The Campaign of the Doctor (Inactive)

Game Master Clebsch73

Welcome to the Campaign of the Doctor. The players selected in recruitment should post here and we will begin the process of character creation. Five players have been selected, which may make for a too large group but it could work. Or, we could split the campaign into two with a group of 3 and a group of two. It's also possible someone will drop out early, so let's just discuss characters and see what shakes out.

First step: I recommend you get access to a copy of the core rule book.

I've linked to the Drivethru RPG site which offers PDF versions for about $30. If you are really stretched for cash and don't want to spend that much, you can probably get by with the document I'll post with the basics of character creation and pick up the rest as we play.

There have been a number of editions, each with a picture of a different Doctor or Group of Doctors, but the rules are the same. Only some of the pregenerated characters shift with each edition.

Second Step: Propose your preferred idea for a character you would like to run (not the Doctor, at least not for starting out). I would strongly suggest you develop an idea for a character before going to through the character creation steps. The numbers generated for the character and the other perks of character creation ought to be selected to fit the concept. I'd rather you not start with the character creation rules and seek cool perks and abilities. This is not a system for players who want to min/max a character by diminishing everything as low as possible to allow one thing to be super high.

Suggested ideas for character creation:

*Play a character already in the TV show (preferably the series as it resumed in 2005). Stats are available for most of the companions and some of the other characters who have been involved with the doctor. I might tweak these if they are created with more points than the typical starting PC, but otherwise, this could work just fine. Some characters, like Jack or River, may not be available.

*Play yourself: We've all probably fantasized about being invited to travel with the Doctor. This is your chance. Let your own abilities, skills, and personality guide your character creation choices. Might want to change the name, though.

*Play a never-before-seen character of your own creation: This is what I expect most will want to do.

Whichever you do, think about a character's background, life experiences and career choices leading up to meeting the Doctor, as well as what motivates the character. Consider that some of the companions have come from people of modest means with no advanced education or serious professional calling: Rose, Donna, and Amy, for example. They distinguished themselves more by their grit and spunk and courage than by having any impressive skills or knowledge.

Part of the character creation should be the time from which she/he comes. See the list of time technology levels at the end of the Character Creation document. If from the present, consider what part of the world the character is from. While most of the companions in the series have been from the UK, in one of the comic books, the 10th Doctor has an American young woman from NYC and her friend, who is Asian-Canadian. No need to limit race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or anything else to fit any stereotypes.

One thing that is essential, however, is that the character has the right motivation and moral view of the universe to fit with the Doctor. No evil characters or characters who are just looking for ways to profit from the Doctor (note the fate of Adam in The Long Game). Sometimes, the companion needs to be the Doctor's moral compass, so they must have a strong moral compass themselves.

Third Step: Choose a link that would cause the Doctor to call you your character in time of need. If you are an established character, this is not necessary, of course, but all other characters must be introduced to the Doctor and drawn into a relationship with him. Some possibilities:

*Standard Companion story: Something draws the Doctor and the future companion together, a chance meeting usually, and after seeing the character can handle herself/himself under pressure and not resort to objectionable actions like shooting first and asking questions later, the Doctor invites the character to travel with him. This will conceivably be a time when the Doctor was between companions or traveling without his usual companion for a while.

*Enlisted to help: In some stories, the Doctor calls on help from people he has met and whom he trusts and respects. Notable examples include Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and A Good Man Goes to War, as well as the Paternoster Gang and Nardole.

*Thrown together by Circumstances: Time Heist is an example of this, where someone else drew together a team that included the Doctor.

*Friend/relative of a Companion: Rory's father, Rose's mother, Clara's students and the children for whom she is a nanny, and Micky are some examples of people who eventually traveled with the Doctor because of a connection to a companion of the Doctor.

*PCs may have connections before we start. Discuss this as you choose.

Once we have some sense of who will be playing what character, we can discuss the next step. I have not decided on a particular adventure to kick things off. That will depend on the characters. We could split into two campaigns if people want to work in smaller groups.

