The Control Universe -- Questions and Updates

[brucegee]

Hi -- I'm new here, and enjoying the chance to poke around!

I've been running campaigns since the days when there wasn't any "A" before "D&D," and all of roleplaying was just three books in a brown cardboard box. However, I'm just checking out this game for the first time.

My 13-year-old daughter and her friends are all deeply in love with Doctor Who, so I thought I'd give this system a try and design a campaign for them. I hope to log in here every few weeks with updates on how it's going. I also may have a few questions on technical details of the system.

For instance -- in the initial invitation I'm getting ready to send out, I'd like to have a link to some kind of stripped-down version of the rules, so they can start designing characters on their own and we don't need to waste lots of precious runtime. I found this link www.cubicle7.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/DoctorWhoLimitedEditionChapterOneWebRez.pdf here on the board to a pdf of the first chapter, but the second chapter on character design is really the one I need. I've got about five copies of "Gurps Lite" -- is there a Doctor Who Lite somewhere out there?

[misterharry]

Hi brucegee - welcome aboard!

I'm not aware of any online quick-start rules for DWAITAS, I'm afraid. Depending on which edition of the core rules you have, you'll already have something along these lines - it's just a matter of identifying what's what.

If you've got either the 10th or 11th Doctor boxed sets, then you'll have a 4-page introduction sheet which includes a tour round the character sheet so they can quickly understand the key concepts. However, it's primarily intended for use with the pre-generated characters, so no character creation rules. But you'll also have the Players' Guide. Chapter 2 of that covers character generation. It's around 40 pages long, but about 30 of those are descriptions of the various traits available - so essentially you have about 10 pages.

If you've got the 50th anniversary Limited Edition Rulebook, then you don't have a separate introductory leaflet or Players' Guide. However, as with the boxed sets, character creation is covered in chapter 2 and again boils down to around 10 pages plus trait descriptions. If you want to have the old Players' Guide as a separate document, the 10th Doctor version is still available as a download from DrivethruRPG (and each of the editions is completely compatible with the others):

10th Doctor Players Guide

I would also add that character creation in DWAITAS is relatively simple and painless. But for a first game, have you considered letting the players run some of the pre-generated characters included in the various versions - the Doctor, Amy, Rose, Sarah Jane, etc? Or if you want them to have original characters, how about letting them base them on the templates included in each of the editions - UNIT soldier, scientist, rock star, etc?

[brucegee]

Here's the philosophy I'm basing the campaign around.

I think the Who universe is a terrific place to base a campaign. However, as an RPG, I think its main problem is, quite simply, the Doctor himself. In my experience as a GM, successful campaigns tend to have 1) rough equality of characters -- always a team effort, where everyone gets an equal chance to shine, 2) extremely limited PC abilities, to encourage characters to THINK about the situations they're in, rather than just try to pull something crazy out of their hat with their endless list of abilities (in other words, I like low-power campaigns), and 3) the chance to get creativity out of the players, as well as the GM. So having everyone do pre-gens of a Doctor and companions just rubs me the wrong way, at least for my style as a GM -- of course YMMV. And yes, I know that various people have come up with workarounds like rotating who plays the Doctor. That doesn't seem satisfying to me. Also add that these aren't experienced roleplayers at all -- someone flamboyant and confident like the Doctor is going to be tough for many of them to play.

I'm going to start the campaign in the near future, and ask all the players to design themselves as high school seniors. So they'll be playing themselves, but they'll also need to think a bit about their plans and goals. I think a "play yourself" campaign is also a good idea in DW, since a major theme of the show is that of ordinary people able to do extraordinary things.

I also think, though, that there's something about the flamboyancy of the Doctor himself that a campaign of this would be a pity not to have. So Matt Smith, the actor, will be an NPC.

I also have a problem with telling players, particularly inexperienced ones, "Your character doesn't know all this stuff that you yourself know." So the campaign will take place in our own universe, where there are no historical alien invasions and Doctor Who is a long-running tv show that the players and their characters have seen.

