General purpose OOC thread.

I suggest making IC posts in the third person.  I just did the ones for the new characters as second-person because Willvr's character still needs a name. ;)
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:32, Fri 29 Nov 2013.

Oh yeah. Sereth.

Great start!

Are Sereth and Smoke Alarm in the same room?

Yes, they're both in the hold full of refugees.

Cool.

Can you please set the dice-roller to default to 2d6? I keep rolling a d20 by mistake. Thanks.

Before I post, could you set my name to Sereth instead of willvr?

Done and done.

I plead "you can do that?" on the die roller.  Previously I'd only played Marvel Heroic Roleplaying on the side, so every single roll was a free-form set of dice. :)

Thanks.

That's right, Sereth. You state your intent (i.e., display leadership, order people about, etc.) and then make the roll. Every roll is 2d6 + Attribute + Skill, depending on what's most suitable to the action. If there is no right Skill (for things that are purely instinctive, inherent, or don't require any skill), then another Attribute is used instead.

With your Voice of Authority trait, you can add +2 to that roll. VoA gives +2 to Presence and Convince rolls to get people to do what you want or to gain their trust.

The Area of Expertise (Leadership) for Convince would give you another +2 in this case, so you would end up with a 19.

Just as a general guide, this is what the difficulty table looks like:

3  Really Really Easy
6  Really Easy
9  Easy
12 Normal
15 Tricky
18 Hard
21 Difficult
24 Very Difficult
27 Improbable!
30 Nearly Impossible!

There is a sliding scale of outcome based on how your result compares to the target number: +0-3 over the target is a basic success that may have some extenuating complication, +4-8 is a complete success, and +9 or higher is a fantastic success that should generally get you some positive result over and above what you expected to happen.  Rolls that fall short have a similar "degree of failure" in the result.

I would have called trying to get that large number of people to work together in trying circumstances "tricky", so your result is a solid success.

In general I'm happy for people to make rolls based on their take on the situation, to help things flow faster -- don't be too hesitant about "what should I roll?".  If I have a difficulty or specific roll for a task in mind, I will try to lay that out beforehand when the situation is presented.

Also, I'd like to suggest that we distinguish in-line OOC material in the IC threads by using a different color for it.

I'll see about getting an avatar up soon. Won't really match as Draconians, being a classic alien that wasn't updated, (so far anyway), aren't available as avatars readily.

It'll probably end up being a DnD lizardman or something.

You might find a suitable alien in the sci-fi sections. But you'd probably have to make and submit a proper Draconian eventually.

If anyone can help me find a bigger version of this image, let me know -


This message was last edited by the player at 04:21, Mon 02 Dec 2013.

Google Image Search? Sorry, no joy there.

My first Story Point, whoo!

For Sereth's benefit, here's the Difficulty table:
3 - Really, really easy
6 - Really easy
9 - Easy
12 - Normal
15 - Tricky
18 - Hard
21 - Difficult
24 - Very Difficult
27 - Improbable!
30 - Nearly impossible!

Every check is rated as one of these. Beating the difficulty by a certain amount has certain effects, and failing it by a certain amount also has certain effects. These are given by

Beat the difficult by:
9+ - Fantastic Yes, and... something else good happens.
4-8 - Good Yes
0-3 - Success Yes, but... it's not great or something else happens.

Fail the difficult by:
1-3 - Failure No, but... it's not wasn't as bad as thought.
4-8 - Bad No
9+ - Disastrous No, and... something else bad happens.

These also determine damage done in combat.


EDIT: Ah, I missed that the Guardian already posted that. Oh well.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:51, Tue 03 Dec 2013.

"She's not coming out, sir. She can be pretty shy."

Bam wants to talk to 2nd Trav -

I have two questions for Smoke's reactions.

First, what does Traveller's TARDIS look like? Going by that picture, it looks the same as the Doctor's, a police telephone box, but I thought I should check.

Second: Traveller, what are you wearing? ;) I'm mainly just wondering about colours.


EDIT: Oh, and is the TARDIS currently in sight? Especially from where Smoke will exit the ship.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:57, Thu 05 Dec 2013.

Excellent questions, Smoke Alarm!

First, Trav's TARDIS has the police box form, because she attempted early in her career to help the Doctor fix his type 40 by connecting the outer interface block transfer matrices. The idea was that Trav's type 50 TARDIS would reformat the block transfer matrix of the Doctor's type 40 and get rid of the Police Box flaw. Unfortunately, the opposite happened - Trav's TARDIS is now stuck in the form of a police box as well. The only difference is that the right portion of the door has a small American flag painted on it and a sign - NOW ENTERING SOVEREIGN US TERRITORY where the St Anthony's insignia is on the Doctor's TARDIS.

When pressedon this, Trav will usually grumble and say, "Police Boxes were invented in the US!"

Trav right now is wearing an outfit similar to this, but with a pair of chuck converse sneaks instead of sandals -

Thanks!

Sereth, I'm so, so sorry. :D

Don't worry, she'll be the Traveller's problem soon enough. :p

Though I thought hugging Sereth back in the Lucky Drifter thread would garner a reaction. :)

BTW, the symbol on the Doctor's TARDIS is the St. John Ambulance symbol, not anything to do with St Anthony.

Yay, the Blue 6th Doctor!
This message was last edited by the player at 00:11, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

Sorry, Traveller, I don't mean to keep ignoring you, I just had an idea I wanted to play out. And I'd already most of my post when you posted. But Smoke will talk to you now. :)

In my last DWAITAS game, one of the PCs played the 11th Doctor, but Smoke figured he was just an Inbetween who dressed like a Rezzie and didn't get to talk to him for long. I had an idea for how she could confirm him to be the Doctor, via the TARDIS, though she didn't get to see it before the game petered out. Now, I get a second shot at it. :) The madness should make some sense soon. ;)

Of course, this means Smoke met the later Doctor and never recognised him, and so wouldn't think to tell the Traveller. :(

In the first go-round with Trav and Stanley, we were playing with the idea that the Doctor was probably out there somewhere, but Trav kept barely missing him.

And tearing strips out of people who claimed they'd just talked to him. :)

That's fine - the very last time the Marshall (Traveller) saw the Doctor was immediately after the War Doctor regenerates into the Ninth Doctor, activates a pre-programmed signal that activates her own Type 50 Tardis after asking the Marshall to get something from her old TARDIS, sending her hurtling into R-Space. So, she saw 9 for just a moment and the War Doctor is the last Doctor she was familiar with.  If she were shown a picture, she'd say, "I have no idea who that skinny clown is. Nope, don't know the jerk with the bowtie is either. Gah, look at that chin."

In the RPGNet threads, Trav laughs at someone at UNIT telling her that the Doctor is alive and is wearing a fez and bowtie. Generally, the hint is that the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors are having their full run of adventures in the Always Time To Travel setting, but that they're hilariously missing each other - at least until Gary decides it's time for the Doctor and the Traveller to meet. Note that I may have this entirely wrong.

Cool. It's always fun connecting our own adventures to the setting. Hence Smoke tagging the Doctor's TARDIS. :D

Sorry Trav. Smoke's a suspicious Kang, and you hit one of her buttons. ;)

And why do you and Stanley quote everyone's posts in full all the time? The context is usually clear, especially when posts follow right on.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:21, Sat 07 Dec 2013.

Trav will find that unlike Smoke Alarm, Sereth is definitely of this time.  While there might not be perfect continuity of the Draconian Empire -- many dynasties, multiple times when it collapses entirely -- from their TV appearance, they've been viable as a species all that time.

Insofar as this contradicts Trav's expectations, she should draw the conclusion "the Time War did it."  It has already been established that some other powers have filled in some of the empty space left by the disappearance of the Daleks in particular, and thus Trav has been wrong about what she knows before.

The combined DWEU for the Draconians has them going all the way through the 101st century:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Draconian
So it's feasible for them to still be around and significant here in 197th or so.

That's what makes time travel so interesting!

Also, just like human empires, Draconian empires can rise and fall in the time stream.

Sorry for being late, I was busy with work today.

<quote The Traveller>OOC: Trav is using the TARDIS to listen in on local nets and frequencies, to gather some news so that the team can devise a plan as to what to do next. Perception+Knowledge+Research Capsule?
Sure, roll it.

2d6+Perception (3) + Knowledge (8)+Research Capsule (2)

10:19, Today: The Traveller rolled 19 using 2d6+14. Trav - Roll to check local networks.

That should be 2d6+13, so the total result should be 18.

... it is stinking hot here. Sorry, my brain's not dealing well with this heat.

I'll see about getting in a post tomorrow at work. We have AC; and as long as I can get a decent night's sleep tonight should be okay.

I thought you reptiles enjoyed the heat. :p

Where are you? I'm in Perth, Australia, and we have a four-day-long 38–39 °C heatwave coming up, with no working AC. D:
This message was last edited by the player at 09:42, Wed 11 Dec 2013.

I'm in Sydney. We've been having a few weeks of at least 4 days of 31-32 Celsius.

You say that's stinking hot? Damn, I should move east.

We'll probably reach around 42 in January; but yeah.

In my defence my formative years were spent in Holland.

FWIW, don't be too anxious about making out-of-sequence posts just because it feels like the narrative has moved on, at this point at least.  At this point the characters are all still getting a feel for each other, so as much interaction as possible is to the good.

That explains it. :)

Okay.

It's 31 degrees Farenheit/-1 degree centigrade here in Mineola, NY (Long Island)

And this should be relevant to all of our interests -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njNnTDiLOd4

Hey Gary, can you pull Trav's stats from the rpgnet thread, so I can add them to the character sheet here?

I've dumped the stats for Trav and her TARDIS on your character sheet.  It's good to be the king!

... I can't wait to be kinnng.....

I hope no one minds Smoke yammering on. I don't have a lot to contribute at this stage, but don't like sitting quiet. :)

.... so you're a typical companion then?

You got it, egg-head! :D

Yeah; I'm ignoring the 'Doctor' references as I don't think events that happened so long ago are even remembered in history anymore; even legends would be stretching it.

"Don't worry, Legate, people will be shooting at you soon." :D

.... they don't have to. Really! They can just give up to my awesomeness.

Waitasec, that's my line!

Hah!

Timelords don't have a monopoly on arrogance...

No, but we have a certain rep to uphold! ;)

... you silly timelords.

Really? I thought our techie Time Lord would be all into that.

Ah, okay, the skill doesn't cover much in the way of advanced technology.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:08, Thu 19 Dec 2013.

I do plan on picking some up. There is an advancement point system in Time Traveller's companion, but I have yet to lobby Gary to use it.

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 57):

Ah, so that WAS what you alluded to when you brought it up before.  (In the prior incarnation of the game.)

I'm not convinced that that table, or much of the rules in the TTC really, makes a whole lot of sense.  For one thing it's presented as TARDIS upgrade rules, and they're built a lot differently than PCs.  The book has got a lot of cool stuff in it -- it's a pretty heroic attempt at rationalizing all the Time Lord material over the length of the show -- but I feel like they piled a mess of complex systems on top of a very simple core system, and the result if used completely seems unwieldy.

For the several adventures that Trav & Stanley have already had, I picked out what seemed like reasonable advancements based on what they'd been doing, and I'll probably continue to do so.

(I note that having Smoke Alarm giving the Time Lord with centuries of technical know-how pointers in making things out of chewing-gum and twine has the potential to be hilarious.) :D

I very much like the relationship that's evolving between Smoke Alarm and Trav, and yes, it is. Trav looks forward to learning many Icehot things from Smoke.

Yes, we'll build our gadgets out of junk and rubbish... We could make a time-flow analogue! :D

(The time-flow analogue is the contraption Pertwee made out a wine bottle, forks, keys, and his morning tea in The Time Monster.)