I've placed a link to a document with the character creation guidelines on the Campaign Tab. Check it out when you are ready to start working out the character details. As stated above, however, I strongly encourage you to work on the character concept first and only work on the stats and such when you know what you want the stats to define.

Something to get you thinking about the character of the Doctor (12th)

Similar compilation of the 11th Doctor

The 10th Doctor

Thanks for selecting me.

I am thinking about character concepts at present. This should be fun, lots of it. :)

All of Space and Time, at our doorstep. Pretty heady stuff! That is certainly one of the appeals of the series.

How do people feel about a game around a group that interacts with the world of the Doctor, but only interacts with the Doctor occasionally. UNIT, The Time Agency, Torchwood, Paternoster Investigations, etc. This would give us more flexibility in character types and open up the stories to us being heroes instead of sidekicks.

If the bulk of the group would prefer playing as companions to the Doctor, I’m in to that too. I have a few character ideas to roll out for both agency and companion games.

Interesting idea Meetch. Maybe it is easier to consider a campaign where the Doctor only appears occasionally. As the Doctor normally dominates in the series.

But the structure of the campaign is ultimately up to the GM. He has to run it after all.

When I mentioned it in the recruiting thread he made it sound like it was up to us. I can go with either (though my preference is Agency-based). Do you have a preference?

I think we should wait to hear from the GM about Meetch's suggestion, because people in UNIT, Torchwood, etc. *use guns*, while companions never do (I can't even recall a "modern" companion getting into a fistfight - they're usually grabbed or held at gunpoint - but my memory's far from perfect), which would make a significant difference in how we distribute our SP's among the Skills.

Also, GM : what are the in-game benefits/penalties for which Technology Level we come from? What's to prevent us all from saying we're from TL 12, and all have super-sonic screwdrivers (which would be commonplace for that TL)?

Well Jack Harkness, post-alternate reality Mickey and K9 were gun users, if I recall, but the point is well taken.

Of course, even if we have guns, we won’t necessarily want to use them often. The initiative system goes Running>Talking>Acting>Fighting, which discourages violence. Sure, Torchwood had guns, but they rarely solved all their problems by shooting their foes.

I'm really excited to be playing this, I can't wait to get started!

I like the idea of a group of people connected to the Doctor through their organization too, especially if we don't split into 2 separate groups. And of course we can make the organization whatever we want if we want to steer clear of soldier-oriented groups like UNIT.

Thank you for the selection. I'm downloading the sourcebook now.

I think, from the OP, our GM was looking more for a standard companion adventuring with the Doctor, but I would also like to here the GM's opinion.

I have a few character ideas and I'll see what I can put together.

We have lots of options regarding the type of organization we’re in. UNIT’s Black Archive and Torchwood are often more about research, investigation and problem solving and less about extermination. And the Time Agency might be that way as well. We know very little about them.

Before getting to questions, let me mention my work schedule so you can know when I'll tend to post. I am a teacher at a university that has classes that run in five week terms. The classes run Monday to Thursday. I sometimes teach days, which run from 8 AM to 1 PM with some time after that for grading and such. That's the schedule I'm in right now and for the rest of April. Sometimes the classes are in the evening, in which case I'm usually working from about 3 PM until about 11 PM. I tend to stay up past Midnight most nights, even when I work days.

Well, if the group wants a team that is quasi-fixed in space and time, my preference would be the Victorian England setting with the Paternoster Gang as a focal point for adventures (I love those guys!). If everyone wants to do a different setting, like Torchwood or Unit in the 20th or 21st century, I can do that, but I'll need to get a source book or two because I'm not very familiar with either organizations. I never watched Torchwood (although I can stream it if I choose) nor has Unit played much a role in the new series (I have not watched the series involving the early Doctors). I sense that Unit was more active in the series back in the 70s and 80s. I think there are also source books for the Time Agents, which opens up other possibilities.

I don't think the Doctor would necessarily dominate the adventures the way he does during the show and even then, the companions often have their own ideas about what to do, which sometimes is vital to success. But we could alternate an adventure with the Doctor with adventures as a team in a set location.

