My preliminary campaign idea

[tcabril]

Now I will admit first off that I am nowhere near as informed about the Doctor Who universe as most of you are. I loved the show as a kid (Tom Baker as the Doctor every Wednesday night on PBS!) and I only recently started getting the BBC America on my cable (when we switched to FIOS) but after a few episodes I was hooked on the show and I have ordered all the DVD Seasons and pre-ordered the SPecials set.

That being said - if what I propose is off cannon bear with me...

I love the system and having read it through twice (both books) I want to start running a game. I am leery to use the Doctor as either a central NPC or as a PC - I don't like getting not arguments regarding what a particular character would or would not do (try running a Star Wars game and you'll know what I mean). So my central Time Lord was to be a NPC with the players as companions. My Time Lord (Time Mistress?) is to be called the Duchess (I get the impression that Time Lords don't have or use thier real names - the Doctor, The Mater etc...)

Does anyone have an helpful suggestions? I used to run Amber Dicesless Roleplaying so I am used to haveing a wide variety of characters so that is not intimidating. I have played around with making a group of companions that would accompany the Duchess - a Sherwood Forest bandit (ie Robin Hood type) a Historian and a Cowboy (I thought that this combo seemed very interesting with a Victorian Lady-like Time Lord!!!!)

The First adventure that I have outlined is that Characters need to rescue or steal the Knights Templar treasure on the eve of King Philip of France's purge on Friday the 13th 1307. The treasure is not Davinci codish - just something unique I came up with (which I cannot go into lest they read this).

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks
Todd

[Craig Oxbrow]

The plot sounds fair enough to me.

It sounds like you're using pregenerated characters?

[tcabril]

As for pregenerated characters - yes and no.

As an experiement I made a few characters that I mentioned in my initial posting. If my players want to make thier own they are welcome or use the ones I made.

Another aspect of this campaign with the Duchess is that she does know the Doctor and there is a history there - though not pleasant.

I love the idea of the PCs matching wits with Rose or Donna or Martha.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Of the pregen characters listed, I might consider moving the bandit's home time to 1307 and involving him directly in the Templar story - it's a move of a hundred years from the classic Third Crusade setting of the Robin Hood stories, but in terms of "furniture" it would be quite similar and it would tie him in with the story right away.

Would you offer the option to play a Time Lord, the Duchess or another instead? I'm letting a player I trust have a shot at playing a newly-regenerated Doctor, so he can reinterpret the character while also having all that knowledge to draw on as I know he won't overshadow the other PCs.

[da professor]

As for being off-canon, its your game. If you're not using the Doctor much, you're not going to encounter many issues anyway.