The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Forward: In an earlier review, I examined FASA's long defunct game, Doctor Who. This is a review of the second game based on the Whovian universe and following the review, there will be information about how the two games can be used to support each other. For details on the general setting of Doctor Who, please refer back to the first Doctor Who review.

Introduction

First there was FASA's Doctor Who, a quirky, clunky yet fairly complete game system based off of BBC's cult science fiction series of the same name. Written in the 80s during the height of the show's popularity, the game had its share of supplements until the licence came up for grabs in the late 80s. Two gamers, writers and Doctor Who aficionados in England saw an opportunity to take their home-brew mechanics and turn it into an official game. Thus, Time Lord was born in 1991, just around the time when Doctor Who had been taken off the airwaves.

The book itself is a trade paperback, which was against type in the game industry at the time. It looks more like a reference book for fans and that's partially the way authors Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans intended it; something for gamers yet fan-friendly enough to entice those unfamiliar with role-playing. Artwork is fairly rare, though what there is of it tends to be quite good and highly detailed, though sometimes, as in the case of the character portraits, the proportions seem a little off.

The Game

Time Lord begins with a brief summary of the show's various Doctors and a section of game fiction, one that is much longer than FASA's offering and which stars the seventh Doctor and his companion Ace. This fiction is more in keeping with the feel of the show and, in my opinion, is much better than FASA's version for two reasons: It's very well written and, because its purpose is to convey the sense of Doctor Who for non-fans, it is not written to conform to a set of artificial breaks designed to demonstrate game concepts. (Bonus, Time Lord's offering can even be turned into a full adventure.)

Following that is an excellent treatise on role-playing, something far more useful than the usual "it's like cops and robbers" analogy. It discusses the nature of the role-playing, its roots in both acting and oral storytelling, the highlights of its history and basic information on how a game session really works. It doesn't talk down to new players, which is quite refreshing.

The core rules themselves take up only a scant 52 pages, less than a quarter of the book, and covers all the basics. The rules are meant to be simple, only enough to carry the story which is the primary focus of the game. Players are given the opportunity of going through a "Chose your own Adventure" styled solo game and are given the choice between two of the Doctor's companions, Tegan the Australian stewardess and Jamie the Scottish highlander. The solo game works well and naturally leads to explaining the fundamentals of character. Characters are described by a series of abilities: Strength, Control, Size, Weight, Move, Knowledge, Determination, and Awareness. These are graded on a simple scale, 1 being poor and 6 being exceptional. In only once case, Size, is the attribute weird – I assumed that a larger number meant a larger size but the inverse is true. Abilities are then augmented by a selection of special abilities, which include things like Cheat Death, Astrogation, Bench-thumping and Gloating. Other abilities can easily be added as the Game Master desires and on average, characters have between five and thirty of these. Note, that so far I have not used the term "character creation" but have discussed only the mechanics that describe characters. More on that later.

The game mechanics hinge on a concept called "Beat the Difference." For example, let's say you and I each have a character in a game of Time Lord. We are in the middle of a maze-like set of corridors being chased by a Dalek intent on "exterminating" us. We know there is a hidden doorway somewhere in the dead end because we ran out of it earlier but we don't know the location of the activation button. We both have an Awareness of 3 but I also have the special ability, Keen Sight, with a value of 1. The Referee assigns a difficulty of 5 to spot the trigger (it is supposed to be a secret after all). Now we get to roll! When trying to "beat the difference", you are trying to beat the difference between the assigned difficulty and the character's combined score if they have something to combine. In this case, my score is combined while yours is not. You have to beat a difficulty of 2, whereas I have to beat a difficulty of only 1. Now roll two six-sided dice and subtract the lower from the higher. You roll a 5 and a 1, giving you a difference of 4. You easily spot the trigger. My roll is less lucky (as they normally are) and I roll double 3s, meaning I have 0 total, leaving my character only able to see that corridors need a paint job. Of course, if your ability and special ability combined are higher than the difficulty, you automatically succeed.

And that's it. It's all about assigned difficulties and "beating the difference." It's a very rules-light game that offers a simple resolution system to Referees who can then concentrate on the story. If your players like lots of rules, charts, and procedures, they will think this game is … well, they will think lots of nasty things about it. If, however, your players are very rules-light, story oriented, then this may be the system for your group. These rules were originally the writers' home-brew game system and it likely could be adapted to game that emphasises story over structure.

What makes Doctor Who, well, Doctor Who, is the setting, so I am sure you are asking, okay, what do I get in the other 150+ pages? First off, you get seven different character sheets for the Doctor, one for each regeneration. You then get each and every one of the Doctor's companions throughout the series, not one missing and each with a detailed written history and personality description. Add 23 aliens archetypes and the classic villains we love to hate like Davros, the Rani, the Meddling Monk, and (one of my personal favourite villains of all time) the Master. You'll also find a detailed section on time, transportation and the TARDIS.

The Referee section gives advice to new referees on how to use the mechanics, how to create adventures, how to capture the mood of Doctor Who and offers a wide array of charts to assist in his tasks, specifically the descriptive terms that define attributes and difficulties. All very handy, practical, straightforward stuff. The creating adventures section lists some of the reoccurring themes of the television show as starting points and include "technology gone wrong", "things from another dimension", "mad scientists", "arch-enemy", "altering history" and more. This is followed by a very detailed and systematic adventure entitled "The Templar Throne." It includes an overview of the basic story, carefully constructed maps, things to do before starting the game, referee's notes, adventure timeline, NPCs, advice about starting the game, the adventure itself (divided into modules with many tree-branch connections to other modules, allowing for flexible play), how to deal with the unexpected and how to end the game. You even get italic-set paragraphs to read to your players as they proceed through the game. All in all, Time Lord is a very solid package.