Also to be decided if a group of five players is too big. If so we could split into two posting groups with different adventures, although my part would probably involve more time and perhaps then my posts would be a little less frequent while I manage the separate campaigns. There is a lot of pre-conceived adventures in various sourcebooks, so I can draw on that if I need to. I'm not opposed to creating my own adventures, particularly once we have a group that works well together.

I think we should wait to hear from the GM about Meetch's suggestion, because people in UNIT, Torchwood, etc. *use guns*, while companions never do (I can't even recall a "modern" companion getting into a fistfight - they're usually grabbed or held at gunpoint - but my memory's far from perfect), which would make a significant difference in how we distribute our SP's among the Skills.

Also, GM : what are the in-game benefits/penalties for which Technology Level we come from? What's to prevent us all from saying we're from TL 12, and all have super-sonic screwdrivers (which would be commonplace for that TL)?

The rules for fighting are very basic, so if you want firefights, this system would not be the best. I don't want guns or any other weapons to be the go-to solution. The Doctor, particularly the 12th Doctor, was very critical of soldiers and organizations that rely on soldiers. So I would discourage players from focusing over-much on fighter-types.

Espionage is another story, since spies are often prepared to use guns but generally work without them whenever possible. The real problem, as I see it is not only that the Doctor doesn't like to use guns or work with people who do, but that most of the time, the weapons that aliens have are way more powerful than 20th-21st century pistols and rifles.

As for tech levels, you are familiar with technology of your home time period, but if you are trying to deal with technology from other time periods, whether more or less advanced than your own, you will suffer penalties. It's like videos where a couple of kids are presented with a telephone from the 50s and asked to speculate on what it is and how it works. Or think about how difficult it would be for someone who programs computers in the 23rd century to fathom our present-day computer systems.

Since at least some adventures will be taking you outside your normal time period, you'll generally have to deal with this issue no matter your home time and technology. You can increase the number of time periods with which you are familiar using a Good trait called Time Traveler. Also, you won't generally be able to carry a lot of gear that does special things without paying for it with good traits. So being from the far future won't mean you have handguns that can stop tanks in WWII.

I strongly encourage you to consider the character first and then worry about the effects of the game advantages and disadvantages, rather than picking advantages you want and creating a character that has those advantages. This is not really about being an adventurer who gets more and more stuff and more and more powerful with time. Create a character you will enjoy role playing and don't worry about whether he or she can deal with the challenges of the adventures. Even someone as untrained and inexperienced as Rose Tyler or Amy Pond can be a great adventurer just because she is brave and resourceful.

Well Jack Harkness, post-alternate reality Mickey and K9 were gun users, if I recall, but the point is well taken.

Of course, even if we have guns, we won’t necessarily want to use them often. The initiative system goes Running>Talking>Acting>Fighting, which discourages violence. Sure, Torchwood had guns, but they rarely solved all their problems by shooting their foes.

The last episode of the 12th Doctor has him using explosives and equipping the people he is trying to defend with guns. But as I said, I'd rather not see a group of commando characters running around pointing guns at everything they think might be hostile.

For your consideration: I have the campaign book called "Paternoster Investigations." Here is a summary of what's in the book. I like the Paternoster Gang and I am somewhat familiar with London, having done some prep work for a campaign set in Victorian London that fizzled a year or so ago. I also like Steampunk, which fits in this time period. Consider whether a team of investigators in Victorian England might fit the bill.

Not every character would need to be from the Victorian time period or from England even. Neither Strax nor Madame Vastra are even human, although I'm leery of having PCs who are aliens at least to start out. Character creation might be complicated, although we can discuss it.

Madame Vastra (putting her katana on its stand): Send a telegram to Scotland Yard. Jack the Ripper has claimed his last victim.
Jenny: How did you find him?
Madame Vastra: Stringy! But tasty all the same.

So, the character I'd been thinking about has been a bit of a bodger, a tinker. I hadn't decided if that would be clockwork, a grease monkey, or an electrical engineer. That'd probably depend on the tech level and time period of her origin. Looking over the character creation guide and a quick scan of the book, I'd say the traits "Boffin" and "Percussive Maintenance" sound pretty in character and probably a moderately high Ingenuity.