I love it too. I'm afraid Trav will have to be Smoke's surrogate fellow Kang, big sister, and mother. :)

Heh. I watched Time Monster 2 weeks ago with my son. Pertwee's his second favorite 'olden' doctor.

Well, it looks like Trav is getting Crafts. That's also appropriate for her anyway. Also, Trav actually has kids she had to leave, so that's a thing there.

It's a good thing I designed Smoke Alarm as a parkour runner. :D

BTW, in post #156, I forgot to include my modifiers on my jumping check. It should have been 20, not 9, not that it mattered in the end.

This is SO TRUE!

Just a note; I don't know of any of the books involving Draconians; and based just off their single story (they need another one...), I don't think they're one of the 'advanced races' that have heard of timelords. They're typified as pretty much like humans other than the obvious differences.

My take on the state of the universe you're all playing in is that the big Time Lord / Dalek war will have left (mostly or partly cancelled) echoes all over history, so there will be weird legends and bits of legends floating around.  The odd thing about it is that the Daleks have made a big impression on lots of actual history where the Time Lords did not, so a lot of this stuff comes off sort of like myths about the Nazis storming Heaven.

So feel free to have Sereth and the Draconians wholly unfamiliar with Time Lords as a factual thing, or at best as a fairy-tale worthy of extreme skepticism.

(Incidentally, the only non-televised Draconian story I know anything about is the Big Finish story Paper Cuts.  That is sort of like a riff on a Japanese imperial court drama, which makes a certain amount of sense when you take it with the aesthetic from the Third Doctor story, so that is the sort of lens I am using to spin out Draconian background.)

Well shouldn't be a surprise but won't be around for the next couple of days.

Christmas tomorrow; Desolation of Smaug and Time of the Doctor on the day after.

Draconians were apparently among those who tried to imprison the Doctor in the Pandorica, but the concept of everyone in the universe gathering together at one time, before most were active, was just ridiculous.

The Doctor's had a good deal of contact with Draconians, but they may know him more than the Time Lords. In this far future, Sereth's Draconians have been around a long, long time, so they could have learned an awful lot, but yes it could be so old as to be myth and legend.

Draconians got some attention in the novels and comics.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Draconian
The Japanese theme is a common one. IIRC, Kaon:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Kaon
had a katana in addition to his "shurk'n" and sai:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Shurk%27n
I should go through my old DWMs to find his stories to confirm.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:41, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

Merry Christmas!

I wonder if Kangs have Christmas?

I'd think the Blue Kangs would have a pretty terrifying version of it.  What with the part about the Rezzie wearing the clothes of all the Red Kangs he's devoured, climbing down the waste chutes after you.

Ho, ho, ho.

Aaah! :o

BTW, I wanted to avoid the obvious statement of "it's bigger on the inside". Fortunately, there were fish in the walls. :) Now Smoke Alarm needs to find the swimming pool.

This makes Paradise Towers sound like some terrifying D&D dungeon. I'm kinda glad that Trav never visited the place.

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's an endless multistorey labyrinth filled with cannibalistic old folks, murderous cleaning robots, fascist caretakers, wild punk girl gangs, and the disembodied brain of the architect in the basement trying to implant himself into a new body. Fun times!

Happy holidays!

Happy Holidays! Here is to an old time lord leaving us and a new one NO NO 11 WE CAN SAVE YOU PLEASE YOU DON'T HAVE TO REGENERATE NO DON'T GO WAHHHHH-

Ahem.

I think in the imaginary franchise continuity, people will be saying that Trav's actress has outlasted 2 Doctors already (I first started playing her in the David Tennant/Russel T Davies era)

I'm looking forward to Peter Capaldi. I never took to Matt Smith, too young and hipstery, though he improved with Season 7B.

I prefer Smith to Tennant; because he brought back a bit of the 'alienness'. Eccleston is probably my favorite new series doctor.

Not really up to posting today; it's been exhausting.

Ok, so, with the Time of the Doctor, it seems as if Trav is going to find out that the Doctor is alive.

Can we get a seperate thread where we who have seen the special can discuss it without spoiling those who have not?

Bleep! I taped "Time" and planned a Who night last night: my new "The Krotons" DVD followed by "The Time of the Doctor". Only I found "Time" didn't tape at all. I had to watch "The Snowmen" instead and was disappointed.

I have to tape the encore of "Time" this morning and find a time to watch it again.

In reply to Smoke Alarm (msg # 79):

Boo! Well, at least you'll get to see it later. Build high for happiness!

On the bright side; got a PDF copy of the rules from my mother-in-law. Well she put $70 in my account to buy me whatever I wanted....

If you see any things you'd want to adjust about your character after you get a proper read through the rules, feel free, just let me know.

I'm not sure what we're waiting on at the moment; AFAICT the PCs are still working out what their next step is.  As soon as you all make your move, I'm ready for chaos to ensue.

Trav is open to suggestions at this point. Either we TARDIS onto their flagsship and have a chat, or wait for them to show up, while seeing the refugees away.

Oh and Gary, what would I have to do/pay for to get 10's TARDIS out of phase thing? That seems awfully convenient for TARDIS security.

Drawing a slight blank here.  Which story was that from?

In all likelihood, the answer would be that it would be something rigged up for special occasions.  You could create it as a Gadget that temporarily upgrades the TARDIS force field to the "Special" level (TTC, p. 96) for a Story Point.  The Ingenuity + Technology total you reach would serve as a target for anyone or anything trying to breach it, and you could invest additional Story Points into it as normal for gadgets, potentially making it capable of additional, situational effects.

Just for reference, you've not been able to pick up one obvious flagship as yet, though you could probably scan normal EM traffic to figure out where most of the commands are coming through -- there's certainly no "Star Destroyer".

The shuttles that are headed for Farhaven aren't all that huge; think of a present-day military transport plane.

Well, I watched "The Time of the Doctor" last night, a double-feature with "The Space Museum". I'm starting to enjoy my classic/new combo nights. It puts the new series episode on too late for me to be too critical or for anyone else to want to watch it with me.

So, "Time". Meh. It's like a Moffat's Greatest Hits, with everything crammed in without much need. Someday, new Who will dump the OTT epic all-of-everything mode and manage a small-scale, low-key, high-quality finale, and I will rejoice.


I'd rather stay at the temple on Farhaven and meet those incoming, rather than rush-off to the Fists' flagship or capital. Basically, we're defending Farhaven, and I think it's most appropriate do that from there, where we know the layout (and Smoke can lead the Fists on a merry chase while practising her parkour). We can meet the low-ranking guys and get a measure of the opposition first, before butting heads with the big bosses. Then we can go on to liberate Arsuran Orbital Prime, maybe. We're not going to bring an empire down in a day, and they may well be recurring baddies. As I said, I like a small scale in Who.

Though it's sad we sent away the monks. With Shaolin monks, the Fists of the Thirty-One Suns, a Draconian samurai, and whatever Smoke Alarm is, we could have had one hell of a kung fu movie. :D If someone lowers the gravity on this spinning world, we could add wire-fu.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Sat 28 Dec 2013.

The ship hasn't taken off yet - if you want, I can probably talk Ru into staying so that we can face the Fists all 7 Samurai style, complete with awesome establishing shot with the orbital ring behind us, backed up by a dozen of his elite Shao Lin monks (that is, if we want to get all fighty.)

I like the idea of us backlit by explosions!

Oh, and one more thing -

I broadcast my own radio show! I'm part of Subspace Radio, the voice of Star Trek Online. I broadcast live at 11 PM EST/0400 GMT every friday night/saturday morning! Subspace radio is a shoutcast station that supports Star Trek Online, but you don't need to play STO in order to enjoy SSR. I'm DJ Photon, and my show is the Photonic Shockwave! In addition to spinning great tunes, I talk a lot about Dr Who during my talkie bits.

Sorry, I couldn't play STO, my computer struggled so hard. :(

I really want to see a space kung fu adventure now. :)

BTW, I don't mean to ignore things by having Smoke Alarm go to sleep. I just didn't think she'd have much to contribute at this TARDIS tech and politics stage. Besides, I don't know how long a night and a day are on Farhaven, but we've been working through most of them. So, I'm just playing up my Impulsive trait. Feel free to wake Smoke up if you need her.

Well, I confess that I really wanted this to be one, I just was starting to feel awkward about the possibility that I was shoving one down everyone's throats.

It's probably quite feasible to work out a way to recall the monks to the fray if and when you decide you want them.  I do think in the immediate circumstances, they wouldn't be inclined to fight just to defend a bunch of buildings.


Go on, everyone.  Leave Smoke Alarm alone in the TARDIS.  I double dare ya. :)

We could always call them back with a story point if we need the help. Say a bunch hid in one of the buildings to protect some relics or those too injured to move.

Sure, and you'll come back and find she's wallscrawled all over the console room. :p

.... this can't get left unmentioned. So I'm the brigadier to your Doctor? *snerk*

Ironically, I'm playing the Brig in a freeform game elsewhere on the site.

What does that make me, Jo?

Actually, that's pretty appropriate.

I was thinking of Smoke in more of a Leela role (sans knife and overt sexuality). And Trav was thinking of the entire 3rd Doctor thing.

Actually Smoke's a pretty good Jo. Scarily good at what she does and constantly thought of as less by Sereth/Brig? Sounds like Jo to me.

I was thinking of just the UNIT family. Otherwise, Smoke is like Leela meets Ace.

Sexuality? That depends on one's fetish, I suppose. :S Smoke needs to learn the birds and the bees first, and decide if she likes girls or boys.

That's going to be a hilarious conversation. Trav has had 5 kids, so she's done it before (a big differentiator between her and the Doctor is that her family life is far more recent and she loves kids).

In continuity, how do Kangs make more Kangs? Get together with Rezzies and do humpabump?

The Doctor fixed the situation before it become a serious issue, I think.

Since this was the eighties, the connotations of a collection of females growing through adolescence under the jurisdiction of an all-male guard staff with no contact with the outside world were, to put it mildly, not explored.

Thankfully. :| I toyed with suggesting something darker went on, but I decided to leave it out. The cannibalism remains a sufficient metaphor.

Being an old fan, I've always thought of the Doctor and Time Lords as asexual and sterile, as they were in the 90s, grown to maturity on Looms and all Cousins in the big Houses. The new series conception of them as basically ordinary people with kids is strangely weird.

I included in my background other towers (obviously Paradise Towers had more than just the one), with different tribes and histories (my other character travels with the last Pink Kang, the rest taken by Cybermen). Boys were discovered in Tower 3. They haven't worked out what to do with each other yet, but I imagine they'll work it out by trial-and-error. My backstory didn't go ahead far enough to see.

Eh. I'm not sure about the looms. Susan was his granddaughter; and though there might be suggestions she wasn't his real granddaughter; nothing in the TV series seems to support that.

However, I'm more for the classic enough that this suggestion he's falling in love with his companions and vice-versa is disturbing to me. Only exceptions I personally make to the rule is Romana and, reluctantly, River. Though I'm not really fond of the explanation as to why she's a TARDIS; because if it was? There's no way known the Doctor should have let Rory and Amy on the TARDIS. Especially not after he knew it was possible the first time. (Also, his ignorance as to what Amy and Rory were probably up to on their wedding night in the TARDIS is very much at odds with the Rose/Doctor implications.)

I came into Doctor Who fandom by way of US Public TV - I watched Jon Pertwee while doing college homework. The whole idea of Time Lords grown on looms always seemed weird to me, because I never had exposure to the novels.

Also, Trav kinda slides by that because she spent 60 years after the time war as a human woman on an alternate world (RIFTS Earth) by way of the Chameleon Arch. So, she had kids as a human and is comfortable with those kinds of relationships. It seems to me that that whole looms thing has been quality dropped from the Who continuity. I think the Doctor even briefly mentions in New Who that he had kids at one point.

