Is anyone familiar with the Doctor Who RPG?

[Adrastos42]

Humble Bundle has the core book and a whole load of supplements up for sale at the moment. I'll probably pick them up anyway as I'm a mechanics and lore nerd, but I would quite like to run a Doctor Who game as well. What's the playground's opinion on the system, is it any good or would I be better off with something else?

[JustIgnoreMe]

I played it a bit. The Initiative system is pretty fun, in that it works to replicate the way the TV show works: someone Talking or Running always goes before someone Fighting.

Mechanically I don't remember much else. It was simple, sufficiently detailed, and had lots of options.

If you think you might like to run it, an All Time Lord party worked ok for me. Equally, an All UNIT/Torchwood/Companions/Aliens party would also work.

One of the most fun things is the random future regeneration table. My character met two of his future selves, and it was fun to stat out a different version of the same person.

[Adrastos42]

Well, after a quick skim of the rules, my first impressions match your experience pretty well, which is promising! I do love the initiative system, and an all-timelord party with lots of random regenerating sounds pretty fun:D

[Anonymouswizard]

Not read it, but I understand it uses the same system as Rocket Age (which has the same initiative system), which is amazeballs and the system fits perfectly for the Doctor Who slightly more thinky science fiction. And as my national science fiction icon, I think I should back this bundle.

But it's there for 10 days, so I'll do it in a week. At least £6.16 (or whatever it is at that point) for the Fourth Doctor sourcebook.

I do love how the initiative system fit's with the Doctor's responses, talking>running>doing>fighting.

I think my first game with it will be 'UNIT gets his hands on a time and space machine, sends a team to explore the DW universe*'. Of course, their first goal is to track down the planet the instruction manual is on (that mysterious planet Downthebackofthesofa, it went there to hide from Daleks). I just don't want to deal with regenerations for my first game in the universe.

* Might even make it a 'Time Gate' and do Stargate in the Doctor Who universe (Whogate).

[Adrastos42]

That "timegate" idea sounds absolutely excellent! Personally, as soon as I saw the rules for mobile bases in the UNIT sourcebook I wanted to run an Agents of SHIELD ripoff, but now I'm not so sure...

[Anonymouswizard]

So I bit the bullet and got the whole set. Only been through the corebook so far, but it's really good. Obviously aimed more at new roleplayers than people like myself (who prefers the way Rocket Age's rules section reads), but well sort out nevertheless. Plus I was able to skim the rules section due to being familiar with the Vortex system (although damage seems more severe here, dropping you once one Attribute hits 0).

I'm mildly annoyed that the game is very much set up for a 'playing the Doctor and companions' campaign, when that's the least interesting possibility for me. I've got the show for that. But it's a well built game and I'll stick with my idea of a human exploration team.

A minor annoyance is the tendency for the pictures to all be new-Who. I know it's the far better known one internationally, but as a classic-Who fan it's just annoying. Let's have some Tom Baker or William Hartnell in the corebook! At least it seems to be 11 and 12, I couldn't stand 10.

I love the random regeneration, it makes me want to run a game where everyone's a different regeneration of the same Time Lord.

[JustIgnoreMe]

So I bit the bullet and got the whole set. Only been through the corebook so far, but it's really good.
Excellent!

I'm mildly annoyed that the game is very much set up for a 'playing the Doctor and companions' campaign, when that's the least interesting possibility for me. I've got the show for that. But it's a well built game and I'll stick with my idea of a human exploration team.
Yeah, much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer it's set up for one type of game mirroring a TV series, but there's nothing to stop you playing an entirely different kind of game with it.

A minor annoyance is the tendency for the pictures to all be new-Who. I know it's the far better known one internationally, but as a classic-Who fan it's just annoying. Let's have some Tom Baker or William Hartnell in the corebook! At least it seems to be 11 and 12, I couldn't stand 10.
I believe it's a licensing thing: the earlier versions of the game (starting with 10, I think) were only available until the Doctor regenerated, at which point the license required them to be pulled from the shelves. The new edition had to feature the new Doctor. The sourcebooks for the Doctors (collect all 11!) contained photos from the appropriate eras.


I love the random regeneration, it makes me want to run a game where everyone's a different regeneration of the same Time Lord.
Like "The Five Doctors", which was essentially The Hunger Games crossed with Doctor Who. See what happens when one of the later incarnations shoots an earlier one in frustration!

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer it's set up for one type of game mirroring a TV series, but there's nothing to stop you playing an entirely different kind of game with it.

I think it could have gone much more down the Buffy Game route. In the BtVSRPG the assumption is that you'll likely have a group like Buffy's, potentially with a Slayer and Watcher and so on, but not Buffy's group. The equivalent would be a 'Time Lord and companions' game, while the game actually expects explicitly 'Doctor and companions,


I believe it's a licensing thing: the earlier versions of the game (starting with 10, I think) were only available until the Doctor regenerated, at which point the license required them to be pulled from the shelves. The new edition had to feature the new Doctor. The sourcebooks for the Doctors (collect all 11!) contained photos from the appropriate eras.

