The Fourth Doctor

With the publication of The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s celebration of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary reaches the most consistently popular Doctor of the Classic Era, the Doctor with the most stories, and the Doctor whose era came to define Doctor Who in the minds of the public at large. Thus The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook  for the Ennie-award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game has a lot of ground to cover, a lot to live up to, and a challenge to overcome. It is certainly no surprise that this is the biggest in the series to date—at some two-hundred-and-fifty-six pages—as it sets out to detail and explore the adventures of the most whimsical and mercurial of Doctors. Adventures that would see him once again return to being a wanderer in time and space, see him go back in time to confront the origins of the greatest threat to the universe, see him face his old enemy again and again, and return home to rescue his people, not once, but twice.

The era of the Fourth Doctor really begins with The Ark in Space—the story Robot really being a swansong for the Third Doctor and a sign of the Fourth Doctor’s disdain for the constraints placed upon him during his exile. Where the Third Doctor and thus The Third Doctor Sourcebook looked backwards, the Fourth Doctor and thus The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook looks very much forward, travelling into the near and far future again and again right up until the mathematical foundations are threatened by the Master in Logopolis. In doing so it would draw upon classic story after classic story for its inspiration, whether that it is the Ruritanian adventure of The Androids of Tara, the adventures of Sherlock Holmes in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the writings of Agatha Christie in The Robots of Death, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in The Brain of Morbius. In doing so, the series would draw heavily upon the Gothic and take it the height of its popularity. The other themes present in the Fourth Doctor’s adventures include the revelations about the Time Lords and the eccentricities of his bohemian nature, but its is the Gothic that stands out.

In addition to this reliance upon the Gothic in the Doctor’s wanderings, the era of the Fourth Doctor also brought back the competent and the liberated Companion, something that had been missing for much of the Third Doctor’s adventures. Sarah Jane Smith, Leela, Nyassa, and Adric were all competent in their own way, but no companion was more competent than Romana—both incarnations of her! The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook perhaps concentrates upon her more than any of the Doctor’s companions. Indeed, each incarnation is accorded a full-page character sheet, just as the Doctor is himself, whereas each of his other companions is given just a half page each for their character sheets. So what this introduces is the idea that Time Lords can be played as companions and to support this aspect, several new Traits are given, these include Bio-Rhythmic Control, Cloistered, Sesquipedalian, and Tailored Regeneration. Character sheets are also included for K-9 and Harry Smith, but the inclusion of sheets for Nyssa and Tegan feel like an afterthought given the limited number of journeys they took with the Fourth Doctor in comparison with the Fifth Doctor. The second chapter is rounded out with stats for the Fourth Doctor’s TARDIS, this version being less obstreperous and easier to pilot.

Given the number of stories that The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook has to cover, it is no surprise that some nine tenths of the book are devoted to their detailing. Yet where in the previous entries in the series the stories were organised into a number of chapters, in The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, all of the Fourth Doctor’s stories are collated into a single chapter—a chapter that takes up some nine tenths of the book. One side effect of this is that the first two chapters—the first devoted to the Fourth Doctor era’s themes and new character Traits, the second to character sheets for the Doctor and his companions—feels all too brief, underwritten perhaps. It does not help that there is no section on recurring villains, but then again, the Fourth Doctor had so few, and instead had lots of new villains, including the Movellans, the Rutans, and the Zygons*, which never appeared again.

*At least not in Classic Who.

Yet what this apparent adverse aspect of The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook does is give room for the individual stories and their elements to shine through. Each is given a synopsis—about a page in length, a guide to running the adventure, a discussion of ideas related to the adventure, and then possible further adventures. Also given are the stats for any relevant gadgets and technologies, NPCs, and monsters. So for example, in Doctor Who’s finest adventure—Genesis of the Daleks—it is suggested that the Time Lords’ meddling here could be the first shot in the Time War and that the Doctor could have been their agent before; the mechanics of the Time Lords’ Time Rings are detailed; and of course, stats are given for the Dalek Prototype (Mark III Travel Machine), Davros, Security Commander Nyder, and Mutos. Other gadgets and technologies detailed under their particular stories include Magnus Greel’s Time Cabinet from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the outlawed Demat Gun from The Invasion of Time, and the Master’s horrid Tissue Compression Eliminator from The Deadly Assassin. Notable additions include a list of real world myths—Set, dragons, vikings, ghosts, and so on—under Pyramids of Mars and maps them onto a matching time period and matching alien horror. So for example, the myth of dragons is matched with the American ‘Bone Wars’ of the 1880s and a Zygon living war machine. It is a simple yet pleasing table that provides a model for the GM to map other myths and alien horrors onto.

The other big event of the Fourth Doctor’s era is The Key to Time, the first story to tell a big story over multiple stories. In modelling this complete season and storyline, in game terms this broadens the scope of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game into full campaigns, rather than being just a series of adventures—as in previous series and incarnations of the Doctor. For an event as big as this, the overview of The Key to Time and how to run it feels underwritten, but again, room is given for the individual stories to shine through.

From The Key to Time, The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook winds down through the E-Space Trilogy to Logopolis and the end of the Fourth Doctor’s era. The sourcebook has one final, interesting inclusion—an appendix that details the lost story, Shada. Of course, filming was never completed on this story and this was never broadcast, but it has been given treatment a number of times since, both in Doctor Who and without. Its inclusion here is a pleasing touch, especially as perhaps this is the least familiar story detailed in the supplement.

Physically, The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook is well presented. The writing feels rushed in places and the use of black and white photographs does jar the eye given that everything else is in full colour.

Addressing every element and every story of the Fourth Doctor’s adventures was always going to be a challenging and daunting task. In attempting to cover everything, some things have had to be omitted. For example, the descriptions of both Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan are kept short and the GM referred to The Third Doctor Sourcebook and Defending the Earth, The UNIT Sourcebook for more information. Doubtless, the GM will need to refer to The Fifth Doctor Sourcebook for more detailed discussions of the Doctor’s later companions—Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan, as well as the next incarnation of the Master. Sadly the omission of stats for Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang is disappointing given their later, though noncanonical, adventures. Still, The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook covers a great deal and does it well, overcoming the challenge of presenting a lot of detail and background. In doing so, The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook brims with ideas, presenting for the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game, the period when Classic Who was at its finest.

Read More

The Third Doctor

With a certain panache and not a little bit of a swagger, Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s celebration of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary leaps into action and full colour with The Third Doctor Sourcebook for Ennie-award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. Having begun with The First Doctor Sourcebook and continued with The Second Doctor Sourcebook, the third entry in the series takes into the seventies to detail the full colour adventures of the Third Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee.

