2019.03.01: Doctor Who RPG: The Many Doctors

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.320 Hey everybody, and welcome to the first episode of just played. I'm going 2 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:07.919 to talk about a game that I played just last night that we are calling 3 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.240 the many doctors. So this said doctor who game session that I played on 4 00:00:12.279 --> 00:00:16.920 Friday night. We played from seven o'clock eastern until about ten thirty or so. 5 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:22.160 This an episodic series that we are playing streaming online via zoom, which 6 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:25.440 is one of the platforms that's kind of like hangouts or something like that, 7 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:28.600 where but it can kind of get together on camera and play out together. 8 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:33.320 My game master was Mickel Matthews, who has set this up for us, 9 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:38.920 and it's a interesting setup where we're going to be playing it kind of occasionally, 10 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:45.159 so every player has their own doctor and their own companion, and then 11 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:49.359 in some episodes you're going to be playing with your doctor as the feature character, 12 00:00:49.479 --> 00:00:53.000 some episodes you're going to be playing with another doctor that has your companion 13 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:57.240 as the main feature companion, and then in everything else we are doing troops 14 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:00.399 style play where if you are not either the doctor or the companion, you're 15 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:06.079 going to be taken on the role of various NPCs, whether they're recurring nonplayer 16 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:10.200 characters or, you know, just folks that we run into, like you 17 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:14.480 do in episodes, of doctor who in any individual given episode. So in 18 00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:19.040 this particular episode, this was my first go around as the doctor. So 19 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:25.319 I am playing a kind of older, cynical doctor, think like doctor who 20 00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:29.519 crossed with Colombo, who we are calling the Red Sun doctor because he's seen 21 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:32.439 a lot. He's kind of the doctor that is sort of there as the 22 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:37.280 universe is starting to wind down, that incarnation of the doctor. So I 23 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:40.760 played the Red Sun doctor. Mike was another player. He was playing as 24 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:46.200 a agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency, which is the kind of doctor who 25 00:01:46.280 --> 00:01:49.879 version of the CIA. I guess he was from Galifray on a mysterious mission 26 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:53.400 and he's going to kind of maybe his character may or may not turn into 27 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:59.400 someone who we see regularly throughout the rest of the series kind of encountering different 28 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:01.280 versions of the doctor and stuff like that. One of the things that we're 29 00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:05.560 going to see develop as we go is characters, kind of river song style 30 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:09.840 characters who sort of thread in between meeting the different doctors that we may end 31 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:14.280 up having, you know, playing individually or handing off to each other, 32 00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:16.159 you know, like we do for troupe play so his character was known as 33 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:21.520 the rover. And Rex was the third player and he played Cameron Ohara, 34 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.319 who is going to be my doctor's companion, and he's a young grifter and 35 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:30.000 con artist from Earth around the year twenty s, so, you know, 36 00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:36.159 a couple of generations from now, and he has some psychic powers that we 37 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:39.120 saw a little bit in today's game but you know, I presume are probably 38 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:44.840 going to get developed more as we play. So when we started this session 39 00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:47.680 it of course was the debut of the Red Sun doctor. So we started 40 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:53.639 with Cameron getting grabbed by the tartists running away from some folks he had conned 41 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:59.680 in the cyberpunk streets of London and he found himself in the swimming pool, 42 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.080 which I framed as like a Russian Banya, with like a hot bath and 43 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:06.520 a cold bath, hot soak and a cold soak, and the doctor was 44 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:10.759 having a soak in the hot tub when this kid appears just out of nowhere, 45 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:15.360 grabbed by the tartists in the Cold Tub. So quick overview of the 46 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:20.280 game as it proceeded. The plot snopsis. So we had that typical kind 47 00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:24.680 of hoovy and meat cute between the doctor and his new young companion and kind 48 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:30.120 of after everybody got dried off and made introductions, we found ourselves aboard a 49 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:32.800 colony ship, one of these sort of, you know, mass effect andromeda 50 00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:38.360 style generation ships, that was traveling from Earth to a remote colony and it 51 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:42.919 was going to take six or seven generations to get there. The workers who 52 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:46.240 were keeping it running, because this is the kind