Primetime Adventures: Bachelor Who

Last night we played the pilot episode of our irreverent, late night cable, non-canonical Doctor Who spin-off show, Bachelor Who. Another glorious Primetime Adventures roleplaying game, with a group of people who’d never done any indie-gaming, shared-gamemastering type stuff before. It was tremendous fun.

The Bachelor is the Doctor’s younger brother, played by Bradley Cooper affecting an English accent. He’s basically drinking and whoring his way across the universe, hitting on anything female. His TARDIS looks like a refrigerator.

Angela Scherschewski is a conspiracy theorist, nerd, and socially inept recluse who works the graveyard shift at the morgue. She’s played by Selma Blair.

Christina Hendricks plays a nameless, amnesiac alien who crashes to Earth in the pilot, pursued by militaristic squid-like aliens for reasons she doesn’t understand.

Lt.  Col. Richard Rhomsdahl is a retired Navy SEAL who owns a bar. He’s played by former CIA agent and non-actor Mike Baker.

Aiya is an alien student doing the equivalent of taking a semester off to backpack through Europe, except she’s just generally hanging on Earth. She’s played by Jewel Staite.

Professor Harry Feck is a traveling showman, con man, and mad scientist. He’s been seen in the trailers but did not appear in the pilot. He’s played by Tom Waits.

The game starts out in Boston. The Bachelor’s fridge appears in Richard’s bar right before closing. Aiya is leaving after last call; Angela is just getting there as they close. There’s a crash in the alley, and the nameless amnesiac appears; upon investigation by the others (except Richard, who can be seen through the window trying to move the fridge because it’s blocking the TV and he wants to watch SportsCenter), the nameless alien throws up on the Bachelors shoes. He takes off his shoes and pants, and spends the rest of the episode walking around in his boxers and socks.

The squid aliens appear, there’s a big firefight, everyone end up retreating into the TARDIS, and they take off.

Doesn’t sound like a big episode, but it was the pilot, there were a lot of characters-getting-to-know-each-other bits, and a lot of good action.

The dynamic was good. The group is unusual in that it’s four women and two guys as players — yes, a game group where women outnumber the men (for those of you looking at the characters, the Bachelor is played by a woman). All of them are reasonably experienced in playing traditional roleplaying games, but only one other person had gamemastered, and I was concerned about the shared storytelling aspects of PTA. That’s why I decided to just be the producer, to help guide things, and not play a character. By the fourth scene, everything was under control and I was surfing on my laptop looking for good pics of the actors they’d chosen for their characters. They took to it like a duck to water.

Everyone had a lot of fun. PTA is a good choice for ensemble cast-type shows, a better choice for a group this size than the actual Doctor Who RPG, and it gave everyone a chance to participate even. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the season unfolds!