With arrival of the Third Doctor in the story, Spearhead from Space, the series underwent a radical series of changes whilst still looking back to the previous decade. Two of the Second Doctor’s adventures pre-figure the era of the Third Doctor. The first is Web of Fear, the story that marked Second Doctor’s encounter with the Yeti and the Great Intelligence in the London Underground along with his first with Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, which would lead to the establishment of UNIT—United Nations Intelligence Taskforce—to which the Third Doctor would find himself attached to as Scientific Advisor under the command of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. The second is his last adventure, The War Games, in which the Time Lords exile the Doctor to Earth, meaning that he would no longer be able to travel in time or space and that his adventures would initially be confined to Earth. Of course, this would change in later series. In game terms, what this means is that two of Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s previous sourcebooks serve as companion volumes to The Third Doctor Sourcebook. The obvious and more essential  one is Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook as it defines the organisation that the Doctor will be working for, whilst the The Time Traveller’s Companion is of use once the Time Lords begin to manipulate and use the Third Doctor.

Another way in which the Third Doctor looks back to the previous decade is how his adventures model those of the classic ITC adventure serials such as The Persuaders!, The Protectors, Department S, and so on. For the Third Doctor, a much younger incarnation of the Doctor, is a man—or Time Lord—of action. Unlike his forbears, the Third Doctor is prepared to fight for what he believes in, though usually only using his Venusian Aikido, and he gets involved in a vehicle chases in Bessie (his souped up vintage speedster), the Who Mobile, helicopters, hovercraft, and so on, lots and lots of times.

Although the Third Doctor introduced ‘aliens’ that would return in later incarnations—in particular the Silurians, the Sea Devils, and the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons, his stories also introduced a major new villain, one that would plague each of his subsequent incarnations. The Master, a fellow Time Lord, would work plans within plans, ally himself with the Daleks, all to rule the Earth or destroy it, rule the universe or humanity, or simply humiliate the Doctor. He wanted power, and even though he would be captured again and again, he would escape each time to continue his machinations. In some ways, the Master is the nearest that the Third Doctor comes to encountering true evil—barring the Daleks of course!

The Third Doctor Sourcebook takes us from the Third Doctor’s arrival on Earth and his first foiling of an invasion of the Earth whilst working for UNIT in The Spearhead from Space to his final encounter with an invasion attempt in The Planet of the Spiders, an encounter which would lead to his regeneration. Barring The Time Warrior, the Third Doctor’s adventures do not take place in the past. The majority deal with the themes of big authority and scientific hubris, of peace versus war, and of mysteries without real villains. For the most part, The Third Doctor Sourcebook presents an opportunity for the Doctor—or indeed, the player character Time Lord and his Companions to not be so much wanderers in the Fourth Dimension, as protectors of Earth and humanity, to form a family with UNIT, but still be a force for good and for truth.

The book is essentially broken into two parts. The first introduces us to Pertwee’s portrayal and explores his character, his Companions, the difficulties of his travels during this period—mostly the fact that he cannot travel, and the common themes and ideas. In particular that the Third Doctor’s character is rather patrician in nature and he only has the three Companions over the course of his adventures, though he is sometimes joined by members of UNIT. His adventures deal with the dangers of technological progress, diplomacy and attempts to bring about peace—both world and galactic, environmental concerns, and the possibility that a Companion might fall in love whilst travelling with the Doctor or even betray the Doctor.

As well as the stats and write-up for the Third Doctor himself, The Third Doctor Sourcebook includes stats and write-ups for all of his companions. The most notable changes in the Doctor are the addition of his ‘Hotshot’ Trait, to represent how good he is behind the wheel of any vehicle, and his ‘Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow’ Trait which gives him an instinctive understanding of energy fields. Most of the new Traits come from Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook and The Time Traveller’s Companion. There are also write-ups of the Third Doctor’s notable foes—the Master, the Nestene Consciousness, and the Daleks. Rounding out this half of the book is an excellent discussion about the Third Doctor’s themes and the creation of adventures suited to his era.

As with every entry in the series, the second and longest part of The Third Doctor Sourcebook is further divided into chapters that travel chronologically in order through the Third Doctor’s adventures. For each of these there is a synopsis followed by a guide to running the adventure and a listing of any appropriate characters, aliens, and gadgets. The guide to running each adventure is not a straightforward adaptation, but rather a discussion of themes and ideas inherent to the adventure. So for example, in the discussion of The Claws of Axos, it is suggested that whenever the Doctor instructs Jo to stay where she is whilst he goes off to do something, as soon as he leaves, she should go exploring! Why? Well, because it is interesting and it pushes the story forward. Rounding the entry for each story is a selection of Further Adventures, hooks that could be run as possible sequels.

Physically, The Third Doctor Sourcebook is a slim hard back book, suitably illustrated throughout with photographs—now in colour! The volume feels solidly researched and well written, but if there is a downside to the book, it is that not going to appeal or be of use to everyone, and that is going to be an issue with each of the subsequent volumes in the series. After all, almost everyone has their favourite Doctor and also their least favourite Doctor, and that may be reflected in the Doctor Sourcebooks that they purchase. With The Third Doctor Sourcebook, the adventures presented here are even more dynamic, even more knowing, and even more exciting than those of The First Doctor Sourcebook and The Second Doctor Sourcebook. Yet in comparison with The Second Doctor Sourcebook, there is perhaps less depth to the writing in The Third Doctor Sourcebook, but that is likely down to how straightforward the stories are for the Third Doctor.

The Third Doctor is the first generation to have all of his adventures available to purchase and watch on DVD, but apart from the later stories when he manages to leave Earth, they will feel unfamiliar in terms of style and oddly constrained. That comes down to the Third Doctor’s exile on Earth, and anyway, they lend themselves to a very different style of campaign, one which The Third Doctor Sourcebook should make you feel very at home with (even if that home is Earth!).

Read More

The Second Doctor

The latest supplement for Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s Ennie-award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game is The Second Doctor Sourcebook (though this review appears almost at the same time as The Third Doctor Sourcebook comes to print and The Fourth Doctor Sourcebook is announced). It continues the publisher’s celebration of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary begun by the The First Doctor Sourcebook by delving back into the show’s past to explore perhaps that most pivotal of incarnations of the Doctor. For without the role being recast with Patrick Troughton the series would never have been kept going by the concept of Regeneration. In addition, the second Doctor’s tenure also introduced us to the Sonic Screwdriver plus the Time Lords and the Doctor’s home of Gallifrey as well as pointing towards the creation of UNIT, the agency that will figure so strongly in the adventures of the Third Doctor. Thus The Second Doctor Sourcebook prefigures much to come that is covered in both The Time Traveller’s Companion and Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, the previous two sourcebooks from Cubicle Seven Entertainment.

