Test Run - Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space

Time to test out another game's character generation.  This time, I'm working with the Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG from Cubicle 7.  Since the game is using a licensed property, let's get the legal stuff out of the way.  Doctor Who and related terms are trademarks of the BBC; the use here is not intended as infringement.  What follows below is meant as a demonstration of the game system.

Legalities out of the way, let's get started.  The big issue with playing in the Who-niverse is that, according to canon, a grand total of two Time Lords, the Doctor and the Master, survived the Time War with the Daleks.  Yet, the Doctor is currently on his twelfth regeneration, and his past selves have run into other Time Lords, including the Rani, the Valeyard, Rassilon, and Romana.  With the addition of time travel, even the Time Lords who didn't survive the Time War could still have incarnations wandering about.  To add to the fun, the game assumes that players are basing campaigns on the current season of the show, but has supplements detailing previous versions of the Doctor.

What the previous paragraph means is I can create a Time Lord if I want and not break the universe too badly.  Besides, time is made of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, which is the Doctor's attempt at explaining multidimensional physics and math to someone whose language doesn't include the past-future tense*.  If the campaign is set before the Time War, a Time Lord character is very much possible.  Besides, in a Doctor Who RPG, it should be possible to play a Time Lord, canon be damned.

With the idea of playing a Time Lord set, let's try to figure him or her out.  We've seen a few Time Lords in the show.  Most of them, including the Doctor, tend to go overboard whenever there's no companion to temper their behaviour.  The exception is Romana, who was the moderating influence on the Doctor for a bit.  A haughty Time Lord, then, is the way to go, one who is letting his or her experience inflate the ego.  At the same time, why is the Time Lord wandering the universe instead of staying in Gallifreyan society?  Curiosity, of course; there is always something interesting to discover.  A haughty scientist; let's go with that.  That just leaves a name.  A haughty scientist is going to prefer a title over just a simple name.  After a bit of thought, I'm going with The Trobairitz.  The term means a woman troubador, but it was endowed upon her by a primitive society after she spent time with it.

Name: The Trobairitz
Description: A Time Lady of Gallifrey, she spent many years working with developing societies to watch how they developed and to prevent outside interference.  The Trobairitz appears to be in her 30s, in human terms, and wears an eccletic melange of garb from the societies she has visited, including cream peasant blouse, a purple Victorian-era vest, a pair of khaki pants, and a green greatcoat.

Now that I have an idea of who the Time Lady is, it's time to stat her out.  First up, the attributes.  I have 24 points to distribute over the six attributes, Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity, Presence, Resolve, and Strength, with none allowed to be lower than 1 or higher than 6.  Leftover attribute points can be used for Traits, and I can always take a Bad Trait to give me more points.  The Player's Guide recommends spending 18 attribute points to save 6 for Traits, so let's do that.  I distribute as below.

Attributes:
  Awareness: 3
  Coordination: 2
  Ingenuity: 5
  Presence: 3
  Resolve: 3
  Strength: 2

I have six points to now spend on Traits.  Traits come in two costs, Minor for one point and Major for two.  The first Trait I should get is Time Lord, because she is one.  Time Lord costs two points, reduces the total Story Points, which I'll cover more below, by four, and comes with the Code of Conduct, Feel the Turn of the Universe, and Vortex traits along with an extra two levels for Ingenuity, allowing the attribute to exceed 6.  Time Lords also get a Major Gadget; a quick look in the GM's Guide and the gadget list there shows the Sonic Screwdriver, the Doctor's Swiss Army knife of choice, to be a Major Gadget.  It's useful, so the Trobairitz takes it, too.  Time Lord seems powerful, but the reduction in Story Points will make up for it.  That leaves four points left.  I take Boffin as a Major Good Trait for two points and Resourceful Pockets and Voice of Authority as Minor Good Traits at a point each.  Boffin will let the Trobairitz to Macguyver gadgets, like spaceworthy Spitfire fighter planes.  Resourceful Pockets gives the Trobairitz something useful that fits in her pocket, subject to GM permission and whim.  Voice of Authority gives her the aura of leadership and experience, letting her to strut into a crisis and start giving orders.

