Tardis

[Akahige]

The latest version is here.


I'm not sure how to deal with a vehicle that only moves by teleporting. It would seem to need only HP instead of ST, but then how do you judge Payload? (question answered) Here's what I have so far. Please feel free to question it!


TARDIS

Attributes:
ST 0 (No Manipulators, −40%; Size, −80%) [−40];
DX 0 [-200];
IQ 5 [-100];
HT 12 [20].

Secondary Characteristics:
SM +2 (exterior) / SM +10 (interior)
HP 890 (Size, −80%) [356]; ("5 x 10 ^ kilos")
Basic Speed 3 [0];
Basic Move 0 [−15].

Advantages:
360° Vision [25];
Accessory [1];
AI [32];
Danger Sense [15]; (cloister bell / HADS)
Dedicated Controls 6 [60];
Detect (environmental condiditons) [30];
Doesn't Breathe [20];
Doesn't Eat or Drink [10];
Doesn't Sleep [20];
Enhanced Time Sense [45];
Hyperspectral Vision [25];
Indomitable [15];
Insubstantiality [80];
Invisibility (Affects Machines, +50%; Extended, gravitic/magnetic/sonar, +60%; Substantial Only, −10%) [80];
Jumper (Time; Naked, −30%; Warp Jump, +10%) [80];
Lifting ST 890 (Size, −80%) [534];
Longevity [2];
Machine [25]; (perhaps without Unhealing?)
Morph (Cosmetic, −50%; Retains Shape, −20%) [30];
Payload 10 (six cabins, plus miscellanous space) [10];
Pressure Support 3 [15];
Protected Senses (Hearing; Taste/Smell; Vision) [15];
Sanitized Metabolism [1]; (no oil leaks, etc.)
Sealed [15];
Temporal Inertia [15];
Unfazeable [15];
Vacuum Support [5];
Warp (Blind, +50%; Hyperjump, −0%*; Reliable +10, +50%; Warp Jump, +10%) [210].

Disadvantages:
Automaton [−85];
Mute [−25];
Neutered or Sexless [−1];
Noisy 1 [−2];
No Manipulators [−50];
No Sense of Smell/Taste [−5]
Numb [−20];
Social Stigma (valuable property) [−10]



* Since the −50% version of the Hyperjump limitation amounts to 1 light-year per year, and the −25% version allows 1 light-year per day, I've interpolated some values to get the following table...

c * 1 (−50%) = one light-day per day
c * 3 (−45%)
c * 10 (−40%)
c * 30 (−35%) = one light-month per day
c * 100 (−30%)
c * 300 (−25%) = one light-year per day
c * 1k (−20%)
c * 3k (−15%)
c * 10k (−10%)
c * 30k (−5%)

[The Strange Dude]

Not being leery but why stat it? I'd personally just use gm fiat and save myself the headache.

[EtVous]

Actually, I think the TARDIS is a micro-dimension of its own. It's manifestation in other dimension is the familiar police box. The fact that the door positioning is the valuable effect.

Do you really need to give stats to everything? It is said that the TARDIS is undestructable and that the door could not be broken down once closed. That would be worth quite a few points.

[The Strange Dude]

Originally Posted by EtVous

Actually, I think the TARDIS is a micro-dimension of its own. It's manifestation in other dimension is the familiar police box. The fact that the door positioning is the valuable effect.

If you want to get technical (well technobabblial) The tardis is a mathmatical construction within the vortex. The part that materializes is the real world interface and it's indestructability is mainly due to the fact that it exists primarily in another dimension. God I never realised what a geek I was ;)

[Amy]

Originally Posted by Akahige

TARDIS

Why don'y you make it a Gate: Time and Teleport. You'd opperate it with Control Gate.

Remember Clarke's Law :)

[Akahige]

Originally Posted by The Strange Dude

Not being leery but why stat it? I'd personally just use gm fiat and save myself the headache.

Why stat anything then? Maybe that'd work with a unique plot device, but a TARDIS isn't unique. Many were built, and there were several different models.

Originally Posted by EtVous

Actually, I think the TARDIS is a micro-dimension of its own. It's manifestation in other dimension is the familiar police box. The fact that the door positioning is the valuable effect.

Do you have a suggestion on how to describe this in vehicle terminology? (Yes, it'd probably be easier once the two new Vehicles books come out, but I'm impatient.)

Originally Posted by EtVous

Do you really need to give stats to everything? It is said that the TARDIS is undestructable and that the door could not be broken down once closed. That would be worth quite a few points.

