Hey folks. I’m new to PbtA games and GM-ing in general, but I’ve decided to start out with an Uncharted Worlds Doctor Who game. I’m really excited about the system and I think it’ll work pretty well for the setting, but I’m just wondering what tweaks, if any, you all would suggest?
One thing I’m thinking about is making a new origin: “Timefaring”, to cover Gallifreyan and other highly advanced characters. Any thoughts?
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think you should play a system as is if you’re new to it. Especially if you’re new to GMing as well.
I’m not saying you can’t use UW to run a Doctor Who game. I’m not even saying you shouldn’t do it. All Im saying is that you should run the game as is without any tweaks before you start monkeying around with it.
I think a Gallifreyan can be covered pretty all right by the default careers right now. They’re probably all Advanced, probably Starfaring, probably Academics. Also, I love the idea of a Doctor Who game with UW. Heck yeah!
Yeah you could do Doctor Who pretty easily just by having the TARDIS make Wild Jumps and things.
Try to do it with the existing system without changes first.
Its worth noting that you’ll want to make your Factions huge and time-spanning, so that they can continually interact with PCs as they cavort around time. This will be a marked departure from traditional Who, obviously, because while they have reoccurring villains they don’t really grapple with groups in any kind of back-and-forth way. Like, sure, sometimes they fight the Church of the Silence or hang out with UNIT but its never a two-way street of interaction. Its always in a villain of the week type scenario.
The Doctor shouldn’t have the flexibility to jump around time. Usually the TARDIS jumps and breaks down, there is something to do in this era and this era alone, the TARDIS knows best…Or, at least, that’s how it was in the penny-pinching, low FX-budget of 70s Doctor Who…
Firstly, Doctor Who UW sounds fantastic, please tell us how it goes!
Secondly, I agree with the general sentiment that the Wild Jump move from a Tardis would be enough to support time travel in a game without further tinkering.
Thirdly, I cannot believe I forgot a section on Time Travel in the supplement I’m currently writing! A major oversight on my part. Thank you so much!
Thanks for the input, everyone. I will try the game straight up before monkeying around with it, like you all say! One question: I was thinking that the TARDIS would mostly make wild jumps, since it’s a rickety old bucket, but when would it be appropriate to use jump points? Or should every jump be wild?
I agree that the Factions will need to be big and powerful for the debt system to work the way it should. The Time Lords are an obvious one, since they’re constantly mucking about and demanding things from the Doctor, especially in the audio dramas. What other factions should I use? Would you count villains like the daleks and the cybermen as factions? How would you handle debt to factions like those? What about the White Guardian/Black Guardian?
Personally, to keep in line with the show, I’d almost always Wild Jump with the Tardis unless they’re returning to a place they’ve already been before. That said, stable temporal Jump Points could very well exist leading to pivotal moments in history.
Now that I think of it, if there’s one thing you could tinker with it’s the 7-9 results of Wild Jump, to bring it more in line with the Doctor Who fiction.
For Factions, it would be best to pick organisations/groups that the characters could interact with positively or negatively. If the group is 100% opposed to the characters and unwilling to grant them Favors, then the group is a threat, not a faction. In Star Trek terms: the Klingons and Vulcans are factions, the Borg are a threat.
Sean Gomes oh man, “You reach a point within a week’s travel of your destination”