How would you run a game of Doctor Who? What system should I use?

There was an official-ish one at some point.

In general though I have no idea how that would work since even in spinoffs, Doctor Who revolves around there being one supernaturally amazing character who the others just kinda hang with. That doesn't really mesh with there being a full party of adventurers.

>>45297968
FATAL

The Doctor's pretty much a plot device, moreso than a character. Not that he lacks character, by any means, but most episodes have him and his companion(s) running from things right up until it's time for the Doctor to shout "God, it was so obvious! How did I miss that?" and then he talks/technobables up the solution to this week's problem. So yeah, I personally would avoid having them teamed up with the walking deus ex machina if possible, as they may come to resent him

You make it a Torchwood campaign.

I'd run it in GURPS.

>>45297968
Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space is the latest official RPG. I have no idea how it runs.

If narrative games are your bag, I think FATE, specifically the Action Scientist and Hypothesis Brainstorming rules from Atomic Robo Roleplaying Game would be a pretty neat way of doing it, allowing the Doctor, competent companions and UNIT to come to workable solutions to their current problems. You can handwave most of the time travel stuff, the show does: for a guy with a time machine, the Doctor's actual adventures don't deal too much with time travel.

If Time Travel is your bag, the upcoming GUMSHOE game TimeWatch has modes that seek to replicate Doctor Who adventures (along with TimeCop, Sliders, Quantam Leap etc).

>>45297968

For the breadth of plot concepts you get, it's really just FATE or GURPS. If GURPS, use a rules light build heavy on cinematics.

Don't play the doctor. Tempting as he is, he's not balanceable for role-playing encounters. Even most professional actors can't handle his dramatic range.

Finally, you have to be very episodic in your campaign style. Like40k, canon is very iffy, to be both respected and totally thrown out when necessary

There's a Doctor Who RPG that gets new artwork but the same rules, just with baked-in errata, every time the Doctor regenerates. It's good.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/155570

DWATIAS, FATE or GURPS

>>45298048
Only in NuWho. The Doctor wasn't the center of the universe in the old series.

>>45298524
>the Doctor's actual adventures don't deal too much with time travel.
There was that one time when he was locked inside a time sealed box but not really because he got himself out through time travel. It was one of the dumber moments in the show.

>>45300309
Nah, I've been a fan since long before the reboot, the point has always been that people are stuck to The Doctor in particular, who is special and changes their lives. Even back when the reason he was special was because he was their kidnapper, or because all the worst shit in the universe always happened to him by pure coincidence.

To emulate that, you need one Time Lord player and a bunch of humans, unless you wanna go more for the Torchwood angle, or something off the wall like a group of time agents.

>>45300542
Yeah, there are moments when time travel is used within an adventure, but mostly, it's just a plot device to kick off the week's adventure and ride off into the sunset when the story is finished.

I think if I had a go anywhere-anywhen box I'd be using it all the time-space.

>>45300597
I don't think the series has ever gone into great detail about it, but I'm pretty sure it has been at least implied that the Doctor can't fix the problems that occur during episodes with time travel because of locked time streams or something like that.

>>45300873
Yeah, basically once they arrive, they're part of events. So if they tries to go back to when they arrived to fix the problem, there'll just be two sets of TARDIS crew in one place.

>>45300652
Daleks and Time Lords would be amazing additions to 40k.

>>45300873
Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff in the show just functions to serve the plot, amp up the tension and stop the Doctor from wrapping up the adventure of the week in a minute or two of time travel.

If you were running it as a narrative game like FATE you could have some guidelines about not crossing your own timeline and immutable points in time, but it'd work more like a loose agreement not to dick too hard with everyone else's understanding of the the time-space continuum, and then break all the hard and fast rules when you think you can get away with it.

>>45301011
TimeWatch has guidelines and paradox rules that function a bit like sanity and stability in other Gumshoe games.

You can do stuff like Bill & Ted, in the future go back and steal your Dad's keys and leave them in the past for you to find now. You can even play things looser and come back from the future and help yourself in combat (although that's incredibly dangerous if your younger self dies). The game encourages you to get twisty with your time, and Paradox serves as the resource you spend or lose to deal with risky chrono-shenanigans.

Want to do something cool with time travel? It probably costs you a Paradox point. Do something cool AND broken with time travel is going to cost you two. You can spend paradox points to avoid having to make a time travel test, but you can lose paradox by failing time travel tests as well.

If you lose too much paradox, you can get lost in time, get subsumed and lose who you are and go native or any of a number of bad things as the timestream tries to reconcile you with reality as best it can.

>At the end of Part Two the Doctor asks the Fendahl skull if it would like a jelly baby, but actually offers it a liquorice allsort. This was commented on in the 'Watchdog' segment of Nationwide; the Doctor Who production office replied by saying that this was one of the ways the Doctor liked to confuse his enemy.

