The only issue I have with doing that onscreen is...I don't actually know what the symbiotic linking consists of. It was only mentioned (far as I know) in the Two Doctors, and I missed the bits before the explanation, so I dunno if he did stuff on camera. Still, I can wing it.

From what I remember; nothing as really specified as to what it was, except hints about the Rassilon Imprimatur - which is what makes a TARDIS go. He also used it as a trap for... oh crud, not Lynx. Other one. No the other other one!

He then... err... I'll shut up now.

Stike. I looked it up. :p Nothing happened on camera in "The Two Doctors", and it was largely a ruse. Basically, he stepped inside a cabinet and stole the briode nebulizer component (which is really just a part of the Kartz–Reimer module, and has no known connection to TARDISes).

Basically, you're looking at what's mentioned here and whatever's in the TTC:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Rassilon_Imprimatur
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Symbiotic_nucleus
The information seems pretty scarce, though I'm not looking back through Interference, Book One for clues. So, you can play it how you like.

Well, good news, I found a much better replacement PSU in a junker PC and spent the day reassembling computers. I'm back in full working order, though I'm still catching up on everything.

BTW, I've added Axander's TARDIS stats to Elona's description for everyone to reference. We can customise them when we get the crew together.

OOC: No, he's better overall. And a correction: the -1 applies to the Difficulty (making it easier) not to Axander's roll (unless she's really that bad she sabotages his efforts?).


Yes. :) It's a little brief drama, a little stalling while I finish up the thread for the other PCs, and me practising TARDIS navigation rules.

Plus, I actually need some other way of getting you two to find the plot.

Okay, the module has you use the locator to find temporal traces that lead you to the Dalek's Eternity Citadel. But I changed all that, the traces are no longer there to be found. Instead, my aim was for you to use clues learned in Tarys's premonition to track down the Eternity Citadel another way: names heard, worlds connected to the Citadel, creatures that have visited and gotten away. Time being on your side and all.

But Tarys wasn't present for the clues, and seems to be ignoring the premonition anyway.

So I'm trying to engineer a TARDIS accident. :) I recommend the telepathic circuits, btw.

I'm not such a bad pilot myself! Wait, wrong fandom.

Yeah, Axander's a decent operator (Technology 3, TTC AoE for +2), he's just nervous, excited, and not exactly confident. But even with my terrible roll, still got it! (Assuming Tarys is helping operate, of course, otherwise the GM gets to roll on the Misjump Table, which could be exciting.)

There're lots more 'time' songs out there if you need references... getting kind of tired of hearing the same one over and over and over and over and...

Even the Rolling Stones had The Last Time and Out of Time.

"It's about time, it's about space,
About two people in a far off place..."

That's my favorite, followed by...

"Let's do
The Time
Warp again!"

Words Tarys lives by.

I kind of think that's the point though.

I dunno if you've ever seen the Denzel Washington movie "Fallen", but lemme tell ya, every time I hear "Time is On My Side", I get chills. Good stuff. Though not, I think, the intended reaction in this particular instance.

I have, once or twice. That's where I got the idea to use "Time is on my Side". :) Though "Sympathy for the Devil" may have been a better choice of theme song.

I'm not a fan of story arcs (he says, making our first Who campaign a story arc) and especially arc words and the kind of portentousness that propelled the RTD era. But I do like events and NPCs being heralded by music, which I pinched from "The Wanderer" in Lost Girl and the "Time" song in the TV movie.

Thanks for the suggestions, but "Time is on my Side" just fitted everything perfectly. ;)

Though while we're quoting: "If you're lost you can look, and you will find me / Time after time".

BTW, I've renamed the game to reflect the current campaign. With after (failed) efforts to run The Doom of the Daleks here recently, I thought it wise to stake my territory.

That's pretty much all I need to do in both threads. My next update should take us all to the planet in a new thread and get both groups together, so the adventure proper can start. You can keep RP amongst yourselves in the Chapter 1 and 2 threads as you like.

And there we go!

Archaeologist (Farren, Stirix) and Crew (Bluetooth, Trace) teams can pick what task they like to look busy on, according to your skills, etc. Feel free to wing the technical matters, or ask me for some appropriate background. Make some rolls to see how well you do, but failure won't be disastrous at this stage.

With familiarity in mucking about with liquid nitrogen, I can even make this educational. :)

I'm still slowly trying to catch up on the Ortega Expedition thread. I always read threads I'm not involved with so very slowly. So much good stuff, though, and I really like our mix of characters. :D

Gonna be out for the weekend, but I'll be back Sunday sometime. Possibly asleep by then, though.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask: would finding a room with cold weather gear require an Ingenuity+Resolve roll, due to the Shifting Rooms trait on Elona? Or would it be easier to find because accomplishing the task moves the story forward?

I presume that Shifting Structure  applies mostly to specific rooms rather than finding items. Feel free to roll if you'd like,  but it's not necessary. It doesn't affect the storyline,  but the story can't proceed without it. Or it's just too simple to bother rolling for.

I'll update tomorrow.

I'll assume we can get what we need based on Overprotective, then. It's a bit more important than finding just any old thing, so Elona's probably making more of an effort to help. I was just thinking it would be akin to finding the specific "wardrobe room" looking for warm clothes or such. Makes sense this way.

Yeah, Overprotective should lower the difficulty as a circumstance bonus. I rolled anywhere for curiosity/practice, and gave some minor extras.

