Remarks: Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space

Yesterday I received a review copy of the new Doctor Who roleplaying game, Adventures in Time and Space. I haven’t had time to do more than skim over it, but for those of you chomping at the bit to hear more, here’s a quick overview:

The zip file contains multiple PDFs, each of which is a separate booklet or handout. These are:

• Gamemaster’s Guide
  Player’s Guide (also sold separately)
  Adventures Book
  Archetype Character Sheet
  Blank Character Sheet
  Doctor and Companions Character Sheet
  Gadgets
  Story Points

All I’ve looked through so far is the Gamemaster’s Guide, which has all the rules as well as setting info. Very shiny. High production values, lots of photos. Everything is from the Tennant run, so not even going back one series to Eccelston.

It is point-based character creation, with one pool of points for attributes and traits (advantages, disadvantages, and “powers”), another pool for skills, and a pool for “story points”.

Rules: attribute + skill (+ possible trait) + 2d6 = result. Beat a difficulty assigned by the gamemaster. Your degree of success based on how much you made or missed the difficulty by. You can spend story points to shift degree of success (failure to success, good success to better success, etc). Pretty conventional stuff, system-wise.

The default play option, of course, is for one player to be the Doctor and other players to be Companions. There’s also an option to play a UNIT squad. Not much mention of Torchwood (although Jack is present, as a Companion), as that’s probably a separate license and I’d expect could be released as a separate game.

The Doctor and Companions Character Sheet PDF has The Doctor, Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, Sarah Jane, and K-9, with their Traits printed on the back side of the sheet for easy reference. Archetype Character Sheet PDF has pregenerated characters with names and other vitals left blank, so the player can quickly create their own character; unlike the companions, these do not have th Traits printed on the back, which I think is a fail. The archetypes are Student, Unit Soldier, Torchwood Operative, Scientist/Inventor, Journalist, and Musician. The Blank Character Sheet PDF is just that, completely blank so you can create a character from scratch. I should not that all of these character sheets are in full color and are not printer-friendly at all.

The Gadgets PDF has Gadget cards, with game statistics for things like the Sonic Screwdriver, Psychic Paper, Rose’s “superphone”, Jack’s Vortex Manipulator wristband thingie, and other. There are also blank cards. These are meant to be cut out and given to the player. Full details on the gadgets are in the Gamemaster’s Guide. Again, these are in full color and not printer-friendly.

The Story Points PDF is a sheet of hexagonal chits marked “story point”, which are meant to be cut out and given to players as they’re earned. Again, full color, not printer-friendly.