The Second Edition - Thoughts?

[Escher]

Success is a little different with the dice mechanics ( rolling a 1 is bad, a 6 is good) but mostly the same.

There's also 'Advantage' (roll two dice and take best two) and 'Disadvantage'(roll two dice and take worst two)for the GM to play with in regards to modifiers.

Traits are gone, replaced by Distinctions, in effect you are allowed to just literally make up any 'Special Trait' at a cost of 2 Story Points. Basically, easy to convert old Traits over, import them and no lists needed. All of it involves GM approval, so more abstract and larger powers can be incorporated.

Skills: Fighting and Marksmanship are merged into a new skill that replaces both: 'Conflict', and there's a new skill 'Intuition'.

Basic character generation results in weaker characters than the first edition, but they are more realistic. The new additions to the rules are pretty good, like Focus and Concept, and relationships and character experiences and group experiences play a major part in the game.

The experience and character growth system is deeper. I think the intention with starting characters is in allowing them to grow through play, in ways that are more realistic than the first edition.

[xandines]

On the paper i'm not convinced by distinction instead of special traits, but i need to test that in game.
I like the comp intuition, as i often struggle to make an insight roll that works in this game, problem solved now.
I like the recalling experience mechanic, we use the same sort of technic since a long time in the first edition.

i can see in my reading that David Chapman read Tales from the Loop and recent systems with the same feeling. It seems to work on the paper, and i'm eager to test it.

[misterharry]

From a starting character's perspective, replacing Traits with Distinctions would seem to result in blander characters on paper - though Concept and Focus should help define them better. But for writing complicated or powerful monsters, and for GMs trying to keep track of a major villain's long list of traits, it should make things a lot more straightforward. As always, the proof will be in the playing.

[bilbo]

First Impressions...

I think I'm warming up to Focus and Distinctions. I see their point wrt how Focus vs Traits worked, though it does seem to lack detail. But maybe that's okay, its certainly simpler and would probably encourage more role-play. For distinctions, it's certainly more flexible, but it's not simpler, if you have to make them all up from scratch. I imagine this is especially so for newbies. I'll probably just port over 'distinctions' from 1e.

In general I like the new way that tasks are rolled using '6's or '1's to determine level of success or failure. Less math. But it occurred to me this could create practical wonkiness. Thought experiment: I need an 18 to succeed at task. I have Attribute of 3 and Skill of 3. No other modifiers. I need 'box cars' to succeed. And I would succeed brilliantly. Or not at all. Thats an extreme example, but if rolling '6's indicate a brilliant success in general. Then it seems to create a paradigm where the higher the difficulty, the only time I'm succeeding is when I do so brilliantly...?? Seems counter intuitive. Though I guess in practice, the barely succeeds will occur when I burn SP after my failures. Need to see how this works in play.

In theory I like Disadvantage & Advantage in 5e as well. Will have to get used to them for DW. Not sure how I feel about still having (+) modifiers listed though. I feel like Advantage & Disadvantage should be used in lieu of them. And at one point it talks about +2/+4/etc for taking your time and one page away it talks about Advantage for taking your time. I guess they are giving the GM options, though on my first (admittedly) quick skim, I found it confusing.

I really like the idea of conditions to give more weight to getting an Attribute knocked down to zero. Works well with Disadvantage I think.

Also looks like they are trying to get away from Attribute + Attribute rolls as well. I can see why but I had spent a lot of brain power explaining them to myself

Interesting way they handle experience. Looking forward to trying it out in play.

Side note. Was Ryan supposed to have TL 7 in pre-gen?? It says in text TL 5. Is this after his time in the TARDIS?


Edit: Just noticed Pting and Silurian both require Resolve+Strength to resist their poison, so doesnt look like Attribute+Atrribute is dead after all.

[greyhame]

Well, I've had a quick read-through of the 2nd edition core Rulebook.
Pros: The changes to skills seem OK (although I would have liked further changes), XP system looks useful, Advantage/Disadvantage will probably work well.
Cons: Not convinced by the removal of Traits.

Will have to see how it plays, but we will likely continue with 1e & just mine 2e for ideas.

