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So, what do you guys think would be vital skills to be included in a theoretical Doctor Who RPG?

RPGPundit

Adaptability, the skill that covers making it up on the fly.

Improvised weaponry, the ability to use anything from a toaster to a sonic screwdriver in a deadly way. Bonuses added when combined with science!

All skills should be kept very broad, and divided by time periods: primitive, modern, futuristic, time lord

Science, mostly about knowledge
Craft, making stuff from science
Combat (maybe divided into ranged and close, but not necessarily)
Pilot, maneuvering anything from a boat to a TARDIS
Psychology, knowing your enemy and giving comfort to your friends
History, aka the When are we? skill
Art, doing pretty stuff with all sorts of mediums, and knowing about the pretty stuff others do

There's probably a few more that could be added, but I can't think of them now.

I'm not sure about splitting up skills by time period - it seems to be an additional layer of complexity that the game doesn't need (since it's meant to be for beginners).

How about this: all companions (ie, non-Time Lords) specify a native time period, and initially get a penalty on skill rolls when dealing with technology, science, and ideas from a different time period (perhaps slightly more harsh for future time periods than from past ones). After a certain number of adventures - say, at least 2 adventures in different time periods from their own - this penalty ends up going away as the companions in question become "citizens of time" - a feature of the show I've noticed is that after their first few adventures companions end up quite used to the whole time travel idea, and become more and more adept at learning how unfamiliar tools in their areas of expertise work - computer hackers quickly learn to adapt to unfamiliar systems, fighty types end up able to use a variety of weapons with ease, that sort of thing.

Oh, and some skill ideas that haven't been mentioned yet:

Sneaking & Hiding - should probably be one skill rather than splitting it into multiple stealth skills.

Research - ranging from scouring the Library of Alexandria for a vital clue to locating important information in a planetary database.

Disguise & Acting - the Doctor and his companions frequently have to pretend to be locals.

Persuasion - Both the Doctor and his companions end up saying things like "You've got to listen to me! We're all in terrible danger!" a lot of the time - this'd be the skill which helps determine whether an NPC says "Well, it sounds crazy, but better safe than sorry..." or "Nonsense! All of our failsafes are in perfect working order - I can assure you that the experiment is perfectly safe!"

That might work too. Although if the penalty goes away too quickly you'll end up with Peri coming on board with an incomplete botany degree and leaving after eight episodes able to tell someone how to build a starship. Most of the companions show an improvement in their knowledge before they leave, but it's never drastic enough to completely overshadow their old skills.

My reasoning was that you'd have to split it somehow, otherwise nobody with any ranks of Science has a reason to be surprised that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the outside. If Peri comes on with a few ranks of Modern Science and has to buy up to Futuristic then she has the opportunity to study laser cannons without automatically knowing it.

It wouldn't have to be complex, especially if each higher level also encompasses all levels below it. I think most gamers, can tell the difference between broad terms like "primitive" and "modern". This would be doubly true for gamers coming into the hobby because they're fans of Doctor Who. A short paragraph under each skill giving examples of the four time periods should be plenty.

An alternative would be to have a large skill list, so Peri is just a Botanist. But if you do that then you have to give Time Lords some racial ability that lets them buy a lot more skills than anyone else, otherwise your system can't model The Doctor or The Rani very well.

Quote from: James McMurrayThat might work too. Although if the penalty goes away too quickly you'll end up with Peri coming on board with an incomplete botany degree and leaving after eight episodes able to tell someone how to build a starship. Most of the companions show an improvement in their knowledge before they leave, but it's never drastic enough to completely overshadow their old skills.

If you lump in all technological knowledge as "science" it would, I admit, end up a bit like that. Perhaps there should be a split between "biology" - botany, medicine, zoology, stuff like that and "hard science" - physics and chemistry. In fact, I'd generally advocate splitting knowledge-based skills relatively finely - companions tend to get better at their own area of expertise as opposed to learning new ones, after all. (Perhaps the cost of learning entirely new skills should be quite expensive, compared with the cost of boosting skills you already know).

EDIT TO ADD: Also, "building a starship" isn't really something that the Doctor - or his companions - ever really get around to doing. They never stick around in one place long enough to get really stuck into long-term projects, so I'd get around the problem of Peri being able to tell someone how to build a starship by saying "actually, she can't: she can use her Science/Starships/Pilot skill (whichever is appropriate) to intuitively work out more-or-less how it works and what the different buttons on the control panels do, but that doesn't equate to knowing how the entire thing is built in the first place." In other words, companions get a shallow understanding of technologies beyond their time period which allows them to muddle through for the purposes of an adventure, but which isn't sufficient for undertaking long-term projects or understanding the specifics of how things work. They might know what button to press to turn off the 5-dimensional cold fusion reactor, but they couldn't show you the trans-spatial equations which make it work.

As long as you've got different skill setups for time lords and everyone else, that'd work.

Quote from: RPGPunditSo, what do you guys think would be vital skills to be included in a theoretical Doctor Who RPG?

