Updated and posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2023/05/review-doctor-who-adventures-in-time_24.html

The year is 2013 and the place is TNP (oops, sorry wrong RPG) Earth. Doctor Who is celebrating it's 50th anniversary and there is a big to do to be had. We see the 8th Doctor regenerate, not into the 9th Doctor, but the War Doctor. We see the final days of the Time War. We get to see ALL the Doctors (some via archival footage) come back to save Gallifrey. And we even get a special sneak peak at something that has not paid off till now, 10 years later. In the RPG scene, Cubicle 7 releases a new Doctor Who RPG limited edition printing. This time it is a full-color hardcover rule book. Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Hardcover Edition

Hardcover and PDF. 256 pages, full-color covers and art with color and black & white photographs.

For this review, I am considering my hardcover version and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.

Ok. I want to state outright that the rules in this game are really no different than the previous two boxed sets that I have covered. If you have either or both of those there is not a lot of new you will find here. That is ok. Let me explain why.

Prior to this volume, the rule books were focused mostly on the current Doctor. This is a trend that will continue on to and likely past the Second Edition of the game. This edition, while still using the BBC trade dress for Matt Smith's later (and last) seasons, brings in photos and imagery from all the past Doctors. This makes this book feel more like a full Doctor Who game, something I have not felt since the FASA books. The content still favors the NuWho series but there is enough here and there to get a real feeling of depth and history. The character sheets are the same 11th Doctor format for example.

Secondly, and just as importantly, this is a hardcover book. It is sturdier than my 10th Doctor softcovers, but of course, no dice, no sheets, and no extras that you get with a boxed set. It does have a solid Basic vs. Advanced feel to it that I like, and one that is formalized for the Second Edition.

Bigger on the Inside

As I mentioned, the rules here are not unchanged from the previous printings of this game, they are reorganized a bit. There are some edits and as expected things that happened in the series more recently are in the forefront here.

The obvious strength to this new presentation of the rules is it combines what had been in the Players and Gamemasters sections into one. In the 10th and 11th Doctor's books the Gamemaster's Section repeated some information from the Player's sections. Here they have been integrated into a whole.

Chapter One: The Trip of a Lifetime

This is our introduction to the Doctor, RPGS, and this RPG in particular. Introductions on who the players are and the Gamemaster as well as how to use this book. There is also an example of play.

Chapter Two: Travellers in the Fourth Dimension

This is our character creation chapter. Here we cover the types of characters that can be played. The assumption is still Time Lord + Human Companions, but other variations are also mentioned, like No Time Lord At All, UNIT Squad/Torchwood team, and others.

We start with detailing the Attributes of the character, or the qualities of a character that are typically fixed. These are Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity, Presence, Resolve, and Strength. Similar to the "Basic 6" of many RPGs. All these are scored from 1 to 6 with 1 being the human minimum, 6 the human maximum, and 3 being the average. Time Lords and other aliens can go beyond these. These are bought on a point-buy system.

Traits are the qualities of a character, good or ill. There are Minor Traits (Animal Friendship, Attractive), Major Traits (Boffin, Fast Healing), and Special Traits (Alien, Cyborg, Time Lord). Like Attributes, you spend Character Points to buy these. Some can be good or bad traits, and some can be Minor, Major or Special depending on how they are "bought" in character creation. "Friends" can be minor or major depending on the friend in question. "Hypnosis" can be minor, major or special depending on how powerful it is.

Skills are also purchased with Points. There are only 12 skills, unlike modern D&D and more like Unisystem, skills can be combined with any attribute as appropriate.

Chapter Three: I Walk in Eternity

This covers running the game and the basic rule(s).

That is the guiding principle for the entire game and it works really, really well. Your average Difficulty is 12 but it can be as low a 3 (super easy) or 30+ (near impossible). Contested rolls are introduced and the all-important Story Points (the little cardboard counters).

It gives us some details on the Task Difficulties; 3 for Really, Really Easy, 12 for Average, and 30 for Nearly Impossible. Additionally, there are thresholds if you roll above or below the set difficulty levels. So, for example, if you score 9 points above the roll needed, something special can happen, like extra damage or something. Likewise, if you roll poorly, something bad can happen.

The rolls, much like in Unisystem, become easier with practice, and soon you won't need any guides at all.

