TIME Agents (An Adventure in Space and Time game)
Jan 22, 2016 20:32:53 GMT -5
OurLadyWar, Dhark, and 1 more like this
Post by dorkknight23 on Jan 22, 2016 20:32:53 GMT -5
"Ah, Brigadier, here to see me off, are you?" He was all teeth and curls, a bug-eyed stranger in a long scarf and coat stood in front of a blue police box strangely placed in the middle of a laboratory.
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's mustache hardly twitched. He had gotten used to the Doctor's eccentricities, regardless of which face he wore, "Doctor, do you really have to leave so soon? I was hoping you would help us with a matter..."
The Doctor snapped back, "I'm most certain you were, but I really must be off. All of time and space isn't going to be seeing itself, you understand."
"Of course. You see, there's just one last matter of scientific advice I'd wish to ask you. There's this project, the Temporal Investigations and Maintenance Executive..."
The Doctor smirked, "TIME? What is it with you humans and your acronyms?" His face shifted in a split-second, and what had been manic glee had become a wry dourness, "Certainly you know as well as anyone that meddling in time is dangerous, Alistair, old boy?"
The Brigadier almost showed frustration at being referred to by his first name, but he remained the steely-nerved stoic commander the Doctor had begrudgingly grown to respect. "I thought certainly, with someone of your expertise, you could help select from these candidates..." He held out an accordion file full of names.
The Doctor's face sank, a man who stared down alien invasions terrified of paperwork. He was trying to get back into the TARDIS, but continued facing the Brigadier as he fiddled with the door, "Certainly this sort of – administrative responsibility – is far for me to decide. Perhaps you could ask someone else? Anyone else, perhaps?"
"I thought, this being your area of expertise..." He leaned in, he knew two ways to get the Doctor to do something: flatter him or challenge him. "...But, if you aren't up to it, I suppose I could make the decision mysel..."
The Doctor snatched the files and sped-read them so fast, it sounded more like he was folding a deck of cards. He then picked a few of them, "These ones."
"But, Doctor, can you be certain --?"
"One can never be certain, rather, one must never be; I'm certain of that much," the Doctor flicks the tip of his nose, bugs out his eyes, and grins maniacally. "I really must be off. I think I'll be having tea with Leonardo da Vinci, or I will have been. Best of luck, and you know how to call me..."
"Yes that, what did you call it, time and space telegraph?"
But the Doctor had already slammed the door to the TARDIS, which was dematerializing on his way to another misadventure. VWORP! VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!
The Brigadier furrows his brow in concern as he looks through the files, surprised that they were mostly ones he had been strongly considering himself. Could he have...? No, of course he couldn't. Lethbridge-Stewart shook his head and walked back to his office to make the calls...
*********
The United Nations Intelligence Task force is an elite military organization that is responsible for being the world's first response against extra-terrestrial threats. Formed in response to an incident in the London subway tunnels, UNIT has been there to protect humanity from multiple alien invasions, all of which have been shielded from the public and almost entirely classified. In many of these incidents, UNIT was aided by a mysterious shape-changing alien scientist calling himself The Doctor, who has currently abandoned his post as scientific adviser to return to his explorations in his time travel capsule, known as the TARDIS. It is a time period that is either the 1970's or 1980's, it's kind of hard to say. The precise date will be kept vague. A newly founded sub-division of UNIT, the Temporal Investigations and Maintenance Executive (or TIME), has been founded to protect the earth from extra-temporal threats and time-active travelers, in addition to exploring the past and future of Earth. They use jury-rigged scavenged time devices recovered from classified exercises and access to the full depths of UNIT's weirder applied sciences (including psi-ops, and advanced alien energy weaponry, among others.)
You are selected to be among the first crop of TIME agents. You most likely were recruited from or through UNIT or its shadowy sister agency the Torchwood Institute to be, essentially, time-travelling special ops. Along the way, you'll discover that humanity is far from the first time active species, and discover 'truths' (read: specious yet entertaining lies) about Earth. They'll travel to the distant past to the far future and along the way get increasingly embroiled as smaller players in a shadow war between time traveling species.
This will be a game run in Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG rules, using standard starting character creation rules. I have all the books except for the 11th Doctor sourcebook (and by the time this game actually gets off the ground, I'll probably end up getting that one too). Inspirations for this game include things like: the X-COM games, Chrono Trigger, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Men in Black, Time Bandits, and, of course, Doctor Who and the expanded Doctor Who universe.
