The Doctor Who Role Playing Game
The Doctor Who Role Playing Game was a tabletop roleplaying game published by American game company FASA in 1985. The game allowed players to assume the roles of the Doctor and his companions or as other Time Lords and their companions working as agents of the Celestial Intervention Agency.
Publisher's Summary
The Master has stolen a weapon that will give him the ultimate control of the universe and of time itself. The Daleks are invading Earth. The Cybermen are terrorising the space lanes. And the Sontarans and Rutans are battling to see who wins the galaxy.
Only YOU, the Time Lords and Companions of the Celestial Intervention Agency, can stop these villains from changing the course of history. Your weapons are your wits and your TARDIS. To join the Doctor in his adventures to defeat the foes of the universe, you only need your imagination, a pencil, some paper, and this game!
Overview
The game
The main set of three rulebooks, one for players, one for game masters and a guidebook to the Doctor Who universe, packaged in a cardboard box. It was followed by several separately published adventures and supplements for the game, which provided details about the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Master. The supplements contained two pamphlets, one for players and another for game masters, reflecting the fact that the CIA sometimes has faulty information. Its game mechanics were based on (though, not identical to) the Star Trek RPG, also published by FASA.
Relationship to the Doctor Who universe
The game line reflected sometimes inconsistent knowledge of the Doctor Who universe and some notable divergences from known Doctor Who continuity. For example, it claims that the Monk was an alias adopted by the Master. The game's backstory resolved the UNIT dating controversy by flatly contradicting Mawdryn Undead, placing that story's "present day" sequence in the near future. In an introduction, the authors of the game claim that some of the changes were made to make the history of the universe more consistent.
The adventure The Lords of Destiny suggested that, rather than dying, Adric was saved at the last minute by a Time Lord in a TARDIS of a more advanced make that the Doctor's, though this did not factor into the plot of the adventure.
History
The game came out in two printings, one showing painted artwork of the Fourth Doctor and Leela, the other a publicity photograph of them, the Fourth Doctor and his companions having greater recognition in the US than the fifth or sixth Doctors who had. by this time. replaced him. The painting printing had interior rulebooks with slick white covers, while the photographic edition featured more textured, brown, Victorian-styled rulebooks.
FASA also published two gamebooks, Doctor Who and the Vortex Crystal (1986) by William H. Keith, Jr., featuring the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan and the Daleks, set on the planet Gathwyr; and Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble (1986) by William H. Keith, Jr., featuring the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Harry Sullivan, set during the American Civil War.
Supplements
Sourcebooks
The Daleks
Two part module with Daleks and The Dalek Problem with details about the Daleks' backstory, playing guide stats and new scenario. (1985 - FASA 9101 - ISBN 0-931787-93-9)
The Master
Contains The Master and The Master: CIA File Extracts. (1985 - FASA 9102 - ISBN 0-931787-94-7)
The Cybermen
Contains The Cybermen and Cyber Files: CIA Special Report. (1985 - FASA 9103 - ISBN 0-931787-73-4)
Adventures
The Iytean Menace
"Out in the fog-shrouded night of Victorian London, an evil force was lurking, waiting to strike. A senseless murder, over a strange artefact, was only the very beginning of the terror of The Iytean Menace. What was the ancient evil, and how had it been awakened? Where would it strike next?
The Time Lord and his Companions had been sent to the capital of Queen Victoria's realm to learn the source of a strange weapon that should never have been on Earth at all. What they found was a web of mystery and deception that led them, step by step, to a confrontation with The Iytean Menace." (1985 - FASA 9201 - ISBN 0-931787-91-2)
The Lords of Destiny
"The World-Ship of Ydar was a monster, vast, implacable, and set on a collision course with the Galaxy of Man. Giant starship and mobile world, Destiny of Ydar is both refuge and vengeance of a long-dead civilisation which must be stopped, or worlds will die. The cooperation of the Ydarans is vital. To bad they're caught up in a civil war just now. Too bad, too, that they've forgotten the rest of the universe exists..." (1985 - FASA 9202 - ISBN 0-931787-92-0)
Countdown
"The sudden appearance of a dangerous gravity bubble causes the TARDIS to dematerialise [sic] aboard a ship of the Earth Empire on an emergency mission to deliver vital serum to a plague-ridden world. Before the adventure is over, the Doctor and his Companions must contend not only with the death-dealing gravity bubble, but with the ship’s paranoid computer, space pirates, and an attack by androids as well." (1985 - FASA 9203 - ISBN 0-931787-95-5)
- This adventure featured the Cybermen, but this was intended to be a surprise to the players, as they would initially only encounter androids of unknown origin, as in TV: Earthshock. The surprise, however, would be ruined if the players saw the cover of the publication, as it prominently featured a Cyberman.
The Hartlewick Horror
"Why are the villagers of a sleepy little town like Hartlewick disappearing? Has the archaeological excavation of an ancient Druidic mound awakened something that was better left undisturbed? And are these strange occurrences related to the presence of a mysterious energy field?
The Time Lord and his Companions are sent to Hartlewick, England to locate the source of this unexplained energy field. But they do not have much time. Forces are at work to unleash something hideous and all-too-powerful upon the residents of 1923 Earth." (1985 - FASA 9204 - ISBN 0-931787-75-0)
The Legions of Death
"The legions were on the march... but Rome had never faced an enemy like this one. An evil renegade Time Lord has allied himself with British tribesmen to lure a Roman army — and a Roman Emperor — into a deviously plotted trap. History will be changed and an army of fanatic conquerors loosed upon the Galaxy if a Time Lord and his Companions cannot stop the renegade's sinister plan. As time runs out, the adventurers race to their final confrontation with the Legions of Death." (1985 - FASA 9205 - ISBN 0-931787-26-2)
City of Gold
"Dinosaurs in the twenty-first century? That was only the first mystery that confronted the Time Lord and his Companions when they set out to investigate a violent revolution in an age of turmoil, and stumbled into a plot that could end human history -- and change the universe forever. A lost city and a vanished race from the depths of time and [sic] hold the key to the destiny of the Earth, unless the adventurers can penetrate the mysteries of the City of Gold." The adventure featured the Silurians. (1986 - FASA 9206 - ISBN 0-931787-49-1)
The Warrior's Code
"Arigato, Doctor Who. A collision in the Vortex with an unknown timeship…a forced materialisation on the rocky seaside cliffs of feudal Japan…a power play among the samurai warlords who wield absolute power in an ancient and mysterious realm. For the Time Lord and his Companions, those were only the first steps in a dangerous game, where one man’s ambition could bring the collapse of human history. Stranded, cut off from help or contact with Gallifrey, the time travellers must band together to free themselves from old Japan, history from a madman’s plot, and humanity itself from oblivion in a distant but all-too-real future. To achieve their goals, the adventurers must learn to understand the shifting politics and timeless culture of the Land of the Rising Sun. They must come to understand the samurai and their Bushido…The Warrior’s Code." (1986 - FASA 9207 - ISBN 0931787735)
See also
- Doctor Who and the Vortex Crystal - a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style gamebook published by FASA.
- Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble - a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-style gamebook published by FASA.
- Time Lord, another Doctor Who RPG
- Citadel Miniatures, makers of a range of miniatures intended for use with the game
