My Doctor Who Campaign, part 2

    

 Starts looking like this and ends up looking like that.

     We left off with the characters rescuing the Doctor,who the Lord President has kept locked in a stasis cell, torturing him and occasionally forcing him to regenerate. Helping him out of the cell, he regenerates, leaving him very weak.They take him back to their dorm and do an analysis to see who he is, with a little help from the APC net they discover his identity. Something is not quite right, and the matrix (they hacked in) seems to imply he was stopped before he could go out into the universe. With that revelation, the Lord President arrives!

     Wearing black robes of office, he retrieves the Doctor and the pc's, bringing them back to his quarters. As they enter, the Doctor becomes weak kneed and stumbles into the President, who shoves him away. Stepping behind his desk, the Lord President lets them know he was once known as the Master, and the Doctor's capture was just the first in a line of victories, culminating with control of Gallifrey and ultimately the universe!

     "Not so fast, old friend," croaks the Doctor as he pulled himself to his full height and fixed the President with a steely glare, "you will never be my master!" A gun had suddenly appeared in his hand and he shot the Master, then turned to the pc's wondering if he should kill them. They point out that they rescued him, so he decides to not kill them right away, and shoots one of them in the leg.

     Stumbling out of the room, they close the door and jam the lock as the ominous sound of a cloister bell begins warns the citizens of the capitol of imminent danger.

     That is where I will leave it for now, I will be back later. 

    

My Doctor Who Campaign

     So, recently I began running a DW:AiTaS game for a few of my friends. I started the initial three on Gallifrey in a universe where the Doctor does not exist. On the eve of their graduation from the Prydonian academy, they began investigating the fact that they each had been having the same dream. In the dream, a man sits, strapped to a chair with a metal hood covering his head. A voice screams "Help me!" before they awake. Things get rolling with figuring out what the strange figure was secured to, a little poking around reveals it is a stasis cell. Could someone be trapped in one, calling for help? Well seeing as how these things run off Kontron energy, setting up a scan of the capitol for thing energy signature should not be an issue.

     Off they go, location in hand, to see what is going on. After dodging guards, they reach their destination to find it is the Lord President's quarters. After working the lock they find themselves opening the stasis cell (it was disguised as part of a wall) to find someone who calls himself Doctor.

     Unfortunately I am out of time, but I will post more later on.

Now, what did I do before becoming an adventurer?

     Character backgrounds! I first saw them used in 4E D&D, then later in Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque (linked to the pdf, the backgrounds start on page 25). In both instances there is an in game benefit and a bit of an explanation of each.  The TotGaD backgrounds have some interaction with the "leading question", an example being the alienist's leading question "The mad gibber unspeakable things; what was the strangest thing a patient ever said in your presence?" This can easily be used as a story/adventure hook.

     Character do not need to to be spelled out, as seen in the first edition AD&D DMG, Gygax included a secondary skill table to indicate what your character may have been doing before taking up the adventurer's mantle. More recently, over at the Roll For Initiative web site, we have an  article with something similar to Gary's secondary skill table except this expands it with separate tables for the different classes. The thought being what is a reasonable background for this class (ie. only a fighter will have access to the armorer background)

     So, are there any generic fantasy backgrounds floating around? A cross between Gygax's secondary skill table and what's in TotGaD? If you have any ideas, let me know.

Please Help the Breitensteins!

     Hello again, it has been a while. I have been wondering if I should continue this, at least until recently. On March 24th, Todd Breitenstein passed away. I was disheartened, I have recently lost some dear friends. Here was one more person I would no longer see at conventions, one less amazing creator. Todd and Kerry (his wife) ran Twilight Creations where they made lots of amazing games, most notable being Zombies!. If you would like to help, you can do so here and Pinnacle is offering to give 100% of the proceeds from Zombie Run to help the family out. Losing someone is difficult enough without the addition of medicals bills and funeral costs. You may also make a donation to the American Cancer Society in Todd's name.

     As always, I welcome comments. It helps me to know what you guys are thinking and keeps me motivated. Thanks and take care.

    

Using trading cards in your role-playing game

     I was listening to a podcast recently (2GMs1Mic) where the hosts talked about the Star Wars game that one of them was running. Apparently, if I remember correctly, they had a stack of the tcg cards (Decipher, maybe) that they drew from for random finds. I am gearing up to run a game of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, and have a lot of cards from the 1996 Doctor Who tcg. I have been waffling on how to present this, and have decided to put the idea out there and see what you think. 

     Put together a deck of gadgets to see what may be in that secret UNIT storage shed. Stumped for what villain the PC's should encounter next, put some villain/alien cards together to draw from. So what if you do not have access to any cards? There are plenty of online card lists, take advantage of them and create a random roll chart. The appeal of cards is that they have pictures that you can show your players, and with a little cut/paste magic, you can make your own cards courtesy of the magic of the internet. Just think of the possibilities! I am working on an expanded list of alien/human encounters by taking the list from the '96 tcg (daleks, mongols, cybermen, etc.) and adding the stuff from the new series, like weeping angels or judoon. I will include the final version of the list soon. In the meantime, let me know if any of you have tried this and how it has worked for you.

The Wyvern's Tale

     When traveling somewhere new, I like to see if there are any game stores in the area. So recently I was in Asheville, North Carolina and decided to check out the Wyvern's Tale.The store itself is fantastic, with plenty of games separated into boardgames, card games, miniatures, and rpg's. All in a neat, orderly atmosphere.     The second floor held the gaming areas where there were a few groups playing. I was impressed by the fact that in addition to trash cans, there were also containers for recyclables. Their hours are Sunday through Thursday 12-8, and Friday/Saturday 12-10. They have regular game events throughout the week and December 23rd, Jason Morningstar (creator of Fiasco) will be at the store, signing books and talking with folks. All in all, I definitely will stopping back in if I am ever around Asheville, a really great experience.

Pandokemon, Gotta Catch Them All!!

     So, it's been awhile, between work and internet going out for about a week I have been absorbed by WoW and their pet battles. The best thing about it, in my opinion, is that you can name your pets. My first task was to name my Darkmoon Monkey Wil, after Mr. Wheaton. I mean look at him, doesn't that fez just scream "Wheaton!!"

     As I have said before, there are a few ways this resembles Pokemon, and that is a good thing. The achievement system really pushes you along. Many times I have meant to stop playing, only to have a little voice in my head say "You just need to capture a few more pets." or "You almost have that next achievement!"

     Anyone out there playing WoW and doing the pet battles? Let us know what you think, and what (if at all) you have named your pets? Take care guys.