The Second Doctor Sourcebook takes us from the Second Doctor’s first encounter with the Daleks in his first adventure in The Power of the Daleks to his confrontation with the renegade Time Lord known as the War Chief and his subsequent trial by the Time Lords in The War Games. Apart from a visit to the Scottish past in The Highlanders, the Second Doctor’s adventures primarily take place in the near future, the Doctor coming to the aid of mankind as it tries to survive ecological upheaval and numerous invasion attempts. He and his companions face foes again and again, not just the Daleks and the Cybermen, but also the Ice Warriors and the Yeti. The Second Doctor Sourcebook presents an opportunity for the Doctor – or indeed, the player character Time Lord and his Companions not to be mere wanderers in the Fourth Dimension, but to face evil and actively intervene to save others. To visit the Himalayas and get lost in the tunnels of the London Underground while menaced by the Yeti; to discover what the Daleks are doing in 1866 and what they want the Doctor to isolate; and to foil the machinations of Salamander, the Mexican scientist who is the spitting image of the Doctor!

The book is essentially broken into two parts. The first introduces us to Troughton’s portrayal and explores his character, his Companions, the difficulties of his travels during this period, and the common themes and ideas. Most notably these include singular adventures rather than campaigns, adventures set at isolated bases ripe for attack or invasion, the evolution of a world government dealing with the issues of arms control, overpopulation, and ecological catastrophe, and of course, evil that must be fought. In comparison with the First Doctor, the Second Doctor is more aware of the threats that he might face out in the universe and is thus more capable of dealing with the dangers of his tenure. Although the TARDIS remains as cantankerous and as difficult to pilot as ever, the Second Doctor has least access to his 500 Year Diary, his Sonic Screwdriver Mark 1, and of course, his Recorder!

Two notable issues are addressed in dealing with Second Doctor adventures. The first is how run them without muddling up the timeline. The solution given is to run them after the Doctor is found guilty at his trial and before his sentence is carried out by having him work for the Celestial Intervention Agency. This set-up would allow for a good mix of Companions too, whether official or player created. Indeed, such Companions of either type could come from any time period. The second issue is that of the timeline of the Second Doctor’s adventures, many of which take place in the place in the very near future. Of course, this is a future of the 1960s, so already looks odd by the twenty-first century. The solution is to either adjust the stories and feel to our timeline or be authentic as possible.

As well as the stats and write-up for the Second Doctor himself, The Second Doctor Sourcebook includes stats and write-ups for all of his companions. The most notable changes in the Doctor are his pacifism (reflected in his Code of Conduct), though not all of his Companions share this attitude and are handy in a fight – Ben and Jamie in particular. To support the new Companion and the guidelines for creating Time Lord and Companion player characters suitable for the period, The Second Doctor Sourcebook includes a slough of new Traits such as 'Epicurean Tastes' and 'Menacing'. Many of these are taken from The Time Traveller’s Companion and Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook. These are joined by descriptions and write-ups of the Second Doctor’s major foes – the Cybermen, the Daleks, the Great Intelligence, and the Ice Warriors. One oddity covered in these write-ups is why the Doctor meets the Model 2, Model 3, and Model 4 in the order that he does...

The second and longest part of The Second Doctor Sourcebook is further divided into chapters that travel chronologically in order through each of the Second Doctor’s adventures. For each of these there is a synopsis followed by a guide to running the adventure and a listing of any appropriate characters, aliens, and gadgets. The guide to running each adventure is not a straightforward adaptation, but rather a discussion of themes and ideas inherent to the adventure. So for example, with The Tomb of the Cybermen the author draws parallels with pulp serials and how the Cybermen are looking for suitable successors (almost like an ancient Mummy come back to life!), while with The Abominable Snowmen, the author highlights its Lovecraftian feel. Rounding the entry for each story is a selection of Further Adventures hooks that could be run as possible sequels.

Physically, The Second Doctor Sourcebook is a slim hard back book, suitably illustrated throughout with black and white photographs – though it will be the last to be done in black and white. As fitting the switch to colour of the series, The Third Doctor Sourcebook will also be in colour. The volume feels solidly researched and well written, but if there is a downside to the book, it is that not going to appeal or be of use to everyone, and that is going to be an issue with each of the subsequent volumes in the series. After all, almost everyone has their favourite Doctor and also their least favourite Doctor, and that may be reflected in the Doctor Sourcebooks that they purchase. With The Second Doctor Sourcebook, the adventures presented here are more dynamic, more knowing, and more exciting than those of The First Doctor Sourcebook, and as such foreshadow the style of adventures to come right up to, and including new Who.

As much as many of the Second Doctor’s adventures are unavailable to watch and will thus be unfamiliar to all but the dedicated of fans, there is a familiarity to the style and feel of the adventures detailed in The Second Doctor Sourcebook. That of visiting a place, being mistaken for someone else or intruders before investigating and getting involved in some kind of threat or mystery. What this means is that the contents of The Second Doctor Sourcebook are more accessible and potentially easier to use than those of The First Doctor Sourcebook. That though seems in keeping with the character of the Second Doctor compared to the First Doctor and just serves to show how both are well served by their respective First and Second Doctor Sourcebooks.

Read More

The First Doctor

Both The TimeTraveller’s Companion and Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, the last two sourcebooks for Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s Ennie-award winning DoctorWho: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game have looked to the television series’ past as much as they have its present. They have acknowledged the history of both the series and its setting whilst also exploring the most recent developments and involvement of the Doctor with UNIT and time travel and the Time Lords respectively. The third and more recent supplement for the RPG all but ignores the most recent incarnations of the Doctor to delve deep back into his past. Which in the year of Doctor Who’sfiftieth anniversary seems more than appropriate, and to celebrate that anniversary, Cubicle Seven Entertainment is going to do it again and again. The supplement in question is The First Doctor Sourcebook, the inaugural entry in the Doctor Sourcebook series, which means that there are another ten entries in the series to come…

As its title suggests, The First Doctor Sourcebook is wholly devoted to the adventures of the Doctor as portrayed by William Hartnell that take us from an encounter with An Unearthly Child in a  junkyard on Totter’s Lane to the Doctor’s first encounter with the Cybermen on The Tenth Planet. It presents an opportunity for the Doctor – or indeed, the player character Time Lord and his Companions to be wanderers in the Fourth Dimension. To visit Skaro for the first time; to visit the past and travel the Silk Road to far Cathay; to foil the machinations of Mavic Chen; to become the reluctant playthings of the Celestial Toymaker; and more.

