 |
| "I wear a bow-tie now. Bow ties are cool." |
I came downstairs to
sit at the dining room table and write and roll dice, a clump of Doctor Who RPG
Sourcebooks under my arm. My
housemate Jay, sitting on the couch looked up from his laptop, noticing my
armload. “So how is it?”
I marshaled my
thoughts. “It’s…actually
really good, to be honest. In the
right setting. It doesn’t really
work for playing magical characters or finessed swordfighters or…time travelers, but
for simple, non-complex games it works really well.
 |
| I like the Stats here much better than the ones for D&D to be honest. |
Like, you’ve got the six attributes1 and twelve skills, you
add your flat attribute and skill and roll 2d6 and boom, that’s what you get
for everything. But it’s kinda
cool, like, if you beat the Difficulty by enough you get bonuses (you’re able to hack
the computer AND the files are organized easily). But if you fail by a little, it’s not too bad (You don’t
hack it, but you can try again).
But if you fail by a lot, it’s
bad AND it gets worse. (You don’t
hack the computer, and it activates a silent alarm that alerts the guards to your location.)”
“That’s…pretty cool.”
“Right? Like I
said, it works really well for simple things. I mean, look at this character sheet.”
 |
| The back has more or less all the actions you can do, which is really useful for quick play. |
Jay squinted at it. “Kinda sparse.”
“Yeah. There’s only twelve skills. Which is cool, I mean, I love D&D, but…there’s a lot to
keep track of. Here there’s like,
just Attributes and Skills. Oh and
gadgets and stuff. But yeah, with
the skills, you can specialize if you have enough ranks. So, at Knowledge<4>2 I can
Specialize in History and Literature, and I get bonuses to any Knowledge check
involving books or history. Same
for Convince, I can Specialize in Bluff or Intimidate or things.
 |
| Wouldn't it be cool to see Medusa vs. The Weeping Angels? |
“You wouldn’t get in, but you could see file names and
things and learn something?”
“Exactly. The
Dungeon Master…Storyteller, whatever, could give you enough info to get on with
the story. Wait, damn, I’d
probably take negs because Space Medusa is from a different technology
level. There’s negs for using tech
not from your general time-period.
So I can’t use things as easily from beyond Space-Faring Tech Level,
since that’s the modern day, you take a -2 per tech level. It’s less for things before now, only
-1 per tech level, because history, we kinda know it.”
“Are there feats?”
“Traits. That’s
kinda a problem, actually. There
need to be a few more of them, they’re kinda sparse and either don’t do much
(like, they only give ±2 to skills) or they give you Telekinesis. You can substitute Telekinesis for any
physical challenge, so if your Resolve is high enough you basically you get to win
at everything. Fighting, running,
lock-picking…”
“Arson, Weddings, Art…”
“Shush you.”
Miriah, on the couch,
chimed in, “I mean, weddings could be physical challenges…”
 |
| Madame Vastra resents your implication of Impropriety. They are Married. |
“Anyway, it’s kinda ridiculous. I’d make people spend story-points to activate it, balance
things out.”
“Story Points?”
“Basically move-the-plot-along coupons. You can spend them to make things
happen in your favor or, oh this is the cool thing, make things go wrong for you to gain storypoints for
later use. Like, getting captured
so you can get the plot going would net you some storypoints to use to make one of the Guards susceptible to your diplomacy.
“I like that.”
 |
| "I was dressed for GURPS!" |
"Sounds neat. You should leave it on the counter so I can read through it. Oh, also, I think you'd like this Kickstarter. It’s called Odin’s Ravens and it’s –”
“Wait, hang on, Facebook it to me. I’m gonna go write down the conversation so that I can turn it into a blog.”7
“Okay. And
after that you should teach me how to make footnotes appear when you talk.”
“Witchcraft.” I winked and rushed to type everything up
before I forgot it.
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