D&D 5E The Official 5E Version Of Doctor Who Is Coming In Just 2 Weeks!

In two weeks (or back in 2022 depending where in space and time you are right now) Cubicle 7 will be launching DOCTORS & DALEKS, the 5E version of its popular Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space tabletop RPG which has been in production for over a decade.

The game launches on Tuesday, July 19th with the Doctors and Daleks Player’s Guide.

Cubicle 7 has been producing the official Doctor Who RPG since 2009, with over 20 books. A second edition launched last year. This new edition is the D&D 5E edition, and was first announced back in February.

D&D 5E - Doctors & Daleks - Cubicle 7 Brings Doctor Who to D&D 5E

Cubicle 7 -- makers of the official Doctor Who roleplaying game -- has announced that the Doctor will officially be coming to 5E soon under the name Doctors and Daleks. There are no dates or details yet, over than that the Doctors and Daleks Player's Guide will launch 'soon'. A NEW COMPANION...

www.enworld.org

Doctors and Daleks​

A New Way to Adventure through all of Space and Time

Doctors and Daleks brings the epic adventures of the Universe’s most famous Time Lord to the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Running parallel to the award winning Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game, Doctors and Daleks is a new line of products that brings Doctor Whoadventures to your table using 5th Edition rules.

The first book, the Doctors and Daleks Players Guide, brings you everything you need to get started with your adventures in Space and Time!

• Streamlined character creation rules to quickly bring to life a new time travelling adventurer. Create a new Companion for the Doctor, or build your own Time Lord! Do you want to do a bit of time tourism as part of Team TARDIS, or will you create a group of Time Agents to fight back against pesky paradoxes?
• Rules for playing fast paced, combat light sci-fi adventures using the world’s most popular roleplaying game system. Fight like the Doctor with non-lethal weapons, manoeuvres, gadgets, and the power of emotional and logical arguments — or just run away really fast!
• A time traveller’s treasure trove of technological marvels, including sonic screwdrivers, psychic paper, a water gun, and time machines.
• Rules for using and customising the TARDIS, as well as creating and piloting any other kind of time travel device you can think of from the dawn of history to the very ends of the universe.
• Advice on making every Doctors and Daleks adventure feel like you’re living in an episode of the legendary Doctor Who TV Series.
• An expansive look at the history of the Doctor’s Universe, detailing some of the aliens and creatures the Doctor has encountered across space and time, including profiles for Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels, ready to be played!

The Doctors and Daleks Player’s Guide will be followed by the Alien Archive, a dedicated catalogue of some of the Doctor’s most notorious foes, presenting dozens of recognisable aliens from the series for the players to add to their games.

Alongside these, The Keys of Scaravore is an epic adventure for levels 1-5, that leads the characters to the Wild West and distant worlds, encountering Draconians, Silurians, Zygons, and more, before finally facing the terrifying Scaravore itself.

 

[overgeeked]

In D&D, being captured is the end of a conflict. In this system it might well be the beginning.

In my experience it's the loss of agency the players abhor. Unless being captured is somehow directly rewarded in this game, I don't see that changing. Something like getting all the XP for the encounter if they surrender. But even that might not do it.

D&D provides terrible provision for running from combat, both in terms of doing so successfully and gaining benefit from it. I don't get the impression that will be the case with this system.

It's also part of the baked-in mindset of D&D play. Monsters are there to fight. Fights are there to be won. Unless you're playing an OSR version of D&D, the vast majority of fights are balanced around the notion that PCs will win them fairly easily, PCs have massive resources, monsters are wildly undertuned by comparison, so there's no reason to run. Having better mechanics for running is one necessary step...but it's not sufficient to get players to do so. As you mention, they need to gain a benefit from it.

 

[MarkB]

In my experience it's the loss of agency the players abhor. Unless being captured is somehow directly rewarded in this game, I don't see that changing. Something like getting all the XP for the encounter if they surrender. But even that might not do it.

It's also part of the backed-in mindset of D&D play. Monsters are there to fight. Fights are there to be won. Unless you're playing an OSR version of D&D, the vast majority of fights are balanced around the notion that PCs will win them fairly easily, PCs have massive resources, monsters are wildly undertuned by comparison, so there's no reason to run. Having better mechanics for running is one necessary step...but it's not sufficient to get players to do so. As you mention, they need to gain a benefit from it.

Yeah, but in a combat system where talking and ingenuity are actual combat moves, being captured doesn't necessarily rob you of agency - and running away doesn't necessarily constitute defeat. Yeah, it requires a different perspective, but hopefully the books will be able to facilitate that.

 

[Von Ether]

And of course right after I posted I saw that C7 had added a bit of a preview on conflict in the game:

Doctors and Daleks – Conflict! – Cubicle 7

cubicle7games.com

Very interesting - both less and more than I was thinking. I'll have to wait for someone else to really crack the nut of hit points as a spendable narrative mechanic, but I'm still interested in seeing where they go with this.

Check out the Expanse and Cypher System.

 

[overgeeked]

That conflict post link I posted above, here it is again for ease of reference.

Doctors and Daleks – Conflict! – Cubicle 7

cubicle7games.com

The Dalek stat block is interesting. The numbers are a bit off from what bog-standard 5E would suggest. The AC is slightly higher than standard for a CR10 monster. The HP are higher than a standard CR10 monster. The damage is spot on standard CR10 monster...but it's as a single attack rather than broken up into several...so expect a lot of one-shots...which is appropriate. The to-hit is less than half what a standard CR10 monster would have (+4 instead of +8 or +9)...which makes sense considering it's a one-shot kill weapon.

 

[Jer]

Check out the Expanse and Cypher System.

I have, of course. Cypher I find a bit too fiddly personally but there are some interesting ideas in it. Expanse (and Modern AGE in general) has some good things too.

I love analyzing game mechanics, even in games that I'll never actually be able to run.

 

[Weiley31]

What has been basically ignored is the fact that the companions are there to engage in the violence FOR the Doctor.
I believe it was a modern run Davros quote about how the Doctor 'builds up an army around him."

I'd forgotten just how affecting that scene is. Just the look on Tennant's face carries it.

Another thematic...bump in the road for 5E Doctor Who. D&D players abhor being captured...yet it's a staple of Doctor Who. 5E characters are practically immortal...yet characters in Doctor Who drop like flies (mostly NPCs, granted). D&D players refuse to run from fights...yet it's the default option (after talking) in Doctor Who.

Dang: Darvos scored a Critical Hit against The Doctor's plot points in that clip.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Hey look! There is an article about a Savage Worlds version of Pathfinder! Anyone here who is telling people to stay in their lane and play the Doctor Who RPG, instead of the 5E-based version, going to go over to that thread and tell them the bad news that they should not be playing the Savage Worlds version of Pathfinder? No?

 

[Jer]

New preview pages dropped: Doctors and Daleks – Creating a Character – Cubicle 7

 

[Von Ether]

New preview pages dropped: Doctors and Daleks – Creating a Character – Cubicle 7

I am getting the vibe this is the game where a great Charisma roll could be the end of a boss fight.

 

[Jer]

I am getting the vibe this is the game where a great Charisma roll could be the end of a boss fight.

I think that's exactly right. I love the idea that the Charmer class has an ability that is named "Emotional Appeal: De-escalate".

I'm anxious to see the rest of their interaction rules and how they interact with their (non)combat system.