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!

 

[Yaarel]

It also have the best initiative system ever. (Talkers go first, then runners, then doers, and last people who still want to fight.)

Huh. I think 5e can do something like that.

Maybe an initiatve system that starts with one round of talking (free actions), then a round of move including interaction with objects, and finally a round of action including bonus action. After that, a normal mix.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes. You can also play no timelords, or all timelords, or specific doctor and specific companions as well as new timelord and companions (humans or aliens).

Good. As player, I eant to be the timelord (wizard archetype) and would hate to be a sidekick. If everyone can be a timelord, even better.

 

[Yaarel]

5e can easily handle a noncomat adventure by counting the number of encounters, rather than xp.

For levels 5 thru 12, it takes about 15 encounters (I do 16) to reach the next level. These encounters can be any kind of challenge, whether social, exploration, puzzle, sports competition, chase scene, nonlethal combat, or lethal combat.

 

[Richards]

I wonder how they're going to abbreviate Doctors and Daleks, what with "D&D" kind of already taken....

Johnathan

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Yeah, normally I'm cool with companies using 5E. But I'll be real, this is pretty silly.

Sillier than a Dalek!

 

[Yaarel]

I wonder how they're going to abbreviate Doctors and Daleks, what with "D&D" kind of already taken....

Johnathan

Heh, before I realized the pun:

"Double-Ds"

 

[nyvinter]

For levels 5 thru 12, it takes about 15 encounters (I do 16) to reach the next level. These encounters can be any kind of challenge, whether social, exploration, puzzle, sports competition, chase scene, nonlethal combat, or lethal combat.

This reminded me of another thing I really liked in Doctor Who AITAS 1e: only the TARDIS had an experience system. The players were expected to play the characters to get the appropriate traits (unless selected during character creation). Act like an arrogant ass to people and the GM might give you that trait — which is a positive one — or try and make gadgets and fix stuff and you'll get the boffin one.

It's not a game where you go from zero to hero, and that to me also feels very appropriate for somewthing that emulates the tv-show.

 

[Yaarel]

It's not a game where you go from zero to hero, and that to me also feels very appropriate for somewthing that emulates the tv-show.

Hmmm. Using 5e for a setting that doesnt advance in levels - that is difficult.

Thoughts that come to mind are:

The Fighter class must have features to advance in competence in the noncombat pillars. Who has warriors that can fight well, but the noncombat capabilities become more central to the story and tone.

The setting might prolong advancement, such as 50 encounters to level up.

The setting might go "e6" with epic boons instead of level 6 class features.

Alternatively, it might grant something like "background feats" as boons instead of epic boons.

Or the setting could embrace zero to hero. I prefer this because Who has some characters who are poweful, and level advancement is a way to attain this within gaming balance.

...

Then again. Perhaps the Tardis is the only "character", and the players are actually only playing its NPC "companion" sidekicks and pets.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But I can’t think of a system less suited to Doctor Who than D&D.

GURPS?

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.