One of my main concerns leading up to the game was a thought about group size.
As I may have already suggested, the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game seems to centre much more around creating complex narrative, plot and character events than it does around battle, levelling or growing the character's skills. Much of the challenge I see facing me as a newbie GM is in finding ways for the player characters to grow and develop over time through plot-related enhancements or disablements (for example, picking up a horrible phobia as a result of a particularly terrifying ordeal, or gaining telepathy through exposure to some Alien technology.
I have two groups running. One is a set of five players, making up The Doctor and four assistants. The other is a set of three players, with The Doctor and two assistants. I had worries about how the larger group would function, narratively. Partly down to this issue of providing focus on each character through narrative and also down to the historical issue of multiple companions in Doctor Who's history.
During Peter Davison's time as The Doctor, he found himself with three companions. Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. It's generally accepted that this was too many and that, half the time, one of the companions got left behind in the Tardis or written out to avoid overcomplicating the plot.
Having said that, Big Finish have successfully produced great audio dramas featuring the Fifth Doctor with Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough (perhaps it's just the Adric "sucking" factor).
Adric. Quite possibly the cause of all Suck in the universe.
But how does this relate to my fears over running a tabletop game? I'm keen for each of the players to be abe to contribute in an adventure. Using their skills, getting a bit of personal plot - these are the things I'd find rewarding as a player. It would be dreadful to have an adventure where a companion is just so much baggage. The other challenge is that the way to manage a multi-character Doctor Who story is to split up the party and have different action in different places.
This approach seemed like an advanced skill for a GM and not something I really wanted to take on too soon. However, it actually came pretty naturally. During an initial monster chase, the more fighty characters set off after the figure in the dark, while the investigative characters stayed behind to unlock a bit more of the mystery.
In fact, despite my concerns over five players being an over-large group, for Doctor Who purposes, it actually worked very well. It made it easier to split the party for a short while, since each player still had at least one other player to bounce off and it allowed for building up to a quite natural, multi-narrative cliffhanger.
All of which was supposed to be brought to a thrilling climax by me suddenly playing the Doctor Who theme tune. It would have been a great moment had I not accidentally clicked the Sonic Screwdriver sound effect instead...
...vworp vworp...