[Stormcrow]

Jul 28, 2021 16:09:50 GMT Escher said:

There's also 'Advantage' (roll two dice and take best two) and 'Disadvantage'(roll two dice and take worst two)for the GM to play with in regards to modifiers.

Sigh. Oh well.

[ninjaconor]

Having read the PDF, I think it still seems like a good game, just not quite as good as the first edition. I'm not sure what kind of groups they were getting feedback for for this, but none of the issues they are trying to resolve were ever issues for me or any of my groups.

Firstly, the elephant in the room, is the removal of traits. Traits are gone but have been replaced with your Focus and Distinctions, which give you bonuses or penalties in certain situations. Only now, instead of these being things you can look up in the book, they're things that the player and GM make up together. This sounds like a disaster for balance! Just for example, in first edition I had a character in one of my games who could communicate telepathically. There was a Telepathy trait in the book which clearly laid out the limits of this ability in a fair way. We rarely had to refer back to it, but it was handy to have a universal reference point in tricky situations. Under second edition, I'm supposed to agree how the powers work and what their limits are with the player, meaning I have to decide what are fair limits and fair penalties. That's daunting enough for me. How is an inexperienced GM going to handle it?

There is also the exact same amount of maths involved as there was in Traits, as you have to write down all of these bonuses and penalties and keep track of them in the exact same way. Would a simpler solution not have been to just reduce the complexity of the existing traits so that they can be more easily summarised on a character sheet?

Secondly: Focuses. Even in the context of the book they don't work. So, you reduce your character to essentially one or two words that encapsulates what they're all about. The example that they give for the Thirteenth Doctor is "Kindness". That sort of works, because Thirteen is a very deliberately kind sort of character. It starts to fall apart immediately when you look at the companions though.

Graham's focus is "Compassion". Firstly, how is that different from kindness? Secondly, sure, Graham is a compassionate guy, but I would never say it was his defining thing. I'm not sure he has a defining thing. Maybe something like "Family" would be better, as his goals in the series were always around protecting Ryan or avenging Grace.

Yaz's focus is "The Law". I understand that Yaz is a police officer, but her career doesn't really seem relevant to much she does in the series. I can't recall her ever doing anything law enforcement related other than knowing how to bluff the Judoon. I would say she's more about getting adrenaline rushes and trying to emulate the Doctor.

Finally you have Ryan's Focus: "Hope". Literally the most odd choice of them all. If I was reducing Ryan to one word, I don't think Hope would even be in the top 10.

So, out of the Focuses used for the pregens, only one of the 4 really fits, and all of them (with the exception of "The Law" I guess) are really vague, non-specific concepts that basically equate to "Be one of the good guys". If the creators of the game can't make the focuses interesting for the pregenerated characters, then how are we supposed to manage?

Thirdly, the entire character creation section of the book seems to really be geared towards creating characters who are contemporary humans from planet Earth. I've been GMing this game for 10 years, with about 4 different groups. I've gone through character creation with people more times than I can even count, and the one thing I noticed: nobody wants to be a contemporary Earth human. I've had deranged Time-Lords, bungling Time-Agents, Sycorax detectives, Adipose boyscouts, sassy Oods, cyborgs, Cybermen with an identity crisis. The only contemporary human characters I can think of are when somebody played a UNIT operative and another player played his mother. People want to play Doctor Who to play as the creatures from Doctor Who, not the boring human who reacts to them.

Those are my thoughts on it anyway. There are some really nice ideas in the new edition too. The whole experience system is a really great addition, and I think the 1s and 6s way of determining success levels could be fun. To be honest, I'm probably just going to stick with first edition and work these rules into it. Overall, for me, Second Edition seems like a case of "You've redecorated. I don't like it."

[bilbo]

I have to agree with Connor wrt Focus. I think it might work and a part of me really likes the simple elegance of it, but the examples aren't very inspiring and they kind of lack, well, 'focus' to be honest, and they don't really fit the characters too well. I really like his suggestion of Family for Graham, that fits better. I would've liked some more examples of past companions and doctors to really see how this can work. They gave Rory Oath in the book, but that doesn't feel right either to me, I would've put 'Amy' if it were me.

