On the occasion of completing reviews on Doctor Who's first series on Disney+, I should like to re-imagine it as a role-playing game campaign using Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG. (Go back one, to 60th Anniversary Specials.)
Russell has probably bitten off more than he can chew with the campaign's tight schedule. He has a tight window in which to carry his plans to term, and as it turns out, he'll have trouble getting him and his players in the same room on the scheduled dates. He's also going to swing it more than usual in terms of plots, letting inspiration strike him during games to decide even where his meta-plot is going to take them. He may or may not come to regret it.
The Players
-After playing one and a half games, Ncuti has more of a handle on what he wants to do with his Doctor. He sees him as an extreme pacifist or empath who feels it every time someone dies, even if that someone was a villain. As a gay player, he also decides his PC will be overtly gay and tells the GM so, as to encourage romantic subplots of the right order.
-Millie is deeply interested in what the GM has prepared for her, but does find that gruelling schedule difficult on her personal schedule. She even leaves it open at the end of it as to whether she'll return for more!
Tales of the TARDIS. In the interim between games, the last batch of sessions and these, Russell creates the concept of the "Remembered TARDIS" for the RPG club's mailing list to play with, encouraging past players to post about their favorite game sessions from the past, in the style of little Play-be-Email conversations. A dozen players take him up on it.
Space Babies. As this is Millie/Ruby's first in-TARDIS adventure, Russell arranges it so, between him and Ncuti, a lot of the concepts of the game are explained, and that requires a fairly simple scenario. A base under threat, a gross monster in the basement, a mystery, some silly humor. Millie is delighted by the idea of talking babies and both players amuse themselves with daycare-in-space stuff.
Attributes: Awareness 3, Coordination 3, Ingenuity 1, Presence 2, Resolve 4, Strength 6
Skills: Athletics 2, Fighting 2, Subterfuge 1, Survival 3
Traits: Alien, Alien Appearance, Alien Senses, Fear Factor 3 (when it howls), Natural Weapons: Teeth/Claws (Strength +2 damage). Story Points: 2
Home Tech Level: 5, but can't use equipment
The Devil's Chord. Russell had made a promise to Ncuti, in his first game, that the "children of the Toymaker" would come to threaten his Doctor. One of these is the outrageous Maestro, a physical manifestation of music that robs the world of its tunes. The GM asks the players to name a musician from history to visit, and then spins his plot elements around their choice - Millie's answer: The Beatles. It's a bit anything goes, and once music is restored, the group actually improvises a song around a title generated by Russell: There's Always a Twist at the End. After their improvised singing in the Christmas game, he knew they'd do well with it.
Boom. This game is centered around a single land mine that the Doctor is meant to step on. Can Ncuti and Millie figure out how to disarm it over the course of a single session? Things get worse and worse, both through scripted elements and bad player decisions (mostly Millie's - she almost gets killed, but comes just short of adding Unadventurous to her sheet). Ncuti does a lot of heavy lifting to find a solution, proposing bonkers ideas and rolling well to make them viable.
Attributes: Awareness 4, Coordination 2, Ingenuity 3, Presence 3, Resolve 5, Strength 3
Skills: Convince 2, Knowledge 3, Marksman 3, Medicine 6, Science 3, Technology 2
Traits: Alien Senses, By the Program, Dark Secret, Impaired (does not have proper limbs), Indomitable, Machine, Natural Weapons: Smelt (4/L/L), Networked, Obligation (the Villegard, Major), Robot. Story Points: 4
Home Tech Level: 6
73 Yards. Here's where the schedule starts to break down. There's actually a date Ncuti can't make, so Russell plays the Doctor as an NPC in a frame tale, gives some necessary exposition, then leaves Millie alone with the scenario. It's a take on Russell's own Turn Left from years before, where Ruby is given a strange ghost and must find a way to use it to unravel an alternate timeline where an evil spirit has taken over an already dubious Prime Minister. Given this much attention, Millie starts to really get the hang of things and comes out of it a player with more agency.
Dot and Bubble. More scheduling problems, but it's Russell who can't physically be present at the table. He doesn't/can't postpone so they play it on Zoom, interacting with a doomed planet's citizens through its social media platform. The gap between all of them inspires Russell to make this about terrible people who don't want the PCs' help, frustrating the players to no end. Russell chuckles to himself, but it looks like Ncuti takes it pretty seriously.
Rogue. Russell has become a fan of the television show Bridgerton and stages an adventure scenario in that world; Millie recognizes it immediately as such. Indeed, even the GM's aliens are cosmic "cosplayers" who are fans of the show. But while the "more agency" version of Ruby goes out to investigate matters, the Doctor meets a handsome and flirty bounty hunter called Rogue. So there's a lot of fun interaction, but in the climax, Russell is playing Ruby as if she'd been killed and replaced. Once she's in the Doctor's trap, Millie is handed her sheet back and allowed to explain how she COULD be alive. The players can't find a resolution to this deadly dilemma, so the GM gives them an out by having Rogue sacrifice himself. It's also at this point that Russell has the players roll to notice the woman in a painting has a face they've seen in every time frame, which sets up a mystery leading into the next story.
Attributes: Awareness 3, Coordination 4, Ingenuity 4, Presence 4, Resolve 3, Strength 3
Skills: Athletics 2, Convince 3, Craft 2, Fighting 3, Knowledge 3, Marksman 3, Science 2, Subterfuge 3, Survival 2, Technology 3, Transport 2
Traits: Attractive, Charming, Cutting Edge Technology, Inspiring Love (The Doctor), Obligation (to "the boss", Minor), Psychic Training, Quick Reflexes, Run for Your Life!, Time Agent (of a sort). Story Points: 8
Home Tech Level: 7 (Equipment: Raygun, Cloakable ship, Trifrom trap)
The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death. The two-part finale is one where Russell has to give the players some answers. He throws a lot at the wall - UNIT and their time window technology, an old enemy of the Doctor's called Sutekh, a mystery woman who might have been his granddaughter Susan but is a pawn of the "One Who Waits", links to previous stories like the bad PM... And some of it comes from the players themselves, including Bonnie who returns once again to play Mel: Ncuti decides to run into a time window's TARDIS as if it were there, reasoning this is the Remembered TARDIS from the mailing list! Mel allows herself to be possessed by Sutekh! Ruby loses a lot of agency in this tangle of continuity, taking her cues from the others, but is rewarded with answers as to who were biological mom is. A perfectly ordinary woman? Russell and Ncuti work out a certain logic for it, and that's what shared storytelling is all about. Generally, though, the furious pace and strange solutions (including how the monster is defeated) are a function of letting the players make leaps in logic and accepting them. The PCs part ways at the end, though Millie has a return ticket if she wants it.
Russell plans to give her a rest and not include her in the next Christmas game, but he's sure she'll be back after that. Ncuti is a bit teary about her departure, though. He doesn't seem as confident...
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