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What happened to the Doctor Who RPG?

Doctor Who and RoseSome time ago Cubicle 7 Entertainment relaunched their website and while their other product lines (SLA Industries, Victoriana, Starblazer Adventures and Qin) make their appaerance at the new site, the Doctor Who RPG is missing. Although I was in doubt that a Doctor Who RPG could actually work, but I was interested to see if Cubicle 7 could pull it off.

Does anyone know, what happened to the Doctor Who RPG? Was it cancelled? Was there never a Doctor Who RPG from Cubicle 7 Entertainment and I am suffering from delusions? Can anyone shed some light on that matter?
Stargazer

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

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8 comments

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ravenpolar

Your right, they did announce it and have been saying that its in the hands of the BBC for approval.
However, if you visit the cubicle7 site today, they just announced a merge with Rebellion.
Not sure how this will affect things with the BBC, but I guess we will see pretty soon.

<abbr><abbr>ravenpolars last blog post..Into the Frey… Part 2</abbr></abbr>

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Siskoid

Darn. I thought you were going to tell us!

I think a Who RPG CAN work, possibly in the same way the Buffy RPG or say, Ars Magica, do. The Time Lord is ultra powerful, but the Companion still plays a fulfilling role with its more down-to-earth abilities.

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Walker

There have been multiple attempts at Doctor Who RPGs in the past, and they have never really caught on. FASA's original version was really light on source material and continuity. Time Lord was a nice, lightweight game (I think I still have it in my collection), but it was hard to make new characters.

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Dave T. Game

You aren't suffering from delusions (about this, at least): http://www.critical-hits.com/2008/08/22/preview-d…

I have to wonder what happened too. It might be a matter of the license suddenly disappearing.

<abbr><abbr>Dave T. Games last blog post..YouTube Tuesday: Instanced Drinking Edition</abbr></abbr>

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ravenpolar

just re-read the press release, seems like we will still see the Dr Who RPG, relevant piece below….

"The company will be now based out of Rebellion Group offices in Swindon, UK and their support will allow Cubicle 7 to focus on a major licensed mainstream release later this year as well as a busy monthly release schedule."

<abbr><abbr>ravenpolars last blog post..Into the Frey… Part 2</abbr></abbr>

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Vulcan Stev

A Dr. Who game (although it sounds like fun), seems to be problematic at best in execution. You've got two characters to play. One of them is very powerful, intelligent, witty and I'm not playing the female companion

<abbr><abbr>Vulcan Stevs last blog post..Gaming in the Universe of… Star Trek pt. 2</abbr></abbr>

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Ronin

I think what has happened is someone let the cat out of the bag. Then a quick, oh a big things gonna happen cant talkabout though. Fell into place.

Their some discussiopn with about it at The RPG Haven here,
http://www.therpghaven.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&amp;…

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Carlosdosbrickos

I got a chance to play the Dr Who RPG at the last Dragonmeet, and I have to say I thought it played pretty well. Entirely D6 based as I recall, and some neat gameplay ideas around story points. Very simple mechanics, but effective enough.

The game I played in involved a bunch of rescued humans taking their one Tardis trip. The DM played the Doctor, and he took a fairly minor part in the plot. The DM did point out that there were many ways to play: as a group of assistants accompanying the doctor, as timelords, as standard humans dealing with the Doctor Who universe, etc. Also mentioned that a Sarah Jane Adventures version for younger players was in the offing.

What soundec encouraging was that this itteration of the Doctor Who RPG was to have all the backing of the Beeb marketing machine, retailing for a low price in supermarkets, newsagents etc as a boxed set, rather than via specialist outlets. Sounded like a new and hopefully effective marketing strategy intended to reach a wider market than the traditional RPG crowd (not dissing said crowd, being a card carrying member, just saying).

At the time Angus and co were hoping for an April release, but there were continuing holdups with the Beeb. Looks like those delays, and perhaps the switch to Rebellion, have held things up more than anticipated.

Have faith guys, this looked like a fine game in early playtest. If there are delays it's probably to be expected on what is one of the Beeb's flagship properties.

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