Converting Time Lord to Action! System Time Lord ™ is a 1991 game based on the British television show “Doctor Who.” Out of print, it has been made available online as freeware by the authors and even had a rules supplement, Time Lord Journies ™, published almost a decade after its “demise.” Time Lord has been described as an excellent Doctor Who reference book with a rudimentary role-playing system tacked onto it (hence the supplement). It cries out for an Action! System conversion. Time Lord Abilities vs. Action! System Attributes Strength = Strength (STR) (Control + Move)/2 = Reflexes (REF) (Size + Weight)/2 = Health (HLT) Knowledge = Intellect (INT) Determination = Will (WIL) Awareness = Presence (PRE) Time Lord uses eight abilities whose values range from 1-6 (but can creep up to 10 for aliens). The highest stat seen for published alien species is 8. The average value is 3, just as in A!S. Most Time Lord abilities would translate to Action! System attributes as follows: TL = A!S 1 = 1 2 = 2 3 = 3 4 = 4-5 5 = 6-7 6 = 8-10 7 = 11-13 8 = 14+ The exception is Strength, which for some odd reason tops out at 5 for normal humans instead of 6. Past value 5, the conversion goes up exponentially: TL = A!S STR 1 = 1 2 = 2 3 = 3-4 4 = 5-7 5 = 8-10 6 = 11-16 7 = 17-18 8 = 26-29 Special Abilities vs. Traits and Skills Most Time Lord special abilities (e.g., Archery, Stealth) are clearly skills in Action! System terms and have logical A!S counterparts. Special abilities act as a bonus for ability rolls. This creates a lot of leeway in determining appropriate skill levels for Action! System. TL = A!S Skill Level 1 = 1-3 2 = 4-6 3 = 7-10 Some special abilities are equivalent to existing A!S traits or would be better handled as traits. For the purpose of conversion, a special ability with a value of 1 equals a Convenience-level trait, of 2 an Edge-level trait, and 3 a Gift-level trait. Animal Empathy = Psychological Advantage Bench-thumping, Cheat Death, MacGuffin, Resourceful Pockets, Serendipity = Lucky Fast Reactions = Fast Reflexes Gloating = Psychological Disadvantage Hypnotism = Psychological Advantage Independent Spirit, Indomitable Will = Strong Willed Iron Constitution = Hard to Kill Keen Sight, Refined Palate, Sensitive Nose = Acute Sense Leaping, Running = Athletic Pain Resistance = High Pain Threshold Photographic Memory = Eidetic Memory Quick Recovery = Fast Healer Regenerative Powers = Physical Advantage Special Immunity = Immunity Striking Appearance = Attractive, Distinctive Features Strong Passion = Psychological Advantage or Disadvantage New Traits Animal Empathy (Psychological Advantage) gives a bonus to Animal Handling skill rolls, representing a character’s innate ability to get on well with animals. Hypnotism (Psychological Advantage) gives a bonus to Persuasion and perhaps Orate skill rolls, enabling the character to dominate another’s will. Regeneration (Physical Advantage) goes a step beyond Fast Healer, enabling a character to re-grow destroyed organs and missing limbs. Gallifreyan Time Lords use this ability to avoid death in cases of catastrophic injury or illness. In Action! System terms, the player creates a new character that may, or may not, have some of the skills and memories of the previous character. New Skills TARDIS is a Transportation group skill, a specialty of the sub-skill Starships. It enables a character to pilot the various time machines built by the Gallifreyans. Even Time Lords don’t fully understand these complex vehicles, however. Skill rolls should never be allowed to interfere with a good plot device. Temporal Science is a Sciences group skill, a sub-skill of Physics, represents a character’s understanding of the wonky physics and metaphysics involved in traveling through time and alternate dimensions. Transmat is a Technical group skill, a specialty of the sub-skill Operate Electronics. It enables a character to operate the teleportation devices common to the Doctor Who universe. Random Who-ness Time Lord characters tend to be Cinematic (35 attribute points, 75 skill points) while their human companions tend to be Realistic (25 attribute points, 50 skill points). Of course, some humans are more capable and some Time Lords (although they are loath to admit it) are less capable. All Gallifreyan Time Lords have the traits Hard to Kill, Regeneration, and Strong Willed. They also tend to have Science and Technical skills out the wazoo. Of course, they have to pay for all this by taking on disadvantageous traits such as Duty (the Time Lord High Council is keeping an eye on them), Distinctive Features (Always Wears a Ten-Foot-Long Scarf Regardless of Climate), Psychological Disadvantages (Cosmic Clown), or Enemy (Evil, Conquest-Bent Monsters-of-the-Week). Gadgeteering. Sometimes a character desperately needs to improvise with technology, possibly to achieve outrageous results. For instance, a character might attempt to cannibalize a transistor radio and a toaster in order to build a sonic disruptor. Existing Action! System Science or Technical group skills should be used for this. However, depending on what the character is trying to do, the GM may require the