of thing where not everybody's 53 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:50.840 in cryosleep but there is an actual crew that's a weight to maintain the ship 54 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:54.319 while it's traveling. So the workers down in the basement keeping it running were 55 00:03:54.400 --> 00:04:00.319 unhappy with the working conditions and they were planning this violent coup to take over 56 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:02.400 the ship from the captain and some of the folks that were living a much 57 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:06.680 nicer life above decks, the captain and the crew. So the doctor and 58 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:11.520 Cam, who the doctor is just calling kid at this point because he hasn't 59 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.520 been around a long enough to bother to learn his name. Not sure how 60 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:17.439 long he's going to last, but the doctrine can. They worked together to 61 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:24.319 bring the parties together and diffuse the situation so that everyone could reach their destination 62 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:27.879 some couple of generations from now. To solve the problem, the doctor used 63 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.399 the Tartis to take the captain, who was up top, and the chief 64 00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:34.199 engineer, who was the one who was kind of in charge of getting this 65 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:39.680 mutiny going, forced them to come together, disarmed them, because that's kind 66 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:43.160 of a thing that the doctor does, and this doctor's particularly interested in seeing 67 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:46.680 to it that nobody is pointing guns at anyone else. So we disarmed them 68 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:50.279 and then he used the tartist to take the captain and the chief engineer together, 69 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:55.279 put them together and took them to the world that the colony ship was 70 00:04:55.319 --> 00:04:59.600 headed to, so that they got to see the destination where the ship was 71 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:01.079 going to end up. Now they weren't going to live to set foot on 72 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:03.480 it, but they got to set foot on it, they got to feel 73 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:08.480 the soil in their hands, and that gave them common cause, kind of 74 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.680 a you know, a very concrete vision of what it was they were going 75 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:15.480 to work together towards and what they would lose if they didn't end. That 76 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:18.959 diffused things and we had a you know, kind of very doctor who style. 77 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:23.360 You know, everybody got together at the end, sure hands and and 78 00:05:23.399 --> 00:05:26.720 there was a hopeful ending. So at the end of the game, the 79 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:32.000 kind of our final scene are ending fictional state. Was Cam making the decision, 80 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:35.000 the no kidding, I'm not going to go back home to London, 81 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:42.839 decision to travel with the doctor and see the broader universe. So he while 82 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:45.759 he was traveling with the doctor, he had a vision of the distant future, 83 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:47.079 which is not a thing that he had had before. Mostly just been 84 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:50.839 these kind of, you know, near future precognitions that let him get away 85 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:55.279 from people that were after him because he owed the money. But his kind 86 00:05:55.279 --> 00:06:00.000 of vision of the future made him want to continue on with the doctor. 87 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:03.360 And so the Red Sun doctor has a new companion and they're going to be 88 00:06:03.399 --> 00:06:06.639 traveling together through the universe and we are going to see how that plays out 89 00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:12.720 over the next several months. So my favorite player moment from this game was 90 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:18.360 rex. Throughout the game kind of starting out with CAM literally not realizing when 91 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:24.600 we arrived on the generation ship that he was on a spaceship and having a 92 00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:29.279 lot of fun with a kind of slowly dawning realization of what exactly was going 93 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.319 on, where he was, when he was, how far away from home 94 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:35.600 he was, and it's a very kind of, you know, genre appropriate 95 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:41.000 doctor who thing. As it dawns on the new companion exactly what is going 96 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:43.759 on and he did a great job with that. It was a whole lot 97 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:46.879 of one. I really liked it. My favorite gamemaster moment was when Michale 98 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.680 stopped the game with about fifteen minutes left just to make sure everyone was going 99 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:56.680 exactly where we wanted. We kind of knew what the timing was going to 100 00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.560 be on where we wanted things to end and he did a really good job 101 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:03.120 of just kind of finding a very logical break and we just everybody broke completely 102 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.519 out of character and he said, okay, this a doctor who episode. 103 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:09.959 Here's how we expect it's going to end. I want to make sure everybody 104 00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:12.360 gets what they want out of it, and we had a little talk about 105 00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:15.480 that and then dropped back into playing and he did a great job with that 106 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:17.480 and I really love it when that happens, especially and kind of one shots 107 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:24.560 or episodic type of things where you are going for a very specific genre emulation. 