A Regeneration idea

[ugavine]

I've being thinking about this but didn't know WHO to share it with, I guess this is the right place.

I'm going to be running my Doctor Who campaign soon but was thinking about the idea of the central Time Lord character (players won't be playing as The Doctor). I was thinking of running it a batch of maybe six adventures (a Series) then having the Time Lord Regenerate at the end.

That character would then be passed onto another player and the player would create a Companion. The player who takes over the Time Lord would retire his current Companion. This way eventually the whole group gets to be the Time Lord and each shift of player would reflect the new regenerations change of personality. It would also reflect Companions coming and going like the series.

Do you think it would work?

And in a group of say three players by the thrird incarnation would be the possability for a Three Doctors type of adventure with each player playing an aspect.

[Curufea]

It works.
Also the mechanic used by Ars Magicka could work too. An RPG that has similar problems of one character in the group overshadowing the others.

[Null and Void]

I'm led to understand this was a fairly common way of dealing with 'Time Lord Envy' in the days of the FASA game. I've heard a lot of people had some good success with it.

If you do it, you should have an equal number of adventures for each incarnation, so one doesn't feel short-changed for 'screen time'.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Ugavine,

That is pretty much the way a lot of us handled the business of playing Time Lords back in the day with the old FASA DOCTOR WHO RPG, and even with the TIME LORD rpg. It was discussed in another thread that I can't be quite bothered to find right now, but the conclusion is that it will work with the current game quite well.

Have a blast with DW: AiTaS. It's a great game, simple mechanics, and lends itself well to the gaming style and feel and all that.

[Jason_WPGL]

Sounds like a great idea. I may use that in my group.

[zebaroth]

I plane to do that when I the game

[ugavine]

Cheers for the replies.

We're rolling up characters tonight so I'll put the idea forward to the group.

[PathfinderAP]

Jan 11, 2010 23:34:46 GMT ugavine said:

I've being thinking about this but didn't know WHO to share it with, I guess this is the right place.

I'm going to be running my Doctor Who campaign soon but was thinking about the idea of the central Time Lord character (players won't be playing as The Doctor). I was thinking of running it a batch of maybe six adventures (a Series) then having the Time Lord Regenerate at the end.

That character would then be passed onto another player and the player would create a Companion. The player who takes over the Time Lord would retire his current Companion. This way eventually the whole group gets to be the Time Lord and each shift of player would reflect the new regenerations change of personality. It would also reflect Companions coming and going like the series.

Do you think it would work?

And in a group of say three players by the thrird incarnation would be the possability for a Three Doctors type of adventure with each player playing an aspect.

Yes that would work well, in fact I remeber someone over at RPG.NET coming up with the same idea years ago,

[danceswithdaleks]

I'm liking this Idea, I may implement this.

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

Jan 11, 2010 23:37:00 GMT Curufea said:

Also the mechanic used by Ars Magicka could work too. An RPG that has similar problems of one character in the group overshadowing the others.

This sounds intriguing, how does the Ars Magicka mechanic work?

[Siskoid]

It's what we're doing, so yes, pretty common.

Zeppo: Ars Magica had you design 3 or 4 characters. The Magus is the powerful Time Lord analog, a Companion and one or two grunts. Each game, some players would player their Magi, others their Companions, alternating from session to session. In any given scenario, you'd also be playing a grunt. Grunts were expendable fighter-types built on fewer points. Companions were more well-rounded characters that could be anything from knights to herbalists to half-fey, built on more points and meant to complement a party with non-spellcasting abilities.

A Doctor Who game built on that would need a set-up where you had access to multiple Time Lords, like the CIA of the FASA game. Or, as I would do it (because we had plans for it), playing the same TL over multiple regenerations. Ex.: Session 1 has the TL's 1st regen played by A, with companions played by B and C. Session 2 takes place during the TL's 4th regen as played by B, with A and C now playing (different) Companions. Session 3 looks at the TL's 7th regen, and so on.

[Eternally Lost Zeppo]

Nov 27, 2010 19:17:20 GMT Siskoid said:

A Doctor Who game built on that would need a set-up where you had access to multiple Time Lords, like the CIA of the FASA game. Or, as I would do it (because we had plans for it), playing the same TL over multiple regenerations. Ex.: Session 1 has the TL's 1st regen played by A, with companions played by B and C. Session 2 takes place during the TL's 4th regen as played by B, with A and C now playing (different) Companions. Session 3 looks at the TL's 7th regen, and so on.

The second idea could work, yeah. Would need some really good roleplaying on the parts of the players to keep their characters suitably different between sessions though. And you could probably handle campaign arcs the way Big Finish handle their audioplays. Mostly one-shot stories, with each TL's group having the occasional arc taking place around them, and maybe all Time Lords converging at some point or other to deal with an uber-arc (like I presume Zagreus will be, though I haven't got to that point yet).

[Siskoid]

Not really what Zagreus does (no spoilers from me!), but there are plenty of multiple Doctor stories even on the show to cover this.