And I also agree wrt Distinctions. As I alluded to in my First Impression entry, I think it would be a fair bit intimidating for a newbie to come up with something that wasn't an example already in the book. It doesn't feel like they 'got rid of traits' to me, but rather more like they passed the onerous to 'invent the traits' to the player. If I wasn't very familiar with 1e and been doing RPGs since the 80s I wouldn't know where to start.

Still, a lot I like, I didnt mention before, but the chase rules look smoother, they always gave me a bit of a headache before. Need to try them out in play, but feels more streamlined. Maybe I will have to make/play a hybrid of 1e & 2e.

[Escher]

Combine the best of both and call it the 1.5 Edition.

[grinch]

Yeah, I’m not exactly a fan of this new edition. Strikes me as a case of ‘It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Personally, I’m probably just going to stick to the 1st edition myself.

[drwhofanmtl]

Jul 30, 2021 10:31:36 GMT Escher said:

Combine the best of both and call it the 1.5 Edition.

I think that's what i'll be doing

[Marpzilla]

For experimentation purposes, I tried to convert one of my favourite Who beasties to see how difficult it would be.

Drashig (Second Edition)

Concept: Titanic Mindless Predator

Focus: Feed

Awareness 3
Coordination 3
Ingenuity 1
Presence 4
Resolve 4
Strength 12

Athletics 3
Survival 2
Conflict 4
Intuition 4

Distinction: Drashig- An extraordinary sense of smell, granting Advantage to Intuition rolls relating to smell, as well as a thick hide that repels 5 damage. The Drashig is one of the most terrifying predators in the galaxy, causing anyone’s fear rolls against it to be at a Disadvantage. Its large size grants Advantage to those firing at it and cause it to be treated as “Fast” in Chases. Lastly, the Drashig doggedly pursues the full trail of a prey’s scent rather than directly homing in on them. This at least ensures their arrival is an eventual one.

Story Points: 5

Personally, I found the conversion notes at the back and the NPC sections not really enough to properly convert GM creatures like this. I would've liked a bit more explanation as to why certain things are how they are, what to make some things advantage and keep things numerical bonuses (the number keeping still present on cooperation and taking extra time puzzles me especially). In all though, i do really like this Second Edition, I like how Advantage has helped streamline certain things and the success resolution is simplified. Really, I think most of the problems that people see in this could be solved within the next few days: The game's only just out so as we ask around and work out the kinks in the system, I think this could really be onto something here. I do wonder if there'll be people asking about running a test game or a few in this forum..?

[Catsmate]

Jul 29, 2021 12:49:38 GMT bilbo said:

First Impressions...

I think I'm warming up to Focus and Distinctions. I see their point wrt how Focus vs Traits worked, though it does seem to lack detail. But maybe that's okay, its certainly simpler and would probably encourage more role-play. For distinctions, it's certainly more flexible, but it's not simpler, if you have to make them all up from scratch. I imagine this is especially so for newbies. I'll probably just port over 'distinctions' from 1e.

In general I like the new way that tasks are rolled using '6's or '1's to determine level of success or failure. Less math. But it occurred to me this could create practical wonkiness. Thought experiment: I need an 18 to succeed at task. I have Attribute of 3 and Skill of 3. No other modifiers. I need 'box cars' to succeed. And I would succeed brilliantly. Or not at all. Thats an extreme example, but if rolling '6's indicate a brilliant success in general. Then it seems to create a paradigm where the higher the difficulty, the only time I'm succeeding is when I do so brilliantly...?? Seems counter intuitive. Though I guess in practice, the barely succeeds will occur when I burn SP after my failures. Need to see how this works in play.

In theory I like Disadvantage & Advantage in 5e as well. Will have to get used to them for DW. Not sure how I feel about still having (+) modifiers listed though. I feel like Advantage & Disadvantage should be used in lieu of them. And at one point it talks about +2/+4/etc for taking your time and one page away it talks about Advantage for taking your time. I guess they are giving the GM options, though on my first (admittedly) quick skim, I found it confusing.

I really like the idea of conditions to give more weight to getting an Attribute knocked down to zero. Works well with Disadvantage I think.