>captcha asks me to select candy

>>45300594

Or you could just make it revolve around a bunch of Timelords before they got wiped out.

>>45297968
MAID

>>45305839
Time Lord bounty hunters sent out by the Time Lord civilisation on Gallifrey to capture the Doctor, but repeatedly get sucked into adventures across space and time?

>>45305880
From what I know about MAID, this seems like a good idea.

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>>45298524
I never got around to actually reading the rules for that because the presentation offended me so much. It was all pictures and huge borders and shit, with very little room left for text. "Hey! Remember all this cool shit in the TV show! Look at all these cool pictures. (Oh yeah, and I guess here's text about rules too, but reading is hard so how about some more pictures!?)" Like, that huge TARDIS graphic is literally on every other page in the fucking book.

Here's a link to the old FASA Doctor Who game (Adventures *Through* Time and Space): https://mega.nz/#F!zkp0UCTb!CMYHHNKquIhNHbxI4N4G5w . It's an interesting read, but I'm not sure what I think of the actual mechanics. There are too many skills that are too specific (especially when it comes to the knowledge / technical stuff) and the way action points (I think that's what they're called) is a bit too... involved, especially since other aspects of the system are more freewheeling.

Honestly, I'm not sure that Doctor Who makes for a very good RPG, as it's too centered around the peculiar circumstances of the protagonist and his companions. So you either do literally the same thing ("who wants to be the Doctor for this campaign?"), do some rip-off, or you go with something more original and probably have very little use for the setting anymore.

>>45298406
Not that classic Who was completely immune to this type of thing, but it was much less an exercise in fawning over how awesome the Doctor was all the time (not to mention his super special companion). Also, the plot existed as more than an opportunity to showcase how clever the Doctor is (or to have a clever twist). Towards the end of the classic run, this distinction might be slipping a bit (the 7th Doc tended to have a "just as planned" vibe), but the show was pretty terrible by then anyway.

>>45298524
I flipped through it, once, and initiative works like this:
people who want to talk go first
people who want to run go second
people who want to do something absurd go third
people who want to fight go last

That's it. No dice, no cards, no other tracking.
It's got a bunch of splats for, I guess, all 13 Doctors up to now, as well as "play the show" supplements.

Some of my group are pretty big fans, but seemed turned off by the awful mechanics. Plus, there's obvious powerlevel differences between the Doctor, and the Companions, so you either rotate Doctor and GM spots, or play Everyone Or No One is a Timelord.

>>45306847
That was the one thing that really bugged me about the 11th Doctor. Every episode he would be faced with an impossible riddle, and every time it would end with him going
>"Hah, fooled ya"
and then pulling some ridicilous solution out of his ass that only made sense in hindsight. That is, it would have been impossible for the viewer to realize that it was a possible solution before the Doctor tells you how he did it.

That is not clever writing. That is the writing of a dumb person to whom clever people are literally magicians.

>>45307279
I really respect them for going for an older Doctor and moving away from the undertones of romantic tension, but I've grown increasingly disillusioned with the show. This is something that was building during Matt Smith's run as well, so it's not all about Capaldi's episodes. I've gotten to the point where I don't really care what happens because nothing that happens has any integrity. It's all just ass-pulls that'll be undone the next episode if they feel like it. I mean, just look at the supposed death of Missy. And I'm getting really sick of the show being a (non-sexual) relationship drama about the Doctor and his snowflake companion. I miss classic Who, when they would often spend a decent amount of time setting up the plot on some alien world before the Doctor would even show up. The Doctor is a great character, but even so, you can't have everything revolve around him for season after season. It gets old, and you start to get tired of the Doctor and even start to resent him (or at least, I do).

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>>45297968
Something rules light, unless you want to stat out wibbley wobbly timeywimey stuff.

>>45297968
The challenge is for each player to pull out the most left field deus ex machina they can.

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>>45307279
>That is the writing of a dumb person to whom clever people are literally magicians.
But I thought that was this show...

>>45307847
It's every show where the protagonist is a genius of any kind.

Writers are usually really dumb people and the people they write for are usually even dumber.

>>45307592
I have had no problem with Smith or Capaldi as actors. The faults during their times as the Doctor, numerous has they may have been, have been 100% because of Moffat.

>>45300990

Necrons are essentially Daleks with feet. Especially oldcrons.

With matt ward's changes, necrons have a lot of time lord-ish technology and have switched to tomb kings in space, but the dalek-ness is still there if you want it. Which I do.

>>45307592

Moffat has been a good leader but I'm glad he's stepping down. He was brilliant at the clever use of time travel plots. And he was a master of the greater continuity of the series.

