I was browsing the Cubicle 7 forums looking for info about the Doctor Who RPG (unfortunately, details are very slim… seems like the BBC is keeping them on tight lockdown) when I found this post:
Instead of modules i think a series style book each year (or every 6 months or so) would be best, these could cover a series of adventures with a slow building arc that finishes in a huge mega event style adventure at the end(kinda like the tv show does) but the arc would be entirely optional to the adventures so that individual gm’s could build the season arc at there own pace or just ignore it altogether.
How awesome would that be? Every year (I think a once a year schedule would probably work well, a new season of the show each year), a new series box set would be released. It would have thirteen core adventures (episodes), with a few extra side treks, and an underlying theme throughout the series that was built up with hints and clues until the climactic finale. It’s the equivalent of “Bad Wolf” or “Torchwood”, though they might need to be a touch more obvious, considering how easy it is for player’s to not just ignore a clue, but to skip over it entirely.
There are a lot of reasons that this would be a good move for the Doctor Who RPG:
- The game is catered to new gamers. What better way to get them into the game then to offer them an entire season of the show in one convenient package? It’ll help new Time Lords (which I assume will be the in-game name for GMs
) easily put together a story of their own, but there’ll be enough flexibility for old hands at the time travel business to put together their own story with the provided adventures. - More Doctor Who stories! Seriously, I would buy a book like this just for the opportunity to read about more of the Doctor’s adventures. This long gap between full seasons in particular proves how awesome it would be to have something like this to fill in the space when there aren’t any episodes airing.
- Mining for Ideas. The Doctor’s escapades take him across time and space. No doubt you would be able to find ideas you could steal for games from other genres and systems in addition to its use in your Doctor Who game.
- Annual Supplement. I don’t buy many RPG books because I don’t get to game very often. But having something like this – not just one adventure, but a series of adventures – once a year would be a purchase that most people could be content for, for the above two reasons if nothing else.
Another bonus – they could easily be made Doctor-agnostic, so if you’re a fan of Eccleston’s Doctor, you could use him and Rose, or if you want a bit more Tennant even after he leaves the show early next year, you could! And, although Cubicle 7 doesn’t have the rights to officially support it, there’s always the option of Classic Who…
Actually, C7 can now do ‘classic Who’, though I don’t believe they’ve finalized the format(s) that would take. One of the C7 chaps at Dragonmeet said they were considering a sourcebook per Doctor …
Oh, that’s right! I remember reading about that – although I’m not sure if I knew that when I wrote this.
Also, it looks like with the recently announced UNIT box set they’ll be delving into Classic Who a bit sooner than I thought.