Also looks like they are trying to get away from Attribute + Attribute rolls as well. I can see why but I had spent a lot of brain power explaining them to myself

Interesting way they handle experience. Looking forward to trying it out in play.

Side note. Was Ryan supposed to have TL 7 in pre-gen?? It says in text TL 5. Is this after his time in the TARDIS?


Edit: Just noticed Pting and Silurian both require Resolve+Strength to resist their poison, so doesnt look like Attribute+Atrribute is dead after all.

I agree with the general doubts about the removal of Traits. As for the '666', maybe it's supposed to be the Pratchettian 'one-in-a-million'?
I assume the TL-7 entry is a typo, unless there was something I missed?

Jul 29, 2021 14:44:48 GMT greyhame said:

Well, I've had a quick read-through of the 2nd edition core Rulebook.
Pros: The changes to skills seem OK (although I would have liked further changes), XP system looks useful, Advantage/Disadvantage will probably work well.
Cons: Not convinced by the removal of Traits.

Will have to see how it plays, but we will likely continue with 1e & just mine 2e for ideas.

We'll probably continue with the earlier version too, which rather makes this edition redundant and something of a waste of money.

Jul 29, 2021 19:52:36 GMT ninjaconor said:

Having read the PDF, I think it still seems like a good game, just not quite as good as the first edition. I'm not sure what kind of groups they were getting feedback for for this, but none of the issues they are trying to resolve were ever issues for me or any of my groups.

Firstly, the elephant in the room, is the removal of traits. Traits are gone but have been replaced with your Focus and Distinctions, which give you bonuses or penalties in certain situations. Only now, instead of these being things you can look up in the book, they're things that the player and GM make up together. This sounds like a disaster for balance! Just for example, in first edition I had a character in one of my games who could communicate telepathically. There was a Telepathy trait in the book which clearly laid out the limits of this ability in a fair way. We rarely had to refer back to it, but it was handy to have a universal reference point in tricky situations. Under second edition, I'm supposed to agree how the powers work and what their limits are with the player, meaning I have to decide what are fair limits and fair penalties. That's daunting enough for me. How is an inexperienced GM going to handle it?

There is also the exact same amount of maths involved as there was in Traits, as you have to write down all of these bonuses and penalties and keep track of them in the exact same way. Would a simpler solution not have been to just reduce the complexity of the existing traits so that they can be more easily summarised on a character sheet?

Secondly: Focuses. Even in the context of the book they don't work. So, you reduce your character to essentially one or two words that encapsulates what they're all about. The example that they give for the Thirteenth Doctor is "Kindness". That sort of works, because Thirteen is a very deliberately kind sort of character. It starts to fall apart immediately when you look at the companions though.

Graham's focus is "Compassion". Firstly, how is that different from kindness? Secondly, sure, Graham is a compassionate guy, but I would never say it was his defining thing. I'm not sure he has a defining thing. Maybe something like "Family" would be better, as his goals in the series were always around protecting Ryan or avenging Grace.

Yaz's focus is "The Law". I understand that Yaz is a police officer, but her career doesn't really seem relevant to much she does in the series. I can't recall her ever doing anything law enforcement related other than knowing how to bluff the Judoon. I would say she's more about getting adrenaline rushes and trying to emulate the Doctor.

Finally you have Ryan's Focus: "Hope". Literally the most odd choice of them all. If I was reducing Ryan to one word, I don't think Hope would even be in the top 10.

So, out of the Focuses used for the pregens, only one of the 4 really fits, and all of them (with the exception of "The Law" I guess) are really vague, non-specific concepts that basically equate to "Be one of the good guys". If the creators of the game can't make the focuses interesting for the pregenerated characters, then how are we supposed to manage?

Thirdly, the entire character creation section of the book seems to really be geared towards creating characters who are contemporary humans from planet Earth. I've been GMing this game for 10 years, with about 4 different groups. I've gone through character creation with people more times than I can even count, and the one thing I noticed: nobody wants to be a contemporary Earth human. I've had deranged Time-Lords, bungling Time-Agents, Sycorax detectives, Adipose boyscouts, sassy Oods, cyborgs, Cybermen with an identity crisis. The only contemporary human characters I can think of are when somebody played a UNIT operative and another player played his mother. People want to play Doctor Who to play as the creatures from Doctor Who, not the boring human who reacts to them.