On the plus side, it's a concept that can fit into a lot of party builds and various organizations.

Paternoster could be a lot of fun.

Another option is the Time Agency, which would give us the freedom of time and space travel without needing the Doctor. There's also no source book needed because virtually nothing is known about them.

Additionally, there's UNIT's Black Archives, which is largely about research and investigation. If there's a big push to play UNIT, we could be a squad that's been trained to solve problems more like The Doctor would, since any time UNIT tries to shoot aliens away it ends spectacularly poorly.

Should we put it to a vote?

Doctor and Companions
Paternoster Investigations
Time Agency
UNIT but not the shooting kind

I vote for Paternoster and Time Agency.

I want to facilitate the adventure the players want most, so I'll not vote, except to note my interest in Paternoster and Doctor and Companions is a little higher than Time Agency or UNIT.

I want to insist that the Doctor has a strong connection with the group and to have some adventures that include the Doctor. That would rule out a Time Agency that operates independently of the Doctor. If we want to just do time travel, we could dispense the whole Doctor Who role playing system and go with GURPS or some such. While I'm not opposed to that in principle, I would have done the recruitment differently if that were the goal.

Here's another option: Have a group led by River Song. She is an archaeologist who could perhaps manage some form of time travel other than the TARDIS, but it would keep the connection to the Doctor. She's a little more focused on adventure and less on being the savior of worlds, except when she is drawn into events that involve the Doctor. She's also willing to do things the Doctor doesn't approve of, like shooting guns and stealing things.

River’s companions tend to survive poorly.

If having the Doctor as a focal point is important to you as GM, then we should probably do Doctor and Companions. You make a good point about the inherent Doctoriness of the game.

Can I be K-9?

I would prefer "Doctor and Companions", only because that's what I've watched for years. And I don't think 5 players is too much for one (PbP) group, even tho it goes against the TV show's traditions...

I'll throw in my vote for Doctor and Companions as well.

Assuming I can be K-9:

If not, I have two other options

Alyster Baldwin, Regency gentleman

Option 2 for a more modern taste:

Kyle Speltz, Psychic Detective

River’s companions tend to survive poorly.

If having the Doctor as a focal point is important to you as GM, then we should probably do Doctor and Companions. You make a good point about the inherent Doctoriness of the game.

Can I be K-9?

Don't dismiss something based on what happens in the series. We're not trying to duplicate what happens in the series but to have fun with the genre and the characters.

There is a pre-generated K-9 character provided by one of the rule books. The character as presented has more character creation points than a standard character, so it would be up to the other players whether to let one player play that version. Or you could scale it down to the same number of character points as everyone else.

For what it's worth, I've not seen any of the episodes with K-9 so I have no idea what the character is like.

Oh, you're missing out. K-9 is hilarious! Though you're right. He is a biiiiiit overpowered. His nose laser especially.

Do you have a preference between my two human options? Regency transplant or psychic detective? Both are made per recommended point totals.

Regarding Technology Levels:

If a character uses technology from outside their home Tech Level, they incur a penalty to the roll. Every level the technology is more advanced than the character imposes a cumulative -2 penalty. Every level the technology is below the character results in a -1 penalty (it is easier to use items from your past than it is your future).

Note to ZenFox42's point at earlier suggesting everyone taking TL 12 for the home TL: this would mean that when adventuring in TL 5 (present day Earth), trying to use a phone would come with a -7 penalty. "What do you mean I have to tap on little patches on a screen to contact you? Why can't I just think about who I want to connect with and wait let the ALL-SEE-UM network make it so?"

Present day Earth is TL 5. The Regency Era (early 1800s, I think) would be TL 4.

I think the home tech level would be the level one grew up in. Any level that one achieved familiarity with after that via time travel would be purchased with the appropriate trait.

If Alyster grew up in TL 4 but has spent enough time in TL 5 to be comfortable with the tech, that would cost a Major Good trait (Time Traveller) since it's a more advanced level than the home.

