01846: Chasing After The Doctor

The Doctor Who RPG

I am currently reading the "Monster Collection" edition of Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks  by Trevor Baxendale as my "train book" - the pocketbook that fits neatly into my bag and yet isn't too heavy to hold open with one hand. It's a pretty easy read that's proving to be a lot of fun and it's a good grasp of who The Doctor is. Plus the book utilizes the Tenth incarnation of the Doctor, which is admittedly one of my favorites.

That in turn has inspired me to resume my study of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG rules. I had started to read the main book some time back but then got distracted by other things. So now I'm all over it once more in the hopes of better understanding the system and getting to a point where I can actually run the game. The basic rules seem simple enough since derived their rules from the Cortex game system to some extent - a system I've some past experience with as a player with the Serenity game. But there are distinct differences that seem pretty interesting. I just need to make sure I fully understand how these different rules work together in order to properly run it.

This is not the first time I've tried to learn an RPG system. A few years ago Tobie got me a copy of the core book of Continuum, which ironically is another RPG related to time travel. Admittedly I wasn't quite ready for that at the time given the few games I had played. I feel a lot more confident now though and perhaps after I get through this game system I'll make time to revisit that one.

But in truth, I think what oddly excites me about learning the rules for this game is the fact that I've started to rehearse what the different Doctors might sound like. I've been running little snippets of dialog like "Fantastic!" "Well...two things...well..three things. Okay five things?" or even "Would you care for a Jelly Baby?"

The biggest problem with any RPG that I consider running? I need a story. I haven't even properly finished the run of The Gossamer Saga and here I am considering something else. But dang, a Doctor Who game is going to be a lot of fun with the right set of players.