Those are my thoughts on it anyway. There are some really nice ideas in the new edition too. The whole experience system is a really great addition, and I think the 1s and 6s way of determining success levels could be fun. To be honest, I'm probably just going to stick with first edition and work these rules into it. Overall, for me, Second Edition seems like a case of "You've redecorated. I don't like it."

I agree.

[Escher]

I came to this part in the core book (p.248) about converting 1st Edition characters to 2nd Edition:

Traits
This is probably the biggest change between editions — where have the Traits gone? In most of the cases, Traits were tiny details that offered a small bonus to a handful of rolls, and sometimes never came into play. If the Traits modified rolls, for something like a phobia or a weakness, this easily carries over by making a note of this aspect of the character on the sheet and roleplaying it if the situation arises. If the Gamemaster decides that a roll is easier or more difficult due to this, they can consider the roll at an Advantage or Disadvantage if it suits.

I think this is so vitally important in mitigating the loss of Traits, that it should be in the main rules section instead of being at the end of the book.

Basically, any feature of character's personality, quirk or minor talent (it stated 'Advantage') can have Advantage/Disadvantage at no cost during character generation which also has the bonus of encouraging a player to thoroughly flesh-out a character during the process and encourages roleplaying.

"John has a natural empathy with animals, is brave, attractive, has a gift for charming people with his personality and is gifted with computers, but he is shy with women, has a painful stomach ulcer which flares up when he is stressed and is extremely short-sighted and must wear glasses".

[Stormcrow]

What I find most interesting about that quote is this line: "Traits were tiny details that offered a small bonus to a handful of rolls, and sometimes never came into play." This tells me what I've suspected all along: that lots of people focused way more on traits than the designer originally intended, that they're there to tie a bow on a character or creature concept, not to actually simulate the physical or mental mechanics of anything.

If you are, for instance, playing an experienced character, taking the Experienced trait is needed to get the extra character points you need, but once that's done you don't ever have to think about it again. If you're playing an alien, you need to take the Alien trait, especially if you need a gateway to more alien traits, but you don't actually need to see "Alien" on your sheet once you start play. When playing a Time Lord, you don't really need to write Time Lord in the traits section of your character sheet. Your character is a Time Lord, with all the powers thereunto, and you paid for that with character and story points. You also don't have to write down Feel the Turn of the Universe, Vortex, or Code of Conduct, as these are all included with the Time Lord trait. All this stuff is automatically true when you're a Time Lord.

[Escher]

Aug 4, 2021 13:59:43 GMT Stormcrow said:

What I find most interesting about that quote is this line: "Traits were tiny details that offered a small bonus to a handful of rolls, and sometimes never came into play." This tells me what I've suspected all along: that lots of people focused way more on traits than the designer originally intended, that they're there to tie a bow on a character or creature concept, not to actually simulate the physical or mental mechanics of anything.

I agree. My players would choose Bad Traits that would give them up to the maximum six points for Bad Traits in character generation, and never roleplay the applicable Traits. They did it just for the points.

[Catsmate]

Aug 4, 2021 14:26:23 GMT Escher said:

Aug 4, 2021 13:59:43 GMT Stormcrow said:

What I find most interesting about that quote is this line: "Traits were tiny details that offered a small bonus to a handful of rolls, and sometimes never came into play." This tells me what I've suspected all along: that lots of people focused way more on traits than the designer originally intended, that they're there to tie a bow on a character or creature concept, not to actually simulate the physical or mental mechanics of anything.

I agree. My players would choose Bad Traits that would give them up to the maximum six points for Bad Traits in character generation, and never roleplay the applicable Traits. They did it just for the points.

I penalise players who fail to allow for the effects of negative Traits.

[bilbo]

I always played that if you had a minor bad trait you could play it up for SP if you wanted to, but if you had a major bad trait, and didn't play it up, you'd lose SP.