People have stats and vehicles have stats. It's perfectly reasonable to assume a semi-intelligent vehicle has stats as well. As for durability, I'm trying to lean toward the more realistic accounts. Although the TARDIS' structure might survive a nuclear blast, the internal mechanisms and payload certainly wouldn't. That's why the earlier Doctors actually showed reasonable concern about such things, before the era of the indestructable "Super TARDIS".

Originally Posted by The Strange Dude

If you want to get technical (well technobabblial) The tardis is a mathmatical construction within the vortex. The part that materializes is the real world interface and it's indestructability is mainly due to the fact that it exists primarily in another dimension. God I never realised what a geek I was ;)

This is one of those things that make it hard to translate into GURPS. There are no abstract concepts like that made into meta-traits, so I have to approximate the effects instead. If you've noticed anything in my write-up that's inconsistent with how the TARDIS interacts with the world, please mention it so I can improve.

Originally Posted by Amy

Why don'y you make it a Gate: Time and Teleport. You'd opperate it with Control Gate.

I'm trying to stay away from high-fantasy things like that, since the TARDIS is supposed to be scientific. If there were an actual Gate advantage that didn't necessarily work on magic, that might be fine.

Alternately, if you really like the notion of Artron energy and all that cheeziness, you might say the TARDIS has a mana co-processor and works just as you say. Perhaps there's something in Technomancer that would be similar to the effect I'm interested in, but I'd prefer to design it with technology alone.

[GoodGame]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Akahige

I'm not sure how to deal with a vehicle that only moves by teleporting. It would seem to need only HP instead of ST, but then how do you judge Payload? Here's what I have so far. Please feel free to question it!


TARDIS

Like other people were saying it was basically a pocket universe, like a D&D Bag of Holding. The interior was like an infinite maze if you went thru the door opposite of the front doorgate.

A gate to another universe/dimension, that can warp linearly in the same dimension as ours.

Problems were that the gate controls required maintenance / exact piloting, else the warp would be uncontrolled. Or is there a background secret as to why Dr. Who's Tardis never went to the same place at will (just by accident)?

[Kale]

Originally Posted by GoodGame

Problems were that the gate controls required maintenance / exact piloting, else the warp would be uncontrolled. Or is there a background secret as to why Dr. Who's Tardis never went to the same place at will (just by accident)?

The Doctor's TARDIS was an older model that was very beat-up. The controls were rather 'wonky'. Also, TARDIS's are semi-selfaware, and the Doctor's is stubborn and cranky. On a couple occasions he gets it to work by whacking the control panel with a hammer.

I've considered statting the TARDIS in GURPS a couple times, and it's really difficult because not everything about the TARDIS is well defined. The series has a lot of contradictory statements about it. Based on the most recent series, here's the general parameters, and I've also included some alternates where the series contradicts itself:

Consists of two parts; the Interior and the Exterior.
The Exterior is a projection into physical space. It can be configured into any approximately wardrobe-sized object, and takes on ALL the physical characteristics of that object, including mass and texture. The projection is managed by a system called the 'Chameleon Circuit'. The Doctor's TARDIS's circuit broke during the 1960's, so his TARDIS is stuck as a police Call Box, and the Doctor has given up trying to fix the system. The Chameleon Circuit, when functioning properly, disguises the Exterior as a 'native' feature such as a rock, big tree, shed, pillar, or whatever it determines would not look out of place in the surrounding areas. To maintain the disguise it takes on the material and texture of the object (wood for the police call box, stone for a rock, etc) and has the weight one would expect the object to have. (i.e. the police box weighs as much as a wooden police box should weigh, and can be picked up and carted around on a truck or the like.) It is, however, only a projection into real-space. Despite taking on the weight and material of its disguise it is for most purposes indestructable. Damaging it would require hitting it with heavy-artillary (direct hit) or setting off a small nuke.

GURP-ifying the Exterior:
Morph (simple objects only)
Very High levels of DR


The Interior is much more complicated, as it is a pocket universe. It is connected to the exterior through a dimensional bridge. The bridge is two-way, allowing the TARDIS's sensors to see out into the real world, and people to enter and leave via the doors. The exact size of the TARDIS has never been nailed down accurately in the series, all though once the Doctor jettisoned 25% of its mass for an emergency manuver, loosing a few rooms. It's generally agreed that it has the equivalent of a suite of apartments, a couple tennis/squash courts, auxillary control rooms (2), wardrobe room, and several other rooms. It was generally agreed that it was quite possible to get lost inside the TARDIS, so there's probably quite a bit more to it than this.

