There are a couple other Doctor Who RPGs floating around out there. One of them is called Time Lord, designed for Play-by-Email games, and one of the skills in that game is called Benchthumper. Exactly what you just did. It's my favorite thing about that system.

I call it "Percussive Maintenance," though. :P
This message was last edited by the player at 03:40, Sat 27 June 2015.

That's actually a trait in the DWAITAS RPG. :)

I've heard an explanation that any complex system is a balance of processes in stable and meta-stable states, so that only a small perturbation can be required to shift it from an undesired state to a desired state – a technical, scientifically accurate of why hitting something makes it work. :)

.... oh that's just beautiful GM.

I'll work on a post tomorrow. I had a Chat-game today; so my brain is still in Pathfinder-mode; rather than the comparatively simpler system...

Which bit exactly was beautiful? :)

"a technical, scientifically accurate of why hitting something makes it work."

That's beautiful. I'll use that on my father next time he tells me hitting something doesn't make it work. (Actually I don't usually hit something to make it work; a lifetime of lectures from my father who worked for various computer companies stopped that. But the concept is nice!)

I heard that from a university physicist too, but can't find a source online.

In more basic terms, there's this:
http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sc...ive-it-a-good-whack/

The art is in hitting the right component. People who bash their keyboards at computer trouble only break their keyboards, because the keyboard is usually innocent.

I used to help manage computers and scoring systems at a Tae Kwon Do tournament. Once the system froze up in the middle of a match. I could have screwed up everything by stopping the match to diagnose and fix it properly. Instead, I picked the device up and slapped it, and everything worked again. In view of an entire hall full of people. Great tech support there. :)

That's probably the key. You probably know the right spot to hit it.

If you want fast-typing, I can do that. But know nada about what actually makes a computer work.

My goodness, you do not miss a moment. I'm gonna hold off and respond to Tarys's next post. Super excited. :D

You two got ahead of the soundtrack, so I had to catch up.

And I really couldn't start without a Kang involved. :D
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Kang

oh gods. Not Kang...

Kangs!

BTW, liblarva's new Doctor Who game is running the "The Doom of the Daleks" campaign series of modules from the Eighth Doctor Sourcebook – which I'm also running here, albeit with modifications to the structure and not covering all the adventures. So, fair warning, if you apply to that, you might see spoilers or risk metagaming.

You realise this is all your fault Farren. I bet the possibility of rat burger and rat pie didn't even exist until you mentioned it :-)

Actually, it was my plan all along... :)

On the contrary... I think you severely underestimate the resourcefulness of the GM, especially when it comes to Kangs.  ;)

... rat burgers are rather a common trope to be fair.

As for Kangs... that's why the Daleks became as bad as they were. They ran into Kangs...

(I don't care that that goes so against Dalek continuity it's not funny. Try unravelling the Dalek timeline..)

Of course, not being familiar with OldWho, when you say Kang I see...



and...



and lastly...


(even if that's technically kRang)

Given I can never quite bring myself to watch Paradise Towers (Mel really bugs me); I'm not overly familiar with Kangs in general.

I have seen a rather awesomely played one though; so may have to submit to Mel for a story.

Do it! Do it! It's a classic Mel story, really, showcasing every one of her flaws. It's not a great, well-done serial, but it's a fun and clever story, and the first for a long time in the 80s not to rehash something from the past and not to be spiteful and mean, so it's a real blast of fresh air. I have a special soft spot for it, as it was the first I owned on VHS. And I have so much fun playing Kangs.

Red Kangs, Red Kangs, Red Kangs are best! :D

Just think of colour-coded, crossbow-wielding teenage girl gangs living in a world of urban decay with a culture and language born of distorted children's playground games and architectural features, endlessly competing against each other in games and surviving against semi-competent, semi-fascist caretakers; homicidal cleaner robots in service to the disembodied brain of the Great Architect in the basement; and cannibalistic old folks, and you've really got something.

For me, "Paradise Towers" is the most classically, quintessentially Doctor Who story that doesn't have Tom Baker. Killer robots, running down corridors, strange rebels, weird story, kinda rubbish but fun. :)

Unfortunately, my computer has come down with a bad case of a failed power supply. So, I'm going to be busy getting that fixed and catching up, and will be slower while working on another computer, so my posting will slow for a while.

Understandable GM.

Androgums! Just about the best new alien introduced by the Colin Baker era.

(I'm like the opposite of Trace. I can usually spot references to anything from Old-Who; but though I watch the new series; very few of the stories stick in my mind after they've aired. The Moffatt ones whilst RTD was Showrunner an exception.)

Don't worry, boss, we're patient!

And I'd like to say the same, Stirix, but as much as I keep thinking I've seen a bunch from Old-Who, it always turns out I've barely seen any. Hours and hours and hours of stories, but that ended up being just four or five serials from each era. Much less from Hartnell and Troughton. Only two from Baker, though at the very least the Androgums were one of them.  :D

It's pretty hard to get Troughton and Hartnell; especially Troughton.

-bleah- I can't stand Colin Baker's stories. I recognise the references; but have barely spent any time watching them. As opposed to, say, Troughton, Pertwee and Tom Baker.

a) I was introduced to Colin Baker with the Twin Dilemma. It was so bad even my dad, who's been spending years collecting VHSs and DVDs of as much of the series as he can and watching all of them, actually turned it off about twenty minutes into the first episode. It was so bad. I can't understand how they let that happen.

b) So I've spent way too long studying things like TARDIS technical manuals (ridiculous, I know) and the Time Travel Companion. Kinda make some spout a lot of shenanigans about how things work, when that isn't necessarily a good thing. Not sure if it's been bad so far, or if it's been good. In that line of thinking, Axander's next step is to imprint on the briode nebulizer to create the symbiotic link between him and the ship. Kinda don't wanna get into that on-camera, but thought I'd mention that's what he meant by "get us ready".

I like to get all technical, and then handwave actually doing the stuff. Lookit me go. :P

I've got the TTC and I've read almost all of it, and I'd like to play around with the TARDIS crunch, so I'm happy for you to use it. Feel free to do it on camera, as it's a big, important event.

I'm just busy fixing my own machine right now.