Welcome to Doctor Who

Welcome to the game for the BBC Show Doctor Who.


Doctor Who is a science fiction show that ran from 1963 to now, admittedly with a large gap from 1986 to 2005, with a single movie in the middle. It covers all of Time and Space, so almost any story can be told. The main character is a time-traveling alien known as the Doctor.




The Doctor is a Time Lord, a race of aliens who were all destroyed in the Time War. The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is the Doctor’s time and space traveling ship. It is bigger on the inside than the outside, which resembles an old fashioned Police telephone box (due to an error with its camouflage device). The Doctor (and all Time Lords) has the ability to cheat death by regenerating, though this causes his appearance (and personality to a lesser extent) to change. He is currently in his 11th (of 13) regeneration. The Doctor rarely, almost never, uses any weapon, preferring to use his wits and knowledge to defeat his enemies. He has a strong moral sense of right and wrong and will always stand and fight against evil, except when it would damage the fabric of Time.




His main foes are the Daleks, evil mutants in a metal war machine with a hatred for all other lifeforms, and the Cybermen, emotionless cyborgs who seek to convert all humanoid life into Cybermen.




The Doctor often travel with companions, mostly humans, showing them the wonders of the universe, and to keep him company on his travels, especially after the Time War.

For those who are fans of the show, the game will take place after the new season 6, but before the 2011 Christmas special. There will be an event in the first story that will result in the Doctor slipping through his regenerations. This will let everyone have adventures with their favourite Doctors.

Because Doctor Who covers all of Time and Space (and occasionally beyond) anything is possible. We will be trying to stick to cannon as much as possible, but given that very often Doctor Who’s own cannon contravenes other parts of its own cannon, that’s still open to interpretation.

Knowledge of the canon is not necessary at all, all you really need to know (in some ways more than you need to know) is above. Anyone who wishes is free to join, just use the character template here.

Above all, have fun.

The Doctor In the Game
In the game the companions will have a far more central role than in the TV series. The Doctor himself will be an NPC, effectively under everyone’s control. The ‘writer’ for the episode can use the DW NPC account to have the Doctor relay plot critical information if needed, but everyone can take control of the Doctor within their own posts, especially if they are interacting with him.

Although the companions are the focus of the story, we’ll need to be careful not to completely reduce the Doctor to the role of glorified taxi driver! He will still need to have some role in the story, even if it is only planning or explaining things, or opening the inevitable locked doors!

The best example I can think of isn’t an actually episode, but one of the Big Finish audio plays called ‘The Harvest’. In it, the Doctor hardly appears in the first whole part, with the companions having centre stage. Then later the Doctor does some hacking while the companions do the sneaking in. As the story progresses the Doctor re-meets with the different companions as everyone is doing their own task. I don’t want to say any more details in case of spoilers, but if you are a DW fan, check it out. And the rest of the Big Finish range, most of them are excellent!

Style and Tone

So, what tone does this game have? It’s Doctor Who! It can vary from dark and brooding horror to almost flat out comedy. Of course, most of the time it’s just fun adventure. Hopefully we’ll have a balance between the excessive angst and soap-opera in the new episodes, and the complete lack thereof in the classic episodes. (Note, I AM over exaggerating here, so don’t light your torches to burn me yet! ) I know I keep harping on about them, but the Big Finish audios are a good guide as to where I’m hoping the series will be pitched. And a note on comedy episodes, while I’m not good at comedy, I’ve noticed that some of the best comedic episodes are those that will still work as decent adventures if you took all the comedy out, rather than the comedy being the complete story.