At least for Trav, my vision of time lords is that they do have kids and families like we do, just with societal conventions that take into account things like mom or dad changing their face and personality when they get old. I Imagine however that Gallifreyans don't have kids all that often, due to both their huge lifespans and the fact that children simply don't have that much utility - Gallifreyan culture is no doubt a zero population growth one. Also, they do have kids, as we saw in the refugee scenes of Time Of The Doctor.

Anyway, in Travcanon, She definitely had family back on Gallifrey, but no serious lovers (in fact, in her first incarnation she was painfully shy and hid this behind a veneer of aristocracy and pedantry before meeting the 2nd Doctor. After that, she blossomed)

Trav's first serious relationship was, with all people, Al Capone, who treated her like a lady. Their break up was when she learned that it was his fate to die in prison of Syphillis, a fixed point in time. Al however never cheated on his Time Lord girlfriend while they were together (which was most of the 1st Traveller black-and-white era.)

2nd Traveller was a hopeless romantic. She collected tons of Yaoi manga, and more often likes playing match maker and having many, many crushes.  She had two serious romances, both with Time Lords - a multi century, deep, complex relationship with the Corsair, in both genders, and a chaste romance with the 5th Doctor. It was at this time that the 2nd Traveller was captured by the Daleks and tortured to death. This was the start of the multi-regeneration running battle between the Doctor and the Marshall. When the Corsair discovered what happened, she openly wept.

The Marshall, while not entirely sexless, found matters of heart irrelevant - she lusted to bring discipline and order to the universe.  While occasionally sparing the Doctor and his companions out of sentimentality, her real passions were conquest and destroying Daleks. However, the Marshall radiated a fierce charisma and knew when to flirt and use her gifts to her advantage.

Once released from the Oubliette on Gallifrey and set to work, the century on ice had smoothed the Marshall, somewhat. During the Time War she really didn't have time for romance, but engaged in a complex, manipulative, occasionally physical relationship with the Master that ended when he fled Gallifrey upon the Dalek Emperor's capture of the Cruciform. When the Doctor came to her, freshly regenerated after Karn, they enacted their plan to stop Rassilon's mad plan to destroy all of creation.  The Doctor never saw the high council of the Time Lords call out FOR THE END OF TIME, but she did, and she knew what it meant. Without hesitation she let the Doctor into the Vault of Omega and gave him the Moment, while she constructed, hidden, the Time Lock, powered by the Eye of Harmony itself. Dorium Maldovar accused her of using the Doctor as her weapon against the Time Lords. "As if I could manipulate him," she snorted back.

On Rifts Earth, she was Louise Barrow. She became a Rogue Scientist, and had adventures, as a human, with Joshua Simons, her future husband. No one knew, except her old friend the megaversal druid Morhedgreim, that the athletic smart aleck girl historian was actually the Last Time Lord. With him she had 5 children and 12 grandchildren.

During her time in R-Space after regenerating into the 5th Traveller, she hasn't had time to be romantically involved with anyone. Now that she is back home, she might change her mind. However, Trav's personal rules are "keep it off the TARDIS." Unlike a certain other Time Lord, she endeavors not to become involved with her Companions, due to the long-ago heartbreak she suffered with Al Capone. This isn't to say she won't have relationships and liaisons with other people, especially now, as her husband has been dead for 100 years, relative to her.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:34, Tue 31 Dec 2013.

I could write pages and pages on why I think River Song is a hugely problematic character, which boils down to Steven Moffat should not use the Doctor as his self insert nor write his fantasy girlfriends into the show. What's even worse is that I *adore* Alex Kingston.

Trav - "So, you're dating your companion's daughter, who was conceived onboard your TARDIS? Do you understand how profoundly creepy that is?"

ICly, we've kind of established that River's guns are copies of Trav's turbo pistols ;)

Hmm. I hit refresh while reading Trav's post and it tripled in size. :p

Eh, the sterility and Looms suited the then-depiction of the Time Lords: immortal, technologically enhanced, dull and dispassionate, arch-politician/scientist/monks. High-concept SF weirdness was acceptable back then. (I really wish Doctor Who had come back more like Farscape.)

But I don't think there's a big contradiction between that and the new series depictions (I liked seeing the everyday Gallifreyans in "Day of the Doctor"). Maybe they aren't Loomed as full-grown adults, but as eight-year-olds. Maybe different Houses do things differently, or the regular Gallifreyans do things the old-fashioned way. Even in Lungbarrow, the Doctor was presented as being a freak, the one with a belly button and later half-human. And the Pythia's curse of sterility was apparently lifted when Leela and Andred got it on. Give it some time, and the rest must have followed. Besides, I've already seen Gallifrey destroyed in a time war once before, and suggested to be recreated by the Doctor. He must have chosen a more family-friendly version. (I maintain a vast continuity of 50 years and several ranges in my head. It's crowded in here.)

That's not to diss or interfere with conception of your character, of course. I just come from an old continuity.

I really, really dislike the idea of the Doctor being romantic/sexual/in love with his companions and most other characters. He was conceived as a grandfather, a father figure, a mad uncle, a teacher, even an older brother, but always a parental figure and mentor to both the companions, the people he meets, and the audience (certainly to me). It feels incredibly improper to twist that relationship into a romantic one and to make the Doctor a sex-symbol, and as young as Tennant and Smith. The Doctor's too weird for sex anyway. (Tom Baker once slept with a fan, in costume. Imagine it, just for a second, if you dare.) I hope the situation will improve with Capaldi: the older man, young woman thing would never fly.

Plus, television should show that a man and a woman can just be good friends, that romance and sex need not even be considered. Doctor Who could have been perfect for that. The asexuality of the classic Doctor apparently attracted a lot of gay fans (I'm not, btw); ironically, one of them made it more hetero than ever. Clara made the just-friends thing work for a while, but that collapsed in "Time".

Sorry, that's an argument I've built up for a while, but I rarely post on Who forums, so I don't get a chance to argue for the defence.

River Song: Ugh. I can't stand her. I'm glad I jumped when I did. River's a TARDIS now? Another pinch from the EDAs. Bring back Compassion!

River's not a TARDIS. Though Idris is.

Whilst I'm not particularly fond of River; I don't actually think she's any worse than Rose.

You said "she's a TARDIS" in your last post. :p

.... so I did.

I meant timelord. Which is almost as bad admittedly.

Personally I'm good with there being Doctors -- or versions of any particular Time Lord -- that are happy existing with romantic possibility and ones that aren't.  The guy changes his whole face and body and usually has a major scrambling of his personality on an occasional basis, and that may just be an aspect that comes and goes.  Maybe something about what happened to Susan's parents hurt him so badly that he swore off the whole thing for centuries.  Maybe he's grown up and past the broody detachment he affected in his 700s.  Maybe he was so much older then, and he's younger than that now.

The Doctor has been a whole lot of contradictions bound up in one character, and I don't know that there's a particular reason for this aspect to be different on that score.  Whether it works for me is largely down to whether it's being done well at any particular time.

Maybe a bit early but Happy New Year everyone!

(Interesting discussion(s) by the way, I haven't commented (much) because I am not all that familiar with old Who. I prefer the bronze Daleks over the power ranger Daleks, though.)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:23, Tue 31 Dec 2013.

Happy New Year, everyone!

One thing to understand is that the romance angle is what allowed Who to return - Russel T Davies specifically in interviews called out Buffy:The Vampire Slayer's arc and relationship style, and actually said, "If Buffy was never made, we'd have never seen the return of Doctor Who." Unfortunately, a large portion of the viewing audience watch Who for various forms of romance, although with Capaldi I'm not sure if they're going to try to change that dynamic. It's also like it wasn't present in the old show - Pertwee's Doctor and Liz Shaw, Baker and Romana II, and so on. However, it was much more subdued in the old show. It also doesn't make sense for the Doctor to travel with attractive female companions (which will always be a feature of the show) and to *not* be attracted to his companions.

Playing Trav kind of turns this on it's head - now, we have a Time Lord who is a woman and who (I hope, in terms of writing her backstory) has a relatively complex emotional life. If Trav develops an interest in any of the other PCs, I'll pm the player first and see how they feel about it. But she's starting to feel the need for other kinds of companionship. Also, I write Trav as being explicitly omnisexual, although tasteful about it, unlike a certain Time Agent we all know.

As an Xmas present to Gary and you guys, I'm considering getting a group shot piece of fan art commissioned. How do people feel about this?

I don't, as a rule, squee.  But if I did, I would squee at this.

I hope you all have a good year.

Don't worry, Stan, I just like making cryptic years to the so-called "Wilderness Years" :) (the most active, vibrant, and flourishing the franchise has been, ironically).

I'd have preferred the romance angle to be left between two companions (like Amy and Rory), or a companion and a recurring character, leaving the parent/mentor relationship with the Doctor. I think that would still work. The Doctor and companion is just too much like Twilight. Save it for the slash-writers.

I never really saw the romantic Doctor angle in the classic series, except maybe the First and Cameca in "The Aztecs", or the Fourth and Romana II (but only because of Tom and Lalla). The Third and Jo I felt was a father/daughter relationship. The rarer moments make it more meaningful. "I just snogged Madam Pompadour" is entirely the wrong attitude for the Doctor.

Artwork of our characters? Well, I wouldn't say no. :D Sounds great.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:00, Wed 01 Jan 2014.

I'm an old series brat. I don't like the romance angle, I really, really don't. One of my main reasons for -liking- Amy despite everything is -finally- we had someone saying 'No'. The only other one in the new series was Donna; and that was more because she was a bit older. Here's where I have a bit of a problem with both showrunners of the new series to date: RTD was heavily into the emotional stuff; and some of Moffatt's stuff makes my head hurt, but, generally, he's left romance between companions (River being the big exception; and even here I think he's left it open enough.) I never got into the books at the time; I was in my early teens when it started; and had just started RPing; so new D&D books were higher on my want list at the time.

I despised the insinuation that Sarah had fallen in love with the Doctor. I hated when Amy kissed the Doctor (even ignoring that she was supposedly engaged at the time.) And don't even get me started on Doctor/Rose.

The arcs, more than the romance angle, is what new who should be drawing from Buffy. Also, as a fan of Buffy, Whedon was brutal to his characters who got significant others.

Sorry, I was at the zoo all day and missed the opportunity to ask annoying questions.

Changing gears and talking about the game -

As the Time Lord player I feel that it behooves me to use my power to make the game as much fun as possible for the other players, because I have more input as to story lines and direction, because, whatever else happens, I drive the TARDIS. So, I want to consult with everyone about where we should go next.

Story wise, Trav has received from Dorium Maldovar the last will and testament of the Corsair, a former colleague, friend and lover, to be read at a certain time and place, that place being Space Vegas (mentioned briefly by the Doctor in series 6 or 7.) A lot of this stuff with the Great Beast storyline, the Chamber of Unwrought Time and the Parliament of Time got started before Sereth and Smoke Alarm joined, and really focusses more on Trav than anything (although Stan is involved to a small degree.) So, since I don't want everyone to be my bit guest stars, I will try to handle all of the footwork with that storyline off camera.

So, it seems like Space Vegas would be the most fun for everyone, because the place screams wacky adventures.

Also, we could go to any kind of historical period or planet that you guys dream of. Or, we can just show up some place randomly.

What do you think?

I'm all for anything. I like randomness anyway; but if there's a reason to go to Space Vegas, so be it.

The Corsair was series 6; the Doctor's Wife. Mentioned by the Doctor as 'one of the good ones'.

.... I'm picturing Trav saying 'SPace Vegas' the way Smith said 'Dinosaurs, on a spaceship!'

In reply to Sereth (msg # 118):

That's EXACTLY it!

Just to drop in and address Trav's comment:

I think it's kind of the fate of the companions to be dragged into whatever universe-busting plotlines the resident Time Lord is involved with to some extent.  I know Smoke Alarm and Sereth dropped into it part way through, and I had started to work on a summary of events to date... I can complete that and present it as the story as related by Trav, if everyone wants it.