Several antagonist races have managed to cross into our own universe, and are using various means to use it to permanently expunge the Doctor from existence. The Doctor is outside the Tardis when this happens, but Clara (who will also be an npc) is inside it. When the universe shifts to an alternate universe where the Doctor no longer exists, the Tardis manages to jump sideways into the resultant universe, ours. When Clara then tells the Tardis to take her to where the Doctor is, it instead takes her to the location of the closest thing -- Matt Smith, who is attending a convention that the PCs are attending.

Anyway, I hope to post more after each run.

[Catsmate]

Aug 27, 2014 4:11:50 GMT brucegee said:

Here's the philosophy I'm basing the campaign around.

I think the Who universe is a terrific place to base a campaign. However, as an RPG, I think its main problem is, quite simply, the Doctor himself. In my experience as a GM, successful campaigns tend to have 1) rough equality of characters -- always a team effort, where everyone gets an equal chance to shine, 2) extremely limited PC abilities, to encourage characters to THINK about the situations they're in, rather than just try to pull something crazy out of their hat with their endless list of abilities (in other words, I like low-power campaigns), and 3) the chance to get creativity out of the players, as well as the GM. So having everyone do pre-gens of a Doctor and companions just rubs me the wrong way, at least for my style as a GM -- of course YMMV. And yes, I know that various people have come up with workarounds like rotating who plays the Doctor. That doesn't seem satisfying to me. Also add that these aren't experienced roleplayers at all -- someone flamboyant and confident like the Doctor is going to be tough for many of them to play.

I agree completely. That's why I favour a more balanced mix of PCs, the 'Doctor-lite' campaign with the main character being The Leader rather than The Ace. DWAITAS does tend to be Doctor centric but it's quite possible to avoid this, i.e. basing the time travel aspect around a Time Agent or lesser time traveller, such as Jenny or a new character like John Redfern.

In fact, and I've been doing Who RPGing since the FASA era, I've very rarely used the Doctor as a PC; NPC leader, villain and advisor but not a PC.

Aug 27, 2014 4:11:50 GMT brucegee said:

I'm going to start the campaign in the near future, and ask all the players to design themselves as high school seniors. So they'll be playing themselves, but they'll also need to think a bit about their plans and goals. I think a "play yourself" campaign is also a good idea in DW, since a major theme of the show is that of ordinary people able to do extraordinary things.

I also think, though, that there's something about the flamboyancy of the Doctor himself that a campaign of this would be a pity not to have. So Matt Smith, the actor, will be an NPC.

Well you could have the PCs stumbled over something that provides time travel capability (if you're retaining that concept) and possibly some knowledge/powers. The classic Who example is of course a device (such as the pocket watch) containing the personality and memories of a hidden Time Lord, who may be long dead.

In fact this rather begins to resemble the Primary Game from the old BTRC Time Lords RPG, before it was ruined.

Aug 27, 2014 4:11:50 GMT brucegee said:

I also have a problem with telling players, particularly inexperienced ones, "Your character doesn't know all this stuff that you yourself know." So the campaign will take place in our own universe, where there are no historical alien invasions and Doctor Who is a long-running tv show that the players and their characters have seen.

Yeah, imparting the everyday knowledge of new worlds is always tricky.

Aug 27, 2014 4:11:50 GMT brucegee said:

Several antagonist races have managed to cross into our own universe, and are using various means to use it to permanently expunge the Doctor from existence. The Doctor is outside the Tardis when this happens, but Clara (who will also be an npc) is inside it. When the universe shifts to an alternate universe where the Doctor no longer exists, the Tardis manages to jump sideways into the resultant universe, ours. When Clara then tells the Tardis to take her to where the Doctor is, it instead takes her to the location of the closest thing -- Matt Smith, who is attending a convention that the PCs are attending.

Anyway, I hope to post more after each run.

That reminds me of a Star Trek short story where the actors accidentally got dumped onto the Enterprise.