Ironically, if it weren't for Overprotective, this wouldn't be a problem. ;)

Err yeah, so GM, can we see whether they're wearing armor? I'd figure we might be able to tell if they were wearing something like Ice Warrior armor, or some other really heavy stuff, otherwise not with all the snow and distance.

Also, I can't remember right now, but did we have a radio or something to contact the others, or does one of us have to trudge back to base? (That seems really insane for an archaeological expedition to do, but you never know...)

Nothing that looks obviously like armour, more some fancy semi-metallic coats and cowls you can safely assumed are some form of arctic survival gear.

Mobile phones are ubiquitous now, so I imagine there'd some form of walkie-talkie system. Ortega had a wrist-communicator in the last thread, Trace had one now, so I imagine you all have something similar. I believe Ice Warriors have communicators built into their helmets.



Sorry, yes, all your Story Points have reset for the current adventure.

Furthermore, as I had promised, you all get 5 bonus Story Points, in reward for the GM-plotting/railroadiness of the opening adventure and set-up. Plus, this adventure could be a bit hard.


After some private discussion, I feel I should give you some notes on my GMing style.

I cut my RPG teeth on D&D 3.5, and that's really the only other system I run; the other is someone else's homebrew and is almost free-form. I manage the Realms of Adventure community here on RPoL, and I've been DMing there for almost ten years. I've seen some stuff. A few of my players are rules-lawyers and power-builders, so I've had to be a stickler for rules to negotiate. Generally, I get it right.

I don't consider myself an adversarial GM, I don't play against the PCs. Instead, I try to keep things dramatic and interesting, and still try to tell the storylines I've developed. I don't make notes on the campaign/adventure though, as I keep forgetting to look at them. It's all in my head, carried around for years. It keeps me flexible when circumstances change. I'm not good at encounter design; my players tend to run rampant over them. My last battle took seven months to play out. But I often do detailed battle-maps when needed. If a party is a very strong, I try to thrash them, but generally I'm pretty lenient, even too lenient. The only time I've killed PCs was when there was something to resurrect them immediately, and it became part of the plot. I'll go with player requests and plans on almost everything. My players do love my NPCs: they all have personalities, stories, motivations, and plans of their own.

Now, I'm fairly inexperienced with the DWAITAS system. I ran the first game on RPOL when it first came out, it lasted a year, but I really only skimmed the GMG and missed a few things. The players just dwindled away and I didn't have time to pursue them while I finished my degree. That was years ago, and I'm coming to it fresh again now.

This system doesn't offer much guidance on picking difficulties for rolls, let alone set specific levels; almost everything seems to be GM's guess. A lot of the system comes down to GM interpretation. I don't view damage to an attribute as an injury; it could be a minor impediment and easily healed later. Not everything needs a Story Point to be made into a success; problems are more interesting when played out until they can be dealt with in-universe.

I tend to just roll the dice to see what happens, to use the results as a guideline for description, whether the results are important or not, and to practice the mechanics. Just because I call for checks doesn't mean it's important.

So, if you think I've made a mistake, I'm misunderstanding some aspect of the rules, or I'm setting things too hard, please feel free to query it. You can do it here in the OOC so we can all discuss. I'm not shy or afraid to admit when I'm wrong.

There are six of you, and I can't remember all your traits all the time. If you have something relevant in a situation, if you have something that could give you information, if you are playing something up for a story point, or wish to invoke some negative, then please nudge me to let me know and discuss it. Otherwise, I'll tend to forget these more often than not.

Finally, I feel Doctor Who is something that covers a lot of different genres, and I intend to cover a few. This module is SF horror, and I've been playing that up as you should see. I'll be doing comedies later. :)

Well with the RPoL roller; I'd use up all my story points pretty fast if everything needed to be a success. I don't usually do that myself, unless it's a "if we don't succeed the game stalls" kinda thing. I prefer to use them before if it's that kind of situation anyway.

I like games like this, and the Eden studios cinematic unisystem games; because they encourage RP more; and encourage a more 'working -with- the GM' aspect; whilst DnD, especially 3.5/Pathfinder I've found, promotes a 'player vs GM' feel. Also, powergaming feels more self-defeating in it; whilst in DnD (as an example) it feels that a certain amount of powergaming is necessary.

Thanks for the notes though. I haven't noted any issues myself, but if others have I'll freely give my opinion on it.

-melts into a pile of mush-

You just made my day with the reference to Blinovitz. Before there were timelocks; we had the Blinovitz Limitation Effect. We never knew what that actually -was-, but we had it!

Thanks to the Time Travel Companion, we now know what it is and how to use it. And it's magnificent. :D

I always felt reasonably confident on the BLE in the past, but then, I read a lot more novels. :)


BTW, a note: This being the early 41st century, 4031, the closest TV story to our era is Dalek's Masterplan, in the year 4000. Obviously, the technology in the game is much more advanced than what we saw there. Heck, technology in 2015 is more advanced than what we saw there. Same with fashion. But it's a lost serial anyway. Though I do research, I'm not going to try to mimic one lost 60s serial. A lot can happen in 30 years. So, technology is sufficiently advanced, what you'd expect of modern far-future-set SF with galactic travel. The Tech Level is 7: "Advanced Interstellar – Far Future Earth, no Time Travel, Transmat".

Insanely sick. Off work until Thursday, maybe not back to posting till the weekend.