The book is essentially broken into two parts. The first introduces us to Hartnell’s portrayal and explores his character, his Companions, the difficulties of his travels during this period, and the common themes and ideas. Most notably these include the scope and length of the First Doctor’s adventures, for rather than a quick visit he and his Companions might stay for months at a time, but then his adventures might also span numerous worlds. Nevertheless, the Doctor of this era likes to take his time to interact with different peoples and alien cultures. Aboard the Doctor’s TARDIS – in some ways as cantankerous and faulty as he is, this is an age of exploration and adventure, for as old as the Doctor appears, his adventures represent his first steps out into the unknown of the universe. Thus he is rarely as forewarned and certainly not as self-aware as later incarnations will be…

The second part of The First Doctor Sourcebook is further divided into chapters that travel chronologically in order through each of the First Doctor’s adventures. For each of these there is a synopsis followed by a guide to running the adventure and a listing of any appropriate characters, aliens, and gadgets. The guide to running each adventure is not a straight forward adaptation, but rather a discussion of themes and ideas inherent to the adventure. So for example, with An Unearthly Adventure the authors examine how Barbara and Ian are brought into the TARDIS and then discuss what lies at the heart of the encounter in the prehistoric – the desire for an object, in the case of An Earthly Child, the object is fire. The nature of the object is irrelevant, but how it can be used to tell a story is and that is the point of the examination. In presenting a fully stated up Stone Age Tribesman, they also discuss the possibility of playing a Companion from a primitive time. Rounding the entry for each story is a selection of Further Adventures hooks that could be run as possible sequels.

Advice and extra information like this continues throughout The First Doctor Sourcebook. So for example, there are stats and write ups for the very version of the Daleks from The Daleks; how to handle long journeys and the theft of the TARDIS as in Marco Polo; on using telepathy in The Sensorites; and how to portray non-human or non-humanoid characters as in the Menoptra, Optra, and Zarbi of The Web Planet. In all of these it does not present extensive write ups of every character to appear in each episode – that would take up a great deal of space and anyway, these are easy enough for the GM to create by himself. The pertinent ones are given though, except for one odd omission, that of the Meddling Monk from The Time Meddler. As a renegade Time Lord, his stats and a fuller write up can be found in The Time Traveller’s Companion. Rounding out The First Doctor Sourcebook is a set of characters for every one of the Companions who accompanied the First Doctor on his travels.

Physically, The First Doctor Sourcebook is a slim hard back book, suitably illustrated throughout with black and white photographs – hopefully by the time Cubicle Seven Entertainment gets to The Third Doctor Sourcebook it will be in colour. The volume feels solidly researched and well written, but if there is a downside to the book, it is that not going to appeal or be of use to everyone, and that is going to be an issue with each of the subsequent volumes in the series. After all, almost everyone has their favourite Doctor and also their least favourite Doctor, and that may be reflected in the Doctor Sourcebooks that they purchase. With The First Doctor Sourcebook, the adventures presented here may not be as dynamic or as knowing or as exciting as those of new Who, but there is nothing to stop the GM from bringing those elements to the Hartnell era or treating the era as a change of pace. Or indeed as a starting point for a campaign that revisits each of the eleven eras of the Doctor.

The First Doctor Sourcebook gets the Doctor Sourcebook series for the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game off to a well-done start. It will be a pleasure to see if the authors can carry it on for The Second Doctor Sourcebook, The Third Doctor Sourcebook, and more…

Read More

United We Stand

Earth has a problem. As good as the Doctor and his companions have proven to be in defending the planet from numerous threats, from the Daleks and the Cybermen to dinosaurs and demons, the travellers aboard the TARDIS cannot always be present. Fortunately, when the good Doctor goes off gallivanting around the universe and back, there is a single agency that stands against all of the aliens that would threaten humanity and has done for the last fifty years and will do so for decades to come – UNIT. Originally the ‘United Nations Intelligence Taskforce’, but since renamed the ‘Unified Intelligence Taskforce’, UNIT is the ultimate in NGOs, an international agency backed by every nation on Earth that commands regular military units, scientific research teams, and investigative teams. Its remit is to locate and identify alien threats; to study their biologies and technologies – and reverse engineer said technologies to further benefit Earth’s defences; and to take command of the militaries of Earth in order to defend the planet. Now you too can be part of UNIT – if you have the best to offer the Earth’s defences then you might be what UNIT is looking for!

Or rather, now you can roleplay a member of UNIT with Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, which offers an whole new campaign type to GMs and players of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. In keeping with The Time Traveller’s Companion and The First Doctor Sourcebook, the other recent sourcebooks for the game, Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook comes as a solid hardback, fully illustrated and engagingly written. It presents a complete history of UNIT, rules for creating UNIT characters and facilities, expanded rules for guns and combat, data files on innumerable memorable members of UNIT, and of course two adventures.

The history starts out with UNIT’s pre-history, discussing particular incidents before UNIT’s foundation such as the efforts of the Intrusion Countermeasures Group against the Daleks in 1963 and the Great Intelligence’s occupation of the London Underground in the late 1960s. Once founded, the history canters along touching upon all of the televisual appearances of UNIT, from its countering of The Invasion attempt by the Cybermen to the ‘Year That Never Was’ under the regime of The Master. The book as such does not directly mention particular Doctor Who stories; references are instead made enough that a GM in the know should be able to identify them with ease. It comes up to date with a complete description of the modern UNIT and its facilities, equipment, security clearances and document classifications. Pages are devoted to a description of the Valiant, the aerial aircraft carrier funded by the British government and of course, UNIT HQ UK.

Along with various UNIT developed gadgets and new gadget Traits, the sourcebook allows the GM and his players to create a base of their own. This of course, begins by describing the base’s purpose and description so as to have some idea as to what sort of missions its staff, and thus the player characters, will undertake. Depending upon on the desired size, a base receives a number of points to spend on Good Base Traits, which of course can be added to by giving the base, Bad Base Traits. 

OUTPOST MENDIP-1
Ever since its foundation UNIT has had something of a rivalry with Torchwood, and one area where the two organisations have always clashed is Cardiff, specifically over who got to monitor the Cardiff Rift. In the end, Torchwood stood firm and maintained a base in the city specifically to keep an eye on the space-time rift and anything that came out of it. UNIT though, was still determined to monitor the Cardiff Rift and if it could not do so from within the city itself, it could from one of the points where the ‘end’ of the rift would frequently anchor itself – Glastonbury.