Contested rolls, rolls where your character is being prevented from success are also covered. The biggest example of this is combat. Example situations are given and which skills can or should be used. This is a good way to rule these since Doctor Who is not really about combat. "Combat with words" is more important and can even stop physical combat. Though there are weapons detailed here and how deadly they are.

Chapter Four: A Big Ball of Timey-Wimey Stuff

While the first three chapters can apply to every game, the is the chapter that is quintessentially Doctor Who. This covers not just roleplaying, but roleplaying in Time Travel games. Here we get a lot of advice on how, well, to keep gamers from being gamers and avoiding paradoxes.

We get some background on Time Lords and TARDISes. Not encyclopedic details mind you, but enough to keep players and gamemasters happy. This covers dealing with damage to Time Lords and regeneration.

The section on TARDISes is updated, reflecting notions and ideas seen in the show at this point.

Chapter Five: All the Strange, Strange Creatures

Here we get to all the aliens. While some are certainly foes to be fought (Daleks, Cybermen) there is a lot here that run the spectrum of friend to fiend. Creatures use the same stats as characters. So it is expected that there are some "Alien Traits" here as well. These work just like Character Traits, but are typically not bought by characters.

Plenty are covered here, but there is an emphasis on ones that have appeared more recently and ones that have appeared in both the new and classic series. So for example the entry on the Great Intelligence not only covers the "Servers" and eyeless men from the 11th Doctor, but also the Yeti from the 2nd Doctor. There are old and new Ice Warriors. We get the Master in both his John Simms and Anthony Ainley depictions.

Old and new Autons. Silurians and the Sea Devils. It's not every monster or alien, but it is a good selection of "Greatest Hits." There is also enough information here to make your own.

Plus it is one of the best places to see all the variations of Cybermen and Daleks all in one place.

Chapter Six: Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan

This covers good roleplaying and how to play in a Doctor Who game. We also get tips on being a good Gamemaster here.

Chapter Seven: The Song is Ending, But the Story Never Ends..!

This is our Gamemaster chapter. This includes where (and when) to set them and a basic 5-act adventure formula. Other tips and tricks covered are personal story arcs (think Donna or Clara), cliffhangers, two (or three) part stories, and more.

In this version, we also get some Adventure Seed ideas. These are great since each one focuses on an earlier regeneration of the Doctor.

Appendix: Journal of Impossible Things

Character sheets. We get the 11th, 10th, and War Doctors. Clara, Amy, Rory, River, Rose, Sarah Jane, K-9, the Brigadier, and his daughter Kate. There are also archetypes, UNIT Soldier, Scientist, Rock Star, and Adventuring Archaeologist. A blank sheet, and a cheat sheet.

There is also an index.

While rule-wise there is nothing "new" here this feels like a good solid revision and has been my "go-to" book for Doctor Who for some time now.

If you are a classic Doctor Who fan and want to play the "new" RPG then this is a great place for you to start. This is true especially of anyone coming to this game from FASA Who. You will need to get some dice, but since the game uses 2d6 exclusively that is not too hard to do.

A role-playing game for adventures set in the Doctor Who universe. The basic assumption of DW: AITAS is that you'll be playing a Doctor and companions, but the rules aren't bound to that, and they do provide alternate models (such as games featuring UNIT or completely original characters).

The core mechanics of the game are very straightforward and interesting: roll two six-sided dice, add relevant bonuses, and compare the result to a difficulty... but then the degree of your success or failure suggests a range of possible results (including partial successes and not-quite failures). Characters also have a supply of "Story Points" that can be used to adjust the narrative in various ways. In addition, turn order is based on characters' intended actions, with "talkers", "movers", and "doers" all getting to go before "fighters". This last design choice is one of many in the book that shows just how much the designers understand Doctor Who and its tropes.

