I’ve just bought the new Doctor Who RPG. It’s a very nice package indeed. Player’s Guide, Gamesmaster’s Guide, two short adventures (and a lot of adventure seeds), plus other stuff.
You can play as the Doctor, as the Doctor’s companions, as aliens, as another Timelord, as members of Unit or Torchwood… it’s a nice basic system which seems to handle everything very well.
Action Resolution is 2d6+skill+attribute vs. target number, with Story Points allowing you to roll an extra 2d6, change the success (or failure) level, cheat death and do other really nice stuff.
I’m really wanting to run some games of this system. Are there any takers to play? We’ll organise a time when people are free. Given its the holidays, I’m a little more free than normal. 😉
Cheers!
I’m going into town in about an hour’s time to buy this myself. 🙂 I’ve read mostly positive reviews about it, although I must confess the price point still seems a bit steep to me. I’m not sure it’s really the ideal beginner product with that price tag, despite the source material and rules complexity making it sound like it should be a good gateway drug to other RPGs.
I tried to run a Doctor Who session once before, using a homebrew based on Ghostbusters/Star Ward D6 – I’m curious to have a read at this and see if The Reader can be resurrected for another one-off. 🙂
I’m not quite as grabbed by the idea of playing Torchwood/UNIT-esque organisations (since I can do something very similar in other RPGs without much hassle) but it may well be that, after reading the books, I feel different. It’s still cool that the game has that, though, as Doctor Who is one of those worlds which seems to get people grumbling a lot that “you can’t RP it because it’s all about one man” – combine the broad selection of character types with a rule-set which sounds like it balances Time Lords and shop girls entertainingly and I think this’ll put that complaint to rest.
George Q
It’s a very nice package. Pricewise, it’s probably about right for what you get, but it’s steeper than a normal intro package. (OTOH, I really like it, so…)
Argh! Now I want to run it ASAP. Where are my friends? 😉
Cheers,
Merric
Now that I’ve bought it and seen the pretty double-sided colour sample character sheets, clear dice and sheet of ARGH IT FALLS APART WHEN I TOUCH IT story points, I must agree that my £40 was not squandered – this is indeed a pretty package.
For Christmas I also got Rogue Trader, so there seems to be a theme to my RPG products of “This is awesome, but did it really need to cost so much?” 🙂
George Q
Unfortunately, expect the trend to continue. RPG products just aren’t cheap. I dread to see the cost of the BattleTech RPG when I get it…