Yeah, I'm not going to be getting a physical copy until the next switch (although to be honest I was expecting 'black Doctor' before 'female Doctor', I at least got to make some Curse of Fatal Death jokes). I'm more referring to the inside pictures, which focus on new-Who over classic-Who despite containing multiple new-Who doctors. Not one photo of the Doctor that started it all.


Like "The Five Doctors", which was essentially The Hunger Games crossed with Doctor Who. See what happens when one of the later incarnations shoots an earlier one in frustration!

Yeah, here I'd keep the ways each Regeneration died vague just to make it so this stuff can happen.

Interesting note, most 'future' weapons are hilariously lethal. I mean In Rocket Age anything that's 4/L/L is going to be either Ancient Martian or Europan, and thus rare, here it seems that as soon as you hit TL5/6 and develop lasers (which is a good number of alien species) your weapons become 4/L/L. I think I might change most beam weapons into 4/8/L just to make it more survivable without Story Points. Restrict 4/L/L to Time Lords (and I will be running pre-Time War) and Daleks.

[Max_Killjoy]

So I bit the bullet and got the whole set. Only been through the corebook so far, but it's really good. Obviously aimed more at new roleplayers than people like myself (who prefers the way Rocket Age's rules section reads), but well sort out nevertheless. Plus I was able to skim the rules section due to being familiar with the Vortex system (although damage seems more severe here, dropping you once one Attribute hits 0).

I'm mildly annoyed that the game is very much set up for a 'playing the Doctor and companions' campaign, when that's the least interesting possibility for me. I've got the show for that. But it's a well built game and I'll stick with my idea of a human exploration team.


Does it allow the companions to be competent in their own right, or does it force the sort of "along for the ride" / "only as competent as the narrative needs of the moment need them to be" status that most of the companions seem to have?

[Anonymouswizard]

Does it allow the companions to be competent in their own right, or does it force the sort of "along for the ride" / "only as competent as the narrative needs of the moment need them to be" status that most of the companions seem to have?

Kind of? I mean, Companions are built on enough points to be more competent than the average person. The default ones also aren't terribly built.

But, of course, the Doctor is so much better. Soo much better. He has a 9 in one of his Attributes! (Bare in mind the human maximum is 4.) Sure, it's ingenuity, but he has a freaking 9. And all his Attributes bar Strength are above average. His skills are actually pretty reasonable balance-wise, sure he has a lot of high ones but it's definitely just a case of more experienced and he's not going to outshine anyone not focusing in technology (maybe equal them if they have a bad build, but not outshine them. But he has a 9. He's going to be rolling at +14 or +15 a lot, where others are rolling at +8.

I mean, I know even back in classic-Who he was just better than everyone, but that doesn't make for a good game. Specialise him a bit, give him no points in Marksman and drop most of his skills to 2s or 3s. Also reduce that 9 to a more reasonable 6, he's brilliant but his skills come more from experience. Sure, he makes up most of the points by taking 12 instances of Experienced Time Lord, but he also has a ton of traits. If someone's playing him don't try to compete.

Of course, if you don't have the Doctor, the companions can very much hold their own in an adventure. You just need to remove him from play (which is why I think UNIT is the much better focus).

[keybounce]

Did I miss this bundle?

Someone told me that the Doctor Who RPG was based around the players playing the companion, and the GM-NPC Doctor doing just enough to get the party into trouble. That didn't seem to me to quite match the show, but it would have made a playable game. It would work with a different, less-competent time lord. What was the first doctor like? (I never saw those)

[Tinkerer]

Did I miss this bundle?

Someone told me that the Doctor Who RPG was based around the players playing the companion, and the GM-NPC Doctor doing just enough to get the party into trouble. That didn't seem to me to quite match the show, but it would have made a playable game. It would work with a different, less-competent time lord. What was the first doctor like? (I never saw those)

Curmudgeonly and youthful at the same time. More interested in getting back to his experiments than in helping people. Could aallllmmmooossst work with him.

[Adrastos42]

Did I miss this bundle?

Someone told me that the Doctor Who RPG was based around the players playing the companion, and the GM-NPC Doctor doing just enough to get the party into trouble. That didn't seem to me to quite match the show, but it would have made a playable game. It would work with a different, less-competent time lord. What was the first doctor like? (I never saw those)

I'm afraid you have missed the bundle, sorry. And while you certainly could play the RPG that way, it's not what the book pushes you towards. The Doctor (if you include them at all) was almost always talked of as a player character. I could certainly see that dynamic working in a companion focused game with a less competent timelord, as you said.