OUTPOST MENDIP-1 is located beneath the offices and warehouses of Esoteric Supplies Direct, a wholesale supplier of all things ‘magical’, from dowsing rods and crystal balls to Tarot decks and wands. Its primary remit is the monitoring of the Cardiff Rift, but also monitors the comings and goings of various inhabitants and visitors to Glastonbury for anything ‘odd’. Given the nature of the things that might come out of the Rift, it was decided that the outpost needed access to UNIT’s database, a laboratory to study whatever it was that came out, and somewhere to hold them. Given the effect that the Cardiff Rift sometimes has on the local power infrastructure, the outpost has its own power supply.

Currently, Commander Wyndham is the chairman of Esoterica Direct Supplies and head of OUTPOST MENDIP-1. It is his first assignment to UNIT and he is finding having to adapt to being both a civilian and a military man something of a challenge, let alone commanding scientists rather than military men and directing the delivery of magical gewgaws rather than Her Majesty’s naval assets. Nevertheless, he believes himself up for the job and this posting a stepping stone to a better role, if not promotion. 

Database Access (Good Base Trait)
Holding Cells (Good Base Trait)
Internal Sensors (Good Base Trait)
Laboratory (Good Base Trait)
Secret (Good Base Trait)
Space-Time Rift (Bad Base Trait)
Reactor (Bad Base Trait)

Fundamental to UNIT are its staff and Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook gives the data files for a wide array of NPCs. These include typical members, from UNIT Privates and UNIT Privates (Experienced) right up to the Brigadier, the ranking officer in the United Kingdom. These are accompanied by data files for UNIT’s most notable members, starting naturally with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the Third Doctor, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Sergeant Benton, and Sarah Jane Smith, and coming right up to date with Professor Malcolm Taylor and Captain Erisa Magambo. Guidelines are included that players to create their own characters. These still use the rules from the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game to which are added a selection of new Traits, of which the inclusion of Five Rounds Rapid (Major Good Trait) is obligatory. It enables a character to leap to up the initiative order and attack when ‘Talkers’ or ‘Doers’ act.

Our sample character is Flight Sergeant Brian Beasley, a UNIT veteran who has spent his career shuffling back and forth between assignments with the RAF and UNIT. In over thirty years he has seen everything and faced down numerous alien threats – Daleks, Cybermen, the Slitheen, the Korasterack Incident, and more… Along the way he has lost friends and colleagues, and he now approaches the job with a sense of weary necessity. He has lost his sense of wonder at the universe and what it has to offer, and is really beginning to look forward to a happy retirement. So he was pleased to be assigned to the quiet OUTPOST MENDIP-1 where he could spend his last few years in relative peace – well, relative for UNIT that is… His relatively easy going approach is unfortunately at odds with the more forward thinking attitude of his new commanding officer, Commander Wyndham.

Flight Sergeant Brian Beasley
Awareness 4 Coordination 3 Ingenuity 3
Presence 3 Resolve 4 Strength 3
Athletics 1 Convince 2 Craft 0 Fighting 3
Knowledge 3 (History of UNIT) Marksman 3 Medicine 0 Science 0
Subterfuge 0 Survival 1 Technology 3 Transport 4
Traits: Brave (Minor Good Trait), Five Rounds Rapid (Major Good Trait), Hot Shot (Minor Good Trait), UNIT Veteran (Special Good Trait), Rank (Minor Good Trait), Voice of Authority (Good Minor Trait); Eccentric (Minor Bad Trait), Obligation (UNIT) (Major Bad Trait)
Home Tech Level: 5 Story Points: 8
Motivation: To retire safely!

In comparison to normal games of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game, a campaign involving UNIT will have a more ‘bullish’ approach to it and this is reflected in the new rules for combat. These expand upon the details for firearms and their use, for explosives, and for handling battles. In comparison with other RPGs, the new rules for firearms are not as detailed, but they do add rules for range and gun types. This being the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game, guns are still deadly, but they are a necessity in a UNIT game. The new Mass Combat rules handle the type large engagements that UNIT is expected to handle in the twenty-first century and as you would expect allows for the involvement of player characters and keeping everything dramatic without overcomplicating things.

One last issue that UNIT has to deal with is that of ‘Public Relations’, or rather covering up the fact that a local Job Centre has been infiltrated and is a front for a Zygon operation. Mechanically, this is about coming up with a good cover story that will counter the various sources of exposure, and in keeping with the game, the rules are kept simple.

As noted earlier, campaigns involving UNIT are more bullish than is standard in the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. It being a more team based RPG and a military themed RPG means that a UNIT campaign deals with themes of loyalty, bravery, and morality. Several campaign types are suggested, such as exploring off-world, First Contact, artefact recovery, conducting research, and more. These can be built around a single type of character, such as soldier or scientist; around UNIT Freelancers who investigate small incidents, but on a casual basis; or around UNIT CRASH (Critical Response and Special Handling) Teams, that respond to emergencies and secure sites of alien incursion. These ideas are accompanied by scenario seeds in addition to the UNIT Crisis Generator! Rounding out Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook is a pair of mixed group adventures.

Physically, Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook is very nicely presented with plenty of photographs taken from the television series. It does need an edit in places, but overall the book has an engaging tone and throughout there are some jolly little touches – the list of UNIT briefing documents is ever so slightly tongue in cheek as is the section on Britishness.

Sooner or later, Cubicle Seven Entertainment had to publish a sourcebook for UNIT for the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game and in Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, the ‘sooner’ has been worth it. Although its primary focus is on playing UNIT during its more modern incarnation, the inclusion of stats and write-ups of the Third Doctor and the Brigadier – the latter both for when he was in command of UNIT in the United Kingdom and after he retired – enables a campaign to be set in the past, or at least pay it a visit. This is an engaging sourcebook that does a good job of developing the material presented on the television screen without overdeveloping it whilst presenting a book full of ideas and possibilities. Together these can take a Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game in a whole new direction – the defence of the Earth.

Read More

A Timey-Wimey Bradshaw's

Understandably, the focus of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game in both its core boxed set and the Aliens & Creatures boxed set has been on the modern series and on the adventures of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Doctors. To an extent, this has been frustrating since there is more to the Doctor Who universe than the series since its re-launch in 2005 – in fact, there is half a century of history awaiting exploration by the game and its authors. Therefore, it seems appropriate that with the latest releases for the game, Cubicle Seven Entertainment has begun to explore that history in what is Doctor Who’s fiftieth year. These releases include Defending The Earth: The U.N.I.T. Sourcebook and The First Doctor Sourcebook – the latter the beginning of a series of releases that will look at each Doctor in turn, but it is The Time Traveller’s Companion that is the subject of this review.