But he can and has blown up the universe several times and at this point all I can do is yawn. People aren't excited by big in-universe stakes. They're excited by stories that are personal and meaningful (like the christmas episode where it looked like the dad would die).

RTD was very good at that kind of story, but if we'd had nothing but that for 12 years then it would have gotten old. Instead, he mined out his own talents, then the show was renewed under Moffat. Now it needs someone new.

What I'd like are emotional stakes that matter, plot resolutions that aren't total ass-pulls, and a move away from the cliched Doctor-companion dynamics we've been having since the reboot.

>>45307035
I've been pondering trying a UNIT campaign, or running a Time Lord free campaign with a group of original time travelers.

Looking back, the adventures with Vastra, Jenny and Strax seem like a solid PC group, doing their own thing while the Doctor's off doing whatever with his Just As Planned plans.

>>45311018
And given the Dr Who's initiative system, Strax's player would be constantly annoyed that he hardly ever gets to shoot or punch things.

No mention of Time Lord? It was later released for free here:

http://www.torsononline.com/hobbies/timelord/main.htm

Also the Doctor Who Miniatures Game (or 7TV, the generic spin-off) are supposed to be good.

bump while I read stuff.

>>45311018
My take on why Torchwood bored the crap out of me is that there was no Doctor (who is an awesome character) and no cool alien worlds to visit (which are the coolest parts of Doctor Who). I'd be afraid that a UNIT campaign would be very constrained and dull. And when Pertwee was stuck on Earth with UNIT, that was a bit of a lead weight around the plots. It was only because the Brigadier was awesome (and later, The Master, even if he did get overused) that the show didn't get hard to watch. Still, once The Doctor started being able to go off planet, that's when the golden age of Doctor Who really began.

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>>45310884
>Moffat has been a good leader but I'm glad he's stepping down
Hallelujah! I had not heard this. I had to walk away from Doctor Who a few episodes into this season because I just could take it anymore. To me, Moffat was all icing an no cake. Not everything can be a clever twist or nothing has any meaning. You have to do your job and pour down the foundations of the show to build upon (and not squander them on a bunch of cheap tricks). Moffat worked well as an episode writer during RTD's run, as RTD had poured the foundations and given him something to work with (and we weren't sick of clever twists all the time because Moffat was only doing a few episodes).

One of the bigger issues I've had with Doctor Who (aside from the narrow focus on the Doctor and his relationship with his companion all the fucking time), is that it's moved so far away from science fiction. I'm okay with there being some mystical, science-fantasy elements, but I feel that it using what amounts to space magic all the time is just another way that it's lost its integrity

Throughout new Who's run, I would've turned the dial at least a bit more towards science fiction, but for the most part found the fantasy stuff to be tolerable early on. Hell, I quite enjoyed Moffat's first season as showrunner. But by the time season 6 started, I was starting to get antsy. I was finding episodes unsatisfying and was having trouble putting my finger on exactly why, when all my friends were loving the show. I mean, I could point out specific problems, but it wasn't until significantly later that I figured out the broader issue I was having with the show.

>>45297968
I think Fate is the only system that will do the show justice. The official game is kind of neat, but I think a system lighter on the mechanics and heavier on the story is better.

>>45315179
>Not everything can be a clever twist
Moffat's twists aren't clever though. Either he hits you over the head with foreshadowing until you know what's coming several episodes before it's actually revealed. River Song being Amy's daughter. Or it's something that would be impossible to know beforehand because the riddle wasn't structured in such a way that a solution was possible before the Doctor makes his final asspull and breaks all the rules we had been told couldn't be broken. Like when he got around dying on the beach because fate had decided that he had to be on the beach but not that he had to be shot there even though that's exactly what we had been told before that.

>>45300873
>I'm pretty sure it has been at least implied that the Doctor can't fix the problems that occur during episodes with time travel because of locked time streams or something like that.
Also, episodes have a tendency to take the TARDIS out of action within the first 10 minutes or the second they decide "Right, back in the TARDIS, these people can go fuck themselves". It doesn't happen all the time, but it pops up enough to be noticeable.

>>45300542
>>45298524
Early on, the Doctor couldn't fix shit with time travel because he couldn't be assured of landing the TARDIS in the same century or even on the same planet. I honestly think that worked pretty well and am sorry they moved away from it.

>>45310884
>he was a master of the greater continuity of the series.
Not sure what you mean by this considering how much Moffat has rewritten history.

>>45301210

Reminds me of one of my favorite 4e Epic Destinies. Feyliege. Most Epic Destinies have some sort of 'Prevent yourself dying' feature.

