Quote from: Seanchai;429930Someone didn't understand the question...

Seanchai

What is it without the fundamental dr.who elements? Well, for starters, a kick-ass space opera setting.

Secondly, I think that the most important "element" of doctor who is the message of the triumph of intelligence and moral spirit over the forces of darkness and violence, and that is very much the theme of my Starblazer campaign.  The Starblazer crew are trying to find the lost homeworld, and to bring the light of civilization to a devastated region, and very much showing that spirit of determination that makes humanity the Doctor's very favorite species.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;429939...................
Secondly, I think that the most important "element" of doctor who is the message of the triumph of intelligence and moral spirit over the forces of darkness and violence, and that is very much the theme of my Starblazer campaign.  The Starblazer crew are trying to find the lost homeworld, and to bring the light of civilization to a devastated region, and very much showing that spirit of determination that makes humanity the Doctor's very favorite species.

RPGPundit

...Or as one chat show host phrased it "The Triumph of Intellect and Romance over Brute force and Cynicism."

- Ed C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9P4SxtphJ4

Quote from: RPGPundit;429939What is it without the fundamental dr.who elements? Well, for starters, a kick-ass space opera setting.

Secondly, I think that the most important "element" of doctor who is the message of the triumph of intelligence and moral spirit over the forces of darkness and violence, and that is very much the theme of my Starblazer campaign.  

No. For example, both those exist in Star Wars and Star Trek. They're not the sine qua non of Doctor Who.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;429945No. For example, both those exist in Star Wars and Star Trek. They're not the sine qua non of Doctor Who.

Seanchai

Oh no...

 Massive Disagreement here.

They DO NOT both exist in STAR WARS and Star Trek.

STAR WARS is mostly written by a misguided soul who seems to want a benevolent monarchy ruling folks thats allied with a fuzzy technology-using religious order of monks.

STAR TREK varies from show to show and writer to writer as to what it says about humanity.
 The classic series, the 2009 movie and a few episodes of NEXT GEN , DS9, and ENTERPRISE get it mostly right.


- Ed C.

I always thought Doctor Who was about reason over superstition.

I don't mind Time Lords looking like humans, but I don't care for the amount of attention paid to Homo Sapiens Terra humans by the only Time Lord who matters...

In the Classic series this wasn't the case at all. As far as the Time Lords were concerned the Doctor was a nobody. When he was arrested for assinating the Lord President Cardinal Verusa didn't recognise him at all!

When the Master escaped from prison in Terror of the Autons the Time Lord sent to warn the Doctor was a petty civil servant even less important than he was.

It wasn't until the Deadly Assassin that the Doctor became even semi famous amongst his own people. In fact the existence of the Monk, the Rani and the Master point to the fact that he's just one of many renegades.

It was T Davis who made the Doctor crucial to the Time Lords and of course the last Time Lord (bar the Master and the Doctor's half clone Jenni for now I'm sure the Rani and the Monk will be back eventually!)

For the most part of the Classic Series he's not "The only Time Lord that matters" he's just a petty criminal. His interest in Earth is just an amusment to other Time Lords. So much so that they thought it fitting to kill him and maroon his regeneration on 70s Earth.

In the classic series, though, the larger galactic history as described by the Pundit did not yet exist.  He's not talking about the little stories of household alien invasion, he's talking about the grand sweep of galactic history, which is begun in the Baker years.

Quote from: Seanchai;429945No. For example, both those exist in Star Wars and Star Trek. They're not the sine qua non of Doctor Who.

Seanchai

I think this can be true to a certain extent, but I also think the approaches in each of these genres is sufficiently different that you can easily tell which a setting is getting its inspiration from.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Esgaldil;429991I don't mind Time Lords looking like humans, but I don't care for the amount of attention paid to Homo Sapiens Terra humans by the only Time Lord who matters...

Time Lords don't look like humans.  Humans look like Time Lords.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Esgaldil;430003In the classic series, though, the larger galactic history as described by the Pundit did not yet exist.  He's not talking about the little stories of household alien invasion, he's talking about the grand sweep of galactic history, which is begun in the Baker years.

Are the "Baker years" not part of the classic series now?

And anyways, I'd argue that where they actually began was more the Pertwee years, with inklings in the stories of the previous two doctors.  The Baker years were really where they reached their full evolution, its true.  But most of the elements I described in my post above were from either Pertwee or very early in the Tom Baker years.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;430008I think this can be true to a certain extent, but I also think the approaches in each of these genres is sufficiently different that you can easily tell which a setting is getting its inspiration from.

That's the thing, though. To those on the outside, playing in the Doctor Who universe without The Doctor, the TARDIS, etc., just looks like you brazenly stole the Daleks and dumped them into your own homebrew space opera universe.

And that's basically the case...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;430140That's the thing, though. To those on the outside, playing in the Doctor Who universe without The Doctor, the TARDIS, etc., just looks like you brazenly stole the Daleks and dumped them into your own homebrew space opera universe.

And that's basically the case...

Seanchai

Well, if you really want to take that line of argument, what you'd actually have to say is that I stole a SHITLOAD of stuff from Doctor Who, not just the Daleks. And actually, there was only the one dalek (compared to a ton of encounters with the Draconians so far), and that is likely to be the only Dalek they're going to encounter in the campaign (since the era I'm playing in is basically not meant to be a period where the Daleks were prevalent).

In any case, let's say that your position is correct, and that was the case, what exactly would be bad about that?
Also, one could argue that there's two ways one could go about it: you could put a dalek (or a cyberman or whatever) in a Star Trek game, or a D&D dungeon for that matter, and it would be nothing more than a monster to kill; but if you create a whole campaign that is essentially saying "this is happening in the Doctor Who universe, but the Doctor just isn't going to be around", that's a very different thing.

RPGPundit

Little different than running a Star Wars game in the Legacy or KotOR era. Same universe as Luke/Leia/Han, but they're not making appearances in this game.

I guess it depends on whether you emulate the feel of the Whoniverse or if you're pulling elements from it and dropping it into your own pastiche. If they blasted the Dalek with heavy weaponry, then that's an element drawn from the Whoniverse dropped into a different setting. If they ran like hell from the Dalek and lured it into the engine room of a derelict Sontaran craft which they then caused a critical meltdown and ran pell-mell to the escape pods to survive... well, that's how things are done in the Whoniverse

Also, pastiche is not bad, as long as it's fun.

SPOILER FOR MY WEREWOLF THE PURE GAME!




I am actually having two armies of Daleks show up in my Werewolf the Pure Game. It's been advertised as less than serious. They have no idea how much!