If someone grew up in TL 5 but became comfortable with a lower TL, such as TL 4, that would cost a Minor Good trait (Time Traveller), since it's a less advanced level than home.

What TL we have adventures in can be decided by the group, before we finalize our characters, so people can factor the advantages and disadvantages of this issue. Also, as GM, I can award the Time Traveler trait as a reward for adventuring in an unfamiliar TL once the initial challenge has become somewhat familiar.

Edit: FYI, the Victorian England setting would be TL 4.

Oh, you're missing out. K-9 is hilarious! Though you're right. He is a biiiiiit overpowered. His nose laser especially.

Do you have a preference between my two human options? Regency transplant or psychic detective? Both are made per recommended point totals.

That is why I suggested it be up to the group whether to allow it. If everyone would have as much fun having K-9 in the group as the player would have playing him (?), the higher point build wouldn't really matter.

Keep in mind, you're not building typical D&D first level characters who will work up in power to major players in world history. The character creation points are just to keep everything relatively balanced. Beyond that, we're here to have fun, so you can decide what you want to do about such things.

I'll look over the characters, but as long as you will enjoy playing the character and no one else has any objections, it's up to you which you play. If I see something that is a potential problem, I'll point it out.

That makes sense. I'll adjust Alyster accordingly.

Unless I go with Kyle. Argh, too many choices!

There's no rush. More important than the fiddly-bits of character creation is the personality, goals, and background of the character. And a certain amount of adjustment will be needed once the general features of the campaign and the other PCs starts to gel.

Players can work up characters who are related or who have worked with each other. Also be thinking of how your character might have met the Doctor, assuming that has happened.

Yeah, both have strong (and distinct) personalities, goals, background, etc.

And the little writeups have hints on how either met the Doctor. Alyster fought Daleks alongside the Doctor and had the opportunity to join The Doctor on his travels. Kyle has had a botched mind wipe and as far as he knows The Doctor has just suddenly decided to show interest in him. Of course...those memories will start breaking through and who KNOWS what awful experiences were wiped from Kyle's mind.

Some suggestions from the Paternoster Investigations source book for characters and a team based set of characters:

It’s a Team Effort
In contrast to the model of a super-competent Time Lord and their companions that many games of the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game follow, Paternoster adventures assume that the players’ characters are all relatively equal members of a team. While it is certainly possible to follow the former model, with one player playing the super-competent ‘consulting detective’ and the other players essentially their companions, the presumption here is that each member of your own Paternoster Gang brings something to the table that the others lack (as well as weaknesses for which the other Paternosters need to compensate!).

Players should bear this in mind when designing their own characters; no one Paternoster should be capable of doing everything, and characters who specialise in a particular niche will be more effective for it since they aren’t spreading their points too thin. Similarly, you should be taking into account the particular strengths and weaknesses of each Paternoster when creating your adventures so that each can meaningfully contribute to its success (or bear the responsibility for its failure!).

How Capable?
Of course, the first question that arises when talking about strengths and weaknesses is how capable should an individual Paternoster be? Is it OK to be a great detective, a medical doctor, and a good fighter? Is it OK to be a technical expert and a social butterfly? The answer, of course, depends on how big your Paternoster Gang is.

When designing Paternoster characters, you’ll want to separate the things everyone should be able to do from the things that you only want one Paternoster to be able to do. If, for example, you plan to make investigation and action key elements in your adventures, then every Paternoster should be able to handle at least basic investigations and hold their own when engaged in fisticuffs. Conversely, you may only see medicine, science, technology and social interaction as fields only a particular Paternoster should be proficient with. Of course, if you only have three players, then you’ll want each Paternoster to specialize in two fields, or else leave those fields to be handled by the Paternoster Irregulars (see pg. 46).

We still have to decide if this is what you'd like to do, but the advice is good whether we play Victorian England most of the time or any other team based game.

It sounds like folks are leaning to a Doctor Companion model, which is fine with me also.

The Doctor will be involved in at least some adventures, so I'll make the final decision as to which Doctor, but feel free to suggest which Doctor you'd most like to have involved. My preference would be the 11th, but that's just a preference.