Now, there can and should be spotlight time for everyone -- I would heartily encourage all the rest of you to speak up (PM or in this thread, doesn't matter to me) with monsters you'd like to see plots around, and personal agendas you'd like to pursue.  Smoke Alarm has thrown some nice hooks in that line.  (And does quite a good job of making her own fun, I must say.)

For Sereth... well, I can guarantee you that when you go and drop this on (ultimately) the Emperor, his command is going to be to stick with this crazy alien and see what you can dig up on the Fists and whatever's behind them, while he and the Empire do all the conventional things they should be doing to respond.  Which is not to say it must become your all-consuming task; there's always time for Space Vegas.

Stanley was kind of pulled into this from the start, but again I could use anything you have to offer about what you'd like to do that doesn't boil down to "find some hurt people to help wherever we end up going."  That is kind of my go-to hook for Stan but I think it might get repetitive.

Eh, I accept that I'm a newcomer to what must be a fairly long-running game with a lot of its own development and ongoing storylines. Nor is a young Kang from Paradise Towers going to be a great mover-and-shaker compared to a Time Lord or a Draconian Legate. So I don't expect many stories to revolve around Smoke Alarm, nor do I have any specific requests at this stage. Most of my planned development is personal: Smoke Alarm maturing and learning about people, worlds, and the universe, or simply being an odd fit in the places we go.

Although visiting modern Earth, updating her look, and being discovered as the next Banksy for her wallscrawls would be fun. :D I have a few things for Smoke Alarm to do in the TARDIS: sleep, perform a Kang funeral for all her lost friends, discover the swimming pool, and annoy the rest of you with Kang games. :) Maybe some time off RP between adventures would be good?

But, um, why are we going to this Space Vegas now? I was expecting an adventure dealing with the Fists of the Thirty-odd Suns, giving them the runaround, kicking them off Farhaven and Arsuran, liberating these worlds and their people. Smoke Alarm wants to go tag their spaceship. We saw the refugees leave safely, but otherwise the Space Nazis have won and we seem to have let them off without even a warning. Is that the end of the story?

I get the impression it's kinda like the Season Arcs for nu-who. Yes, they're there, but not every adventure revolves around them.

I debated over where to post this, but I decided that it would be silly to put it in the PM thread that Trav opened up just to reiterate it for Smoke Alarm later, and I didn't want to hijack the actual IC interaction going on.

You can take this as conveyed to Sereth and/or Smoke in down time as Trav decides.

***

The Traveller returned to her home universe after a literal lifetime spent exiled, in the wake of the Last Great Time War.  She found a continuum empty of her people; empty, so she hoped, of the Daleks.  But when she arrived she found worrying disruptions in the Time Vortex, and began to investigate.

She found a group of time travelers calling themselves the "Chamber of Time Unwrought", pursuing several individuals who were themselves oddly placed in relation to the timelines.  These three people -- a bright young American physics student named Phillipe, an elderly, amnesiac gentleman calling himself Evers, and a middle-aged fortune-teller going by the name Fortuna -- converged at a "psychic fair" in 2013 London, with agents of the Chamber in pursuit.  Two of these -- Evers and Fortuna -- were each in possession of an advanced temporal device that took the form of a deck of cards.

This gathering, in turn, was targeted by a temporal weapon sent from the distant future, which caused a variety of aging-based medical disorders in a number of the people attending the fair.  One of these was the mother of Dr. Stanley Newton, who found herself with some twenty years' of degenerative illnesses reversed.

The Traveller was able to broker a truce between the Chamber agents and Fortuna, who was using her temporal device to force a standoff.  On examining Evers' device, she found that it appeared to be of Gallifreyan origin and was called a TAROT (Transformational Archetypes Refactoring Orthogonal Time).  And it recognized the Traveller.  She recognized that the medical emergencies couldn't be allowed to stand, and working with the other time travellers -- and with Stanley to coordinate medical teams stabilizing the patients -- they were able to stabilize the local time fields and return all the patients to normal.

The Chamber agents, led by a woman named Keeper Desryn, explained that they were dedicated to preventing the exploitation of time travel and had traced several organizations who seemed to be manipulating time to their own ends, aided by a person or persons with a TAROT.  Originally the Chamber associated Trav with these groups because of a collection of reports and legends that placed Trav in the same periods.

These groups included:

The Splintered Sisterhood operating in the 34th Century, just before the formation of the Galactic Federation. They were a cult working to try to pull the strings of governments and the great chartered corporations that were expanding around that time.   The Traveller and Stanley actually encountered this group on the adventure where Amanda Khabares joined them, and the Traveller negotiated a truce with them, proposing the foundation of an organization to maintain stability across the time lines.  (They found out that the Sisterhood had considerable experience with parapsychic technology, including a method of dividing and replicating their consciousness, and that their manipulation was really a sort of long-term prediction and planning scheme.)

(Phillipe originally joined Trav and Stanley in the TARDIS.  However, during the adventure with the Splintered Sisterhood, Phillipe mysteriously disappeared.  Trav got a cryptic message from Fortuna telling her where Phillipe originally came from -- a town in Montana in the U.S. -- and that more details about him might be found there.)

Note: Phillipe was originally a PC and this development occurred when the player dropped out.

The Chamber agents also had collected information on a group that (their information said) was called the Fists of the Nine Suns during the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Keeper Desryn later provided Trav with some surveillance footage that seemed to show a group matching the description of the Fists that you have just encountered.  They were working with a man who seemed to be manipulating a TAROT.  He didn't fit the physical description of either Phillipe or Evers.  Desryn also had an image of a sculpture the Fists owned or had created, which looked like a Devil-like figure.

The last group Desryn described to them was the New Gehenna Army.  This was a group that made a bid for power after the Fourth Empire fell apart.  New Gehenna was an industrial hub, a red giant system rich in mineral and energy resources. A man named Sezan Crayne acquired control of the holdings of one of the old families of the Empire's oligarchy and was attempting to put the Empire back together.

So far the groups that Trav has reached out to in hopes of forming her trans-temporal alliance, which she called the "Parliament of Time", are the Chamber -- or at least Desryn, because there are other groups within it that may not be on board yet; the Splintered Sisterhood; a revived version of UNIT from Amanda's time, reinstituted by her father, the president of an interstellar United States; and -- subject to negotiation -- the central minds of a future Cyber-empire.

Incidentally: the TARDIS has just landed on Draconia, where Trav sent it.  I have been kind of lacksidaisical about creating and moving between IC threads, although I think it's sort of not as useful in this game as it has in, e.g., a Marvel Heroic game I'm playing in with characters frequently splitting into sub-groups with their own action scenes.  We'll stay in the Farhaven thread until everyone steps out the doors, wherever that may end up being.

I just had this amazing dream that the Suns and their associated movements wanted to spread this super language that made people smarter and more efficient - it was part of this whole holistic lifestyle that involved diet, martial arts practice, and academic study, where in game terms they had enhanced versions of regular skills. The drawback is that their approach is horribly rigid, blocks off channels of innovative thought and can collapse like a house of cards.

In my dream I even remembered hearing Trav saying that the whole thing would collapse if kicked hard, because 'normal' approaches to life needed a certain amount of inefficiency to remain functional, that languages and skills and and memes were constantly growing.

This was the result of me taking a 5 hour nap without even the game being on my mind ;)

If you want, Gary, I can reference this in the IC dialogue.

I'll also take the TARDIS back to Farhaven, after Sereth checks in with the Emperor if that's what folks want.

I'm actually happy to do whatever the rest of you want to do next. I just didn't want to end on an anti-climax, hence Smoke's grand declaration.

Wow, thanks! :D Now we have to have a kung fu adventure. :D

But I have loads of my own story points I don't know what to do with, so I'll spend one of my own for that and Traveller can keep hers.

Actually, would it be better to make that an Area of Expertise? Well, AoEs and Minor Good traits tend to give the same bonuses for the same costs, anyway.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:22, Tue 07 Jan 2014.

That was my initial thought.  But I thought it would be better as something slightly narrow but spread between a couple of skills.  This way it makes you fairly decent at keeping someone from punching you, but really stellar at mobility stunts.

This is kind of indicative of the sort of ad hoc advancements I've tried to give out, responding to things in the story.

I have to admire Traveller for being so flexible. Silly and fun with Smoke; ultra-serious with Sereth.

Yeah, it's great work, switching modes to even Smoke's level of silliness and picking up her way of talking. Have you watched "Paradise Towers"?

Though a grumpy, Hartnell-style "Come down from there this instant, young woman!" would be fun too. :D Followed by a raspberry from Smoke Alarm. :p


By the way, Trav, I've not mentioned Pex aloud, so Traveller won't know of him, unless she's telepathic.


Kang Fu: Okay. I had thought that Areas of Expertise could be use on different skills. Say, Smoke's AoE: Crossbows could be applied to Craft to make a crossbow, for example, not just Marksman to shoot one. Does that sound right, or am I mistaken?


If the scene continues, I'll have Smoke Alarm pop back in, likely through a roundel. :)

Haven't watched Paradise Towers. Actually haven't watched a lot of the latter Baker's stuff.

In reply to Sereth (msg # 129):

Thank you! I take a lot of inspiration from Eccleston and from Smith, who could change moods at the drop of a hat. I also want to represent that Trav is hundreds of years old and has been different people, but unlike a crazy human is comfortable moving along a sliding scale of personality because that's natural for Time Lords.

Also, I am now starting to watch Adventure Time. You have been warned.


This message was last edited by the player at 02:21, Thu 09 Jan 2014.

Sereth: "Paradise Towers" is actually a McCoy story.


I take a fair bit of inspiration for Smoke from my niece. She's two. :)


I've never really watched Adventure Time. I caught a few seconds of it now and then, but haven't been interested enough to try it.

All I can say is, before you trip the Transversal Power System, make damned sure you mean it. :p

What, I missed meeting the Umperor? :(



Pool? Cloister Room? The heart of the TARDIS? :D


Is it me, or does the "Yes, but" "No, but" rule sound like an episode of Little Britain?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:54, Thu 09 Jan 2014.

.... what did you do.

Sorry, was that to me or to Smoke?

Sereth, I should have noted this, but if you want to engage with any piece of that big IC post to you to expand on it, feel free.  The basic idea is that the TARDIS is sitting landed on Draconia while you went individually and did all that stuff, and then head on back to the other PCs.  Meanwhile they're doing their other things, and Smoke is getting lost inside the TARDIS ventilation system.

To Smoke, sorry. Getting losted....

I'll see if I can work up a post later today or tonight.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 134):

Hey, are you hinting to me that we can travel to other settings at will? Getting real dimension travel is a big thing for Trav and dimension travel has been a huge part of her backstory, she just can't do it on her own.

If we could visit the world of Adventure Time... AW YEAH. "It's always time to adventure!" And Jake and Finn would be the most awesome companions (not as awesome as PC companions however.)

Smoke's plenty awesome on her own!

I think I earned myself an Insatiable Curiosity trait. :) Wait, do I need to spend a point on that Kang Fu? The two could balance each other out.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 137):

Good thing I gave Smoke that superphone. Is she calling back to the control room?

No, you said you'd take half-an-hour or so to make the phone, and Smoke wasn't going to wait around that long. :) Guardian then had Smoke going through the ducts, so I've assumed you're working on it while Smoke explores.

... Smoke Alarm is so freakin' awesome to read.

Thanks! I love a really nutty, fun character who can get in — and out — of trouble. I have a drunken master monk of similar habits.

In reply to Smoke Alarm (msg # 142):

Sounds good to me! Looks like one of those 'TARDIS as dungeon' eps ;)

"Meep?" Is it a Meep? Or even the Beep the Meep?
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Beep_the_Meep
We're screwed. D:

So cute. :D

Holy crap. I have a tribe of creatures living in my TARDIS.

