Monday 30 June 2014

DW Companions as PCs: Romana

Leela leaves at the end of the fifteenth season. The campaign has been a fairly odd one for some time now, with only two players for the last three seasons, and for some extended periods before that. Perhaps more significantly, there has been something of an imbalance between the two characters. Sarah Jane and Leela were certainly competent characters, but even they were clearly sidekicks to the Doctor, the character who has been there, in one form or another, for, well... fifteen seasons now.

So, perhaps inspired by an NPC in The Invasion of Time - the first time we'd ever seen an adult female member of the Doctor's species - the other player decides to create a character who can truly be the Doctor's equal. She creates the Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar, better known as Romana.

Romana is a recent graduate of the Time Lord Academy, and there's some indication that she is even more intelligent than the Doctor. Certainly, she passed the Academy's final exams with much higher marks than he did, although, to be fair, the Doctor may have been the sort of person who was too busy messing about to actually study. Be that as it may, Romana is, for obvious reasons, vastly less experienced than her co-traveller. This, as it turns out, affects both the skills on her character sheet and, more generally, her personality.

Monday 16 June 2014

DW Companions as PCs: K9

Early in the fifteenth season, a new player joins the group, and comes up with an unusual idea for a PC. Basically, he's going to...

No, wait, that's not right, let's try that again. Here's what actually happened in our imaginary RPG campaign:

Ever since Harry's player left, the group has been down to just two players plus the GM. It's been there before, of course, but with the UNIT players away for good, there's no sign of it changing on the horizon. The GM is finding this a bit limiting, with the players often needing a bit of back-up to get things done. So, when they take a shine to a robot character he's just introduced, he decides to make the tin dog into a "Party NPC": a GM-controlled character that nonetheless travels with, and helps out the PCs on their adventures.

Yes, I'm arguing that K9 is actually an NPC. But the title of this little series is "Companions as PCs", and K9 is usually regarded as a companion, so what on Earth am I up to?

Monday 2 June 2014

DW Companions as PCs: Leela

Sarah Jane leaves part way through the fourteenth season after what is (at the time) the longest run of any companion on the series. Her player is ready for something new, and comes up with a concept that's quite different from anything seen so far: her new character is going to be a Victorian street urchin.

Huh?

Bear with me.

As it turns out, the GM is already planning a scenario set in set in Victorian London, so this will be perfect. He'll be able to work the character in seamlessly, and have her back-story relevant to the plot. There's only one problem: he hasn't got very far with planning the scenario yet, which he wants to make really authentic. The Doctor's player has badgered him into running a solo game while the other is away on holiday, but, even so, the GM has two more scenarios more or less ready to go before he feels ready to run the Victorian spectacular.

So he's got a suggestion: why not run a temporary PC for those two sessions? That way the arrival of the 'real' PC can be something of a surprise to the Doctor's player, and it will enhance the plot even more. He can even work in a short story arc for the temporary PC to his existing plots, and everything will be great.