While I'm working with the Traits, I take two Minor Bad Traits to pick up two attribute points.  The first is Insatiable Curiosity, which is the Trobairitz's driving characteristic already.  The other is Outcast; the Time Lady has been exiled from Gallifrey because of the time she spends with primitive societies.  Other Time Lords, if she encounters any, will react to her negatively.  The list of Traits are as follows:

Traits:
  Boffin
  Resourceful Pockets
  Time Lord
    Code of Conduct
    Feel the Turn of the Universe
    Vortex
    Gadget, Major - Sonic Screwdriver
  Voice of Authority
  Insatiable Curiosity
  Outcast

Next up, skills.  I have eighteen points to spend, plus two more from the Bad Traits I took above.  The skill list is short, only twelve total, so each one is broad.  Unlike other settings, combat skills, in this case, Fighting and Marksmanship, aren't as critical.  The Doctor tends to run more than he fights, preferring to think his way out of a situation.  The game's mechanics encourage that sort of thing, with thinkers getting the initiative over fighters.  I distribute the twenty points as below.  The Trobairitz isn't a physical person, but she did learn some fencing because she enjoyed how she thought she looked with a foil.  She's an expert in Science, and accomplished with Knowledge and Technology.

Skills:
  Athletics:
  Convince: 2
  Craft:
  Fighting: 2
  Knowledge: 4
  Marksmanship:
  Medicine: 1
  Science: 6
  Subterfuge:
  Survival: 1
  Technology: 4
  Transport:

All characters start with twelve Story Points, the game's karma point mechanic.  Story Points can be spent to affect the plot or to gain an advantage, either through affecting dice roll results or through the creation of a previously unmentioned gadget.  The Trobairitz's Time Lord Trait, though, reduces her Story Point total by four, leaving her eight.  The TV series does show how the Doctor can run into problems and needs help from his Companions to save the day.

The last bit is what I started with, the character concept, fleshed out to being more a person than an idea.  The steps can be done in any order; I find it easier to start with the personal details than end with it, but that also depends on game system*.  Some groups cast their characters, looking for an actor to portray the role.  The Buffy: The Vampire Slayer RPG encouraged the practice somewhat, but the idea may predate that game.  For now, I'll leave the casting alone.

Here is the Trobairitz's character sheet.  If you wind up playing, please let me know.

Name: The Trobairitz
Description: A Time Lady of Gallifrey, she spent many years working with developing societies to watch how they developed and to prevent outside interference.  The Trobairitz appears to be in her 30s, in human terms, and wears an eccletic melange of garb from the societies she has visited, including cream peasant blouse, a purple Victorian-era vest, a pair of khaki pants, and a green greatcoat.

Attributes:
  Awareness: 3
  Coordination: 2
  Ingenuity: 7
  Presence: 3
  Resolve: 3
  Strength: 2

Story Points: 8

Skills:
  Athletics:
  Convince: 3
  Craft:
  Fighting: 2
  Knowledge: 4
  Marksmanship:
  Medicine:
  Science: 6
  Subterfuge:
  Survival: 1
  Technology: 4
  Transport:

Traits:
  Boffin (Major)
  Resourceful Pockets (Minor)
  Time Lord
    Code of Conduct
    Feel the Turn of the Universe
    Vortex
    Gadget, Major - Sonic Screwdriver
  Voice of Authority (Minor)
  Insatiable Curiosity (Minor)
  Outcast (Minor)

Stuff:
  Tech Level: Gallifrey, level 10

* English doesn't really do time travelling verbs well, where a person has done something that hasn't occurred yet.
** Traveller's method of random career generation, for example, makes it easier for me to discover the character during creation.  Even there, sometimes I start with an idea of where a character starts, then adjust how the character feels as the career unfolds.  See also, Philomena, who started as an ambitious gentlewoman and ended her career somewhat bitter.