Fun fact - For most of the RIFTS campaign, the TARDIS that Trav was using (her dimensional counterpart's) was infested by demons. It wasn't this one, thank goodness.

Also, Trav has visited the Robotech universe, and has conducted experiments with the Invid Flower of Life in her labs. I wouldn't be surprised if we found a few of these -



That's a pollinator.

In the first DWAITAS game I ran, the PCs discovered their TARDIS, lost for millions of years, was infested by cockroaches that had evolved to human-size and the ability to open doors. The cockroaches chased the PCs around a bit, and pretty much had the run of the place.

I'm reminded of a tale from one of the novels, probably The Infinity Doctors, of small furry Gallifreyan vermin in some forgotten corner of the Capitol, probably tafelshrews, who'd evolved to sentience, developed space flight, and departed, the Time Lords had been around so long.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Tafelshrew

I'm finding Smoke's adventures in the bowels of the TARDIS to be utterly fascinating. Great job Smoke!

I'm having lots of fun, crawling around, talking to little furry mole people. :) And none of you are going to believe me when I get back.

:D Adorable.

And it didn't end in Smoke being tied down and eaten by the furries. :o

I didn't exactly know where that was going, but I thought it was admirably sound logic for people with brains the size of a walnut. :D

In reply to Smoke Alarm (msg # 151):

Trav would, because she understands that Smoke would have absolutely no reason to lie.

Riiiiight, like Trav won't be completely flattered to learn that an entire civilization has formed around the junk she has lost in the ventilation system.

Trav is Intensely Curious. She'll probably want to climb up into the vents to meet these people!

Not sure how Sereth will react.

On the one hand, she's not Draconian, so he doesn't feel he's got the same sense of honor, so she might be making it up.

On the other hand, he's a hypocrite for thinking that way when he lectures others to be open to non-Draconians...

No wonder they like Smoke Alarm! :)


I mean, once I translate it through Smoke Alarm's knowledge and Kang-speak, you might have no idea what the hell she's on about. :)

Whew. That was an awful lot of Kang talk to get through. :)

My job: scientific technical editor. My hobby: writing childish nonsense. :D

This is karma, for all of Trav's hundreds of years of nonsensical babbling!

If this was 2nd Trav, she'd understand and be fluent in Kangspeak without a problem. Hell, 2nd Trav would probably want to run off and become a Blue Kang. 5Th Trav almost kind of does.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:25, Mon 13 Jan 2014.

While it's been a fun side-trip, I figured we'd want to get back to the main storyline soon, so I gave us an excuse not to return to the Us right now.

Think of more basic in-game matters, we seemed to have worked through the night helping the refugees, and a fair chunk of the day on either side as well. I don't know how long a local day is though. Smoke Alarm's probably been awake all night and and the previous day. So, will we have time to rest in the TARDIS?

I had a scene I wanted to write for Smoke Alarm in the console room, though without any other characters. It's a Kang funeral.

That's fine with me. Trav can set the TARDIS into temporal orbit, letting the PCs get some sleep and rest up before arriving at Arsuran.

I still can't read through it without cracking up after four tries or so, so I'd say you succeeded.

Actually, I'd written that Smoke fell out of a blue bubble (the osmic projector from her previous game) on Arsuran itself, and she's spent two months living on the streets there, trying to work out where and when she is and how to get off Arsuran to where she needs to go. Being there longer gave her more of a reason to want to liberate Arsuran and hate on the Fists. The rest works fine though.

Mrs Maglup I imagined runs a bakery or diner/cafe. She could be alien, human, whatever, kindly and charitable. Smoke Alarm kept rats away and performed various odd jobs in exchange for food. Maybe she could give us information, or need help herself? Smoke Alarm lived out of a crate down an alley nearby.

Okay, I'd forgotten the details there.

I don't have any questions or requests regarding Arsuran.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:33, Wed 15 Jan 2014.

Cubicle 7 sent out the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook to subscribers today.  As usual, there was some very interesting stuff in it, and the usual assortment of new character traits.

One of these I wanted to call to Sereth's attention is this, which I thought might be appropriate for him:

Noble (Minor Good)

You have been born into the highest levels of society and are used to entertaining dignitaries, ambassadors and even kings and queens. You experience gives you a +2 bonus whenever you deal socially with the cream of society, especially when you are in a formal environment.

If you'd like to swap out a point somewhere for this, feel free to so.

***

(Trav & Stanley: the book also gives an example of what the stat block for an Osiran looks like.  Be very glad that I had to wing it when I introduced Apep. :))

Ooh yeah.

... now to figure out where to swap it out. Figure it out tonight.

:) Maybe he was weakened by being trapped in that time trap for so long?

Nah, he was intimidated by how AWESOME we are. For some reason, Adventure Time and Doctor Who seem to share the same DNA as shows.

I'm just giving this a kick to get a sense of where we're all at.  I'm guessing some people have been unavailable for the last few days, but I wanted to make sure that your weren't all just collectively stuck for a direction.

If the latter is the case, I can just advance time a little and pick up with you arriving on Arsuran Prime in Smoke's old stomping grounds.  I hadn't seen a clear indication of what the plan was.

I'm here!

This is Doctor Who! Why on Arsuran would we go in with a plan? :) I figure we go in, explore, see what's what, deal with some injustice, get involved, and wing it from there. Traveller wants to infiltrate the Fists, I think, and/or join or lead a rebellion. Smoke can just play merry havoc with them.

I requested a time-jump to cover sleep, food, toiletries, etc., plus settling into the TARDIS, along with something I wanted to write for Smoke. We can land on Arsuran after.

I thought that was the plan, too.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:25, Sun 19 Jan 2014.

Fair enough.  I think Trav and Sereth have just been offline for a few days.

Smoke Alarm, you can go ahead with your ceremony bit, and I'll open up a new thread for Arsuran Prime later.

I'm here. I'm fine with going ahead.

Done! At last, it got rather long.

And I kind of made a mess of your TARDIS, Trav. Sorry.

Feel free to stop by and watch or whatever.

Damn Smoke. You're going to make me cry.

Okay tough call; but swapped out Tough, for Noble. His whole aim is to stop things from escalating to the point where combat breaks out.

Trav added to the mess.

Was kind of hoping you'd come up to the Orrery, but there will be other times. Trav hopes to eventually share some words with Smoke about people being gone.

Fair enough, I'll go say hello. Are any of those pictures of the Chibitrav Trav?

On our plans, I'd suggest we pair up so as not to give our GM too much to update and keep track of, and so we can RP with each other. And help each other if we run into trouble, naturally.

We could do one thing followed by the other.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:43, Wed 22 Jan 2014.

If anyone wants to edit accordingly to make that happen, you can go ahead, or if you just want to tag along with Sereth, Smoke.  I'll look for some response from everyone before I start in with what your progress is and what you find at your destinations.

Some questions about the occupation.

How long has it been? For us, it might have been a bit over a day, but via time machine I imagine it could be longer. The Fists certainly seem to have cleaned up well and gotten quite organised in that time.

Have they put up any Fists signs and logos? What is their logo? I'm picturing an upraised fist.

Smoke Alarm might wallscrawl it later. ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 13:45, Thu 23 Jan 2014.

I was figuring 5-6 days total since they attacked.  I recognize that Trav did her temporal orbit gimmick, but (mumble mumble) Sereth did go and make his report, and all the studying would have taken a while.

TARDISes travel at the speed of plot, anyway, and I think this is a more manageable juncture than the middle of the proper invasion -- the latter would be more prone to the Fists just fighting you and leaving the PCs less space to poke into the situation.


The Fists aren't big on icons.

Okay.

So, no big fists I can draw upraised fingers on? ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 13:45, Thu 23 Jan 2014.

In reply to Smoke Alarm (msg # 185):

You know now Smoke that fan artists and Smoke/Trav shippers will now be drawing bath house/spa pics of Trav scrubbing down Smoke,being spa  pampered by Scutters, and other bath house episode shenanigans.

Really? Who are these people anyway? :)

You'll all see plenty of Smoke Alarm when we find a suitable Great Pool in the Sky. ;)

BTW, I'm starting to picture Ksenia Solo, as Kenzi in Lost Girl, as a good actress for Smoke Alarm. Right size and look, bundle of energy, punk fashion, crazy ballet grace. But for all Kenzi's many wigs and hair-colours, she hasn't yet gone blue so far as I've seen.

Holy crap! Smoke's raided Trav's wardrobe!

Brave and bold as a Kang should be!

Trav, did you revise your call on who the Last Doctor was?

Dang, now when Smoke Alarm updates her costume on 21st-century Earth, she's just going to look like a copy-paster.

http://willphantom.deviantart....-Kang-Girl-265306549

You mean, the last Doctor Trav knew?

She knew 9 for all of like 5 minutes, before activating instructions he laid into Trav's TARDIS (who was arguably 10 ;) I don't recall changing that up.

Also, Trav got nearly the worst roll you could on 4D6, but fair is fair, she's running on 3 SP now.

Sorry for the wait on me, I was busy with work and a bit writer's-blocked.

The Twelfth or whatever's now in costume:
http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2...me-270114193008.html

It reminds me an awful lot of Jon Pertwee.

But damn it, why do they always have to pose like they're casting magic spells, or pointing the sonic screwdriver like its a wand or, worse, a gun?

I think that pose without the sonic is a step in the right direction, in any case.

Trav: I'm thinking over where to go with the plan you've outlined.  I like the idea, just trying to plan out some places to go with it.

I like it except for the fact you've got nothing for me to do!

I kid, I kid. Sereth has his own ideas anyway, and probably doesn't need the direction from Trav. (And she may get him to do what she wants better by letting him do his own thing; which goals are generally the same as hers anyway...)

Hey, hey, cooperative unity, not coercive! ;)

Trav isn't wedded to her plan. Throw up ideas of your own if you have them.

As for Time Lords posing with guns, well, someone we know kind of has that covered.

Edit: Dammit, all of the pics on google of blonds with guns suck.

Well, now, we recruit, organise and train our ragtag band of rebels. Smoke's starting. :)

What I'm starting to think of doing with this now is rather than playing this out in excruciating detail or short-cutting to some big confrontation, go to a montage style as Trav & co. build up their resistance, and "zoom in" on some incidents as it progresses.  Does that sound like it would be a fun way to approach it?

Trav has an entirely crazy, hinky idea - send Ru and Smoke back in time with the TARDIS on automatic to the era of 1960's UNIT and the 3rd Doctor, and have him train the two in Venusian Aikido, enhancing Kang Fu to invincibility! Maybe the "removal of Time Lord blocks on the TARDIS by order of the council of Time Lords" is really Trav slipping him a part! Trav, of course, couldn't go and would have to tell the 3rd Doctor "I'm from your future we need your help LA LA LA SPOILERS." It would be so Trav and so crazy.

Sorry everyone but I've got an awful lot of unexpected work to do this week so posting is going to be slow until Friday. Sorry.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:58, Sun 02 Feb 2014.

What did you think Kang Fu was based on? :D I'm picturing this as like capoeira:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira
A martial art used by an oppressed people to defend themselves, easily disguised as some innocuous activity that can be trained in public — in this case, children's games and sports. I'm picturing Smoke leading a bunch of people in the park playing chasey, as a Fist-approved exercise routine. :)

I really need more than 1 rank in Fighting with all this.

1970s UNIT, surely? Or 80s? ;)

But Venusian Aikido needs five arms and five legs, and we only have two of each. And we could just learn it at the source, from a Venusian.

I think it was mentioned once that the third doctor was the only humanoid to -ever- master Venusian Aikido.

It's never said why they taught him though, if it's so hard for humanoids.

