The Wait Is Almost Over...

Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space is almost upon us!

Those lucky enough to be at the Dragonmeet convention in London at the weekend were able to see, and play demonstrations of, the game and two very lucky people picked up advanced copies of the box set in the charity auction (for £250!!!!) and the raffle.

A bit more information about the game's mechanics has leaked out and, while I don't want to give too much away for fear of annoying publishers Cubicle 7, what I have learned has certainly put my mind at ease (even at this stage I was fearful that the game might be riddled with hippy, New Age, indie game sensibilities).

Taken in parallel with the preview of the blank character sheet (or The Doctor's character sheet), we learn that normal human attributes are rated from one to six (as, I believe, are skills) and the action resolution system (as we'd long thought) is 2d6 + Attribute + Skill against a target number.

What was new to me was the 'success chart' for such roles is graded "yes and", "yes", "yes but", "no but", "no" and "no and".

This is where I had awful indie game flashbacks (not that I have anything against indie games per se, they are just not my cup of tea), but it was explained that in the context of combat, say, these just indicate simple damage modifiers (e.g. halved for a "no but" and multiplied by one and a half for a "no and").

Speaking of combat: some weapons, such a dalek blaster, are lethal while others cause a certain amount of damage to your statistics - there is no dedicated wound track or hit points, as such, in Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space.

A character's "storypoints" can be used to alleviate damage, however (which, I guess, is how The 10th Doctor survived being zapped by the dalek in The Stolen Earth) - although I expect "storypoints" have far wider uses than just this.

Adversaries covered in this initial box set include: autons; carrionites; catkind; clockwork droids; cybermen; daleks; judoon; krillitane; ood; roboforms; slitheen; sontarans; sycorax; and toclafane.

More will be covered (hopefully including The Master and Davros) in the first box set due out in 2010: Aliens And Creatures, which is now scheduled for release in January/February.

Still on course for a December release is the four-panel The Gamesmaster's Screen, which includes the "difficulty chart", explanations of the various result grades, conflict resolution tables, random hit locations, terrain and cover modifiers, technology levels, story points (spending and gaining), a useful list of page references for the Gamesmaster etc

* Remember, if you want to get in on the ground floor of the game's fan community aim your TARDIS at the Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space forums.

(a special thank you to forum members for their inside knowledge of the game and its mechanics).

* In the meantime, I'd also like to draw to your attention a fantastic article by Tim Brannan, author of the Ghosts Of Albion RPG for use with Cinematic Unisystem, about using a facet of Faction Paradox mythology in roleplaying games.

Although Tim's article is actually aimed more at his particular oeuvre, which is witch/magic-based urban fantasy games, given the Faction originated in the Whoniverse, this idea is equally applicable to Adventures In Time And Space.