10 or 12 are my preference but 11 is fun too!

I have just got access to the rules. Today is tabletop RPGs but I will look at a character soon, tomorrow maybe, or soon thereafter.

On my favourite Doctor- Tom Baker! A jelly bean for anyone who guessed.

I’m going to go with Alyster. He’ll be a little less showy and better slide in to a group. Plus the adventures of Mr. Darcy through Space and Time is enormously appealing.

I’ll make my alias today.

Just an observation, Alyster appears to have 25 points allocated to skills.

Did I do skills wrong? I may have

You get 18 skill points to be spent on a 1-to-1 basis. If you have a skill at 3 or above you can select one or more Area(s) of Expertise. Each Area of Expertise costs one skill point, but does not increase the primary skill.

If you have leftover Character Points from Attributes and Traits, you can spend them as skill points to get more than 18 at character creation.

I would like to travel between lots of different times & places, so I would be happy with TL 3-9 settings (average 6). If the GM wants to run a scenario in Victorian England, that's fine, but I'd hope we'd end up going to other Time Tech Levels as well, and often.

The 11th doctor is ok, but I like #10 as well (and *maybe* a little better).

Regarding "team effort", I'm leaning towards a programmer who knows a lot of science, and a little bit of medicine. *Maybe* he can use a gun?

I know we're supposed to do the character concept first, but I was wondering if we could get an idea of what Attribute/Skill combos are used for typical situations (social interaction, knowledge skills [especially programming], combat, using equipment, fear checks, etc.), just so I can set up the Attribute and Skills so the character can be good at what I've imagined him to be good at.

Just for example, do we need any points in Transport just to drive a car? Or would the skill only be used if we were speeding away from being chased?

I'm also seeing a lot of Traits in Meech's K-9 and Kyle builds that aren't in the Google Doc provided by the GM. Are those in the PDF? Does that mean I really need the PDF to see all the options?

Oh! I didn’t realize that areas of expertise cost skill points. I’ll adjust accordingly.

This is what I've gathered from the PDF. GM please correct me if I'm wrong.

Convince is the social skill, usually Presence + Convince vs Resolve + Convince.

Programming is probably going to be Ingenuity + Technology most of the time. Bonus to the roll if you have an Area of Expertise in Computers.

Melee combat is usually Strength + Fighting to attack or to block or parry an attack, Coordination + Fighting to dodge a melee attack.

Ranged combat would be Coordination + Marksman to attack, and Coordination + Awareness to dodge a known ranged attack.

Using a vehicle weapon or security system to do a ranged attack would be Ingenuity + Marksman.

Most knowledge rolls are going to be Ingenuity + Knowledge or Ingenuity + Science.

You can probably drive a car with just Coordination for most things. The base DC for driving in traffic is 12, probably 9 if there's no traffic. So 2d6 + Coordination + Transport. 9 should be pretty easy to hit, 12 a little harder without the skill.

Just remember there's a penalty for interacting with things outside your native TL unless you've spent points on the Time Traveler Trait. You'll need to take the Time Traveler Trait for each TL you familiarize yourself with, 2CP for "future" TLs, 1CP for "past" TLs.

Yeah, there are a few more Traits in the PDF that aren't in the Character Creation document. And probably more in some of the other books as well.

So I was thinking of coming up with a new character to play with, but if it's alright I'd really like to use Ted Trapes again. He was built for another game that died pretty quickly but I really like the 40's private detective concept.

I'm also seeing a lot of Traits in Meech's K-9 and Kyle builds that aren't in the Google Doc provided by the GM. Are those in the PDF? Does that mean I really need the PDF to see all the options?

K-9 uses some “gadget” traits that might not be in the google doc. Kyle (and Al, for that matter) use traits from other source books.

Ok. I think Alyster is correct now.

I'm just finishing my work day and there are 12 posts, so I'll try to work my way through the posts with replies between now and suppertime. [FYI: I'm on Eastern Daylight Time in the USA, so you can translate that into your own time zones.]

