[Adventure] Games of Chance

[starkllr]

I'm running a play-by-post game on rpg.net, and I've written up the first adventure as a full adventure for anyone here who wants it.

(if you're playing in "Doctor Who: Misfits in Time and Space" on rpg.net, please don't peek!)

There's a possible second part (depending on how this adventure ends), which I haven't written yet, but I will post when I do.

The pdf of the adventure is here: dl.dropbox.com/u/5069296/Games%20of%20Chance.pdf


Any thoughts, comments, suggestions, etc are extremely welcome! Actually, they're doubly welcome, because I'm going to be running this same adventure to kick off a face-to-face game in a couple of weeks, and any helpful thoughts will be, well, very helpful!

[Craig Oxbrow]

Nicely done. Have some Karma.

For a tabletop game, could do with a few more laser blasts to run away from. (Always have more laser blasts to run away from!)

Depending on length I might trim the cast list down a bit, remove one of the groups chasing Peter or the time glasses, possibly make Bella able to pass for a healthy human and make her Peter's assistant so she's around in the magic act and hiding in plain sight...

And at some point there definitely has to be a gag about parking a UFO with its lights on in a vacant lot of the Vegas strip and nobody really noticing it.

[starkllr]

Having finally run the adventure live, I've rewritten it based on player feedback, reformatted it, and I've reposted it for anyone to use as they'd like...

dl.dropbox.com/u/5069296/Games%20of%20Chance.pdf

Any comments, thoughts, etc are very welcome!

[knasser]

Sept 29, 2010 18:13:49 GMT starkllr said:

Having finally run the adventure live, I've rewritten it based on player feedback, reformatted it, and I've reposted it for anyone to use as they'd like...

dl.dropbox.com/u/5069296/Games%20of%20Chance.pdf

Any comments, thoughts, etc are very welcome!

That's really impressive. I like it! I think you nailed it with "Old Blue Eyes" (Sinatra) as a baddie. And I also like the suggestions and options for tweaking the adventure that you provide (bringing it to the present day, and having the players pursued by an evil Celine Dion would be classic!).

There's not much I can say in the way of criticism. Obviously the very ending is ridiculously rail-roady, but that's obviously what you want to set up your next game. If you want to make it a bit more of an introductory adventure for new GMs to run, then you could include a few explicit notes here and there such as "to bluff their way past Gloria, the PCs may make an opposed Presence + Convince roll against her" and such. But obviously it's not really needed for more experienced GMs.

It's very in keeping with Doctor Who, in that you have sympathetic villains, a non-violent resolution lined up... And you also use the Rutan - Sontaran war as a backdrop for the story which is what I have been doing myself (and consequently think your approach is excellent. ).

You might want to put a note in there for GMs advising on how to handle paradoxes generated by the glasses. I.e. the PCs see Peter going home to his hotel so they decide to capture him there so he decides not to go to his hotel, etc. I would recommend advising the GM to "cheat" in such instances. But apart from that, all I can say is you've done a really good job of covering how to run this adventure and setting up an interesting idea in the first place.

Well done!

Khadim.

[starkllr]

Hey, thanks!

It is awfully rail-roady, I agree. But since it is the first part of a two-parter...

I'm working on writing up the second part now, hopefully I'll have it up in a few days. We get to see the Sontaran-Rutan War up close and personal in "Death of the Astral Queen".

When I ran that one with my group, one of the players (playing a warrior from ancient Greece), actually got into hand-to-hand combat with a Sontaran, and lived to tell the tale.

I'm also working on writing up the third adventure my group ran, "Blood and the Daleks". That's a fun one!

[knasser]

Sept 29, 2010 19:52:26 GMT starkllr said:

When I ran that one with my group, one of the players (playing a warrior from ancient Greece), actually got into hand-to-hand combat with a Sontaran, and lived to tell the tale.

Impressive. Sontarans are nasty in hand-to-hand. In fact, if they're wearing their armour it's extremely hard to best them at all. (Not that naked Sontarans are preferable).

Incidentally, the Sontaran-Rutan war is a major backdrop in my game. I don't know if you've seen it but if you check out the links in my sig you'll find some of my own Sontaran material such as their ships, sontaran warhounds and Sontaran special forces. I statted up Rutans as well. I put slightly different emphases on the two races, making the Sontarans the tactical field manual types seen in The Poison Sky two-parter, and the Rutans slightly more guerilla. The Rutan side is not really backed up by the show exactly, but I expanded it from the shape-shifting in Fang Rock and went with it. For thematic purposes, I needed some differences in approach between the two races.

K.

[starkllr]

I'm probably going to steal some of your Sontaran and Rutan material for my full write up of Astral Queen.

I especially love the Sontaran Warhound!

[knasser]

Sept 30, 2010 20:29:40 GMT starkllr said:

I'm probably going to steal some of your Sontaran and Rutan material for my full write up of Astral Queen.

I especially love the Sontaran Warhound!

Oh, please do! And if you write up your next adventure (and I hope you do because the last was great), I don't mind you cutting and pasting anything that's useful, so long as there's a credit given somewhere.

And the warhounds... All RPGs need a canine-style monster. Because DW:AITAS is based on a British TV show without a budget for packs of non-humanoid, animatronic aliens, there aren't currently any.

So I made some.

K.

[Curufea]

The only reason I've not included them in my Paradox Diaspora campaign is because the Sontarans never intended to land ground troops

[Marnal]

Oh awesome! Its a Dr Who RPG with Sinatra cameoing!

I've got a Time Lord in my game who is a really big Sinatra fan. Going to have to run this!

THANKS!

-Marnal

[starkllr]

Cool!

If you do run it, please let me know how it goes!

[sutekh]

Impressive! Have some karma...