I have a toy version of the fobwatch, and the Time Lord uses it as his handy scanner at the table. I also have the Yahtzee TARDIS which we throw around during the credits sequence when I put on the theme song. There's a lot of music too. The theme is an alternate remix found on the web, and I'll use songs that represent whatever era well, and some driving beats from Murray Gold's albums as well. In one adventure taking place at Woodstock, I downloaded the whole of existing recordings of the festival, and put on the tunes corresponding with the time, and used special announcements as plot points. I'm a little crazy sometimes. Also, occasional action figure monster for show and tell.

Oops, I got company, I'll finish this later!

[Siskoid]

4. What tools do you use?
The Internet has a three-fold use. Finding appropriate music. Finding pics to cast the characters - like Olegrand, both PCs and NPCs are cast to make the game more like a TV show (it's funny, Rachel Weisz was also in our campaign, though as a Time Lord villain, our version of the Master or Rani, but she may have regenerated since then, haven't seen her since Season 1's finale). Lastly, the Internet has recently become key to getting expatriated players back into my games via Skype/Google+ Hangouts. I also use Cubicle 7 books and an occasional book from another game, mostly monster books published for GURPS 3rd.

5. What pace are your sessions?
Quite fast and usually loose. I think the normal running time is 2½ hours. I try to script the set-up and early chapters and then let improvisation take over in the last acts so the players have the greatest freedom in solving things laterally, just like the Doctor.

[Marnal]

1. What's your NPC body count like?

My natural tendency is to leave NPCs alive, but I think this doesn’t replicate the show very well. So, when prepping a game, I deliberately force myself to script several deaths (horrific individual deaths, and/or mass slaughters). This lets the PCs know how awful the monsters are and demonstrates what could happen to them if they try direct assaults.

While I do have to force myself to kill off NPCs I have no problem with other types of dark and angsty situations and events. My games regularly plumb the depths of the darkest and more gritty of Virgin’s New Adventure novel line.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

Only one of my players has any detailed knowledge of Who continuity, and she only knows the TV series (classic and new) not the EU. So technically I shouldn’t have to worry to much about it. But…

I find it fun, challenging, and rewarding to get my stories to work within the limits set by the TV series, novels, and audios. So I try my damndest to do my homework on every story. It helps that I find those continuity ‘limitations’ almost always suggest more then they limit. The fact that my players are unfamiliar with the EU often gives me loads of extra material, and ideas that they won’t see coming.

3. Do you use props?

If I have a toy or knickknack that is important and relevant to the session and it is no more then a foot or so long then I’ll usually have it sitting on the table. But its not a big thing. I always keep a Sonic screwdriver toy handy for a little sound FX boost.

We do have a blog for the game. The idea is to use it for supplementary In-Universe material. So I most newspaper articles, diary entries, government reports that relate to the current adventure. It’s a great place to put sizeable documents that the players might want to detailed access to.

I also give out Story Points to players who post diary entries, stories about their characters, and the like on the blog.

It’s at
doctorwhogame.blogspot.com/
if anyone is interested.

4. What tools do you use?

I’ve got about 24 hours of Doctor Who soundtrack music organized into “Soft” “Tension” “Action” and “Triumphant” playlists. Depending on the mood of the scene I’ll have that playing in the background.

I use Mutant Soundmixer (www.stefanisberg.com/mutant/Mixer_eng.html) to provide ambient sound FX. I’ve augmented it with a few dozen Dr Who sound FX like “TARDIS hum” and “Dalek Heartbeat.” I’ve got a Dalek speech converter on my phone, and the Doctor Who in my pocket sound FX player for TARDIS vworp sounds.

I’ve got the PC stats in spread sheets so the Character Building Points and Story Points can be calculated to ensure everybody’s balanced [there’s a bit of PC on PC sabotaging and backstabbing so put a lot of effort into making things fair].

TARDIS Data Core is great, as is Whoniverse (for novel continuity), the DisContinuity Guide (for covering the audios), plus my own Time Lord website (www.meshyfish.com/~roo/) and Google images provides most of the pics of the game, and I’ll often have several book marked before we start.