As its title suggests, The Time Traveller’s Companion explores the idea at the very core of both Doctor Who and the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game – ‘time’ itself. Thus it explores ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’ in detail, including its physics and temporal phenomena – such as Temporal Nexus Points, the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, Chronic Hysteresis, and Time Spurs, but it does not limit itself purely to ‘Timey-wimey’ stuff. Rather it delves deep back into the television series’ history to present a history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, an expanded set of rules for creating Time Lord characters and handling those all-important Regenerations, temporal devices other than TARDISes, expanded rules for crewing and piloting a TARDIS, creating and customising a TARDIS and giving it a personality, and more… That ‘more’ though is a whole separate section for the GM’s eyes only, presenting as it does the ‘Dark Secrets of the Time Lords’; explores the possibility of campaigns set before, during, and after the infamous Time War; and as a companion to the earlier ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’, gives ‘Advanced Temporal Mechanics’, the game rules for said earlier section.

The book begins – where else? – with the ‘known’ history of Gallifrey and its people, both Gallifreyans and the Time Lords, even offering the ordinary Gallifreyan as a player character option as a suitable Companion to the group’s Time Lord. Of course, a focus on the latter understandably underpins The Time Traveller’s Companion, so that the player who wants to play a Time Lord can the Advanced Time Lord Creation rules to add his character’s Chapter House, choose a TARDIS, and choose from a wider array of Time Lord Traits, both Good and Bad. Thus a Time Lord might possess Bio-Rhythmic Control or a Doctorate, be a Celestial Intervention Agency agent or even an Outsider, one of the Time Lords who has rejected life in the Citadel for the wilds of Gallifrey.  Equally, he could have been Bottom of the Class or be a Wanted Renegade, have a Faulty Heart or suffer from Random Regeneration. The process of Regeneration is greatly expanded upon, covering its difficulties and dangers, as well as providing a set of Regeneration Tables to randomly determine what a Time Lord’s new Regeneration is like. It is possible for a Time Lord to have some control over his Regeneration, but only with a good Regeneration roll.

Similarly, the chapter devoted to time and time travel expands upon that given in the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. Its focus is twofold. First the dangers involved, most notably the Blinovitch Limitation Effect which limits the ability of anyone wanting to interfere with his own timeline, but then the means of time travel, covering the basics of navigation as well as an array of time travel devices other than the TARDIS such as Time Corridors, Time Scoops, and Time Rings. The TARDIS receives a sizeable chapter all of its own, detailing every aspect of the iconic vehicle like never before. This very easily could have been developed into a ‘TARDIS Manual’ supplement for the RPG, but it makes sense to have this material in The Time Traveller’s Companion. With its detailed descriptions of what a TARDIS can do, its features, components, rooms, and more, most notably allowing players and GMs alike to design their own TARDIS. Not just design their own TARDIS, but actually create just as they would a player character, including Attributes, Skills, and Traits. Of course, a TARDIS has access to its own exclusive Traits, including Fast Healing, Psychic, Run For Your Life!, Argumentative, Haunted, Inexperienced, and so on. A last indicator that these rules turn a TARDIS into a character is that there are rules for TARDIS Growth – essentially a TARDIS now has a chance to have its own Experience Points! In particular, these rules pleasingly model the TARDIS as seen in the new series where the Doctor very much has a special relationship with the ‘old girl’.

For each of the chapters in the first half of The Time Traveller’s Companion there is a counterpart in the GM’s Section. Here are revealed the ‘real’ history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords; full Bio-Data Extracts for the numerous renegades who have plagued the Time Lords and the Doctor in the last fifty years; a discussion on setting campaigns in Gallifrey’s timeline, right up to the Time War and beyond; and a look at the ‘Children  of Gallifrey’, those left behind after the Time War, some whom might be Neo-Time Lords – like River Song. The latter allows for the creation of Time Lord-like characters after the events of the Time War and so gets around the idea that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. Also discussed are some of the deadliest devices of the Time War, ones that the GM does not want his players to get a hold of, that is, unless they are being used as especially deadly plot devices! If the GM’s Section has a particular focus, it is on the Time War and the events that led up to it, addressing what is otherwise a very touchy subject in the television series itself. Throughout this section, the GM is given numerous Adventure Seeds, though he should be warned that their titles include some of the worst puns ever put to paper…

Rounding out the GM’s Section are the rules for the earlier chapter in the Player’s Section that discussed the nature of time travel. For all the complexity of the subject matter, these do a very good of keeping things relatively simple and straightforward easily supporting the explanation given in the Player’s Section. It also covers time travel by other technologies, and even without a Time Lord, but one possibly very useful section suggests how the GM curb his players from overusing the TARDIS and its fund of Story Points as a means to solve every little problem. One actual very useful element is saved for the appendix. This already includes all of the Traits, Gadget Traits, and Space-Time Navigation Tables given earlier in the book, but to this it adds TARDIS sheets and Expert Cards. The latter are the very useful element, each an informative hand-out detailing a particular temporal phenomena, such as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect or Chronic Hysteresis, which the GM can give his Time Lord player without a lot of parrot-like repetition. Indeed, the Time Lord player is now free to lecture his companions on the subject as much as he likes…

The book is nicely presented and organised. Both the players’ and the GM’s sections come with their own introductions that explain the following contents. The book is illustrated throughout, primarily drawing from the new series, but where appropriate uses illustrations from the game’s last fifty years. It is a pity though that The Time Traveller’s Companion is one whole book – the split between Player’s and GM’s Sections seem like it was intended to be another boxed set. (That said, it should be pointed out that the Player’s Section of The Time Traveller’s Companion is available for use on tablet devices so that the players can access it during play).

For any group playing the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game wanting to expand upon all things ‘Timey-wimey’, The Time Traveller’s Companion is incredibly useful. The expanded information upon Time Lords, Time Lord Society, and Time Lord history, allows the players to create more varied characters, especially with more than one Time Lord or Lady in a TARDIS and the GM to create interesting adversaries, or indeed bring back old ones such as The War Chief or The Rani. Similarly the expanded history gives the GM a whole timeline to explore. The new rules for the TARDIS enable the GM to bring his group’s TARDIS into play as a character all of its very own and the expanded rules on the nature of Time Travel enable him to make it a bigger and more challenging feature of his game. Ultimately, The Time Traveller’s Companion is not a supplement that changes a GM’s Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game campaign, but one that lets him expand and develop it.