I'd give companions (A) a Time Period, (B) a Profession, and (C) a Personality.  Give them a handful of attributes and a bonus if what they are trying to do involves any of (A), (B), or (C).  As for The Doctor, he can do just about anything he needs to do.  

Let me put it this way, can you think of an episode where the detailed skills of a companion played a huge role in how things turned out?  If so, then what skill or skills?

Escape artist?

Quote from: John MorrowLet me put it this way, can you think of an episode where the detailed skills of a companion played a huge role in how things turned out?  If so, then what skill or skills?

Weapon skills, mathematics, and diplomacy jump to mind. Romana had tons of skills that proved useful, but she cheated by being born a Time Lord.

Similarly, just about any companion who turns out to be an alien (and there's several) turns out to have special abilities or skills that are highly relevant.

Let's see, what else...

Jamie McCrimmon was a Highland warrior whose main contribution was to provide muscle. Leela was an amazon from a distant planet who did much the same.
Liz Shaw was a UNIT scientist who frequently got to use her expertise - in fact, she seemed to be the Doctor's intellectual equal.
Adric was a maths genius who in his last appearance fumbles his Hack Spaceship roll...
K-9, of course, is a sonic screwdriver shaped like a dog.
Ace: two words: Explosives Skill.

There's plenty of instances of companions using their particular skills to help out the Doctor, and I'd argue that this sort of companion is far more suitable for an RPG treatment, especially in a game for beginners; while other companions were distinguished more by personality than by skills, that's the sort of thing which is difficult to handle in a traditional RPG, and the story game approach wouldn't be especially appealing or approachable to 13 year old Dr Who fans.

Leela also used her stealth skills a lot. Ace killed cybermen with a slingshot, and daleks with a baseball bat. Nyssa was another scientific type who sometimes seemed the equal of the Doctor. Even one of the first companions, Barbara, got a chance to shine with her knowledge of Aztec culture.

Quote from: James McMurrayEven one of the first companions, Barbara, got a chance to shine with her knowledge of Aztec culture.

Fun fact: Doctor Who was originally pitched to the BBC as an educational series, the idea being that the Doctor would roam around history and he and his companions would teach kids about it. That idea fell by the wayside pretty early on, but there's still a few artifacts of it in the early stages of the series - that's why the Doctor's original companions were his daughter and two teachers, for example, and why there were so many historically-themed stories in the first few seasons.

Quote from: James McMurrayWeapon skills, mathematics, and diplomacy jump to mind. Romana had tons of skills that proved useful, but she cheated by being born a Time Lord.

Yes, I'm not counting Time Lords because they can do almost anything well, even though technically Romana was also a companion.  But can you name a specific episode where a companion's weapon skills were critical to what happened?  As for diplomacy, I'd personally want to role-play out the interpersonal interactions which are certainly key to a lot of what happens in the show.

ADDED:  Yes, I know you talk about Ace using a slingshot and a baseball bat but do you imagine the character having a "Slingshot" skill and a "Baseball Bat" skill, an "Armed Combat" skill, or maybe just a generic combat value, if she were written up in the game?

Quote from: WarthurSimilarly, just about any companion who turns out to be an alien (and there's several) turns out to have special abilities or skills that are highly relevant.

Can you name some specific examples of how they were relevant, from specific episodes?  To be honest, your descriptions sound a lot like lists of Risus clichés.

Quote from: John MorrowCan you name some specific examples of how they were relevant, from specific episodes?  To be honest, your descriptions sound a lot like lists of Risus clichés.

Well, Kameleon's shapeshifting abilities were relevant in The King's Demons and Planet of Fire...

Quote from: WarthurWell, Kameleon's shapeshifting abilities were relevant in The King's Demons and Planet of Fire...

OK.  But how would you represent that on a RPG character sheet?

Quote from: John MorrowADDED:  Yes, I know you talk about Ace using a slingshot and a baseball bat but do you imagine the character having a "Slingshot" skill and a "Baseball Bat" skill, an "Armed Combat" skill, or maybe just a generic combat value, if she were written up in the game?

I'd probably just make it a generic combat skill. Let damage ratings differentiate between punching someon in the face and smacking them with an electrified baseball bat.

Simple is best. Doctor Who should be about traveling through space and time, not digging through skill lists.

I wouldn't do Dr Who with skills, I would use traits as in Risus or OtE.  I think that would get far closer to the series, indeed for almost any tv series emulation I would use traits over skills and if I did use skills I'd keep them very broad as Buffy does.

Cop shows/investigation shows are an exception actually, I'd do the Shield or CSI with skills, but Dr Who is not an investigation show or a cop show.

Quote from: BalbinusI wouldn't do Dr Who with skills, I would use traits as in Risus or OtE.

Precisely.  Characters in Doctor Who very seldom exhibit specific skills, but rather proclivities or talents.  Things like "Monkey-Wrenching" or "Bench Thumping" are far more common than "Drive Automobile" or "General Combat".  Granted some characters have specifics, like Zoe with "Astrophysics" and "Applied Mathematics", or Martha with "Contemporary Medicine".

!i!