I use all three Dr Who RPGs as source material, AHistory, The Book of the War, I Who’s guides to the novels and audios (Vol 1-3), the About Time continuity guides (Vol 1-7), my own TARDIS Technical Index (db.tt/ckZkkvEb), and the various monster guides that have been published over the years.

5. What pace are your sessions?

Methodical and cautious. Think “Children or Earth, Miracle Day, The Silurians, Ambassadors of Death, and The Invasion” for what being in one of my games is like. A typical story will be about 10 to 15 two hour sessions.

About 2/3rd of this time is taken up by the PCs investigating the situation and trying to figure out the who, what, why, and where of a situation before things get too out of control. The last 3rd is spent with the PCs arguing over what they are going to do about the situation and then trying to enact their plan.

When combat actually breaks out it tends to be fairly fast paced, with me demanding actions from the players over and over and quickly as I can get the dice rolls computed and rolled.

[The Master]

1. What's your NPC body count like?

As many as it takes. One simply does not make an Omlette without breaking some eggs.


2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

There is only one continuity - my own. We all define our own reality. One day I shall define yours.


3. Do you use props?

The occasional rubber mask will work wonders for me.


4. What tools do you use?

Tissue Compression Eliminator, TARDIS, my own genius.


5. What pace are your sessions?

I like to keep things ticking over nicely at my own pace. Smoke a fine cigar, enjoy a good brandy and enjoy the chaos and destruction.

[Marcus]

I didn't GM much for a couple years now, so DW:AITAS will be way to (hopefully) getting into it again.

As such, I can't answer all of the question, but:

1. What's your NPC body count like?

Sept 27, 2013 17:15:40 GMT Escher said:

NPC death is part of the show, more so in the classic series. I think this is in keeping with the series feel. If I'm feeling particularly sadistic, I'll have a prologue and allow a player(s) to take on the role of an NPC who will snuff it before 'the titles roll' if it’s relevant to the story. Once I had part of a space station crew of 8 get iced (literally) by a sentient cloud of frost before the TARDIS arrived. My players took on the roles of the unfortunate extras, believing they were playing ‘a new campaign’ using the DWAITAS rules. Their expressions were priceless as I cued the Doctor Who theme ‘sting’ as they perished.

I will totally steal this!

NPCs are a resouce to be spend for a good story, so as many dead as needed.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

Actually that's the question I struggle most with right now, how to write a good story and how much it needs to follow continuity.

3. Do you use props?

As I used to run stuff a very improvised style, I didn't use much props, but I think about changing that.

4. What tools do you use?

Rule books, maps drawn on the fly... will prepare more and use pictures, sounds, etc... I think

5. What pace are your sessions?

Time will tell.

[ninjaconor]

1. What's your NPC body count like?
Huge. My games usually don't feature The Doctor so my players lack that kind of moral guidance. Generally they try to do the right thing but there's always someone who'll start up a fight (or poke a Time-Lord in the eye with a pencil in one case ) and it tends to spiral from there. I allow it because it adds a lot of humour to the game.

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?
I like to either set my games during the Time War or in an alternate universe so I can have a lot of wiggle-room with continuity. Also, they have a time machine. If anything too world-shattering happens they can always go back and undo it.

3. Do you use props?
I use Lego men to map out battle scenes and begin every game with the Doctor Who theme tune.

4. What tools do you use?
See above I guess.

5. What pace are your sessions?
Usually quite fast. I try to have each session be a complete adventure in itself but they all eventually form a larger arc.

[Ordovician]

1. What's your NPC body count like?

I'm not averse to killing NPCs, though none have died yet: well, actually several hundred have, but that's only as a result of a fixed point in time (the poisonous London smog of 1952).

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

I try to respect the majority of it up until the end of Colin Baker's run; the Trial went a bit differently and through some shenanigans the Valeyard ended up becoming Lord President. The alien races mentioned in any post-Trial stories still exist, but the Doctor's run-ins with them don't since the Doctor is, well, who knows where.

3. Do you use props?

I run a PBP, so no.

4. What tools do you use?

My own drawings, Deviant Art sometimes, Google Earth. Also, I like to search for period images if possible: at least for me, it helps immersion. I did this when I ran a previous game and it worked well.

5. What pace are your sessions?

Like I said, PBP, so slow.

