DW RPG: Schread, Part 1

I want to discuss a few things about the new Doctor Who role playing game, and I'll start by discussing the character I created for the playtest: Schread. Odd name, yep, but what the hey.

Characters have attributes, skills and traits. The basic mechanic is attribute + skill + 2d6, and try to beat the target number. There are degrees of success, but that's a different post. Traits modify the roll, may be good, may be bad.

When trying to come up with a character, I had, like, five minutes of looking through the book. The traits looked interesting in helping to define the character, and there was one in particular that drew my attention. Feel The Turn Of The Universe. It read as "you feel the ebb and flow of the world around you, and can tell something about the world if it is wrong." When I read that, I parsed it as "be a plot conduit for the GM." Don't know what's going on, could do with a hint? Feel the Turn of the Universe and get a pointer.

And decided to base the entire character around that. Now, in the published system, this trait is only available to Time Lords. Schread is not a Time Lord, so it would up to the GM if this would still be allowable. [The background I came up with for Schread could easily still work, even with that requirement.] Good start.

I then developed that Schread would be the feeling one in the group. Feel the Turn of the Universe, and Feel the Feelings of others around us, in an almost psychic way. (Yep, Deanna Troy.) So picked up other good traits: Empathic, Keen Sixth Sense and Voice of Authority (quite useful for getting my side across).

However, there is more than good traits available. I like Bad traits, as they can also suggest interesting character aspects. Schread is androgynous and bald (an 'alien', but not in the sense of the Alien trait) (although technically no sex, we ended up using 'she'), so Distinctive became a pick. Also took Technically Inept as though she was empathic, she was a complete klutz around anything technical (which was a useful character help at one point). I also wanted a 'dependence' type trait, where she clings to Smith (our Time Lord in the game, a CIA agent). Couldn't find anything immediately suitable, eventually settled on Erratic, whereby in a combat situation, if she saw that Smith was in trouble, she would stick with him to try to help, even if running away was the better option.

Lastly, I took Amnesia. There's a minor level (some loss) and a major level (complete loss). I went for the major, whereby she couldn't remember before a certain point in time when Smith got her free of some situation, as it gave lots of plot development space.

Traits are the most interesting part of character creation, I thought. Next time, I'll get onto the Attributes and Skills and other bits.

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