[olegrand]

Well, I've read the 2nd edition and I'm sorry to say I'm really disappointed (and somewhat befuddled) by most of the changes...

While the 1st ed character creation rules were a wonderful invitation to dream up any character, offering a quick and easily rendition in game terms of an incredibly wide array of possible backgrounds, special powers, knacks etc., the 2nd edition system clearly stirs toward very simplified and bland characters - legions of Grahams, Ryans and Shazs, as opposed to, say, Romanas, Leelas or Jack Harknesses. In my RPGnet review of the 1st edition, I expressed how I was delighted by the ocean of possibilities offered by the Traits system - and reading through the 2nd edition made me feel as if all these possibilities had now been suddenly erased and replaced by a seemingly more freeform approach which, in effect, certainly won't make things easier for the GM...

The "focus" idea tends to produce very simplistic characters - and as previously pointed out, it doesn't even really work with the current TV characters. Yaz focused on "the law" Does being a probationary law officer really turn you into Judge Dredd ? I may be mistaken but I can't recall any specific scene or incident from the TV show when Yaz was shown as a single-minded law enforcer...

On the game engine front, I won't repeat the various problems that have already been pointed out by previous posters - but I'd like to provide an example of how the disappearance of Traits AND, perhaps most importantly, the very important changes made to Story points usage, wreak havoc on the existing probabilities - which means, for example, that spectacular, one-off, climactic actions which were perfectly rendered by the previous edition are simply no longer possible.

Let me provide a quick example. Let's suppose that a character must resist the powerful psychic attack of some unearthly entity with an Ingenuity+Resolve roll (perhaps that rolls based on two attributes are no longer a possibility - I must admit I haven't checked - but this won't change anything about the example itself). She has, say, 4 in Ingenuity and 5 in Resolve, making her clearly above-average in the mental department. And in her first edition version, she has the Indomitable trait, giving her a +4 bonus to such rolls. And her player will spend 1 Story point before making the roll.

Let's see how this works in each version.

1st edition: The basic roll is 2D6 + 13 (4 for Ingenuity, 5 for Resolve and +4 for Indomitable), giving her an average result of 20 and a maximum result of 25. And if the player spends 1 Story point before this crucial roll, she will roll 2 extra dice, giving us an average result of 27 and a maximum result of 32.

2nd edition: No bonus for Indomitable, so the basic roll is 2D6 + 9, resulting in an average roll of 16 and a maximum result of 21. And if a Story point is spent, since the effects have been greatly reduced (instead of 2 extra dice, you simply roll another die but you don't add it to the total - it simply gives you a potentially better roll as per the advantage system), the maximum result... stays at 21.

32 vs 21.

How can anyone pretend that this will not change anything - not only in game terms but in story terms? This also makes the claims that "previous supplements remain 100% compatible" somewhat hard to believe...

In the end, I found this new version quite faithful to the current spirit of the show - blander, more simplistic and, I'm sorry to say, somewhat pretentious...

I know the above comments will be interpreted as needlessly negative by some members of our community... I've hesitated for quite some time before posting them. The last thing I want is to get dragged down in a pointless "edition war" so I'm aftraid I won't be receptive to attempts to change my mind. Just like I wouldn't dare thinking to change the minds of gamers who love this new iteration. But I find that my impressions were perfectly captured by previous comments such as "if itsn't broken, don't fix it" and "you've redecorated: I don't like it".

So, as far as I'm concerned, I'll stick to my heavily house-ruled brand of the 1st edition, which I've been using for more than ten years... Just like I enjoy re-watching episodes of, say, the 4th, 9th or 10th Doctor far more than watching the current incarnation of the show. Ultimately, it boils down to a matter of taste and expectations, in gaming as in fiction.

Sorry for the lengthy post - I hope I didn't ranted too much.

[Stormcrow]

Regarding Conflict and Craft: you are not using these skills as the rules specify. Each skill represents how well you do the things covered by these skills ACCORDING TO YOUR BACKGROUND. So if you make a medieval blacksmith character with a Craft of 4, the character can use the skill to make things with metal, but CANNOT use the skill to play a musical instrument or bake a cake... unless these things also fit the character's background.

