A Game of Daleks (game)

A Game of Daleks
Main character(s):	Adventurers
Main enemy:	The Toymaker, Daleks, Toy Soldiers
Main setting:	Giant chessboard, the Toymaker's dimension Mediaeval village
Key crew
Publisher:	Cubicle 7
Writers:	Will Brooks, Steve Darlington, Robin Farndon, Nick Huggins, Derek Johnston, Mark Lawford, Dominic McDowall, Charles Meigh, Darren Pearce, Andrew Peregrine, Jacqueline Rayner, Gareth-Michael Skarka, Alasdair Stuart, Nathaniel Torson
Release details
Part of:	Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook
Release date:	14 February 2014
Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook adventure seeds
Next →	A Little Bit of Ice Music

A Game of Daleks was the first adventure seed in the Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook.

Summary

Drawn off-course, the adventurers' TARDIS lands on a mysterious featureless plain which turns out to be a giant chessboard controlled by the Celestial Toymaker — who has also ensnared a whole ship' worth of Daleks.

Plot

After their TARDIS is "forced out of the Vortex by a powerful force", the adventurers land upon a "stange-looking plain, all made from coloured wood and angular blocks". Before long, they realise that they have landed in a giant "toy box", the Toymaker's dimension, with a "vast landscape of doll's houses and toy soldiers stretch[ing] out before them".

Things soon take a turn for the perilous as the adventurers discover a stranded Dalek ship "in-between a pair of giant talking teddy bears". Soon, the castaways discover that they are all trapped on a giant chessboard and "in the company of the one of the most cunning game masters the universe has known": the Celestial Toymaker, who soon forces them to play out a real-life game of chess with the Daleks on one side and the time-travellers on the other.

The game is made all the more dangerous for the fact that the Daleks will, naturally, "exterminate everyone" if they are freed from the game, not to mention "seek to capture the TARDIS as well as destroy the Toymaker and his dimension". Further complications arise from the fact that the Daleks' distress signal manages to get the attention of a Dalek time ship, and that the Toymaker is simply "not going to play fair".

Even after the adventurers succeed, their troubles may not be over, as one possible outcome sees the Toymaker escape, stealing the Dalek ship. If so, the adventurers, exploring some "backwater mediaeval village", will be distraught to hear mours that the King has a warlock for a new toymaker.

Characters

• Adventurers
• The Toymaker
• Daleks
• King

Worldbuilding

• The Toymaker is served by a number of battle-worthy Toy Soldiers.

Notes

• Although illustrated with a promotional image of the First Doctor and Michael Gough's Toymaker from the original TV serial, the adventure has no set protagonists, even if the First Doctor can certainly be used.
• The narration suggests at one point states of the antagonist that "he's the Toymaker and he's not going to play fair". Although the original story depicted the Toymaker as rigging his games to an extent, this perspective on his modus operandi is noticeably at odds with the reinterpretation of the character in The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"] which asserted that he was supernaturally bound by the rules of fair play, whether he liked it or not.

Continuity

• The Toymaker debuted in TV: The Celestial Toymaker ^[+]Loading...["The Celestial Toymaker (TV story)"]. It marked the first of several stories which began with the Toymaker drawing the Doctor's TARDIS off-course to force them into participating in one of his games, such as PROSE: The Nightmare Fair ^[+]Loading...["The Nightmare Fair (novelisation)"].
• The term Dalek time ship for the Dalek time machines introduced in TV: The Chase ^[+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"] originated in AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element ^[+]Loading...["The Apocalypse Element (audio story)"].