FAQ's
"How much Doctor Who do I need to know?"
No Doctor Who knowledge is necessary to play beyond the vague description I gave above. The Doctor is going to be, at best, a guest star, and more than a few aliens from the show will appear, but I also have plans to do original stuff too. If you want to include show-relevant details to your characters backstory (a character with ties to UNIT might have previously assisted them on one of the cases the Doctor was involved in, for example). I am more than fine getting backstories with no such references as well as long as they make sense and are well-characterized. You might get a little more out of the game knowing the reference material I'm working with, but I don't expect you to be able to tell a Cyberman from an Ice Warrior from a Sontaran to get started.
"Do I need to know how to play the Beyond Space and Time game?"
Not really. The rules are pretty simple (it's all founded around two mechanics, rolling 2d6+modifiers against set difficulties (very similar to 3.5's d20 system) and “story points” which are basically ways to minimize your failures, emphasize successes, or steer the narrative a bit if necessary).
"Can I play..."
...I hope you can... oh, wait this is a multipart question?
"...a past companion of the Doctor?"
I'm not encouraging it, but, for the right concept, sure.
"...a rogue alien/robot/time traveler/special snowflake/etc.?"
I am not opposed to these concepts in theory, but with a caveat I'll explain now...
I intend this game to have a high mortality/character attrition rate. This is inspired by Doctor Who, but more by the terror at the periphery of Doctor Who, of the whole emptied bases the Doctor leaves in his wake, of nameless UNIT soldiers shooting at Cybermen or other invaders later being shown being decimated. Your characters can and will die, or desert, or just want to stay in the past or future, at which point I'll suggest you come up with a replacement character, and, as the story goes on and TIME gets access to more tech and makes more extraterrestrial contacts, I'll definitely allow you to trade in for such characters. Initially try and keep them a bit more earthbound, although they can be aware of the wider weirder world out there.
ROGUE TIME LORD CAVEAT: It is possible to build a Time Lord in the starting rules, although s/he'll be a bit lacking in the story point department, and in skills and attributes even more so. Such a character would probably be a member of the Time Lord Celestial Intervention Agency under deep cover. A mundane looking decoy character sheet might be necessary to complete the effect. Absolutely not advising anyone do this, but not completely restricting it either. Expect me to be a bit snippy about making such Time Lords or Ladies at start.
Interested? PM me and we'll talk concepts (or if you're familiar enough with the rules to make one up yourself, go ahead).
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's mustache hardly twitched. He had gotten used to the Doctor's eccentricities, regardless of which face he wore, "Doctor, do you really have to leave so soon? I was hoping you would help us with a matter..."
The Doctor snapped back, "I'm most certain you were, but I really must be off. All of time and space isn't going to be seeing itself, you understand."
"Of course. You see, there's just one last matter of scientific advice I'd wish to ask you. There's this project, the Temporal Investigations and Maintenance Executive..."
The Doctor smirked, "TIME? What is it with you humans and your acronyms?" His face shifted in a split-second, and what had been manic glee had become a wry dourness, "Certainly you know as well as anyone that meddling in time is dangerous, Alistair, old boy?"
The Brigadier almost showed frustration at being referred to by his first name, but he remained the steely-nerved stoic commander the Doctor had begrudgingly grown to respect. "I thought certainly, with someone of your expertise, you could help select from these candidates..." He held out an accordion file full of names.
The Doctor's face sank, a man who stared down alien invasions terrified of paperwork. He was trying to get back into the TARDIS, but continued facing the Brigadier as he fiddled with the door, "Certainly this sort of – administrative responsibility – is far for me to decide. Perhaps you could ask someone else? Anyone else, perhaps?"
"I thought, this being your area of expertise..." He leaned in, he knew two ways to get the Doctor to do something: flatter him or challenge him. "...But, if you aren't up to it, I suppose I could make the decision mysel..."
The Doctor snatched the files and sped-read them so fast, it sounded more like he was folding a deck of cards. He then picked a few of them, "These ones."
"But, Doctor, can you be certain --?"
"One can never be certain, rather, one must never be; I'm certain of that much," the Doctor flicks the tip of his nose, bugs out his eyes, and grins maniacally. "I really must be off. I think I'll be having tea with Leonardo da Vinci, or I will have been. Best of luck, and you know how to call me..."
"Yes that, what did you call it, time and space telegraph?"
But the Doctor had already slammed the door to the TARDIS, which was dematerializing on his way to another misadventure. VWORP! VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!