108 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:28.839 It was great to have that conversation and to have Michael Break the game 109 00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:30.839 out so that we could make sure everybody kind of got what they wanted out 110 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:35.319 of that session. Missed opportunity in this game was that I didn't get to 111 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:42.240 interact as the doctor, with the rover, Mike's Character, really very much 112 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:45.399 at all, certainly not as much as I would have liked, and and 113 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:48.920 and kind of not really at all, because at the beginning, right at 114 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:54.279 the beginning of the game, we got split up in a way that totally 115 00:07:54.279 --> 00:07:58.560 made sense fictionally. That is entirely what would have happened in a doctor who 116 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:01.360 episode, but it meant that we were kind of doing parallel investigations, with 117 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:07.199 the doctor below decks talking to the chief engineer and the folks working below decks 118 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:13.519 and the rover and Cam above talking to the captain, and so eventually, 119 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:16.240 of course, we kind of came together and brought everybody together, but by 120 00:08:16.279 --> 00:08:20.920 that point we had each kind of done our thing with a separate parties and 121 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:24.720 then brought them together, which is kind of what the resolution of the episode 122 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:28.240 would naturally lead to. But it did mean that the rover and I didn't 123 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:33.080 really get to have much in the way of conversations. What I'm really hoping 124 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:35.120 is that I get a chance to interact with the rover because Mike's created a 125 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:41.399 really interesting character who is Galifrayan but not a doctor. But you know, 126 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.879 maybe in opposition to the doctor, depending on what they're doing, or working 127 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:48.320 in parallel with the doctor. Kind of very interesting character, like I said, 128 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:52.000 kind of a little reminiscent of someone what River Song has going on in 129 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.039 the show that I'm really looking forward to interacting with more and it was a 130 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:58.120 disappointment that I really didn't get to do that in this particular session, because 131 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:03.639 they were right there are. Finally, a thing I noticed about our session 132 00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:09.000 of doctor who because I've played it a couple of times and this evening, 133 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:15.879 the initiative system that is unique to the doctor who role playing system really stood 134 00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:20.519 out. And in the doctor who initiative system you talk before you can run 135 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:26.799 and anybody that wants to run can run before anybody else can act, and 136 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:31.360 anybody that wants to act to like do something concrete, like activated device or 137 00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:37.240 something like that, they can do that before anyone else can fight. And 138 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:43.159 then you fight and it creates situations and particularly in this game, really wonderful 139 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:48.360 situations, where things proceed in a way that is a typical of a lot 140 00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:52.639 of the adventure role playing games that were used to playing, where you decide 141 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.240 who goes first and then you know usually they swing a sword at somebody or 142 00:09:56.360 --> 00:09:58.919 fire blaster or something like that. You know, use their superpowers, but 143 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:03.960 in this it creates that structure that feels very much like the way a conflict 144 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.320 in a doctor who episode precedes and it's just brilliant. It really is a 145 00:10:09.399 --> 00:10:18.000 striking piece of game design to reinforce genre emulation that makes that sequence feel like 146 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:22.559 doctor who and not like any other role playing games and I really love it. 147 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:28.120 So so that was doctor who roleplaying game. Are Many doctors game that 148 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.879 we were playing. I'm looking forward to playing sessions of it in the future. 149 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:35.919 That's Friday nights and I guess it's kind of what I have Friday's free. 150 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:39.120 I'll be jumping in on that and those are available on twitch. I 151 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:43.039 should let me see if I could put some link to perhaps the video that 152 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:46.080 in the notes, if anybody's interest in check it out. Thanks a lot 153 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:50.360 for listening. I'm Jim Crocker and you can follow me on twitter at Jim 154 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:54.200 Lights Games and I have a website where I sell a whole lot of games, 155 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:56.279 including a lot of the games that we're playing here, both online and 156 00:10:56.360 --> 00:11:00.879 at conventions all up and down the East Coast and Midwest. And that's Jim 157 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.759 Lights Gamescom so look for me there. Thanks for listening