sutekh
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 64
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Post by sutekh on Jan 5, 2010 1:47:08 GMT
The 2005 version of Doctor who introduced the concept of an over-arching story arc for each season, leading up to a big finale. The show had flirted with the concept previously, notably in the Key to Time episodes. The Dalek Masterplan might also be regarded as an early attempt at developing a coherent season arc - the story was long but fairly diffuse! Likewise, it is possible to see the classic series groping towards a season arc in stories such as Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks - or even in Logopolis and Castrovalva. However, the use of this trope has become fairly explicit in the post-revival 'New Who' series and seems to follow a consistent set of rules. As noted over at TV Tropes, the story arc is prefigured by the use of arc words - a phrase that turns out to have great significance in the finale. See the discussion on TV Tropes here: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArcWordsExamples include 'Bad Wolf', and 'Vote Saxon', and 'He will knock four times'. Here are a few general thoughts on how to use this device in your Doctor Who campaign: - Develop your Doctor Who campaign in distinct 'seasons' and let the players know that you are doing this in advance. It's important to manage the expectations of the players from the outset. Let them know that you've got something big planned for the season finale from episode one so that they start looking forward to it. There is no hard-and-fast rule as to how many adventures should be in a season, but 10-14 is probably about right. If your gaming group doesn't meet often, I'd recommend dropping the number of individual 'episodes' in a season to 8-9 so that you maintain a sense of progress towards the finale...
- Develop the final adventure for the season first. This ensures that you have a clear idea of where you want the season arc to end. It also ensures that any arc words or other plot elements that you use to foreshadow the season finale blend seamlessly with the adventure itself. Plus, it's always a good idea to develop the season finale while you are still full of energy and enthusiasm. For this reason, it may even be a good idea to write the climax of the final adventure first - although it is good practice to provide two or three possible resolutions to the final challenge so that the players don't feel that you are railroading them along a predetermined plot.
- Decide what your arc words will be and what their relationship to the season finale will be. You need to be careful when choosing appropriate arc words - you don't want to give too much information about the final adventure away. Also, you want to choose arc words that will gain significance with the benefit of hindsight. Consider the way that 'He will knock four times' was used in the End of Time as an example.
- Try to think of six or seven places in the season where you can reveal the arc words to the players. Don't draw any attention to them during the course of play - the idea is to mention them in passing without special emphasis. The players should gradually pick up on the importance of the arc words through repetition and reinforcement. Try to avoid being too heavy-handed - you want the players to be intrigued by the arc words, but not to feels as though you are herding them in a particular direction...
- Unlike the characters in the TV show, the players are likely to try and work out the significance of the arc words as early as possible in the season. This is one way that designing an RPG campaign arc differs from being the script editor on a television show - you have to be ready for the possibility that the players won't stick to the script that you have provided. If characters see 'Vote Saxon' signs everywhere, they may attempt to confront Harold Saxon early in the season - spoiling the revelation that he is actually the Master. For this reason, it is advisable to ensure that the arc words don't assume any special meaning until an appropriate point in the story. The use of 'He will knock four times' in the 2009 specials is a good example of this. One approach might be to introduce arc words that don't make a great deal of sense until a critical piece of information is revealed by the GM - this ensures that players can't easily spoil the surprise. Another approach might be to reward characters who play along with the conventions established by the television show with a story point or two - if the characters don't investigate Harold Saxon until after the big reveal, they should be rewarded for respecting genre conventions...
- You might also like to develop two or three additional clues that you can scatter through the earlier adventures in the season. These can be used to plant ideas about how the characters should proceed at critical points in the season finale - for example, the disappearance of the bees from Earth gives the Doctor a hint about a possible avenue of investigation when he reaches the Shadow Proclamation. A clever GM can use this technique to gloss over difficult plot points in the season finale, providing hints about which course of action the characters should take at a moment when they might hit a brick wall. The trick here is to use a light touch to ensure that the characters experience a sense of achievement when the significance of the clue is finally revealed. You also want to ensure that the characters can't use the clue in any way until the appropriate time - for example, investigating the disappearance of the bees is fairly pointless until the Earth is stolen, at which point it becomes a critical clue. On the other hand, the hints that are dropped about missing planets would be dangerous to use in an RPG - there is always the risk that the characters might unravel the Dalek plot prematurely.
