Dt. Who RPG

[Aleolus]

What, if any, tabletop RPG system would be best suited to a game set around a Dr. Who-esque world system? I think playing a world like this might be fun, so I'm looking for some ideas on what would be best to run/play it in

[Dienekes]

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space seems to be a good start. It's already set in the same universe, and it has mechanics set up to get the Doctor Who feel of non-violent solutions generally being the best.

Of course it has the same problem all Doctor Who style games tend to have: someone has to be The Doctor, and that player is usually far more competent and useful than everyone else.

[comicshorse]

Beaten to it.
I actually played a campaign of it where the GM got round the Doctor problem by having none of the P.C.s being Timelords. Instead we all worked for U.N.I.T using some very strange transport technology they had recovered from a spaceship

[Aleolus]

I was unaware of that systems existence! Perhaps you could point me in a direction to acquire it myself?

[comicshorse]

http://cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/doctor-who-aitas/

[Kid Jake]

Of course it has the same problem all Doctor Who style games tend to have: someone has to be The Doctor, and that player is usually far more competent and useful than everyone else.

Alternatively, I could see it being kind of fun to play a game where EVERYONE is The Doctor, just from different points in time, trying to out-Doctor the others. Though admittedly the kind of slapstick shenanigans I'm envisioning with this would probably better be suited to Paranoia than the spirit of Dr Who.

[Pluto!]

I remember being unimpressed by the Doctor Who rules systems.

Except that the new one does something clever where anyone who wants to talk automatically acts before anyone who wants to run, who in turn automatically act before anyone who wants to attack. It seemed like an elegant way to make games match the fiction.

So I'd probably shamelessly rip that and shove it into a solid generic system like Fudge.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I remember being unimpressed by the Doctor Who rules systems.

Except that the new one does something clever where anyone who wants to talk automatically acts before anyone who wants to run, who in turn automatically act before anyone who wants to attack. It seemed like an elegant way to make games match the fiction.

So I'd probably shamelessly rip that and shove it into a solid generic system like Fudge.

Yeah, my memory is that it was a pretty generic rules-light system: here are your skills, here are your hero points, here are one or two special things you can do, have fun. Given that Doctor Who tends to involve mostly talking and chase scenes I'd go with something like Fate that does those well, and fudge in anything else.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Nobody has to play the Doctor in AITAS. That's just plain wrong. The Doctor doesn't have to appear in the game. Nobody has to be a Time Lord (although some method of time travel is probably a necessity... mind you, a Torchwood style campaign would be fun too).

The initiative system (talking, running, doing, fighting) helps recreate the style of the TV show: violence is almost always the worst option.

It's really a question of party balance. Just approach it the same way Doc Savage did: everyone is a specialist. Even if you do choose to use the Doctor, as long as every other character can do something better than him, or something he can't do at all... then it's just a question of the GM's skill at writing to the group's skills.

Rememer how in the last series the Doctor had terrible personal/social skills and Clara had to do all the talking?

[Joe the Rat]

Yeah, my memory is that it was a pretty generic rules-light system: here are your skills, here are your hero points, here are one or two special things you can do, have fun. Given that Doctor Who tends to involve mostly talking and chase scenes I'd go with something like Fate that does those well, and fudge in anything else.

Played it a couple of years ago at a con. It does a decent job of capturing the feel, and there was a consistent competence vs. on-demand success in the pregens.

FATE/Fudge would be a good engine... Probably using the Atomic Robo variant (Brainstorming is a very The Doctor kind of action, even if the Companion is just there to be "Scienced" at).

[Eldan]

Alternatively, I could see it being kind of fun to play a game where EVERYONE is The Doctor, just from different points in time, trying to out-Doctor the others. Though admittedly the kind of slapstick shenanigans I'm envisioning with this would probably better be suited to Paranoia than the spirit of Dr Who.

I'd totally play a game of The Five Doctors.

I did run a Doctor Who one-shot with Fate once. I went with the simple solution: you're all companions, the Doctor is a DMPC, except he's currently regenerating/infected by Dalek nanobots/cyber-converted/stuck in a time loop/phase-shifted/trapped in the Tardis/lazy and you have to do everything while he shakes that off. Only works for a one-shot really, of course.