Has anyone ever tried playing an RPG game or campaign that is set in the Dr.Who universe, but without the Doctor? Nor am I talking about a UNIT or Torchwood game, either, but more specifically a game set at some point in the loose future-chronology that Doctor Who basically speculates (the dalek invasion of earth, the early exploration period, the federation, the cyber-wars, the abandonment of earth (the Ark period), the colonial period, the return to earth, the first human empire, draconian wars, second great and bountiful human empire, dalek wars, etc etc. right up to "end of humanity/time" periods like Frontios or Utopia).
Because basically, that's what my Starblazer campaign is.
RPGPundit
I never have. But that sounds pretty awesome, Pundit.
Will you be doing any blog posts on said campaign?
Torchwood I've done, but what is the Doctor Who universe without some of the elements that are at the heart of Doctor Who?
Seanchai
Doctor Who has too much unjustified anthropocentrism for my taste. I'd be more interested in a Douglas Adams setting.
Quote from: RPGPundit;429712Has anyone ever tried playing an RPG game or campaign that is set in the Dr.Who universe, but without the Doctor?
How about a game more like Love & Monsters. After all, you can't be a bit of ELO, right? ;)
One of the GMs in our Saturday group was going to run a 'Dr. Who without Dr. Who' game... the PCs would have a Tardis of some sort but no Timelord would be present. I don't know how he intended to work that.
Unfortunately my schedule change is gonna mean I won't be there for it.
Quote from: Esgaldil;429788Doctor Who has too much unjustified anthropocentrism for my taste. I'd be more interested in a Douglas Adams setting.
Douglas Adams worked as a script editor for Doctor Who on what is regarded by fans as the single most wacky peroid in the show's history. Certain characters that would later turn up Hitchikers like Oulon Kaloophid got mentioned.
I should clarify that I meant a "Hitchhiker's Guide" setting, then.
I ran a scifi version of the expendibles set in the dr who universe called Badasses of Time and Space a few months ago, it went pretty well and hopefully i'll get to run more at a later date(once i can get together with the group i ran it for).
Quote from: Esgaldil;429788Doctor Who has too much unjustified anthropocentrism for my taste. I'd be more interested in a Douglas Adams setting.
What?
Thats pretty much the majority of science fiction stories.
They tend to feature humans or human-like protagonists since the stories are written here on Earth by Humans.
- Ed C.
There are ways this problem can be avoided. One is to present the human intelligence as something special/unique. Asimov, Whedon, and Bujold, to take three very different examples, have intersteller future history without any intelligence of nonhuman origin. There are also settings in which humans are dominant within their area of influence, and other regions of space are dominated by other races - Niven's Known Space, for example. Earth can also be insignificant or even unmentioned, and any protagonists we take to be human might be just Star Trek (or HGttG) style humanoids.
The Doctor Who/Star Trek solution is the one I don't enjoy - there is a huge variety of intelligent beings, many of whom are far more advanced than Terrans technologically and/or intellectually, and yet the history of humanity is of central importance not only from our perspective, but in the grand cosmic scheme of things.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;429731I never have. But that sounds pretty awesome, Pundit.
Will you be doing any blog posts on said campaign?
I doubt it, given that I've been running the game for the better part of a year now, and haven't felt the need to so far.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Seanchai;429782Torchwood I've done, but what is the Doctor Who universe without some of the elements that are at the heart of Doctor Who?
Seanchai
Well, so far in the game we've seen the incredible tech of the First Human Empire, the resplendent tech of the 2nd Great and Bountiful Human Empire, we had the premise of the great migration to avoid catastrophe on earth (ie. ark in space, the beast below), we have Draconians as the main "villain race" (the empire is in a cold war with the Draconian Empire), the ship's secondary Science Officer is an Alpha Centauri, they've encountered the Zygons, Ice Warriors, a single Dalek, plus lots of mostly-evil cosmic entities that needed to be stopped, doomed worlds to be saved, etc.
And the Master even made a cameo appearance.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;429927Well, so far in the game we've seen the incredible tech of the First Human Empire, the resplendent tech of the 2nd Great and Bountiful Human Empire, we had the premise of the great migration to avoid catastrophe on earth (ie. ark in space, the beast below), we have Draconians as the main "villain race" (the empire is in a cold war with the Draconian Empire), the ship's secondary Science Officer is an Alpha Centauri, they've encountered the Zygons, Ice Warriors, a single Dalek, plus lots of mostly-evil cosmic entities that needed to be stopped, doomed worlds to be saved, etc.
And the Master even made a cameo appearance.
Someone didn't understand the question...
Seanchai
Quote from: Esgaldil;429788Doctor Who has too much unjustified anthropocentrism for my taste. I'd be more interested in a Douglas Adams setting.
No, its just that humans happen to look like Time Lords.
RPGPundit
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!
Quote from: RPGPundit;430197Well, 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.
Actually, outside The Doctor, the TARDIS, and the Daleks, there's little to steal. Most of it standard stuff, made up or itself borrowed as the need arose.
Quote from: RPGPundit;430197In any case, let's say that your position is correct, and that was the case, what exactly would be bad about that?
Nothing. I didn't say there was anything bad about it. I said, basically, that it was pointless to use the Doctor Who universe with key elements of said universe.
Seanchai
Quote from: Rubio;430247Little 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.
Well, now, I'm going to play devil's advocate against my own position in this thread and say that I do understand how some would take the perspective that Dr.Who is different than Star Wars in this regard; you an argue that star wars without the characters still has a highly defined universe: the Jedi, the Sith, the Old Republic, alien races, etc etc.
And likewise, you could claim that Doctor Who, without the Doctor or the TARDIS appears to have a far less defined universe; particularly if you also ignore some of the 20th century institutions like UNIT, Torchwood, etc.
However, I do think that there's a great deal of material in the Doctor Who universe (particularly in the "expanded universe" of the other media, but even if you rely solely on the TV series (original and current)), that certainly does come together in a defined universe; the difference from Star Wars being that it covers a much wider span of chronology and size.
Even without the Doctor, TARDIS or 20th century earth, you still have the Federation, 1st and 2nd Empire (and the different space communities after them, which are less defined), the Draconian Star Empire, the Sontaran and Rutans, the Cybermen, Ice Warriors, the ancient ones and their remnants, the Zygons, the different races of the galaxy that interacted with humans (Alpha Centauri, Sil, etc), Ogrons as space-mercenaries (who didn't just work with the Daleks, remember), the Shadow Proclamation and the Judoon, and of course the influence of the Time Lords (prior to the Time War at least).
RPGPundit