GURP-ifying:

This gets very 'squishy' and is usually what causes the most grief. I've given up trying to directly stat it, but here's some considerations:

Reciprocal Damage (inside is damaged as per the outside via the dimentional bridge)
Pocket Universe (Very Large building to small city sized, depending on interpretation of the series)
Life support (lots)
Vacuum/pressure support (hard to deal with, since this relates more to the Exterior than the Interior, but the Interior is actually where the crew is located... silly dimensional transindentiality)
Warp (anywhere)
Time Travel (anywhen)
Planar Shift (also dimension hops)
Crew Requirement: This varies wildly depending on who you talk to. Some sources say it only needs one, others it claims up to seven. I would say two or three normally. Part of the Doctor's difficulty in piloting his TARDIS might be that it's just him at the controls.
Interior DR: probably similar to the exterior, although possibly lower.

The 'Mind' of the TARDIS:

The TARDIS is sort-of alive. It is self-aware and forms a sort of Telepathic bond with its pilot. Again, the effects of this are not consistantly described through the series. The one recurring theme is that the TARDIS seems to be able to plant ideas or concepts into its crew's minds to warn of impending danger. It also 'remodels' the mind of anyone entering the TARDIS so that they can understand all languages spoken by any being through a psychic link of some sort. (major plot simplifier, eh?)
One other inconsistancy is whether or not weapons can be fired inside the TARDIS. An earlier season maintained that the TARDIS was in a state of 'Temporal Grace' that would not permit any weapons to fire inside it. In other episodes though, weapons have functioned normally inside the TARDIS.

GURP-ifying:

The Mind is really hard to Stat. It is so alien that I would even hesitate to assign it an IQ score. Maybe a form of extended, specific danger sense? (only danger to the TARDIS, subtle signs)? The language gift is also impossibly valuable, so again, statting it is hard. Perhaps some form of 'Gift of Tongues' spell? Perhaps as a 4th ed. wildcard spell with the '!' after it?
The 'Temporal Grace' is again really hard to stat, and it's not a 'confirmed' feature of the TARDIS.

Over all, there's enough to consider that I'd probably just hand wave anything should my players ever encounter one. Rolling dice for the TARDIS is just so complicated. It doesn't even remotely fit on the GURPS TL scales; it's definately a Weird Science device.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kale

GURP-ifying the Exterior:
Morph (simple objects only)
Very High levels of DR

I'm not sure there'd be such a restriction on the Morph, I'm pretty sure they can turn into plants, animals and vehicles, it's just not a generally good idea since it doesn't move very quickly through normal space.
I'm pretty sure I've also seen episodes where the Tardisses would fly or hover.

I'd probably just call it Morph, (Cosmetic Only -50%)
Flight, (Move 4)

(I think in one episode the Master's Tardis even turned into a person, which the Master had to operate from the inside with his controls and semi-telepathic bond, manipulation was done with force fields and tractor beams, [even though it looked like hands], so a Tardis may technically have Manipulators but it is much more likely those items are extra equipment with additional controls, probably allies.)

A Tardis also needs myriad levels of Compartmentalized Mind, most of which with Controls.

Part of the problem Dr Who has, is he's a weak telepath, so his control of his Tardis is pretty weak as well.

As for DR, since it's a mathematical construct, the outside of the Tardis is not actually a separate entity. You can't take a prybar and open it, you can't take C-4 and crack it, you can't use a laser or a nuke either.
If you disrupt the mathematical equation enough, you can cause a Tardis to cease existing, but you can't actually damage the outside without damaging the whole.

The outside of a Tardis is also somewhat like the antenna on a car, or a periscope on a submarine, though the Payload may be more vulnerable than normal.

I'd probably give it Homogeneous and Supernatural Durability for starters, then I'd give it at least 1,000 Ablative DR and 1,000 ST/HP to go along with Regeneration (Slow or Normal), and maybe even Unkillable (2 or 3).

[Akahige]

I guess until one of the new Vehicles books explains how to stat 3e's "extradimensional interior", there's no way to know what the "proper" way of expressing it in 4e is. By the way, to my original post up above, I've added some notes in red.

Maybe the problem I'm having with the suggestions given is that most of them are based on the later-era explanations of the TARDIS' abilities. Speaking from a historical standpoint, whenever a conflict of info arises, any "Who facts" detailed in early episodes must take precedence over the inventions of later writers.

Perhaps more importantly, I'm trying to make a "realistic" version of the TARDIS. With that as a stable base, players and GMs can add their own finishing touches if they wish.