- It may seem counter-intuitive, but one of the most important things to keep in mind when designing a season arc is to respect player choices. In particular, be prepared to let the characters set the pace of the journey towards the finale. Accept the notion that the end of the plot arc may occur sooner or later than you anticipated. Respect the flow of the story and allow the climax to occur naturally, even if it falls at a strange place in a game session. Even if it means a shorter session than intended, don't throw in additional plot complications to drag out the season finale - you want the season's arc to wrap up as neatly as possible. Beware of the temptation to pad out the build-up to the final confrontation - this is almost as bad as the temptation to railroad the characters along a predetermined plot.
Has anybody got any other ideas about how to build season arcs into a Doctor Who campaign? |
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sutekh
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 64
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Post by sutekh on Jan 5, 2010 1:51:16 GMT
If you look at the major story arcs in the classic Doctor Who series, there are a couple of obvious models that you could use to construct a season season arc for a campaign.
One model is the 'Broken Artifact' plot structure that was central to the Key to Time storyline - but was pioneered as far back as the Keys of Marinus. To use this plotline, come up with a powerful artifact that has been broken into multiple pieces and dispersed throughout time and space. The characters must gather the pieces and fit the artifact together in order to end some terrible threat. (Of course, the GM should come up with a plausible reason why the characters can't keep the artifact when it has done its job). Ideally, the characters should become embroiled in an adventure unrelated to the task at hand each time they stop at one of the locations where a fragment of the artifact is located.
Another plotline that might work for a season arc is the 'Pursuit through Time' storyline pioneered by The Dalek Masterplan or The Chase. To use this season arc, introduce an incredibly powerful menace who is capable of pursuing the characters throughout time and space and give it a motivation to do so. Perhaps it wants revenge for a previous defeat or perhaps the characters have stolen something from it that is needed to carry out an evil scheme. The role of the Black Guardian in the adventures of the Fourth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor might be used as an example here - the Doctor uses the randomizer to elude the Black Guardian for a while by fleeing from one random location to another...but when the randomizer is destroyed the Black Guardian attempts to kill the Doctor by planting an agent (Turlough) inside the TARDI. Typically, a pursuit through time season arc involves a sequence of brief adventures each time the characters jump through space and time only one step ahead of their pursuers. The trick in this type of season arc is to ensure that the climax is a final showdown with the major villain(s). During the course of the season arc, the characters must come up with an effective way to defeat this villain, without being destroyed themselves in the process.
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Jan 5, 2010 2:34:26 GMT
Good thoughts so far. (Have some Karma.) "Arc words" vary in significance too. Bad Wolf was really just a purposely-vague omen dropped into stories only connected by Rose being there. The Saxon storyline was a proper story arc, with adventures connecting between one-off stories. I'm a bit of an arc-importance snob. I generally go for having the basic "shape" of a season in mind, with wiggle room depending on what the players and their characters do. (In one season of the Buffy game I ran, one of the PCs went mad with power and took over as seasonal villain!) I'll pop in hints, above and beyond arc words. Some are for the PCs, some just for the players as they're revealed in "meanwhile" cutaways. I might connect the threat in the first episode to the big final two-to-three-parter. And sometimes it's fun to drop Daleks in the middle of an arc and let them go.  |
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cliffr
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 69
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Post by cliffr on Jan 5, 2010 3:36:23 GMT
Since we're talking about arc words, might I solicit some advice?
I'm planning an "American Torchwood" game (see the Project Bluebox thread I posted the other day). My current plan for the season one finale is a desperate struggle to keep the Nightmare Child from escaping the Time Lock and devouring earth. I'm just not sure what would be an appropriate arc word that would hint at what's coming without giving too much away. Any ideas?
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Post by Curufea on Jan 5, 2010 3:37:00 GMT
Excellent ideas and reasoning there!
Of the new series - two of the three story arcs that had phrases appearing at random in any time or place were related to extra-temporal forces. Rose's godlike Vortex powers, and the Ood's cross-time psychic powers. For that matter, "You are not alone" is an arc phrase only because the Face of Bo is a time traveller.
My thoughts on this are-
Don't be random where you place story arc phrases. There are specific reasons why they appear in the new series where they do, and it's related to the plot.