[barefoottourguide]

1. What's your NPC body count like?

If it serves the story, then do it right. If it provides a moral dilemma for characters to resist doing very un-Doctor things and raises the stakes, go for it. Like anything, overdoing it weakens its effect.  

2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?

If it happened on the screen it happened on the screen. If we did not see it and it has not been referenced, then it is fair game to place an event or conversation in the timeline. Also, twists about how things were done that have been left vague are a wonderful source of story ideas. How did it happen? Was someone else involved?


3. Do you use props?

I primarily have been a Star Wars GM, and I always have music playing. I have soundboards on my tablet for sound effects of lightsabers and blaster fire. I did not have time to figure out quick ways to work my TARDIS and sonic screwdriver sound effects and iTunes-purchased Doctor Who theme in time for my first game but will definitely get it accomplished before the next session. As for live plays, I use a prop lightsaber for Star Wars Jedi and will be using a prop sonic screwdriver for the Doctor.

4. What tools do you use?
I ran on roll20.net. The module I used was a dungeon crawl through a space station, so I redid the module's map in Dundjinni and used roll20's fog of war settings to reveal the map piece by piece as the players went. When I take this to Cons, I will print the map and place note cards over the different room and reveal the room contents when the players enter. As I said, I really enjoy my tablet. I only print up stats I need and the map key. The rest is done on my tablet's pdf reader. Also, TARDIS, sonic screw driver and music can all be played from the tablet, though I prefer hooking my ipod up to external speakers for music playback.

Garrett

[zebaroth]

I run lose if the players decide to go off the path two hours in real time as long as they are having
fun i will let them i have 4 rules of being a gm
1 I am not the god of game world
2 I will not try to kill the players unless they do some that go's beyond stupid
3 you can always try to do something
4 the rules are just recommendations not stone tablets from the past.

[barefoottourguide]

Well said, Zebaroth.

Garrett

[zebaroth]

Jan 20, 2014 2:46:12 GMT barefoottourguide said:

Well said, Zebaroth.

Garrett

thank you

[Doctor X]

Sept 27, 2013 17:15:40 GMT Escher said:

Just for interest, I've always wondered how other GMs run games.

A few questions:

1. What's your NPC body count like?


2. Do you respect show continuity or make it your own?


3. Do you use props?


4. What tools do you use?


5. What pace are your sessions?

1. I'd have to say high, but mainly because the bulk of my GMing experience comes from running Call of Cthulhu, Vampire, and Cyberpunk 2020. In short: Games where human life is cheap.

2. I consider it a useful tool, but I'm not afraid to chuck it out the window if it makes for a good story. When we formed the group, I gave my player the choice of being The Doctor and Companions, doing a UNIT/Torchwood type game, new companions with an NPC Doctor, or say "Screw the Time War" and do whatever we want. They chose the last option. Tonight's adventure is in 1986, and the 80s BBS hacker will find conspiracy nuts talking about the coverup around that Antarctic Base and the strange "Earth Reflection" that appeared in the sky last year.

3. Whenever possible. (See my answer to 1 about being a Call of Cthulhu GM.) Also like to incorporate music whenever possible. Tonight's adventure is taking place in the 80s, so have prepared an 80s playlist for possible uses. (The only song I've determined is a must for the game I have planned is "The Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)" by Timbuk 3.)

4. Dice are my preference rather than die rollers, however, have a player who Skypes into the Cthulhu game, so we use the die roller at catchyourhare.com. I have a set of 3x5 cards on hand for both secret notes and one of the one good thing I stole from TSR's crappy Indiana Jones RPG from the 80s: Knowledge Cards. Notes to hand to the player whose character ought to know something detailed about the situation (Letting the player deliver the infodump rather than everyone listening to me drone on.).

5. I let the players set the pace. My adventure notes tend to be rough outlines of the main plot, and then I let improvisation and player ingenuity make the details. My "patron saint of gaming" is MacGyver. I rewatch the show now and then to remind myself that whatever elaborate plan I come up with, the players CAN and WILL pull something out of their asses to thwart it.

[Polar Bear]

I'd like to move into doing more of #3. About all I use are lots of photos, but I can see the benefit of what others are doing.

Instead of "Knowledge Cards," I text players during the game. Just a different way of solving the problem.