IIRC from the novels, the Doctor developed a special four-limbed version that he practices. I also remember a flash-back to him training under a Venusian master in a smoky cave, but can't remember which books.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Venusian_aikido

Sorry I've been off for a few days; been gathering my thoughts on this.

Sorry, I didn't know what to do and forgot to get back to this.

Writing Kang txt speak was torturous. D:
This message was last edited by the player at 01:40, Mon 10 Feb 2014.

.... My brain hurts.

Well, I've got to apologize for dropping this for the last bit as well.  I've been fighting a head cold and have had very little brain.

Watch after your health first, Gary. Is all good.

Reading too much Smoke Alarm? ;) Get well!

By the way, Smoke's also illiterate, or semi-literate, of course. So, she hasn't fully read your emails, and an illiterate Kang text is going to be a mess. I tried to make it comprehensible, with recollection of things Smoke's said and a little thinking. ;)

Peet is only of Smoke's homeless friends she mentioned back in post #9. (He's a Boy about her age, and she might have a crush on him but doesn't know it.)

LnF: Lost and Found.

'Ware: Beware.

F31S: Fists of the Thirty-One Suns

Teaching Smoke Alarm to read and write (and speak!) could be a thing later. :)

Trav was a human teacher and researcher in her 4th incarnation, so she may do just that.

I wondered if there was a stereotypical crazy homeless person for Smoke to recall, then realised that would be Smoke. :)

I see what you did there.

...I didn't.

New places for the TARDIS to go!

Trav: "Who is in?"

http://www.technologyreview.co...-of-other-universes/

Cool. That's been suggested for a while, but it's great to see evidence for it. The cosmic microwave background shows a lot of cool things. I remember doing a review of a paper some years ago that found from the WMAP data that universe might not be round but possibly a Poincare dodecahedron — that is, a twelve-sided multi-dimensional blob with the sides joined up. Go far enough in one direction and you'll pop out the other.

Also: 800th post!
This message was last edited by the player at 06:25, Thu 13 Feb 2014.

I've always been a big fan of the level 1 multiverse thing, where the universe is big enough so that you'll eventually find duplicates of everything.

Hmph. Well, obviously, the blew it on their Trav auditions so they had to take a lesser role - http://www.scifind.com/features/the-other-11-doctors/

Now I have to think about male Travellers ;)

In the next day or two I will put some new posts up.  As I mentioned a while ago, I mean to make the next stretch of the story a little more episodic while you put your longer-term plans into action instead of running it in strictly real-time fashion.  If you have particular goals you want to be carrying out, please post as to what they are.  I know that Stanley is set up at the clinic and is planning a foray to the Justice Center, that Trav will be building a network, and that Smoke Alarm will be training a Kang resistance.

Meanwhile, we can treat this as the end of an episode.  Everyone should reset their Story Points.

Smoke Alarm will introduce Gaross to the Traveller to get Gaross's equipment connected to Traveller's network. Then she'll start training Peet and others of the city's homeless, those in hiding, and anyone else who's interested, in Kang Fu.

She aims to teach Kang Fu as a defensive martial art and set of parkour skills dedicated to dodging and evading the Fists and getting away safely. The training is easily hidden under simple games and exercises. The ethos is not to fight them on their own terms, where they're strongest, nor to be aggressive and violent and provoke retaliation, but to annoy, harass, and skirmish them constantly, wearing down morale and resources. This will be accompanied with techniques of urban warfare and passive-aggressive resistance. :)

Next, she'll go out and start wallscawling anti-Fist messages. :) If they chase her, she can test her Kang Fu and parkour skills, putting them into action in an icehot chase sequence. :D Smoke Alarm aims to publicly demonstrate Kang Fu and to humiliate the Fists and banish people's fear of them.

Beautiful. Trav wants to squeeze them on their morality goolies - "Violence is tyranny. Consent is morality. Where is the consent? Show us the threat. No coercion. Coercion means incorrect and immoral."

Trav will also work up some messaging directed directly at the Fists - "Who are you hurting? Why do you strip rights? Coercion is division, coercion is disunity, coercion is undisciplined, coercion is chaos, coercion is immoral." She wants to split the Fists down their faultline of their ethos - they will either have to become cognitively dissonant and become like any other tyrant, or cease their activities and begin to parley.

Also, Trav *really* wants to track down one of those blue globes. Finding one of those is priority.

For some reason I envision Trav popping her magic hat and plopping a Che Guevara-style beret on her head.... :D

"This? Um, no, my regular hat is over there on the stand. This is either Che's or Fidel's, I forget which."

In addition to the posts over in the IC thread, I should also add here that Amanda is uncommitted to any particular activity right now, so if someone has a suggestion for what she should be doing for the cause, feel free to narrate that.  Zheng Ru and his more capable acolytes could also be in play: it would take a trip by TARDIS to fetch them, but they are willing if you have a use for them.

Trav will absolutely go and get Rhu and some of his monks - we may actually need some fighting power if things get out of hand. We also need their help to develop Kang Fu fully.

As for Amanda, not sure, need to percolate on that.

EDIT - Amanda can help Trav collate her massive transmedia campaign. I took a +2 bonus to my Convince roll, using Friends (Major) to justify it. Does that sound good?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:58, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

Smoke Alarm, you broke the GM again.  I totally forgot the Kang Mantra when I sat down and spitballed that scene together.

Clearly the next step is for some of Smoke Alarm's Little Helpers to drive her nuts by putting up flyposts.

Heh. I was waiting for an opportunity to bring up her ball-game superstition. Given the choice, she would have refused to play. Now the Fists have shown up, never ever again.

I should have included it as a taboo subject in her training.

I wonder what happened to make the Kangs ban ball-games...

Oh, I always figured the Kangs' thing came from rules that they were given by their parents when they were left at the Towers (as opposed to the Caretakers) and have long since forgotten the source of.

If the Doctor had never showed up, I think these would be well on their way to becoming the Kangs' Three Commandments. :)

Actually, it's only two constant rules: "No ball-games, no fly-posts". The third is whatever the Kangs don't want to do or don't want to accept at that time, "No outgoing" or "No visitors".

I imagined they're part of a set of rules of the Towers, like no ball-games and fly-posts in the corridors. It's probably something the Kangs saw around and took to heart. Maybe had a ball-game one day that ended in tragedy, like they were kicking around a grenade...

I don't know what's going on, but I have to say: that's the best defence for not changing history I've ever read. Well done!

Smoke Alarm: I might be holding the wrong end of the stick with your actions over in the IC thread.  Is the idea that you're trailing after the Fists and deliberately pestering them?

Pretty much, yeah. :)

Sorry, I'll post tomorrow. Today's been hellishly busy.

I always forget to use things like action points (in d20 systems), force points (Stars Wars Saga Edition), and story points, even bonus rerolls or max rolls some GMs give out, because they're an extra layer of mechanics and one you need to ration. So, I rarely  think of the +2d6 story point option.

Do you mind if we roll 2d6 + whatever, then immediately spend a story point to roll another 2d6? Or would you prefer we roll 4d6 + whatever straight off (i.e., spend the story point in advance)? The first has the option of letting us know if we need the bonus dice or not.

That would be fine, actually.  I think that in the prior iteration of the game before we moved it over to RPOL we were doing this anyway.

Certainly makes it easier.

Though in that case; there's never really a reason just to spend the story point to bump it up to a success is there?

For example; I just rolled 13 for my sneaking around; if it's going to cost a story point whether I bump it up or just get to retroactively add another 2d6; there's no point in the former, because the latter will absolute minimum get me to 15.

Yeah, I meant to write that as a query rather than a request. Looking again, the language in the entry suggests the SP must be spent before the main roll: "If the character knows beforehand...", "The player will have to judge if the task is worth spending a valuable Story Point." It's a gamble on spending an SP and either getting a +2 and likely no change, or a +12 and a resounding success.

Is it okay if Smoke Alarm goes off for some nocturnal wallscrawling?

Sereth: the main reason I threw that on the table is that in typical face-to-face play, when I'm GMing and I see players passing up an option to help their chances when I see the math is against them, I'll stop them before they roll the dice and remind them of the tools they've got handy.

In the case that you're holding on over in the IC thread, I suppose it's not going to make much material difference one way or the other; the main thing that a really good sneak would do is to give you the dead-to-rights drop on them, but Sereth in his present situation isn't planning to exploit that directly.

Let's stick with rules as written for now.  I'll continue to try to do my best to let people know what kind of a target number they're up against so they can make that call before they roll.

Smoke Alarm: I was holding up to see what Trav's response to your message was.  Scrawl away.

Since Sereth and Smoke Alarm are both out after curfew, they could both be contemporaneous if necessary. Sereth sounds like he needs some Kang help. :)

What skill would wallscrawling/graffiti come under? I figure Presence + Craft for the artistry, and maybe Ingenuity + Subterfuge for the vandalism itself?

SUggested compromise: If you remember; we have to use the story point for extra dice before hand; if for whatever reason (distractions, get caught up, whatever), you forget, we can use it retroactively.

Opener for season 2 of Always Time To Travel -

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

That sounds reasonable.  There will be some cases where the players will just want to "act blind", and I favor that because it helps keep things moving briskly online.  So if you do that, I determine a difficulty after your roll and it turns out that what you were doing was riskier that you thought it was, I may give you the option of spending SPs on dice after the fact.

I trust Gary in all things.

Normally on Doctor Who, the Doctor blunders into some tyranny, gets into trouble, meets some local rebels, and in the course of a day blows up the villain's power-base and the villain himself. Then leaves without a second thought.

Here, we came deliberately, spent a week getting in touch with repressed groups and sympathetic parties, linked them with secret communications, provided aid for specific problems, spread protest messages, attacked enemy ideology, trained in non-violent resistance and self-defence, and engaged in campaigns of civil disobedience.

Doing it right? :D
This message was last edited by the player at 12:51, Wed 26 Feb 2014.

To be fair, I have a hard time trying to present a scenario that exists in a tiny bottle without strings that have wide-spanning ramifications.  Particularly this one, which has a broader setting and is more an "arc" scenario where as Trav and Stanley (as characters) are well aware, there are hooks tying off all over time and space.

I consciously did the opposite in the last scenario I ran for those two, with the action confined to a couple of days and a small patch of the Egyptian desert, and I'll likely try to change the pace again for wherever this goes next.

(Plus, it helps that Doctor Who used to have to stage a revolution with seven sets and a go-cart.  I can afford two orbital rings, a MONORAIL! and the entire Draconian Empire.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:34, Wed 26 Feb 2014.

Trav is a little bit more responsible than Boobie was ;)

Also, Smoke - Trav wants to come out and do wallscrawling and dye strips of blue into her hair and become a Blue Kang. Blue Kangs are the best!

Blue Kangs are best!

Feel free to stop by and join in the artistry! :D

Sorry everyone. Once again Real Life is conspiring to keep me busy with boring work instead of posting.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:29, Thu 27 Feb 2014.

An alternative soundtrack for Smoke's escapades:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...32Kps&feature=kp

With a video clip to demonstrate what she's doing. :D
This message was last edited by the player at 12:50, Thu 27 Feb 2014.

Kangs are awesome! I've been wanting to do something like this ever since I first created Smoke Alarm. Icehot! :D

Now I'm offhandly curious whether you ever read any of the New Adventures.

Particularly Set Piece, wherein there's a sequence of the Seventh Doctor making a set of repeated breakout attempts that get him dubbed "the Gingerbread Man".

I have in fact. I think I've read all of them now. Love them!

And yes, I remember that bit. One escape he made despite being cryogenically frozen. :) I forgot the nickname though, and wasn't thinking of that here.

I made a few last minute edits just before you post, adding in a bit where Fadreen's firework settles down around a triumphant Smoke Alarm. Also, Smoke camera-phoned the whole thing. :D

I think Smoke Alarm inspired me for fitness training this morning. :D We won all the relays!

