Рет қаралды 56
Hey all! As promised, now we start paying tribute to the 60th anniversary of the BBC's sci-fi behemoth, Doctor Who, through the perhaps questionable means of RPG critique. Of course we'll start at the beginning, game-wise, and look at the first edition boxed set of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG, from Cubicle 7.
Yes, I know there was a FASA Doctor Who RPG, and no, I won't be showing it because it's terrible ;)
This game, however, is not terrible! I'm also a huge fan of the boxed set, which has made somewhat of a comeback recently. I don't mean starter boxes, really, which are everywhere nowadays, but actual boxed sets for games, where the boxed set is actually the whole game. I do so love when one of these arrives in the post... glares menacingly at the Mothership publishers
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Doctor Who. This game uses the classic 2d6+Attribute+Skill(+Traits) method of trying to beat a difficulty number, as we find in many other games like Traveller, and even PbtA in a sense. But what I like here are the character Traits, which really help flesh out each character's specialities, and in Doctor Who each alien/Time Lord/multiform/etc. certainly has a lot of special things to mention. Also, the game mechanics are built around the idea that fighting is always the last resort, and very often alien weapons just kill you outright, so talking it out and/or running away are always the first options in the initiative order!
So, if you like Doctor Who, and you like RPGs that are easy to teach newbies but well-designed enough to appeal to veterans, then I'm pretty sure you'll like this. Add in the UNIT Sourcebook and the Time Traveller's Companion and the many Doctor Sourcebooks and you have materials to create virtually any kind of Doctor Who adventure you could possibly imagine, so all in all I'm pretty impressed with the whole line.
Next time: The UNIT Sourcebook! If you like Doctor Who, but you want to shoot more things, this is the book for you.