Read More

Time Terrifying Television

Primeval is that rare beast – a British Science Fiction television series that has received multiple series. Indeed, the series has even had a spin off in the form of Primeval: New World, a Canadian series made in Vancouver. What is so strange about this is that Primeval was made for ITV, the United Kingdom’s primary commercial terrestrial broadcaster, and ITV has a poor record when it comes to genre television. This is not to say that ITV has not broadcast some great genre television over the years – Sapphire & Steel, The Avengers, U.F.O., are all good examples – but in modern times, commercial interests and viewing numbers have determined the programmes that ITV has had commissioned and broadcast. So the commissioning of Primeval and its subsequent success was something of a surprise, and all the more surprising given that it was broadcast at a time when only the one Science Fiction television series mattered – the new Doctor Who!

Yet Primeval proved to be successful, becoming popular teatime viewing through all five series, primarily because its monsters or rather dinosaurs, not only looked as if they could exist, but they also looked and were scary. At least for teatime viewing, something that Doctor Who has not always achieved in its modern incarnation. The fearsome look of the dinosaurs was all down to the expertise developed by the programme’s makers on the earlier Walking with Dinosaurs series, not for ITV, but for the BBC. Despite being a success, Primeval had a problem all of its very own, because it could not quite decide what exactly it was. It began as a classic dinosaur hunting/monster of the week series, but evolved into a time travel/conspiracy series, and then a conspiracy/time travel series. Which at times gave it an odd tone.

Fortunately this sometimes odd tone is not present in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment. Its author, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, has a done a fine job in setting a balance between the game’s three core elements – monster hunting, time travel, and conspiracy. The set up for Primeval – The Roleplaying Game is the same as the television series, roughly during Series 3. The player characters are scientists, researchers, experts, and soldiers, all working for the Anomaly Research Centre or ARC. This is a secret government organisation dedicated to investigating the Anomalies, preventing incursion of creatures from the past or least sending them back to the past if it can, preventing the public from becoming aware of both the Anomalies and the creatures that come through them, preventing the current timeline from being altered or erased, and investigating and preventing an apocalyptic disaster that will befall humanity and the planet in the near future. This set up provides the RPG with a surprising amount of depth given that upon first sight the series itself appears to be nothing more than a "dinosaur hunting" show.

The challenge in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game though, starts with the dinosaurs. Not only do the player characters have to prevent a marauding dinosaur from the deep past from snacking on the "all you can eat buffet that is the British public in the twenty-first century," they also have to prevent that public from becoming aware of the possibility of dinosaurs in their midst. Further, they have to do this without killing the dinosaur. The danger in killing the dinosaur is that its death will somehow alter the timeline that the player characters come from, as has happened in the television series. Worse, there are those from the player characters' timeline and from any number of different futures, who are not only aware of the Anomalies and the fact that they enable a limited form of time travel, but who actually want to alter the timeline to their benefit. The most notable example of this from the television series is that of Helen Cutter, wife of the main character, Nick Cutter. Missing for years, Helen Cutter wants to alter evolution itself!

The default setting or Campaign Framework of the ARC investigating the Anomalies is not the only option in the game. A GM could easily create his own Campaign Framework and organisation for the which the player characters work. Primeval provides rules for creating benevolent organisations like the ARC or those like Christine Johnson's secret government organisation which has more malevolent intentions in mind. Of course, the player characters could be working for such an agency. One of the sample organisations, Dinosaur Hunters, Inc., which provides secret safari trips into the past for the extremely wealthy, can be used as the player characters' employer, or as a rival to the ARC, but with far more commercial interests. The guide to creating a group also covers the players co-operating in choosing what their character roles are within the organisation so that everyone has something to do.

Primeval – The Roleplaying Game employs the same mechanics as the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game and the forthcoming Rocket Age RPG, both also from Cubicle Seven Entertainment. To create a character a player divides a total of 42 points between six attributes, his selected skills, plus Good Traits. Choosing Bad Traits gains a player more points to assign, as does taking the Experienced Trait. This is a Special Good Trait which when selected grants extra points to spend on skills, but at the cost of Story Points. The latter are equivalent of Luck or Hero Points from other RPGs, but are used to gain clues and dice, to avoid failure, ignore damage or Bad Traits, to inspire others, or to alter the plot. Creating a character is an easy process once a player has a concept. Of course, a player could just roleplay one of the characters from the television series. Full write-ups are provided for Nick Cutter, Abby Maitland, Conner Temple, and the rest of the cast, allowing them to be taken as player characters or be used as NPCs by the GM.

Nicholas Marsh

Awareness 4 Coordination 4 Ingenuity 4

Presence 3 Resolve 3 Strength 3

Animal Handling 3, Athletics 2, Convince 2, Fighting 1, Knowledge 2, Marksman 3 (Bow 5), Medicine 4 (Veterinary 6), Survival 3, Transport 2

Traits:

• Animal Friendship (Good Minor Trait) – Nick knows the best way to approach any beast.
• Anomaly Sense (Good Minor Trait) – Looking for a way back from the past gives a sense for when an Anomaly is nearby.
• Authority (Good Minor Trait) – Nick is a skilled paramedic and an even better veterinary surgeon.
• Experienced (Special Good Trait) – You do not spend two years in the past without gaining some life changing experience.
• Sharpshooter (Good Minor Trait) – Practise makes perfect, especially if you have to hunt for your food.
• Tracker (Good Minor Trait) – When you have to hunt for you prey…
• Animal Lover (Bad Minor Trait) – Nick often seems to like animals more than he does his fellow man.
• Emotional Complication (Bad Minor Trait) – Nick never knew he had a wife, until he got to this timeline.
• Impaired Senses (Bad Minor Trait) – Nick needs spectacles as he is short-sighted.
• Time Shifted (Bad Minor Trait) – He may have found a home with the ARC, but it is not his true home.

Story Points: 9

Our sample character is Nicholas Marsh, a veterinary surgeon who when investigating the strange deaths of a number of animals at a safari park fell into an Anomaly. Lost in the prehistoric past for over a year, he was forced to learn to survive and adapt in a strange new land populated by creatures that he only knew about from books and television. Their presence was the only clue that he was in the past rather than living after some apocalyptic event that changed the world beyond all recognition. In that time he became a proficient archer, marksman, and tracker, but expected to die in the past. It was only an encounter with an ARC team investigating an Anomaly that gave him hope, and he was not only able to help the team, but he was also able to follow the team back through the Anomaly. Unfortunately, the present that Nicholas returned to was not his own, but one that was slightly different. There had been a Nicholas Marsh in this present and he too had gone missing over a year ago, but that Nicholas Marsh had also been married whereas the Nicholas Marsh who had returned from the prehistoric past had not been. Now he has to contend with a present that is just not quite right – none of the books he had written seemed to exist and he is having to work on them anew – and a wife with whom he has no history.