expenditure of an Action Point or two in addition to a good skill roll. Alien characters have the same starting attribute and skill points as human ones. Aliens sometimes have unusual abilities (natural armor or weapons, enhanced mental or physical capabilities, etc.) best represented by traits. A Time Lord convention is that the more of these a character has, the more alien he appears (increasing levels of Distinctive Features). A character with a single Edge or a couple of Convenience-level traits might pass for human. A character with two or more Gift-level traits won‘t be able to help standing out in a crowd. Time Lord is trademarked by Ian Marsh and Peter Davrill-Evans. It can be downloaded on several web sites, including http://www.geocities.com/sege1701/TimeLord/main.htm and http://www.torsononline.com/hobbies/timelord/timelord.pdf . Time Lord Journies is trademarked by Nathaniel Torson and is also available free online. Doctor Who is trademarked by the British Broadcasting Corporation and is free only if your local public television station still airs it. Test Drive Let’s see how the (first) Doctor comes across in A!S. He’s a vain, fussy, intense little man who appears to be in his late sixties. He’s not the galactic Galahad his later incarnations would become but an eccentric meddler, supremely confident that he always knows better than the ignorant savages (humans) he finds himself among. His fashion sense is Victorian, not necessarily a bad thing for a time traveler except that he inhabits the London of the Swinging Sixties. His Time Lord abilities are: Strength 3, Control 4, Size 3, Weight 4, Move 2, Knowledge 6, Determination 7, Awareness 4 That would give him Action! System attributes of: STR 3, REF 3, HLT 4, PRE 5, INT 8, WIL 11 That leaves 1 leftover attribute point to spend on traits and skills. His Time Lord special abilities are: Strength-based: Cheat Death 2, Iron Constitution 2, Regenerative Powers 3 Control-based: Bench-Thumping 1, Blunt Weapons 1, Fisticuffs 1, Stealth 1 Move-based: Running 2 Knowledge-based: Astrogation 1, Cryptanalysis 2, Detective Powers 1, Electronics 1, First Aid 2, Law 2, MacGuffin 2, Medicine 1, Pseudoscience 1, Robotics 1, Science 1, TARDIS 1 Determination-based: Indomitable Will 1 Awareness-based: Acting 1, Bargaining 1, Bureaucracy 1, Disguise 1, Eloquence 2, Intuition 2, Refined Palate 1, Sensitive Nose 1, Striking Appearance 2 First, the Doctor’s traits. He’d have Hard to Kill (Edge, 5), Strong Willed (Convenience, 2), Regeneration (Gift, 10), Lucky (Edge, 5), and Acute Senses (Convenience, 2). We’ll have to balance those out with disadvantageous traits. He’d also have Distinctive Features (Wild Hair, Victorian Fashion Sense, Hardship, -5), Psychological Disadvantage (Always Knows Best, Hardship, -5), Secret (Alien From Another Dimension, Peril, -10), and Dependent (Granddaughter, Hardship, -5). That gives him a second attribute point to covert to skill points, so he has 95 to work with (75 starting plus 20 from attribute point conversion). Acting, Astrogation, Bureaucracy, Cryptography, Deduction, Disguise, Electronics, First Aid, Intuition, Medicine Group, Melee Weapons, Persuasion, Robotics, Sciences Group, TARDIS, Trading, Unarmed Combat, Stealth, MORE Name: The Doctor Power Level: Cinematic Campaign: Doctor Who Action! Score Attr Roll (+3d6) 3 STR 6 3 REF 6 4 HLT 4 5 PRE 10 8 INT 16 11 WIL 22 13 DEF 6 INI 7 TGH 34 LIF 7 MOV Damage: 1d6+2; Lift: 50 kg; Persuasion: + ; Awareness: + ; Armor Mod.: ; INI Bonus: ; Stunned: 17; Run: 14; Sprint: 28 Trait Effect Cost/Value Acute Senses (+3 to Skill Rolls), 2 Hard to Kill (4 TGH vs. Penetrating Damage), 5 Lucky (+1 Action Point), 5 Regeneration (Heals 3 Times Faster, +6 to Medical Skill Rolls), 10 Strong Willed (-3 to Persuade), 2 Dependent (Granddaughter, Minor), -5 Distinctive Features (Wild Hair, Victorian Fashion Sense, Concealed with Effort), -5 Psychological Disadvantage (Always Knows Best, -6 TN, CS 10), -5 Secret (Alien From Another Dimension, Peril), -10 Cost Skill/Group Score Roll 3 Acting 3 3 Bureaucracy 3 1 Clubs 3 5 Cryptography 5 3 Deduction 3 3 Disguise 3 5 Intuition 5 20 Medicine Group 4 5 Persuasion 5 20 Sciences Group 4 5 Small Arms Group 1 (Includes Energy Weapons) 15 Technical Group 3 (Includes Astrogation, Electronics, Robotics, TARDIS) 3 Trading 3 1 Unarmed Combat 3 3 Stealth 3 Start Pts.: + Disads: + Exper: = Total: Attr.: + Advan.: + Skills: = Spent: History: Although his neighbors know him as an eccentric inventor, in reality the Doctor is a virtually immortal alien time traveler who fled the highly regimented society of his home world in a stolen, obsolete time machine that his inexpert tinkering can barely keep operating. The Doctor is a vain, fussy, intense little man who appears to be in his late sixties. He’s not the galactic Galahad his later incarnations would become but a cantankerous meddler, supremely confident that he always knows better than the ignorant savages (humans) he finds himself among. His fashion sense is Victorian, not necessarily a bad thing for a time traveler except that he inhabits the London of the Swinging Sixties. He lives with his granddaughter, Susan.