Actual pic of Smoke Alarm:

'Meep meep!'

I think you'll find that Meep sounds like this. Perhaps that's just Smoke Alarm's accent. :D

No haven't read any of them. Have read some of the new series books.

I guess everyone has been busy?  It's been quiet for a while.

I want to investigate Faction Paradox. I love the idea of them being recurring foes of the Marshall and the Traveller.

Has Smoke stunned everyone into silence? I'm sorry if my side-adventure interrupted everyone else's. I didn't want to showboat any more, at least not for a while, so I figured Smoke should just follow the others for a while, maybe help Sereth or Stanley in what they were doing. But time's moved on, and we don't seem to have much to lead us on again.

Faction Paradox?! Where'd they come from? Ooh! It's Cousin Smoke Alarm with a skull-face mask! :D

(reaches for copy of Lawrence Miles' The Book of the War)

scritch scritch scritch

If anyone can help me out with amazon links to what I should be reading to get up to speed on the Faction, I'd be grateful.

Gary, if the Faction are indeed canon for your Dr Who setting (which you seem to have implied they are), what role have they played in both the Last Great Time War and The War as depicted in the FP books? I'm of the idea that the Marshall, when she was a villain, often clashed with the Faction because the Faction was all about chaos and anti-time, while the Marshall, while desiring to bring the cosmos under her own domination, was a Gallifreyan patriot at heart.  The Marshall's phrase was always Discipline and Order, and her first task from Rassilon and The Master upon her release from the Citadel was to bring the Faction to heel.

As the faction were the opponents of the 7th and 8th Doctors, the 1st and 2nd Travellers would never have encountered them unless she was unaware of what they were (although I like the idea of the Faction shattering the Marshall's time line and setting the 2nd Traveller against her in a novel).  In the Marshall Faction Paradox stories, I envision The Marshall matching wits and power against Sister Violet, a mysterious time witch who might have been a future incarnation. This supports (in my headcanon) the short appearance of the purple haired Traveller in the RIFTS TV series.

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 258):

I never got my head around the War per the Eighth Doctor novels very well, as the editors went to lengths to make it as obscure as possible, except to note the general form a Faction plot is going to take.

In the Last Great Time War I am sure they'd have run under the radar and adopted a watchful and opportunistic M.O.  As the Daleks and Time Lords were continually playing the "delve one yard below your mines" game, Faction Paradox agents would have egged them on in minor ways and set up their own schemes to derive power from the paradoxical changes taking place -- sometimes providing superficial aid to the Daleks, sometimes to the Time Lords, trying to position themselves to take control in the aftermath.  They seem not to have accomplished this, but I'm quite sure this would have torqued the Marshall off no end.

The War in Heaven of the EDAs was basically the Time War of the New Series in reverse: a big and terrible event in the future, steadily coming close, until it un-happened with the destruction of Gallifrey (all nine of them). It's amazing how much of the War in Heaven arc has been repeated in some way in the Time War arc, all the way up to "Day of the Doctor". Davies and Moffat really do owe the EDAs some acknowledgements. I like the theory that they were inherently the same war in different time-lines, not least because Daleks make a far better Enemy.

I can only recommend Alien Bodies, just because it's a brilliant book. The later FP EDAs, Interference and The Ancestor Cell give a lot more about them, but the former is quite a slog and latter is just terrible. The Gallifrey Chronicles is a good wrap-up of the War, but is a bit peripheral on the Faction, bar a good retcon of the identity of Grandfather Paradox. I haven't followed the spin-off series-es, however, so I can't speak to those.

I like to think of the Faction taking a role in the Time War akin to religious extremists and terrorists, small-scale but causing a lot of chaos for their own ends.

It sounds to me then that the Marshall would have dispatched CIA and Gallifreyan military intelligence operatives to divert Faction plots away from truly sensitive operations. I can see the Faction screwing with the deployment of various weapons from the Vault of Omega. The Marshall would have been infuriated that she would have to waste time with trouble makers and dangerous fanatics when she wanted to concentrate all of her attention on the real enemy - the Daleks and their allies. In my headcanon, the Marshall reported to The Master, and while mostly lead armies, was occasionally sent with just her Rod and Time Ring to give things her personal attention. She was kind of a Darth Vader to Rassilon and The Master's Emperor.

I know it goes against everything we hear, but I don't think the Master was particularly masterful in the Time War. To me, it sounds like he was a tool, no better or worse than the Doctor.

If the subject somehow came up, Trav would be spitting pissed. The Master ran, leaving only the Marshall (and later, The War Doctor) to man the walls.

I find the idea of either the Doctor or the Master working with the Time Lords, taking orders, going on missions, etc., unthinkable. They're much too independent. I think they'd just do their own thing, their efforts intersecting with the Time Lords, but only occasionally to the same ends as them, and occasionally against.

I also find the idea of the War Doctor somehow being different unlikely as well. He fought Daleks. He commits or allows genocide. How is that different from what he normally does?

Eh. My ranting.

In the Invasion of Armageddon game, I've brought back Destrii the anti-hero warrior fish-girl companion of the DWM Eighth Doctor as a companion for the War-time Eighth Doctor (after he left her at Comic-Con and forgot about her for a couple of centuries...). A warrior companion for a War-time Doctor. I like to imagine she'll raise some hell among the Daleks and Time Lords. She found Smoke Alarm's graffiti on the TARDIS roof too. :)

Actually this is what bugs me not so much about the new series; but fandom. There's this kind of idealised idea of the Doctor as being pacifist. He showed glimpses of it as the 5th Doctor; and Tennant kind of went way overboard with it; but generally, the Doctor's had no problem in 'the ends justify the means'. Yes, occasionally we have a story (Genocide of the Daleks for example), where he's all "Oh no, it's wrong", but he's never really had much of a problem with it.

I noticed that reference to Smoke Alarm's graffiti. Almost said something about it; but decided to behave.

This is one of the reasons I call BS on Moffat going backsies with the Doctor being responsible for the destruction of both the Daleks and the Timelords. That basically destroyed 9's entire character arc.

Eh. The timelords were -always- going to come back in some way; and that at least gave me a somewhat satisfactory reason why Daleks seemed to avoid the blast so often whilst the only Timelord that had besides the Doctor was the known sly bastard the Master.

Yeah, as I said in the other game, he's not really someone who hates violence and weapons, but someone who hates the need to use violence and weapons. He does what has to be done, even if he doesn't like it.

And yeah, the Time Lords weren't going to stay dead, and the last-of-his-kind angst had to go away eventually. It took the weight out of the prior angst, but that had to happen eventually. I don't think there's a better way to fix that (except maybe the Time Lords saving themselves).

A great moment in The Gallifrey Chronicles was when the Eighth Doctor, who'd come down with amnesia again after destroying Gallifrey the first time, realised he'd destroyed his homeworld and annihilated his own people — then realised he'd been through too much, done too much, and was wiser than that, to actually angst over it and lose his memories in shock at it. So then he works out what really happened to his memories. It retconned a few years of novels and the whole dumb amnesia arc, by having the Doctor go "meh" and work out really happened. Brilliant. It would be as if the Smith Doctor started "Day" and "Time" by going "No, I didn't." (or, as it was, "No, I wouldn't kill all those innocent people.") then going to find Gallifrey.

Yes, the timelords saving themselves wouldda been awesome.

"Foolish Doctor. You don't really think we wouldn't have put in safeguards in case some crazy timelord got the idea to wipe us all out with those weapons do you? Now it's time we did what we tasked you to do a long time ago, and destroy the Daleks forever."

Having said that; neither Moffatt or Davies are big fans of the timelords as a race; so this is a way to enable them to come back, but have it be in the Doctor's hands, not come back as a huge presence, and let them fade back into the background. There, but not an overpowering presence.

Trav - sweatdrops, and slinks out ;)

I am a bit confused. I assumed that Sereth had showed everyone the recording of the device here: link to a message in this game. Wouldn't Trav and Amanda know how it looks from that?
This message was last edited by the player at 22:51, Wed 12 Mar 2014.

Yes, reminding Trav was my oblique purpose in having Amanda mention it, without stepping in with my GM Voice and stomping on the idea of stealing it.

(I don't know whether everyone in general is bothered by these prominent supporting characters hanging around, as I frequently see "GMPCs" trotted out as a cardinal sin of gamemastering, but I like to have a voice that can steer people back in the direction of forgotten facts.)

There's a massive difference between GMPCs and, what I like to call, 'Guidance NPCs'.

GMPCs take the place of a PC effectively, and don't just hint at what to do; but flat-out tell the group what's the best choice of action. 'Guidance NPCs'; are really useful, and serve to remind the players what has been done, and what people know, which can be hard to remember, especially in an online game.

Incidentally, "Dizzy-plant" is my new favorite Kangspeak. :D

Smoke Alarm was away with the Meeps when the device was shown. :)

Yeah, as Sereth said, GMPCs play an active role and are basically PCs played by GMs. Ru and Amanda are just NPCs in the background helping out. I have no problem with them.

Ta. :)

You must love Admiral Ackbar. :D

Post #1000!

Congratulations!

Also, Trav will one day bring Smoke Alarm to the ancient past to meet the ancient founders of Kang culture -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5chX2ve9cnM

So Sereth and I are going to cause a distraction?

I was thinking, maybe setting off fire alarms or something?

Something to think about.

In such a regimented order; even setting off fire alarms is probably enough to get you hauled in for... reprogramming.

SO if no matter what you do, to cause a big enough distraction, will cause that... it's worth consideirng going all out.

In reply to Sereth (msg # 280):

Yeah, I think you are right about that.

What about starting a real fire :P. Of course not...that would be irresponsible.

I think we'd need to have more details about the spaceport, the ship, the security, before we can really plan for it. Else we can walk right in and wing it? :)

I figure Smoke's best role is to either be the sneaky one (Coord + Subterfuge: 8) who gets in somewhere unseen, or who goes out and makes a distraction, being Fists' Public Enemy #1 right now (Distinctive, sometimes it's a Good Trait ;) ).

You can assume that you have some narrative leeway within the details established on Sereth's first trip scouting the place out and other things I've laid out about the area.  If you want me to collect and summarize those I can do that.

Actually I've been thinking about this. Though Sereth is no sneak; his best role might be to be with the group we're trying to sneak in; due to his leadership skills. I mean, we probably won't have much time no matter how good the distraction, so we want someone who, when the diversion is created, can get them moving relatively quickly.

I should probably also go talk to the guy who's ship it is about this.

Pertinent information about the spaceport, the ship, and the Fist security:

- The spaceport is a short walk away from a monorail station.

- The port sits on about a square mile of ground and it's a multi-level structure.  There are warning barricades around this area and a fairly sparse foot patrol.  The part of the city right around the spaceport is a mix of retail businesses that normally serve travellers, and warehousing.  Traffic to the retail area has dropped off with the port locked down, and there's minimal attention paid to the warehouses.  Except for after curfew, it's not unusual for people to come and go from the area.

- Sereth knows the location of the ship, on the west side of the port.

- The Fists move in three-person patrols.  Their patrol technique is fair, but they're not skilled professionals: somewhere above Paradise Towers Caretakers, but well below the Draconian Palace Guard.

- The port lights aren't run at full illumination at night while the facility is shut down.

- I didn't touch on it when Sereth was investigating, but in addition to the entrances and walkways for foot traffic he investigated when finding the ship, there are larger cargo gates that lead straight into the docking areas.  The gates are probably locked under the circumstances.  There are likely more Fists that cover these in their patrol pattern, but they don't stand guard.

As I said, other details can be filled in if they're not wildly at odds with what's described here.  If someone thinks of a great idea for an exploitable feature, they can make an appropriate roll and a success can make it "real", with the quality of the security hole dependent on how good the roll is.