This is stated in the first edition rules, and I imagine it's also true of the Second edition rules. If so, then your expert martial artist who has no experience with a gun can have a high Conflict skill and be good at martial arts but not shooting.

In the Doctor Who game, skills don't list what you can do, they measure how well you do the things your background has taught you how to do.

[Catsmate]

I agree with both Stormcrow and Escher to a degree. The 'Second Edition' was a waste of money for me and for many (most?) existing players (one that will adversely effect my intentions regarding purchasing future C7 products and will be reflected in my reviews elsewhere). It appears to be aimed at creating a market of new players, seemingly on the expectation that existing players will be carried along.

[Escher]

Aug 5, 2021 8:01:59 GMT Catsmate said:

It appears to be aimed at creating a market of new players

Quite very possibly - it's now being advertised on the official BBC Doctor Who site - an opportunity that the first edition never had.

www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=join-thirteenth-doctor-roleplaying-game-cubicle-7-games

[Escher]

Aug 5, 2021 3:52:49 GMT Stormcrow said:

Regarding Conflict and Craft: you are not using these skills as the rules specify. Each skill represents how well you do the things covered by these skills ACCORDING TO YOUR BACKGROUND. So if you make a medieval blacksmith character with a Craft of 4, the character can use the skill to make things with metal, but CANNOT use the skill to play a musical instrument or bake a cake... unless these things also fit the character's background.

This is stated in the first edition rules, and I imagine it's also true of the Second edition rules. If so, then your expert martial artist who has no experience with a gun can have a high Conflict skill and be good at martial arts but not shooting.

In the Doctor Who game, skills don't list what you can do, they measure how well you do the things your background has taught you how to do.

I understand what the game says but my point is that this has always been somewhat broken. In my example, Colin with Conflict 5 is a natural-born fist-fighter but the game rules don't tell me how good a shot he is. Do I use a penalty? Do I reduce his skill by a number? How good is the Blacksmith with Craft 5 at doing other things? The game doesn't give us any guidance on what to do in these situations.

[ninjaconor]

Aug 4, 2021 22:30:13 GMT Escher said:

I think that merging Marksmanship and Fighting into one skill - Conflict - may have been a mistake. making Conflict as unrealistic as the Craft skill.

Absolutely. It's also very questionable why "Intuition" is now a skill. It's not really something you can learn. You can train hard and become good at Athletics, you can study hard and learn Science, you can practice oration and learn Convince, but they don't teach classes on how to get hunches. I think the old Ingenuity + Awareness roll made much more sense.

[Catsmate]

Aug 5, 2021 8:32:10 GMT Escher said:

Aug 5, 2021 8:01:59 GMT Catsmate said:

It appears to be aimed at creating a market of new players

Quite very possibly - it's now being advertised on the official BBC Doctor Who site - an opportunity that the first edition never had.

www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=join-thirteenth-doctor-roleplaying-game-cubicle-7-games

I'm extremely skeptical that such a market exists.

[olegrand]

Aug 4, 2021 22:30:13 GMT Escher said:

I think that merging Marksmanship and Fighting into one skill - Conflict - may have been a mistake. making Conflict as unrealistic as the Craft skill.

Not to mention the fact that this allows a player to create a "master warrior" character quite cheaply (half the old cost), since there is now only one combat skill to invest in...

[Stormcrow]

Aug 5, 2021 8:43:06 GMT Escher said:

I understand what the game says but my point is that this has always been somewhat broken. In my example, Colin with Conflict 5 is a natural-born fist-fighter but the game rules don't tell me how good a shot he is. Do I use a penalty? Do I reduce his skill by a number? How good is the Blacksmith with Craft 5 at doing other things? The game doesn't give us any guidance on what to do in these situations.

Yes it does.

"Common Knowledge" text box (page 46 of the Player's Guide in the 10th Doctor edition; I'm not going to look up the other editions that I have).

Something similar to what you know: -1 or -2.
Something you know nothing about: up to -4

-4 is the penalty for being totally unskilled.

