Post by drinkplentyofmalk on Nov 13, 2022 1:55:16 GMT
While I'm personally a bit mixed on that guardians of the edge bit from Power of the Doctor (I don't care for a Time Lord's incarnations being treated like utterly separate people, same issue I had with Tennant's regeneration), I do love the how it adds a slightly more alien wrinkle to regeneration. As circumstantial as that plot beat is, my mind's been whirring with finding a way to homebrew it into a possible trait. This is a pretty half-baked idea, but I'm mostly throwing it out there in case anyone else finds it as an interesting springboard for roleplay as I do. Something vaguely along the lines of:
Edge Case (Special Good Time Lord Trait)
The Gallifreyan art of regeneration has been filled with unknown and arcane variables ever since it's inception; as a positive result of one such rare occurrence, a Time Lord with this trait may choose to enter a dreamlike trance at any time to communicate with representations of their past incarnations deep within their subconscious. In the process, they may find themselves granted with a valuable different perspective on a problem, or recollection of a long-forgotten fact or skill.
I feel like specifics would be best left up to the GM: exactly how many story points does it cost to use (and does it cost more if they wish to communicate with a specific incarnation? Does the GM decide to make it dearer if they're searching for session-ending information?), does it only last once per game, and is there a timer on it? (Mostly to stop the game from stopping dead in it's tracks, given that it'd separate the Time Lord from the action and every other PC for a few minutes!) An additional variation could be to shift to two separate extremes: if you're playing a solo game where you have a bit more time to indulge the Time Lord's character, then you could take a note from the VNA Timewyrm: Revelation, where the subconscious world is an alien environment where each past incarnation is given a specific role, like librarian or ferryman. If you're playing a normal game and can't afford to let one PC go into a trance to different scene for five minutes, then you could possibly make the past regeneration a hallucination that acts in real-time, a la the Moment as Bad Wolf in Day of The Doctor. (Perhaps other players could see and communicate with them if they're also Time Lords, or have a psychic trait?)
The obvious major downside is that the player can just spend the story points to have the GM directly tell them some information they've 'remembered' or give them some hint. My counterpoint is that is this would simply be a fun way to internalize all that into the fiction of the game, and give both the GM and player an excuse to do something that they'd never get to do normally. Of course the main value proposition of this is if they're playing a canon Time Lord with lots of regenerations, or if their campaign's lasted long enough to have a Time Lord regenerate enough.
That being said, I'd love to workshop this with a player to give an incentive to start their TL off with some spent regens, giving us an excuse to flesh out their character's history - and then interact with it! The more think about this, the more fun it seems.
Edge Case (Special Good Time Lord Trait)
The Gallifreyan art of regeneration has been filled with unknown and arcane variables ever since it's inception; as a positive result of one such rare occurrence, a Time Lord with this trait may choose to enter a dreamlike trance at any time to communicate with representations of their past incarnations deep within their subconscious. In the process, they may find themselves granted with a valuable different perspective on a problem, or recollection of a long-forgotten fact or skill.
I feel like specifics would be best left up to the GM: exactly how many story points does it cost to use (and does it cost more if they wish to communicate with a specific incarnation? Does the GM decide to make it dearer if they're searching for session-ending information?), does it only last once per game, and is there a timer on it? (Mostly to stop the game from stopping dead in it's tracks, given that it'd separate the Time Lord from the action and every other PC for a few minutes!) An additional variation could be to shift to two separate extremes: if you're playing a solo game where you have a bit more time to indulge the Time Lord's character, then you could take a note from the VNA Timewyrm: Revelation, where the subconscious world is an alien environment where each past incarnation is given a specific role, like librarian or ferryman. If you're playing a normal game and can't afford to let one PC go into a trance to different scene for five minutes, then you could possibly make the past regeneration a hallucination that acts in real-time, a la the Moment as Bad Wolf in Day of The Doctor. (Perhaps other players could see and communicate with them if they're also Time Lords, or have a psychic trait?)
The obvious major downside is that the player can just spend the story points to have the GM directly tell them some information they've 'remembered' or give them some hint. My counterpoint is that is this would simply be a fun way to internalize all that into the fiction of the game, and give both the GM and player an excuse to do something that they'd never get to do normally. Of course the main value proposition of this is if they're playing a canon Time Lord with lots of regenerations, or if their campaign's lasted long enough to have a Time Lord regenerate enough.
That being said, I'd love to workshop this with a player to give an incentive to start their TL off with some spent regens, giving us an excuse to flesh out their character's history - and then interact with it! The more think about this, the more fun it seems.