To do anything in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game, a character rolls two six-sided dice and to the result of this he adds an attribute and a skill appropriate to the action. The total must beat a target ranging from nine for an Easy task to thirty for a Nearly Impossible one. The result is qualitative in nature. A result equal to the target or three higher is an Okay result with the "Yes, But..." effect in which a character succeeds, but at a cost; a result of between four and eight greater than the target is a Good result with the "Yes!" effect in which the character succeeds completely; whilst any result of nine or more is a Fantastic result with a Yes, And..." effect in which the character not completely succeeds with an extra benefit! There is a corresponding set of three types of failure if a player rolls badly, but all six results encourage a qualitative outcome, one that contributes towards the story that is being played and told. A player can modify a dice roll by spending Story Points, primarily by increasing the number of dice a player rolls when attempting an action. No matter the number of dice to be rolled though, only two count towards the roll.

For example, our sample character, Nicholas Marsh has accompanied his team to investigate an Anomaly in a cinema complex and reports of a publicity stunt gone wrong. Discovering some spoor, he suggests that the stunt is actually a dinosaur that has come through the Anomaly and discovering some spoor identifies it as a predator. He decides to track it to wherever it might have its lair.  Nick's player would normally add his Awareness attribute and his Animal Handling skill to a roll of two six-sided dice to get a result, but he also has the Tracker Trait so gets a +2 bonus to the roll. To ensure that Nick finds the creature as quickly as possible, his player spends a Story Point to add two extra dice to the roll (if he were to spend more Story Points, he could only add another die for each as he only gets two dice for the first Story point spent).

Nick's player rolls 3, 3, 4, and 6. He selects the 4 and the 6 as his best dice before adding his Awareness 4 and Animal Handling 3 along with the +2 bonus from his Tracker Trait bonus for a total of 19. The GM has set the target for this as Tricky or 15 as the lighting in the cinema is poor. The result is four is higher than the target, which is a Good roll with a "Yes!" effect. So Nick is able to track the creature to wherever it has gone...

Much like Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game, which uses the same mechanics, combat in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game is slightly different to that of a traditional RPG. In the former, initiative always favours those who want to talk first, then those who want to do something, and lastly those who actually want to attack. In Primeval – The Roleplaying Game, initiative is handled according to your speed – fast creatures go first in order of Coordination, then humans and other creatures of a similar speed in order of Coordination, and lastly slow creatures in order of Coordination. Further, as in Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game, taking damage in the Primeval – The Roleplaying Game is deadly. This because damage suffered is levied directly from a player or creature’s attributes, which impinges on a player’s ability to act as reflected in lower attribute numbers to add to skill rolls.

The danger inherent to combat in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game only escalates when it comes to the game’s fearsome monsters. Terrors like the avian Phorusrhacid and the ferocious Utahraptor, not mentioned the mysterious “Future Predator,” are capable of killing human beings, as indeed are the numerous insects, infections, and other biological dangers that exist on the other side of the Anomalies. Although the RPG’s various monsters use the same attributes, and similar skills and traits as player characters, the monsters have their own special stat – Threat. This is a measure of how aggressive a creature is, the higher it is, the more aggressive it is. If a creature is hungry, in fear, injured, or displays aggression, its Threat rises, whilst its Threat will fall over time, if it feeds, or a successful Animal Handling skill roll is made against it. When playing a monster, the GM can spend Threat to give it bonus dice, lower the damage it suffers, or to activate its Threat Powers, such as the “Leaping Attack” of the Utahraptor.

As much as Threat is mechanic to help the GM, it is one that can be manipulated by the player characters. Do they need to calm a scared Scutosaurus in order to herd it through an Anomaly? Then good fodder and an Animal Handling skill check might be the solution. Or do they need to get an Utahraptor to chase them into an Anomaly? Then they should be aggressive towards it in order to attract its attention. Almost thirty monsters from the past are described in Primeval – The Roleplaying Game, and that in addition to the various humans from the past and certain dangers from the future. Beyond that, guidelines are provided to enable the GM to create his own threats, and the soon-to-be released Primeval Companion details another forty-five or so.

A similar mechanic handles cover-ups, one part of the ARC’s remit, but instead of Threat, this is Exposure. By sealing Anomalies, capturing creatures, and creating cover stories, an ARC team can reduce Exposure, but witnesses, victims, physical evidence, imagery, nosy investigators, journalists, and conspiracy theorists all work to raise Exposure.

Since the television series and thus Primeval – The Roleplaying Game involves time travel, it is no surprise that both this and the means of achieving time travel as well as its dangers – the Anomalies – are discussed in some detail. This includes the possibility of changing the time line and all of the hazards that entails. Again, a mechanic similar to that used for Threat and Exposure is used to assess the possibility of Temporal Damage, which if it gets too high, can lead to the current time line actually being altered.

A quarter of the book is written specifically for the GM, although a good half of the book – the latter half of the book – is really intended for his eyes only. This quarter includes an excellent chapter on gamemastering. It not only covers the basics, but provides a very useful description of the various types of player from power gamers and butt-kickers to storytellers and casual gamers, including their benefits and foibles. It takes the GM through the process of creating a single-session adventure, then a longer two or three session adventure, thus building up to campaign. Although the advice is written for Primeval – The Roleplaying Game, it would fit well with many other RPGs. More specific to the setting, the GM’s advice covers its secrets as they are known by the end of season three of the television series. This includes conspiracies, supported by details of those seen on screen and those created for the RPG, both of which are pleasingly inventive; and details of the future and its inhabitants. To be honest, this section does not go into too much detail, keeping it vague much like the television series. Rounding out the Primeval – The Roleplaying Game is a solid scenario for use with an ARC based campaign. It is written with the neophyte GM in mind, having clearly marked separate sections for both him and the GM who has more experience.

Physically, Primeval – The Roleplaying Game draws on the television series for its illustrations – so lots of photographs of dinosaurs along with various members of the cast. The book is cleanly and tidily laid out, using quite an open layout.

Primeval – The Roleplaying Game feels very complete. It not only provides everything that a player and GM needs to start a campaign within the setting and more, especially with the given examples. It serves as thoroughly researched sourcebook for the series, matching this with rules and mechanics that support most obviously the action of the television series, but also just as effectively its storytelling aspects too. Away from the television series, if you wanted a dinosaur-hunting, cross-time conspiracy RPG with an understandably British restraint, then Primeval – The Roleplaying Game is your answer to said wont. It does all that and it does it well in an engaging fashion. So not only is Primeval – The Roleplaying Game a fine adaptation of the television series, it is a fun dinosaur-hunting, cross-time conspiracy RPG that stands on its own.

Read More