There were several questions on the K-9 build. That was one of the pre-generated characters designed to match characters in the series. They are not necessarily built with the same number of points as the starting character list. K-9 ends up requiring about 40 points compared to the 25 starting characters are given.

That is why I stated that if Meetch wants to run K-9 it would depend on the rest of the group. Since it's not a competition to see who can have the most powerful character, I'm not opposed to it provided everyone feels it would be fun to have K-9 in the group. I have no idea what the impact would be on a typical situation, but I doubt that K-9 would dominate play or always excel at whatever he did just because he was created with more points than someone else.

I wouldn't worry too much about finalizing your character until everyone has shared ideas of possible characters. Allow for synergy and one character idea sparking another.

Just an observation, Alyster appears to have 25 points allocated to skills.

I have not reviewed either of Meetch's character ideas (other than K-9) to check if the rules were followed. I'll do that eventually, but if anyone notices issues, feel free to help each other learn the system. My document is bare bones and so it isn't intended to replace getting the rule book if you want to really begin to learn how everything will work, but it can get you started.

Review the one in my profile, not the linked one.

...

I know we're supposed to do the character concept first, but I was wondering if we could get an idea of what Attribute/Skill combos are used for typical situations (social interaction, knowledge skills [especially programming], combat, using equipment, fear checks, etc.), just so I can set up the Attribute and Skills so the character can be good at what I've imagined him to be good at.

Just for example, do we need any points in Transport just to drive a car? Or would the skill only be used if we were speeding away from being chased?

The rules give a few examples which I'll list below, but it's generally left up to the players and the GM to agree what is used in any given situation.

Here is a quick summary of what the rules mention for skill-attribute pairings in the skills section:

Convince: usually paired with Presence or Resolve
Fighting: Strength
Blocking and Parrying is a learned skill: Strength + Fighting
Dodging: Awareness + Coordination when dodging gunfire or other ranged attacks
Dodging in close combat: Coordination + Fighting
Assumes the character knows the attack is coming
Punching or Kicking (or any physical attack): Strength + Fighting
Noticing or Spotting something: Not actively looking: Awareness + Ingenuity
If searching actively: Awareness + Skill related to thing being sought
Ranged attacks with a weapon: Coordination + Marksman
Computer controlled weapons: Ingenuity + Marksman
Medicine usually paired with Ingenuity unless some physical manipulation is involved, such as surgery.
Then it is Coordination + Medicine.
Science: Ingenuity
Subterfuge: Coordination or Ingenuity

Notice that sometimes a skill is not used and instead two relevant attributes are used instead.

For programming, I'd think Ingenuity + Technology.
For driving a car, I'd use Coordination + Transport. The system deals with the question of when you need to make a roll by having the GM set the level of success needed. Just driving a car in normal road conditions would usually just require a result of 6. So if you have reasonable coordination, say 3, you would not need any skill in transport to just drive to the store without an accident. Driving in rush hour traffic might up the difficulty to 9, so a complete novice might have some kind of problem if the roll was not very high. Driving in a chase without crashing might require a 12, 15, or even 18.

Some skills might use different attributes depending on the task at hand. Medicine would be paired with Ingenuity if remembering symptoms of a disease or knowing an artery from a vein. It might be paired with awareness if doing a diagnosis and with coordination if doing delicate surgery.

Technology might be paired with ingenuity to invent something or figure out how to gerry-rig a device with spare parts. It might be paired with awareness to figure out how some strange bit of technology works. It might be paired with coordination if playing a video game.

Use the following guidelines to anticipate what ability will be relevant:

Awareness: Anything that uses the five senses
Coordination: Physical Dexterity and/or Hand-eye coordination
Ingenuity: Smarts, reasoning ability, lateral thinking, intellectual capability and general knowledge
Presence: reflects the degree to which a person can influence other people
Resolve: Determination and willpower
Strength: muscle force that can be brought to bear

And as noted, spending a point to get an area of expertise can boost your skill in a specialty. A programmer would probably have programming as an area of expertise to give +2 when doing anything with computers. A mechanical engineer would have expertise in designing and constructing machinery. Etc.