Doctor Who RPG

Well I thought I'd create a quick blog here to see what it was like and just to post something meaningful.

A short while back I bought Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. Gathering a few friends, some of us got fairly excited at the prospect. Seeing as I bought the set, I got designated Games Master. Which is quite a new and daunting experience for me, having never played an RPG before and not being particularly quick witted.

Well we had our first game, but it didn't go great because we were pressed for time and so had people leave and it was very rushed (and I ended up railroading people a bit Razz

). So the enthusiasm from some has dropped off. Also everyone's very busy. But I'm hoping that I'll be able to find another time soon for a proper game or maybe even do it over email.
We had 2 drama girls, a guy who has had a small amount of experience with D&D and another girl who isn't as big a fan as the rest of us of Who but is pretty loud. Don't know she'll be joining us.

If anyone bothers to read this, I have a couple of questions aimed at RPers.
1) Any general tips for a newbie GM? I'm struggling a little about when to get characters to make awareness checks and the like, as well as filling in everything else. Do you try and RP every NP, or can you describe characters actions without having to constantly be thinking of how they would respond?
2) How do games via email work? It's a concept I've seen a little, and would be handy to give me more time but games would take a lot longer. Is an enticing option given everyone's busy schedule and how hard it is to find a free time.

Re: Doctor Who RPG Sun May 08, 2011 5:48 am by **Dînadan**

I have hardly any experience with RPGs (unfortunately), but I think I read somewhere that you should occassionally make the players take awarness checks even if there's no need. e.g. if the party is walking down a corridor, even if there's nothing there, it's okay to make them take an awareness check (although don't do it for every corridor). That way, even if they fail, they wont know if there actually is something there (if you only made them take checks when there actually was something, then the players could soon start metagaming and taking the instruction to take a test as a sign that there actually is something about). Similarly, if they pass an awarness based test, instead of saying 'there are no traps', say 'you don't notice any traps'

Re: Doctor Who RPG Sun May 08, 2011 9:12 pm by **Cal585**

Hmm, frequent awareness tests sounds like a decent idea for playing the game. The thing I'm struggling to get my head around with the Dr Who system though is that it's not areas that you need to make tests for, but rather specific things within the area, and often there are multiple. The greater your success the more you will discover. I suppose you can do that for multiple items, there's just one issue. There are Story Points which are sort of like Fate Point in the SBG, which alter your rolls, bumping failures to successes etc. Players wouldn't be happy if they spent one of their precious few points to pass a test only for it to be nothing. But they can't really ignore everything as some might be vital clues. That's the problem with it being a mystery adventure.

Having now been in touch with everyone, they mostly seem pretty eager to try it again, so I'm looking forward to it Smile

Currently scouring the rulebook to try and make sure I know the rules properly this time. Will let you know if it ever finally occurs.

This is the set I'm playing from if anyone's interested: http://shop.cubicle7store.com/epages/es113347.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es113347_shop/Products/CB71100
They're also bringing out a LotR RPG sometime which looks rather interesting. We should start up a forum RPG Wink

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