Going chapter by chapter:

• Chapter 1 is a general overview of the game... which gives us an example of play before providing a basic explanation of the core mechanics (odd choice).
• Chapter 2 goes through the process of character creation, and provides good advice along with a solid range of traits and skills. It's pretty plain that many traits were reverse-engineered from actual show characters, but that's not exactly a problem.
• Chapter 3 goes over the game's core rules, with highlights including the different types of conflict (physical, mental, and social) as well as ways to handle potential character death. The chapter also includes various sub-systems, such as chase rules (a particular standout) and rules for gadgets. Occasionally it feels like they should have streamlined some of these rules, but overall they're solid.
• Chapter 4 is an almost entirely lore chapter on time travel in the Doctor Who universe - well considered and very insightful, with good guidelines for play. This chapter is probably the most interesting to read.
• Chapter 5 provides stats for various foes of the Doctor, covering all the major players from various eras: Daleks, Cybermen, the Master, etc. It also provides guidance for building your own aliens and monsters, which is fine but seems slightly too loose; some advice on balance would have been nice.
• Chapter 6 provides gameplay and gamemastering advice. Most of this advice is decent but pretty generic, and likely stuff you know if you're an experienced roleplayer. However, it's better when focused specifically on Whovian tropes.
• Chapter 7 provides adventure design guidelines, which assume you will structure your campaigns like the TV show - good if you feel up to the task, but one wonders if that raises the bar too high. It ends with some sample scenarios (one per Doctor) which are mostly just OK, and often very derivative of existing stories (though a few stand out).
• The Appendix at the end of the book includes sample characters (including the Tenth, Eleventh, and War Doctors), some pre-built character templates, and a handy one-page rules reference.

Overall, this is a well-considered game with great core mechanics, made by folks who clearly understand the source material. There are some rough spots in the rules and their presentation, but none of them are deal-breakers. If you're a fan of Doctor Who and role-playing games, it's definitely worth picking this up, or one of the other versions of the core rules. (Originally posted on Goodreads)

This is hardly a comprehensive review, more of a first look. I have not played the game yet just looked at the system.

I am amazed how similar this is to Unisystem. It would be unbelievably easy to translate characters between the two games. At first this turned me off in a way and I really felt like Doctor Who the RPG was just fan service. Especially with the lets play the doctor and all his companions play style. I dug in a little deeper, and I did like using attributes to track damage instead of the more American hitpoint methodologies. Then I saw the innitiative. The innitiative is a beautiful beautiful thing. It along with the attribute damage (which I havent quite figgured out the nubmbers for yet but) allows you to put as much drama and mechanics into trying talking to and reasoning with an NPC or other character as most games put into combat alone. This is SO HUGE to help live up to Doctor Who levels of storytelling where often the most amazing thing that happens is a dialogue or a soliloquy that changes EVERYTHING. When you can put just as much interest fun and effot into ANYTHING in the game besides just fighting and literally use the same types of mechanics for ALL of it? Man that is something. I cant wait to try it out and see if it plays as well as it looks like it does. (I want to do a story of a Human collony caught in the midst of the Time War where the Doctor is elusive and mysterious and danger is everywhere and where Human compassion is fleeting yet Powerfull) Now to just find some players.

This contrary to bad reviews, this not a bad product. It has lots of information that was not included in the past rule books. My only criticism is that I would liked to have episode summaries like some of the other supplements had. If that would have been included I would have rated it a 5. This review is on the PDF version. I hope that the publishers will continue the supplements on the remaining Doctors.

Limited, as in limited usefulness.

This book might be useful for someone who owned none of the other books.

For a GM who already bought some rulebooks it's completely useless.

I especially liked the idea to learn more about some of the "future and past" companions of the Doctor and was expecting since this is a Limited aka Special Edition that I would learn about some of those who where not mentioned in any other book. But I was wrong. Only two new companions who wheren't already found in another rulebook. One of those two wasn't really interesting. What about Vastra, Jenny and Strax? What about Donna's grandfather who had more episodes than Craig? The book is full of pictures of characters, players may like to play as, but none of them got an actual character sheet. It's nice to have a character sheet for the War Doctor but what about the ninth doctor? He wasn't in the special but he helped reviving the series, why doesn't he have a sheet? There are like hundreds of pictures of him in the books.

The rest of the book is composed of the core rules and rules for like two new enemies who wheren't stated in any other rulebook. The Attributes of the other enemies are already implemented in some other rulebooks. Don't buy it if you already bought other rulebooks.

The format's as good as all the others. What makes this so good is that everything's in ONE place, instead of a couple of books and pamphlets. The photos are great, the list of traits is more complete. The layout is better. Overall, just as a starter book for this game, this is the best produced so far.