The Doctor Who Role-Playing Game Club (DW-RPG)

The interesting thing about RPGs, no matter what genre you prefer, is the fact they're configured exactly as a film or television series.  The rules are your basic character limitations, the GM is your director and the players are the characters.  But more importantly, RPGs have special books providing invaluable backgrounds and settings, helping the players and GM with understanding the RPGs' scenario better.

When I had purchased The Doctor Who Role-Playing Game, I really had no intention of establishing a club, nor orchestrating one together.  The original intent was for me accessing better research material from the BBC series.  This way Fanger could be safely integrated into the series without any more faux pas like the Peter Cushing Incident.  The television shows and literature--regardless of the well-conceived plots and episodes--had provided little, if any, background information about The Doctor and his Universe.  Therefore, recalling how TSR is extremely thorough with their mythical realms, I presumed FASA had done the same for Doctor Who.

Meanwhile, my family and I had recently moved to Baytown, and my father got a promotional job at Crosby Middle School.  He was now an Assistant Principal, rather than a teacher.  Consequently, because Crosby was such a small town, my father was also considered an administrator.

Bill Cosby had once indicated the problem when you're a (presumed) genius, people have this appalling habit of ignoring the fact you're still normal. Because I could read at 2 1/2 years, I was always being tested and retested, ending up in advance classes, until I had nearly burned out on educational venues.

Calculating this into the equation, because my dad had become an administrator, many had gone under the misapprehension I was exceptionally well-suited for specialized school activities.  So when I had become a Freshman at Crosby High, I had ended up being shanghaied into yet, another extracirricular scheme.  This time I was requested in creating an afterschool reading club, designed for both Middle and High School students, in hope of improving academic reading skills.

Not that I discovered the concept being distasteful, the idea just didn't appear very practical.  For most of you recall, school meant getting up at the crack of dawn, and starting classes around 7 a.m.  You'd  have classes non-stop--with the occasional homeroom period and lunch break--until about late afternoon, then you furiously had to recall exactly what assignments needed to be done at home.  In all the while, you also had ensuring you didn't miss the bus home.

Taking all this into account, the last thing anyone wants to do is stay after school, meeting within the Athletics Building, and talk about books which you're supposed to have read.

Nevertheless, I had found myself committed to at least attempt such a venture.  The tentative membership had consisted about ten people.  Due to this extremely last-minute bombshell, I had unwittingly brought my DW-RPG stuff to the Athletic Building.  Totally amazed, I had discovered every person there was an avid Whovian.

Derik, one of our members, had come across some of my FANGARIUS sketches and preliminary background sheets, everyone had become sold upon the prospect of forming an RPG Club.  Before I had immediately jumped into this, I had first explained some basic guidelines.  Naturally, the club had to be kept secret from the school district.  Despite the RPGs winning the war, there had still been some restrictive rules not permitting the playing of RPGs on campus.

Another was prophetically breaking the strict perimeters of role-playing, making our club more of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format.  One reason was due to the time constraints, we couldn't realistic set up a proper RPG game, or environment.  The other was, I had felt this essentially avoided the dreaded Syndrome (TCLS), and allowed every member to participate equally in the series itself.

Last, but hardly least, in keeping with the original intent of the club, my only major requirement was each FANGARIUS episode contained some type of reference from famous written works and/or subtly deal with current issues. 

Basically the way an episode worked was this:  members would propose concepts and story ideas for Fanger, we'd vote on one, and I'd work on a beginning script, then we'd go from there, like a genuine episode.  Thus, FANGARIUS and The Doctor Who Role-Playing Club was established.  But as with all good things, Fanger had to have a start, and in the next brief entry I'll tell you about the Preliminary concept behind FANGARIUS, which would become the cornerstone of the Paranormal Wolf-Being's Tales through Time and Space.