I think Stanley would be more use causing a distraction than sneaking around (subterfuge of 1).

Unfortunately Stanley doesn't have Smoke Alarm's parkour skills to get away and like Sereth said this will probably result in Stanley getting arrested, but that is a risk he is willing to take.

I am just having trouble coming up with a good enough distraction, maybe something involving Stan's hypnosis skill?

Don't point out to Sereth Stanley's chances of getting arrested. He's almost as bad as Trav seems to be in regards to sacrificing yourself instead of him. Between the pair of them and Smoke I'm thinking of DnD games which involve both paladins and rogues...

"If it's not one of them, it's the other."

Dunno about distraction. I could fight them; I'd lose but might be the distraction needed. However, as I said, we may not have much time and I think Sereth might be needed to get the people moving fast if we get the distraction going. Besides, I'd rather leave fighting to the last possible moment.

I think Smoke might be on to something actually. Use her distinctiveness and level of infamy right now to cause a stir. They know she outran a lot of them before; so they'd make sure that all available fists were off chasing her. And let's face it; out of all of us, she's the one most likely to actually get away. And it's not like she isn't wanted anyway; but as of this point, Stanley and Sereth are not. It might also cause enough of a distraction, that I can get them in to the ship, and possibly get back out again and the ship safely on it's way before the Fists return. I was worried that any distraction might well be enough to get the ship away, but would end up with Sereth having to either explain himself; or fight his way out.

Are we all still on board?

Sorry, I didn't have much to add. It looks we're ready to go to the spaceport and cause some trouble.

Given the large number of people of all different types to get on to the ship, stealth isn't really an issue, but speed and organisation are. You could all just drive a stolen bus right up to the ship, or something like that. Get in, get away, quick as you can.

Keeping watch from some good lookout and relaying messages to either group, about incoming Fist patrols, blocked routes, cameras, etc., is also useful, if you want to try that Stanley. Alternatively, some of those invalid Draconians may need some care.

What about electronic and SF surveillance, like cameras, heat sensors, life-sign detectors? This might be something Trav could deal with?


I think of Smoke as more like a Monk (my wild acrobatic speedster drunken master, especially). Or a Kang ninja, yeah. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 12:26, Thu 03 Apr 2014.

This is your show, and Trav is always improv-on-the-scene, so she's going to follow all of your leads and then run where appropriate. She'll be there to do Doctory things and sonic open locks and get the ship going. And I'm sure plans will be disrupted at some point.

Sorry, I have been very busy lately with a changed schedule and some other stuff. Some people didn't do what I asked them to or not correctly, wouldn't respond to e-mails, forcing me to do a lot of extra work... yeah, not fun.

Also I was having some trouble coming up with a good plan for a distraction or something.

As Smoke said, Stanley could be the lookout, maybe we don't really need a distraction?

Unless we're planning on just fighting the fists, we need some kind of distraction.

Fighting them is an option; but given 2 of them took down 7 draconians with only one escaping, I don't like the odds of our group taking on 3.

Some questions that might help you organize your thoughts:

- Whereabouts does each person intend to be when the operation begins?  What do you intend to be doing?

- What route do you intend to take from outside the spaceport to get to the ship?

- Are you meaning to take the people to the ship or the ship to the people?  Who would be with the people if you're doing the former?  In the latter case how would you get the ship out of there?

- How do you intend to deal with the Fists guarding the place?  Fight, divert, avoid?  (Regarding Sereth's comment: yes, two of these people took out seven, but those seven were basically untrained, albeit physically fit, civilians.)

- Do you want to make any of your allies part of the plan?  If so, how?

My thoughts:

Sereth should be with the people we're trying to get out; to get them moving quickly.

Route should be the quickest we can find.

I think we should take the people to the ship. With the people would be Sereth at least.

I would -like- to divert the Fists; fighting last resort. Do we back this group to beat them down? Sereth could probably take on one.

I have long-term plans for Gilso; so I'd like to bring him along, so he knows the kind of danger he's putting himself in if he continues hanging around with Sereth.

Beforehand, Smoke Alarm will study maps and pictures of the spaceport, memorising the layout for her parkour running. If possible, she'll sneak in early to see the layout for herself. Are we allowed in during the day? She'll arrive alone and separate from the others, so as not to lead things back to them. She might even hide in the spaceport for a while, like in a suitcase or something, until it's time for mission.

Given the spaceport job is a bit more dangerous and not quite an urban environment, Smoke doesn't want to risk any of her new Kang recruits in helping her. She could take a PC as a spotter/lookout ("outlook") if someone wants that role, but as she wants to get found, it's not so necessary.

Then she'll start wallscrawling the spaceport until she's spotted. (Might as well hit two pigeons with one arrowgun.) Else, she could walk in and harass and annoy Fists until they give chase. Or both.

If we do this during the day, we could avoid curfew and have some reason for getting people close to or into the spaceport, even if ships are grounded. And it would be easier to film Smoke's escapades for another interweb show. :)

I have put an IC post up placing Sereth and Smoke Alarm near the scene according to thier posts.  The other PCs can chime in there as being with either "placed" PC, or indicate another nearby location where they want to be.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 296):

I am sorry, but things have been pretty hectic lately and now something has come up. I won't be able to post until the end of next week. I am very sorry for this

I have a feeling I am letting you all down: not being able to come up with something useful to do for Stanley and now this.

Don't sweat it.  If you like and everybody else is agreeable, we can say that Stanley is off holding down the fort elsewhere.  And if we're still working on the escape mission when you're available again, I do have a solo side scene in mind for him, so you need not be twiddling your thumbs waiting for the others to finish.

Good?

Sorry, I was busy with work and not feeling the best, and it took a bit of time to get back into character. Especially when that character is Smoke Alarm. :)

Playing a rather demanding and rambunctious character myself, I know that feeling.

And wow, Trav is Kang-y!

Kangy, like Kangish. Sort of Kang, but not quite. :p

"turn every world into a machine for turning worlds into machines" Is that sentence correct?

Yes, but that's what Erysk gets for trying to be all deep.

It's more a figure of speech; really it adds up to not a lot different from the Fists' M.O. of assimilating places to train and recruit armies to assimilate more places.  Not literal machines.

Erysk will refine that misperception in the IC thread.

I dunno if have a computer to post on at home; and tomorrow starts a three-day weekend for me. So if I'm not around, that's why.

Oh good, Smoke's criticism stands intact, as does my theory that the Fists are themselves this Army of Gehenna in a self-fulfilling prophecy. :)

OK.  Apologies that you character has been stuck in a holding pattern as this has proceeded.

I hope the Smoke Alarm Show isn't taking over the game or anything. I just try to get through my stuff quickly so we can move on. I'm also having so much fun playing her, and playing this game. It's one of the best games I've been in. :D

I can just keep Smoke running around and yammering on forever. With Traveller inside and only one guard, Sereth and Stanley could drive all the evacuees in now.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:37, Fri 25 Apr 2014.

Trav can easily be multi paragraphy yappy girl time war space fortress hey baby blah blah blah. You usually have action along with your content! ;)

In reply to Smoke Alarm (msg # 307):

Nah.  I was just observing that I probably ought to have come up with something that Sereth could engage with while the plan was being put into effect; splitting the party is really risky in play-by-post.

Yeah, with keeping the separate streams timed right and having something for everyone to do. Maybe they can start moving now. If they're waiting on a message from Smoke, I'll try to send one.

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 298):

I am back, it took me longer than I had expected due to Easter and underestimating how long it would take for things to get back to normal. Thanks for being so understanding.

In reply to Stanley Newton (msg # 311):

Where would you like to drop in?  You can be with Sereth waiting in the warehouse near the spaceport if you want.  Otherwise I could put you at the clinic where something very different would be happening....

In reply to The Guardian (msg # 312):

I choose waiting in the warehouse.

Having Smoke being busy was really helpful due to no home computer access honestly.

Splitting party -is- risky in PbP; but I've been gaming PbP long enough to just be patient when it happens.

Because nothing can catch a greased Kang. :D

I'm picturing the grease fight from The Transporter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot2RkUSRjmg (at 2:50)
:D

Hey Gary - I pulled a kind of Doctorish Bugs Bunny move you may find amusing.

My thoughts on the sneaking thing.

We stay together. Not only do we want us -all- to get there safely; if we split up and some people get caught; there might not be anyone close enough to save them.

If we stay together and get caught; maybe we can pull something out of the fire.

I'm not sure that my soundtrack budget stretches to the rights to "Wipeout".

In reply to Sereth (msg # 317):

I was feeling more for letting everyone move at their own speed, but your argument about not being close enough to help people when they get caught is convincing.

I think we should at least try for Tricky(15).

Next in our campaign of passive-aggressive resistance and schoolyard pranks: dackings!

It's an Australian term for yanking someone's pants down.

I do hope the lube will stop them getting a grip on Smoke in the inevitable brawl.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:36, Sun 04 May 2014.

That works for me.

It sounds like Sereth and Stanley are in agreement, so one of you can narrate the action and post a roll.  I believe with what you've outlined your total for the roll is +9.

I didn't mean to show her an image or anything, only to mention it in conversation.

OK, I didn't follow that all that well.  Edited for posterity.

I will be posting to this in a bit, but Trav is hugely proud of all the time right now, especially Smoke.

Hey Gary,

How do you feel about us spending SP to introduce story elements? Like, for example, Trav is being chased by the fists, and I spend an SP and an unattended scooter is just around the corner?

I'm fairly OK with that sort of thing.  I mean, I won't promise that spending a story point to find a way to sidestep a complication will not be answered with giving you story points back and the introduction of a different, hopefully more entertaining complication.  But in general, sure.

... the only thing funnier than those very appropriate rolls; is if it had been Jevlen that you'd need the lower number to convince.

Well, there are reasons and reasons.  If the dice for Jevlen had come up snake-eyes, the obvious interpretation would be "You're offering to take me to the ringleader?  Lead on!"

:D

Trav can take care of both them I'm sure, but mainly I was trying to rile Jevlen. :) I'm happy for him to fail and take only Erysk.

I'm running low on those Story Points, being all awesome like this. I ought to get one back for letting myself be captured though, right?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:00, Fri 09 May 2014.

Heh.  I'll give you two story points back, but only if you get properly taken into custody before the others manage to pull you out. ;)

Also, I'm not sure I'm entirely clear on what Sereth's intended course of action is, and what's going on with the spaceship.

Are you all meaning for Bosh to fly his ship out on his own?  He can, from conversations he would have had with Sereth offscreen.

Well, I don't intend to make it easy for them. :p

Sorry; I'm not on much on the weekends.

Actually; if Traveller can pick him up later; Sereth's quite happy to fly out with Bosh on the ship; just in case there are some problems either getting away; or entering Draconian space.

Sereth, you can pick that up and post on it as you see fit.  As Trav established, there is only a minor threat to the ship once it lifts off -- no one is really looking for a civilian departure at this point.  You could make a difficulty 12 roll to clear the habitat, or just spend a story point for it and narrate the trip out.

Um, just to clarify my other OOC comment: it's just a functional gazebo monorail.  The sinister plot development involving it (the fact that it can bring more bad guys) has come and gone.

.... I sonic the darkness?

"It's too late. You've awakened the monorail; it catches you and eats you."

"I cut off my head and put the monorail on my shoulders!"

By the by: everyone should add three story points to their current number, up to their maximum, for your roles in handling the escape.  Smoke Alarm, you can add two more as we discussed now that you are well and truly in Fist Central.

Woo! Now I'll need them to escape. :)

Yay! Trav is back up to regular Trav cap (4)

I get jealous of you people with your double digit SP totals sometimes ;)

Escape? Bah, that's for weenies. More like TARDIS in, making a mocking speech, and then escape! ;)

Don't worry Smoke, Team Talkiphonebox has yer back. Build high for happiness!