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 FOR YOUR ADVENTURES THROUGH ALL OF SPACE AND TIME!

The wild adventures of everyone’s favourite Time Lord comes to the world’s most popular roleplaying game in Doctors and Daleks. Take your gaming group into the TARDIS and travel anywhere, anywhen. Want to meet Leornado da Vinci? Or see what life is like in the year 3,000? What about another planet entirely? All of space and time is your Venusian macro-oyster, but keep your wits about you — there’s a lot of danger in the vastness of eternity.

We are delighted to announce that we are working on Doctors and Daleks – a new line of products that brings Doctor Who adventures to your table using 5th Edition rules! The first release – The Doctors and Daleks Player’s Guide will launch soon.

The wild adventures of everyone’s favourite Time Lord comes to the world’s most popular roleplaying game in Doctors and Daleks. Take your gaming group into the TARDIS and travel anywhere, anywhen.

We’ll also continue to support the new Second Edition of our award winning Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game, with a host of new products on the way soon!

 

[Dire Bare]

Please stop trying to invalidate people's real frustration with the state of the TTRPG market. For many 3p/indie publishers or even game tables, this frustration isn't coming out of nowhere. It's a real one. If your only recourse to hearing that frustration is to invalidate it rather than understand or sympathize with it, then it makes your call for an open table ring hollow.

Not trying to invalidate anyone's opinions . . . but yes, I'm pushing back on what I see as an overreaction. We'll have to agree to disagree on whether that strong reaction is a worthwhile one.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel WotC earned its position. It was experimental with 4e. In many ways 4e is by designers for designers.

It got mixed reviews from the public at large. WotC took this to heart. Then WotC made an unprecedented effort to survey and research what most D&D fans want. 5e is indeed what most D&D players desire.

The success of 5e comes from hard work and serving the public need. There were times when what the designers wanted and what the public wanted were not the same. But the 5e designers chose to prioritize the public.

5e is a significant resource for every designer. If a designer wants to reach a majority market, then the product should look more like 5e. If the designers want to create a niche product that serves the needs of a minority, the designers can do that with full understanding.

 

[Yaarel]

I would love to see a variant with eight abilities:

• Strength (size, heavy damage, carry, brute)
• Constitution

• Dexterity (cautious precision, finesse, stealth)
• ATHLETICS (mobility, climb, balance, jump, fall, speed, reflex, dodge)

• Intelligence
• PERCEPTION

• Charisma (all social, charm, empathy)
• Wisdom (willpower)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Other than five statblocks, the episode/adventure summary is statless. I expect the Who sourcebooks to be mostly very useful in Doctors & Daleks.

Absolutely. You can run a Doctor Who style adventure using any ruleset. I have seen at least three completely different Doctor Who RPGs, and they all work. And I have run Doctor Who based adventures in Traveller and Star Wars D6 as well as the 5e one I mentioned earlier*. Doctor Who is inherently genre-bending, and it can go with pretty much anything.


*NB if anyone is interested in that message me, and I will see if I can send you what I have. It's in a fairly rough and ready state though.

 

[Thunderfoot]

After following your link, and poking around a bit . . . C7 has published almost 40 books in their Dr. Who line using their current game system! I imagine that's part of the reasoning for the upcoming D&D version, they are potentially running out of good ideas for new books! That's traditionally time for a new edition, and instead of doing that, C7 is starting a parallel game line to complement and extend the existing game.

How DARE YOU, sir! Bringing rational thoughtful ideas like this into a conversation. You should be horsewhipped!!! (I was thinking the same thing actually)

 

[Ovinomancer]

I feel WotC earned its position. It was experimental with 4e. In many ways 4e is by designers for designers.

It got mixed reviews from the public at large. WotC took this to heart. Then WotC made an unprecedented effort to survey and research what most D&D fans want. 5e is indeed what most D&D players desire.

The success of 5e comes from hard work and serving the public need. There were times when what the designers wanted and what the public wanted were not the same. But the 5e designers chose to prioritize the public.

5e is a significant resource for every designer. If a designer wants to reach a majority market, then the product should look more like 5e. If the designers want to create a niche product that serves the needs of a minority, the designers can do that with full understanding.

I think this ignores the massive selection bias that exists for D&D. After a few decades of D&D being "the" game, and of it's major competitors just tinkering with that formula and some different dice (most major pre-2000 games that competed with D&D kept the same general approach to play and just exchanged mechanics and details), the base of players had already selected for those that like playing D&D. Any other possible audience was turned away with lack of support. So, then, 5e was made polling this base of players. It does well with them. It even is growing, although that's less because of the strength of the game and more because it's getting out there in new ways and reaching new audiences to select from. But that selection is still for people that like 5e. This doesn't tell a thing about whether 5e, or D&D in general, is the best approach to take for the most people. It might not be. I think it's a reasonably good game, but I wouldn't say it's the model to emulate. I wouldn't say it's not. There's not enough information to say one way or the other. It's like saying that everyone I know drives a car or rides in one, so cars are the model to be used if you want to design a conveyance. Maybe, maybe not.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Snip

4e lost their audience, 5e kept it.
5e enabled critical role, because it seems not only fun to play but also fun to watch.
Theater of the mind is more fun to watch than people using game terms and pushing figurines over a battlemap.
I really believe without that rule system and the philosophy behind it, dnd 5e would not have gained that traction.

 

[Aldarc]

Not trying to invalidate anyone's opinions . . .

Then be mindful of how the words of your post give that impression.

but yes, I'm pushing back on what I see as an overreaction. We'll have to agree to disagree on whether that strong reaction is a worthwhile one.

I agree that this is an overreaction to the Cubicle 7 announcement but as I said before, I don’t think that this reaction is really about Doctor Who for 5e but some of the more troubling market trends that people are feeling about the growing influence of the 800 lb. Gorilla and designing for the hobby in ways that only continues to feed that beast.

 

[Voadam]

After following your link, and poking around a bit . . . C7 has published almost 40 books in their Dr. Who line using their current game system! I imagine that's part of the reasoning for the upcoming D&D version, they are potentially running out of good ideas for new books! That's traditionally time for a new edition, and instead of doing that, C7 is starting a parallel game line to complement and extend the existing game.

With the end of the Whittaker era they have another potential full doctor sourcebook lined up.

There is plenty more they could also do with more of the Who aliens and original type adventures.

For D&D I expect them to do a core book first and then probably an aliens book similar to All the Strange, Strange Creatures Volume I. I can see 5e people buying a Doctor Who alien bestiary/PC race collection even if they don't buy the core book.

I am still hoping they do a Volume II which could be for both the Who RPG version and D&D too.

I would expect things like the Time Traveller's Companion and the UNIT sourcebook to test out sourcebook appetite, maybe adventure sourcebooks like All of Time and Space Volume 1. I would not expect the 13 doctor sourcebooks to be redone until they have shown enough of a purchaser demand as though it would be a small amount of work to convert the mechanics, that is a big series of in print books.

 

[Jer]

I would expect things like the Time Traveller's Companion and the UNIT sourcebook to test out sourcebook appetite, maybe adventure sourcebooks like All of Time and Space Volume 1. I would not expect the 13 doctor sourcebooks to be redone until they have shown enough of a purchaser demand as though it would be a small amount of work to convert the mechanics, that is a big series of in print books.

I wouldn't expect the Doctor sourcebooks to be redone at all unless the 5e version of the game dwarfs the original game line in sales. Those books are really more for Doctor Who fans than actual game books (says the guy who owns all of them either physically or in PDF). The amount of gaming material in them is slight and could be completely updated by a single conversion book IMO.