The Brigadier furrows his brow in concern as he looks through the files, surprised that they were mostly ones he had been strongly considering himself. Could he have...? No, of course he couldn't. Lethbridge-Stewart shook his head and walked back to his office to make the calls...
*********
The United Nations Intelligence Task force is an elite military organization that is responsible for being the world's first response against extra-terrestrial threats. Formed in response to an incident in the London subway tunnels, UNIT has been there to protect humanity from multiple alien invasions, all of which have been shielded from the public and almost entirely classified. In many of these incidents, UNIT was aided by a mysterious shape-changing alien scientist calling himself The Doctor, who has currently abandoned his post as scientific adviser to return to his explorations in his time travel capsule, known as the TARDIS. It is a time period that is either the 1970's or 1980's, it's kind of hard to say. The precise date will be kept vague. A newly founded sub-division of UNIT, the Temporal Investigations and Maintenance Executive (or TIME), has been founded to protect the earth from extra-temporal threats and time-active travelers, in addition to exploring the past and future of Earth. They use jury-rigged scavenged time devices recovered from classified exercises and access to the full depths of UNIT's weirder applied sciences (including psi-ops, and advanced alien energy weaponry, among others.)
You are selected to be among the first crop of TIME agents. You most likely were recruited from or through UNIT or its shadowy sister agency the Torchwood Institute to be, essentially, time-travelling special ops. Along the way, you'll discover that humanity is far from the first time active species, and discover 'truths' (read: specious yet entertaining lies) about Earth. They'll travel to the distant past to the far future and along the way get increasingly embroiled as smaller players in a shadow war between time traveling species.
This will be a game run in Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG rules, using standard starting character creation rules. I have all the books except for the 11th Doctor sourcebook (and by the time this game actually gets off the ground, I'll probably end up getting that one too). Inspirations for this game include things like: the X-COM games, Chrono Trigger, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Men in Black, Time Bandits, and, of course, Doctor Who and the expanded Doctor Who universe.
FAQ's
"How much Doctor Who do I need to know?"
No Doctor Who knowledge is necessary to play beyond the vague description I gave above. The Doctor is going to be, at best, a guest star, and more than a few aliens from the show will appear, but I also have plans to do original stuff too. If you want to include show-relevant details to your characters backstory (a character with ties to UNIT might have previously assisted them on one of the cases the Doctor was involved in, for example). I am more than fine getting backstories with no such references as well as long as they make sense and are well-characterized. You might get a little more out of the game knowing the reference material I'm working with, but I don't expect you to be able to tell a Cyberman from an Ice Warrior from a Sontaran to get started.
"Do I need to know how to play the Beyond Space and Time game?"
Not really. The rules are pretty simple (it's all founded around two mechanics, rolling 2d6+modifiers against set difficulties (very similar to 3.5's d20 system) and “story points” which are basically ways to minimize your failures, emphasize successes, or steer the narrative a bit if necessary).
"Can I play..."
...I hope you can... oh, wait this is a multipart question?
"...a past companion of the Doctor?"
I'm not encouraging it, but, for the right concept, sure.
"...a rogue alien/robot/time traveler/special snowflake/etc.?"
I am not opposed to these concepts in theory, but with a caveat I'll explain now...
I intend this game to have a high mortality/character attrition rate. This is inspired by Doctor Who, but more by the terror at the periphery of Doctor Who, of the whole emptied bases the Doctor leaves in his wake, of nameless UNIT soldiers shooting at Cybermen or other invaders later being shown being decimated. Your characters can and will die, or desert, or just want to stay in the past or future, at which point I'll suggest you come up with a replacement character, and, as the story goes on and TIME gets access to more tech and makes more extraterrestrial contacts, I'll definitely allow you to trade in for such characters. Initially try and keep them a bit more earthbound, although they can be aware of the wider weirder world out there.
ROGUE TIME LORD CAVEAT: It is possible to build a Time Lord in the starting rules, although s/he'll be a bit lacking in the story point department, and in skills and attributes even more so. Such a character would probably be a member of the Time Lord Celestial Intervention Agency under deep cover. A mundane looking decoy character sheet might be necessary to complete the effect. Absolutely not advising anyone do this, but not completely restricting it either. Expect me to be a bit snippy about making such Time Lords or Ladies at start.
Interested? PM me and we'll talk concepts (or if you're familiar enough with the rules to make one up yourself, go ahead).
Do I have to make a new sheet? Or can I just take the sheet that we had already and use that as is.
