Mister Tripp and Company

This past Sunday we kicked off my new Doctor Who campaign.  Shelly and Jack came over, and, since we moved it to a day he wasn't working overtime, Tom decided to join in.  I had a nice little low-key introductory scenario in mind where a group of present-day Earthlings are amazed to discover that there's a great gonzo Doctor Who cosmos out there.  I was putting some last details together while they passed around the Player's Guide to make their characters.  Then Shelly asked me if she could play a 51st century time agent.

Technically, it's one of those special options that the GM can freely rule out, but - come on - how could I ever show my face at a convention again if I told a player in a Doctor Who game that she couldn't be a time agent?  And what kind of GM can't work around a little surprise?  Also, I'm trying to win over a bunch of hard core T&T fanatics to a new game, so I have to use all the enthusiasm I can find, right?

So here's what we ended up with:

• Alan Tripp (Shelly): a time agent who looks like James Marsters but isn't the same character as the one he played in Torchwood.  Alan grew up in a colony on Skaro, an attempt to re-settle the planet at a time when the Daleks were thought to have been destroyed.  Alan likes to be called "Mister Tripp" and has a broken vortex manipulator (basically Shelly can spend story points to make it do stuff, but it's otherwise useless).
• Sally Kingfisher (Jack): waitress at a pizzeria who would shortly develop a crush on Alan. Sally wants to be a veterinarian.
• Rick Waters (Tom): manager of the same pizzeria and Sally's jealous boyfriend. Fairly clever but a bit oblivious and flighty. Although not technically adept himself, he always seems to have the right thing in his pocket.

Everyone took their time on the characters (except Tom, who always breezes through that stuff) partly because I was the only one who had played the game before and partly because it's a point buy system, so it's never going to be one of those "roll up a character that you'll most likely kill before morning and rock on" games.  Still, with attributes on a point-for-point scale, only twelve skills, and traits that only get complicated if you want them to, it's a quicker start than a lot of games I've played.

Anyway, the point is, this wasn't going to be a long session.  Aaaand, I think I'll go to bed now and finish this later.