The Humble RPG Bundle has got quite a few people saying they’d love to role play Doctor Who but haven’t got anyone to play with.
I know some people role play online and wondered if it was something we could attempt on here. I’ve been looking at some advice online about how this could work.
I’d be happy to be ‘gamemaster’ first time round but did wonder if anyone had experience of role playing like this.
So is anyone interested?
My little local friends group tried to do RPGs over the internet during Covid to mixed results. I think we used a web-based program called Roll20 and used Discord for voice chat. It worked semi-okay, but we all determined that in-person roleplaying is much better.
In this case, maybe try a very regimented, text-only one-shot. Like say, determine a date and time (UK vs USA time differences might make this hard), limit it to say a couple hours and determine who all is playing before hand. Then, work out essentially a table order and stick to a rigid turn-based system based on that (in essence to avoid the confusion of several people trying to type over each other, though I suspect that’ll still happen to a little extent). The GM would have to write the one-shot fairly detailed so a large portion of their storytelling/descriptions/responses are just copy-paste. Maybe have everyone use the thumbs-up response to indicate that they’ve finished reading the GM’s post. Just kinda throwing out ideas here, but does that sound like a method worth trying, @deltaandthebannermen?
Hmm - maybe. It definitely needs to be finite for the first time. I’ve got a couple of ideas about how it could work but I think it would need to be open for people from all time zones to take part if they want to.
If we have enough potential interest, I’ll come up with a plan for how it could work.
I’ve played some DnD with friends before, only in person, but I’d be interested in giving this a try
One blessing/curse of both everyone having the books and everyone being Doctor Who fans is that while everyone being able to look up and discuss the rules if issues arise, there’s also a high risk of meta-gaming.
Haven’t actually roleplayed on a forum with an actual rpg book we were using. I did do some free form roleplaying on forums with basically no rules, or rather limited ones.
Was fun, but time was definitely a factor. There were many times when I totally missed out on something that was going on because it was at a time I was busy or asleep, or, conversely, I was there but very few other people were.
Suggestions here would be that:
a) we should have a separate category for any roleplaying being done.
b) there should be a separate tag for the particular campaign.
c) there may be multiple threads for the same game. An introduction thread, where you post your characters (and people might be playing multiple, so you’ll probably want to identify your character in every post), and threads for different locations. (There may be some people out exploring and some back in the TARDIS, for example.)
d) Make sure to establish rules about how SFW/NSFW things are early…
All excellent points/ideas. I shall continue to formulate my ideas. I’m ‘doing a shauny’ and off on holiday on Wednesday for a week and will set things out on my return.
I’ve done TTRPGs both in person and online, and in person tends to flow much, much better. I think doing it over text rather than voice would probably slow it down far, far too much to be viable.
Text-based I’ve only done story RPs, like @SweetAIBelle mentioned, which have very basic rules (like “don’t be rude” and “don’t control other people’s characters”) and generally don’t use a guide book, especially when they’re based on an existing universe that everyone is very familiar with, like Doctor Who. Most the ones I played didn’t even have a GM, and everyone worked together to let the story grown naturally. Those tend to work best with small, dedicated groups, but as they’re not turn based they can be active pretty much 24/7.
Both forms of play die off within a month 4/5 times, though. It’s just a matter of everyone wanting to keep it going and being available to do so. Whichever one we do, I’d be happy to play.
I’d be happy to give it a go, but very new to this so I’m not even sure how it works.
If we need voice then of course the Discord is there.
Let’s see what ideas you come up with!
I’ve personally also done one group with pbp (play by post) where we’ve got a discord server and every day send a message or so to continue the story
Takes a lot longer than voice chats for TTRPGs, but takes a bit of teh pressure off scheduling and lets you take it at your own pace which is really nice
Personally I’d love to try running a pbp torchwood game or something like that
Just had a thought for the US/UK time difference problem. We could have a campaign of two teams (read that as time dilation/two different doctors unknowingly tackling the same problem, similar to the novel Wolfsbane or the Tennant/McGann vinyl from TLV).
Oh an adventurer’s league style thing where you’re all playing characters in teh same world that you can take to different tables could be super fun
GMs each run one shots and anyone who’s free when the GM is running them can join, and it’s all tied together by the home base of the time agency
All of these sound like great ideas that sound like they could be a lot of fun.
I’ve DMed D&D quite a bit. In-person is easier but, during the Covid lockdowns, I played a lot online and it can work with Discord VC and Roll20 as long as people are respectfull, stay on topic and don’t talk over others. I also played with Americans during that time (I’m British) so the time zone difference is surmountable but they were east coast so closest to the UK.
There are actually multiple Doctor Who RPGs, 2 of which are still sold currently (both by Cubicle 7):
Any game would need to decide on which system to use.
Also, both of these systems have pre-written adventures and I would suggest sticking to those when starting out as writing original adventures can be hard and very time consuming. It’s easier to learn the ropes with a pre-written adventure.
Indeed - it was the Humble Bundle of all of these which prompted this line of thought.
Yes I’m aware, but any group will still need to pick which one to use.
Count me in with SweetAIBelle and USS who have roleplayed online but in a text-based, non-gamebook style format. It was limited to either one other person or a very small group, and there was no plot; the story moved along naturally.
I’ve only played DnD once before and that was in person. It seemed very involved, and I’m not exactly sure how it would translate to an online format, though I know it’s been done before. I think I have the DW roleplaying books (digital), but I’ve never read through them.
I’m not yet committing to playing along, but I am curious how gameplay will work.
I haven’t read TRP, but D&D feels like it’s meant as a halfway point between dungeons and dragons 5e and TRP, and TRP is fully designed for Doctor Who, so imo that would probably be the better one to go with
I haven’t forgotten about this - just haven’t had the time to sit down and think about how to do it. I will pull something together, hopefully by the end of the summer holidays.
Thinking about this more, sort of want to run a PbP 5e Torchwood game