Story arcs can be defined with things other than phrases as hints as well. Season 2 Torchwood, you could say the appearances of Captain John are the hints at what will happen at the end of the season.
Also - only in the new series do you find "end of season climaxes". Unfortunately it seems the current practice to make each season bigger than the last, which has obvious problems.
I recommend not attempting to destroying the universe every season, where do you go from there?
Season story arc climaxes can be personal, rather than over-the-top. A companion could die or leave, a family member or loved one could have something happen to them.
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Post by Curufea on Jan 5, 2010 3:38:39 GMT
I'd recommend something along the lines of a nursery rhyme. It has an inherrent creepy factor well exploited by Sapphire & Steel, and the Zagreus story arc in the Big Finish radioplays. In fact, there is no reason why Zagreus could not be the Nightmare Child. If you regard it as an alternate 8th Doctor. |
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Post by kaemaril on Jan 5, 2010 4:07:12 GMT
Yup. Don't make it a keyword, make it a character. Like Harold Saxon was. An anagram of 'Nightmare Child' is ... Rachel Midnight. |
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cliffr
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 69
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Post by cliffr on Jan 5, 2010 4:19:33 GMT
Yup. Don't make it a keyword, make it a character. Like Harold Saxon was. An anagram of 'Nightmare Child' is ... Rachel Midnight. Ooh I like that! Thank you! |
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sutekh
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 64
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Post by sutekh on Jan 5, 2010 7:19:20 GMT
An anagram of 'Nightmare Child' is ... Rachel Midnight. Nice one. I might swipe that! |
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Post by kaemaril on Jan 5, 2010 10:16:13 GMT
Yup. Don't make it a keyword, make it a character. Like Harold Saxon was. An anagram of 'Nightmare Child' is ... Rachel Midnight. Ooh I like that! Thank you! No worries. For a bit of added misdirection, in case you have players who like anagrams, have it be the Midnight Corporation, a family owned business that's been around a hundred years or so ... and only have the name of the CEO be revealed as Rachel in the penultimate episode. See how the anagram solvers react to that ... 'My God! Rachel Midnight? That's an anagram of ...' - cue looks of horror  |
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Jan 5, 2010 20:36:44 GMT
Or, equally, they could bump into an amiable harmless student type who is slightly embarrassed by her family name. In a story about people with psychic abilities dropping dead of fright... |
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Post by The Professor on Jan 6, 2010 22:53:24 GMT
Like cliffr, I too am hoping to get a bit of advice regarding using this paticular trope. Also like cliffr (I'm not copying, I swear! ) I am planning an America-based Torchwood Campaign (Torchwood 6) that I'm still working out the basic details on. Trying to think up of an interesting theme and enemy, the Movellans came to mind while flipping through the old Official Doctor Who and the Daleks Book by John Peel and Terry Nation. The basic plot of Movellans infiltrating Earth (Having advanced themselves to a degree to make this easier than their silver haired forms could) to salvage alien technology in order to advance themselves. Figuring the Dalek's repeat interests in Earth must bear some significant importance as well as discovering the existance of the Torchwood Institute and it's goals, the Movellans had an agent infiltrate Torchwood and look for ways to lay claim to advanced technology. The Movellan took the name of Abigail Springer and, over time, worked her way into an influential position and was given permission to form Torchwood 6 in New York City. I have more details about the history of it, trying my best to tie it into the current setting while taking a few ceative liberties where needed. But the plot will most likely culminate with a Movellan attack or invasion to claim anything Torchwood may/should have obtained. something perhaps spurring their actions sooner than later. But I'm not sure what would work for such a trope. Any suggestions would be appreciated. |
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Post by giftedmunchkin on Jan 7, 2010 6:51:38 GMT
I'm going to be using "Slouching Towards Jerusalem" from the Adventure Book as my season finale, because I'm unoriginal. Also, warning, there are going to be spoilers for that adventure down below, so if you don't want to know, don't scroll past the enormous white space:
The Arc Word is going to be "attraction" or "attractor", but also, halfway through the season, I'm going to have an episode called "The Usual Suspects" (name also stolen, but this time from the Episode Titles thread, unfortunately I don't remember who from). And it operates under the whole idea of "why do the aliens always invade Earth?". Basically, the Doctor and Donna uncover a plot to destroy the Earth, and they naturally assume that if they find an alien, they'll find the perpetrator. But instead they find that a lot of the Doctor's old adversaries are on the Earth - Slitheen, Nestene, and more (I'll probably stick to the New Series because that's what me and my player are familiar with, but others could use this to bring back Old Series aliens). So they have to find out which one of them is behind it in whodunit fashion.