So you decide how good Colin is at shooting and at fist-fights. Your Conflict skill only gives you the number you add to your roll for those Conflict activities you're fully conversant with. If your Background says "Colin is a pro wrestler and an activist for pacifism," then it would be reasonable to say that he's got experience in fist-fighting but none in shooting guns, so his Conflict of 5 is used for fist-fights, but it gets reduced to 1 for shooting (the "unskilled" -4 penalty). If, instead, your Background says "Colin is a martial artist" but doesn't say anything about guns, if Colin picks up a gun the GM should ask, "Has Colin used guns before?" You should give an honest answer, and the GM will assess whether there is a penalty to shooting and how big a penalty.

This is how it works for all skills and all characters. If your Background is "20th century journalist living on the outskirts of London," then even if your Transport skill is 0 you're certainly quite familiar with driving cars. You won't incur the -4 penalty for being unskilled; you're just not very good at stunts or chases. If you suddenly jump into a semi, however,  you're going to incur a penalty, probably -2, because you're not going to be familiar with driving big trucks, but they're not all that different from cars. If you find yourself at the controls of a space shuttle, you're at the full -4.

Skills are not broken. They were never designed to tell you all the things you can do. You decide what you can do, and skills tell you how well you can do them. The spot on your character sheet for your Background is not just a bit of fluff and wasted space; it lets you decide what activities incur what familiarity penalties. Whenever you come across a situation that your Background doesn't make clear, you and the GM decide at that moment how familiar you are with the activity.

I consider this one of the very innovative elements of the Doctor Who rules, but it's obviously very hard to communicate to gamers who expect their character sheets to tell them numerically and objectively everything they can do.

[Escher]

Aug 5, 2021 13:27:49 GMT Stormcrow said:

Aug 5, 2021 8:43:06 GMT Escher said:

I understand what the game says but my point is that this has always been somewhat broken. In my example, Colin with Conflict 5 is a natural-born fist-fighter but the game rules don't tell me how good a shot he is. Do I use a penalty? Do I reduce his skill by a number? How good is the Blacksmith with Craft 5 at doing other things? The game doesn't give us any guidance on what to do in these situations.

Yes it does.

"Common Knowledge" text box (page 46 of the Player's Guide in the 10th Doctor edition; I'm not going to look up the other editions that I have).

Something similar to what you know: -1 or -2.
Something you know nothing about: up to -4

-4 is the penalty for being totally unskilled.

I stand corrected - and Ive never read that before - I must have skipped over it the first time around and did the same afterwards. How utterly bizarre. Maybe my copy had a perception filter on it?

Likely it's my old brain.

[bilbo]

Stormcrow, well stated, I like your take on skills, but it sounds like you're saying a PC is assumed to have *no* or little skill till the GM/PC decide that they have a skill. I've always read it as the PC was assumed to have the full skill until it was decided that a certain aspect of said skill did not fit their background. I think this is supported by the fact those boxes (and to be fair, I don't have my 10th Dr ed in front of me to check) have typically been used to present *optional* rules, so I'm having a hard time accepting that as a core design element. Its a subtle difference, I realize, but it changes the way people (myself at least) think and approach skills.

[Stormcrow]

I don't think there's an assumption either way: it's not that you have every possible activity of a skill unless stated otherwise, and it's not that you have no activity of a skill unless specifically mentioned.

The way it's supposed to work is just that you establish your background, and this background informs both you and the GM of what sorts of things you're likely to be familiar with and what sorts of things you're not likely to be familiar with. A journalist is familiar with driving cars, but less familiar with driving trucks, and not at all familiar with piloting space shuttles.

I don't think the text boxes signal optional rules. Optional rules are labeled as optional. Text boxes are just a way to present a deeper dive into one aspect of the text. In this case, the rules for using skills are presented in the main text, and the case of "but you will obviously not know everything about each skill" is further explained in the text box.

Indeed, the book actually explains this. In the 10th Doctor edition, the boxes are red and blue. The blue boxes "contain examples, additional, but tangential information, or supplemental charts and tables." It doesn't say anything about optional rules. Optional rules might be additions and thus in blue boxes, but being additional doesn't mean optional. The "Common Knowledge" box is additional but tangential information, and it isn't labeled as optional.