| QUOTE |
| Okay, so I'm kind of keen to get into Doctor Who RP. The thing is, sometimes I feel with a big board, Doctor Who can lose something. Everyone wants the Doctor's attention at some point, and there's this whole big massive world, whereas a lot of Doctor Who stories involve travelling around through time and space. Generally speaking, you can't take a whole big world with you (yes, I'm aware that there are exceptions :p) So (flashback time) I run a Batman RPG (yes, I know that's more of a flash present, but bear with me :p). It's pretty darned active and yay at the moment, but there was a time around the end of last year when things looked kind of bleak; not a lot of activity and there were times when I thought about giving up and closing. Amongst this, there was the thought of closing the board down to public application, holding onto a few core players in central parts and running a small game, maybe 5 people or so. The game would have basically run one story at a time, instead of all different people in different places doing different things (although obviously, different characters might be active in different places at any given time).We'd all come together to think of story ideas, work out NPC's that need to be played, key scenes that would need to happen, scenes we just wanted to happen, potential ways for character development and interaction within the frame of the story and that kind of stuff. Fortunately, my board became way active and this never came up, other than in discussion with one of my players. Before that, I'd considered the idea at least once before, I think. For a while, I ran a Buffy board which got pretty big and at times, it felt a little clunky and I considered the possibility of a similarly small scale Buffy RP, basically just centreing on a Slayer, her Watcher and group of Scoobies. Obviously, with the events of Chosen, this became even more viable as other Scoobies could be Slayers, although too many other Slayers would obviously make things a bit dull. Since then, I was also part of a group who were going to run a Firefly game based on similar principles, just focusing on Serenity's crew. So yeah, it's kind of a recurring idea to me, so I guess I must quite like it. I figure that with a Doctor Who RP, you have a Doctor, be a bit generous and have up to three companions so that there's a few more people to play with and just work out stories to play through with that group. If things work out with that, in time, you could find people to play Torchwood folks; have them run their own stories, maybe have a crossover from time to time. Then, if that works out nicely, move onto Sarah Jane Adventures, recruit a Sarah Jane, Maria, Luke and Clyde. Again, separate stories, but with occasional crossovers, or at least the potential for them. Anyone think it could work? Or is it a terrible idea? There are at least a few problems I can think of immediately. -First, regarding recruitment, if you went advertising on a whole bunch of boards. If you were lucky (and I use the term loosely) you could get a whole bunch of applicants. At most, you can take on three, which is probably going to lead to a lot of hassle. -Alternatively, you could make it invitation only, find a group of players who you know are capable writers and who have an interest in playing in the setting. Of course, if you don't know enough people who fill the bill, then that doesn't really work. -Activity would be an issue. If anyone suddenly disappeared on you for any length of time, things could grind to a halt pretty quick. I guess you would have to be willing to step up and say 'yup, we can't wait, this guy needs to be NPCed.' Any other problems folks can think of? Or are there any exciting advantages which you think make it totally yay-worthy (and which make you want to follow the idea through yourself and invite me aboard :p)? |