The real purpose of this, though, is to show a lot of different aliens together, just to kind of plant that idea in the player's mind… and then later, when the New Gallifreyan Empire crosses through the Great Attractor, with all the other aliens under their control - the army of the Empire. It's like the Gamemaster's Guide suggested with the Cybermen, except a more subtle attempt. I expect it will fail.
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Post by Doctor X on Sept 4, 2011 10:06:45 GMT
Of course, a story arc isn't always needed. I'm personally getting tired of the "The Macguffin is coming. You will all die" story arcs in the series.
When I don't go for standalone stories, I prefer to make mine something like The Key To Time, or something where the pieces from earlier stories all come together, and although clues have been planted beforehand, they aren't as Plothammery as "Be sure to mention the season's buzzword every episode."
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Post by cliffordjones on Sept 4, 2011 14:21:34 GMT
I'd recommend something along the lines of a nursery rhyme. It has an inherrent creepy factor well exploited by Sapphire & Steel, and the Zagreus story arc in the Big Finish radioplays. And also most recently in Night Terrors which, funnily enough, had me thinking would have made a superb Sapphire & Steel episode. Tick tock...Digression: when are they going to bring back Sapphire & Steel? (with Emilia Fox as Sapphire obviously). They could do a really awesome postmodern-handheld-cameras-revisionist version that would traumatize kids for years.  Speaking of alternative 8th Doctors that's what I'm currently working on. The arcing device is recurring fog... so more bad weather than bad wolf. The fog is unnatural and creepy so something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark. I don't know if I've missed someone else mentioning it but season arcs tend to involve some pretty hefty emotional investment on the part of the characters. Moral dilemmas are popular. This goes back at least as far as the 4th Doctor discovering that a segment of the Key to Time is actually a living breathing person. I would say that the Bad Wolf arc can pretty much be understood in terms of the single phrase ''I could save the world but lose you''. This choice seems to be its central theme. There seems to be no clear way to resolve this dilemma satisfactorily, it appears to be a 'lose/lose' scenario so maintaining the dramatic tension throughout the arc. It works rather like the old cliffhangers used to, keeping you coming back time and again to find out how The Doctor is going to 'get out of this one'. All of the above IMHO obviously Great thread btw |
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Sept 4, 2011 21:02:45 GMT
Of course, a story arc isn't always needed. I'm personally getting tired of the "The Macguffin is coming. You will all die" story arcs in the series. When I don't go for standalone stories, I prefer to make mine something like The Key To Time, or something where the pieces from earlier stories all come together, and although clues have been planted beforehand, they aren't as Plothammery as "Be sure to mention the season's buzzword every episode." This is an old post to be picking a fight with... |
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Post by Doctor X on Sept 5, 2011 1:32:32 GMT
Of course, a story arc isn't always needed. I'm personally getting tired of the "The Macguffin is coming. You will all die" story arcs in the series. When I don't go for standalone stories, I prefer to make mine something like The Key To Time, or something where the pieces from earlier stories all come together, and although clues have been planted beforehand, they aren't as Plothammery as "Be sure to mention the season's buzzword every episode." This is an old post to be picking a fight with... I had to start somewhere. |
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Post by curtisj on Sept 5, 2011 18:41:54 GMT
This is an old post to be picking a fight with... I had to start somewhere. Next stop: everywhere. As for myself, I favour the most recent approach of combining brief arc words/things with ongoing plots. My current series alternates between the pursuit of a group known as the Godmakers and the subtle introduction of plot points which will become much more important later on. |
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Post by zebaroth on Sept 5, 2011 23:00:35 GMT
the key words in the Campaign i have been writing are jack is watching
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Post by Doctor X on Sept 10, 2011 5:49:06 GMT
I think if I DO end up making a season arc, the arc words WILL be "The MacGuffin is coming. You will all die."
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