The Feyliege's one is 'Oh dammit, you got your dumb ass killed. I better travel back in time and win this fight for you so that time ends up going the right way'. At the end of the battle you Rez your current self (Because this is D&D dammit) and bugger off back to the future.

>>45317087
Yeah, the world was literally destroyed and recreated twice in two consequitive plot lines.

David Tennant>* doctor wise from the reboot.

>>45317567
David Tennant's Doctor was way too much of a high and mighty space Jesus for my taste.

>>45317567
Nine<* doctor wise from the reboot.

In my opinion, Ten, Eleven and Twelve are all pretty good, in their own ways.

Ten would have been better if they didn't over-indulge his farewell(s). Also the repeated sub-plot of his companions wanting to fuck his brains out kills some of the enjoyment. As annoying as Chav Donna was at first, at least she wasn't unlucky Martha Jones pining away for the Doctor.

I didn't think I'd like Matt Smith as Eleven but he ended up being pretty cool. The one complaint I can think off of the top of my head is RIVER, RIVER, RIVER! The WMD-like escalation of companion importance that culminated in Clara Oswald was getting on my nerves as well.

Peter Capaldi as Twelve isn't bad either. Clara going back to a relatively normal companion is appreciated. Missy is not a favourite.

I'm rewatching from Twelve's arrival now, for the second time since broadcast. I'm not too far in, but I remember not liking the pacing of the double episodes and the hard push on Ashildr/Maisie Williams.

I really like when the Doctor recruits a bunch of allies, such as A Good Man Goes To War, or Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. It'd be nice if they did another season where the Doctor gathered together some reoccurring guest star companions that were mixed up from episode to episode.

>>45297968
Use GURPS. The PCs are companions from different worlds and times, called to the TARDIS when the Time Lord vanishes. At first, all they have access to is the control room, but as they travel first in space then later in time, they unlock more and more of the interior, trying to find where the Doctor hid himself inside his ship, and why.

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>>45317920
>Missy is not a favourite.
Missy is terrible. John Simm was okay for a one-off but wore thin upon being repeated. Derek Jacobi was the master for all of 5 seconds, so he doesn't really count. Eric Roberts was ridiculous. Anthony Ainley was godawful. The dying cadaverous Masters were mostly just dying and cadaverous, but I guess they were passable. The only really good Master was the original, who was overused but downright fantastic.

>>45311157
Yeah, I'm surprised it's taken so long for Time Lord to be mentioned. Personally, I'd use Time Lord's rules with Cubicle 7's initiative system, and for campaign ideas I'd alternate between mining Cubicle 7 splatbooks and using FASA modules.
>>45319684
By all accounts, Delgado was one of the loveliest human beings you could ever hope to meet. Also, Derek Jacobi played The Master in that weird Cosgrove Hall audio drama/web animation thing that they tried to reboot the series, but failed because the "animation" was fucking awful.

>>45297968
Ive ran a few games using the official Adventures in Time and Space ruleset and its pretty good, provided youre a competent gm.

Honestly anything would work, Dr. Who is more about the plot and characters than the rules, provided you have interesting sci fi story to tell you should be able to work in some encounters etc.

I found the rulebook really helpful for that, it gives you a lot of ideas for the kind of stuff you can play with in that universe, its a gerat place to get started.

>>45307702
Man it was refreshing when john hurt told 10 and 11 doctors to stop talking like fucking children.

>>45314948

Torchwood was saddled by its obsession with gender politics. I mostly agree with those politics, but they dragged the show down.

Also, doctor who's strength is in its ability to tell any story. Not the same story over and over again.

>>45315179

Look, man, I agree with everything you said, but I'm totally transfixed by your pic related of zoey.

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>>45322050
Zoe's "attributes" aside, that was a great period in terms of the Doctor / companion dynamic. By himself, Jamie wasn't really that special, I don't think, but he had a great interplay with the 2nd Doctor (it's right up there with what the 4th Doctor and Leela had), and Zoe was a pretty awesome companion too, especially when you compare her to the run-of-the-mill, annoyingly helpless female companion of the first several Doctors. It's too bad that many of the stories were relatively schlocky monster-of-the-week deals. One could make an argument that, script-wise, Troughton had the weakest era of the first couple of decades of the show. Still, the 2nd Doctor is one of my all-time favorites, his dynamic with Jamie is fantastic, and Zoe is both awesome and adorable, so I can't complain too much.

>>45322012
>Also, doctor who's strength is in its ability to tell any story. Not the same story over and over again.
Hear, hear.

>>45319872
>Time Lord's rules with Cubicle 7's initiative system, and for campaign ideas I'd alternate between mining Cubicle 7 splatbooks and using FASA modules
That sounds pretty labour intensive... but I think it would produce some pretty fun games.