So, What's Missing?

Remember when I mentioned having not mentioned "character creation?" There is a very good reason – there is no section devoted to character creation. Neither is there one devoted to character advancement.

(Waits for you to start breathing again.)

No, I'm not kidding. Creating and advancing characters is finally addressed deep, deep in the book in Appendix 1: Creating Companions, with reference to why it was left out in Appendix 3: Designer's Notes. It's a complete and total 180 from traditional game thinking. Why is this? The answer is twofold. The game's perspective is that 99.9 times out of a 100 you will be playing the Doctor or one of his companions. Each of the Doctor's character sheets and information has a list of the groups of companions that were typically together concurrently with that incarnation; for example, the groups for the fourth Doctor includes Sarah and Harry, Leela and K9, Romana I and K9, Romana II, Adric and K9, and Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. The other reason was that, from the designers' perspectives, Time Lord isn't about accumulating points but to tell meaningful, intelligent stories in the Doctor Who universe. They make reference to their hopes of someday adding these elements in a future supplement, the "Time Lord Companion," which, of course, we know never came out. The rules for creating companions is very sparse and meant to be pretty much left to the whim of the Referee after getting a detailed understanding of what the player wants in the character. This is why the characters presented in the book have widely different numbers of special abilities – as in life, some people are inherently more gifted or knowledgeable than others and the have to work together anyways. A Time Lord certainly is more experienced and skilled than a standard twentieth century human being, but that flies in the face of standard views and game-related concerns of party balance. But Time Lord is certainly not a standard game and its approach fits with the overall theme of the television show which is what a good adaptation is supposed to do, in my opinion.

Besides not having character creation and advancement rules, the game also doesn't have the list of gadgets and world/alien-creation prompts of the FASA game. Time Lord takes a holistic approach to adventure creation whereas the FASA game focused on nuts-and-bolts tools to help the Referee. There is more background information in the FASA game but I feel the rule structure of Time Lord is superior. With FASA's level system for attributes, character conversion should be fairly simple, though skills may end up being pared down or fabricated for Time Lord use. The FASA game (see my earlier review) contains a lot of history of the series that Time Lord lacks. In my opinion, the best tactic is to use the FASA game as a supplement to Time Lord by using the support information, the idea prompt tables and even character creation which can then be roughly "translated" into Time Lord terms.

Overall

In short, I think Time Lord is neat but certainly not everyone's cup of tea, or favourite flavour of jelly baby for that matter. An inventive Referee, or one with a good knowledge of the show, will be able to craft fine adventures with Time Lord alone. If you like the idea of time travel and the premise of Doctor Who, but have seen little of the series, get the FASA game to help fill in the gaps, supply a timeline, and give you a few short cuts to help you along the way. Either way, you'll be impressed at how intelligently Time Lords is written. If you can find it, it's a valuable addition to your collection.

Here are the breakdowns of my ratings:

Style – 3 for a plain, no-nonsense presentation, though the trade paperback format may present difficulties.

Substance – 3 for streamlined rules, full character roster, excellent holistic advice, but could have benefited from more detailed information on the series, though I would really have loved to give it a 4 out of 5.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Time Lord
Author: Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans Category: game Company/Publisher: Virgin Publishing & BBC Books Line: none Cost: $14.95 (at 1991) Page count: 287 ISBN: 0-426-20362-3 SKU: none Capsule Review by Stephanie Charette (Ashtal) on 06/20/00. Genre tags: Science fiction Modern day Historical Far Future Space	Forward: In an earlier review, I examined FASA's long defunct game, Doctor Who. This is a review of the second game based on the Whovian universe and following the review, there will be information about how the two games can be used to support each other. For details on the general setting of Doctor Who, please refer back to the first Doctor Who review. Introduction First there was FASA's Doctor Who, a quirky, clunky yet fairly complete game system based off of BBC's cult science fiction series of the same name. Written in the 80s during the height of the show's popularity, the game had its share of supplements until the licence came up for grabs in the late 80s. Two gamers, writers and Doctor Who aficionados in England saw an opportunity to take their home-brew mechanics and turn it into an official game. Thus, Time Lord was born in 1991, just around the time when Doctor Who had been taken off the airwaves. The book itself is a trade paperback, which was against type in the game industry at the time. It looks more like a reference book for fans and that's partially the way authors Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans intended it; something for gamers yet fan-friendly enough to entice those unfamiliar with role-playing. Artwork is fairly rare, though what there is of it tends to be quite good and highly detailed, though sometimes, as in the case of the character portraits, the proportions seem a little off. The Game Time Lord begins with a brief summary of the show's various Doctors and a section of game fiction, one that is much longer than FASA's offering and which stars the seventh Doctor and his companion Ace. This fiction is more in keeping with the feel of the show and, in my opinion, is much better than FASA's version for two reasons: It's very well written and, because its purpose is to convey the sense of Doctor Who for non-fans, it is not written to conform to a set of artificial breaks designed to demonstrate game concepts. (Bonus, Time Lord's offering can even be turned into a full adventure.) Following that is an excellent treatise on role-playing, something far more useful than the usual "it's like cops and robbers" analogy. It discusses the nature of the role-playing, its roots in both acting and oral storytelling, the highlights of its history and basic information on how a game session really works. It doesn't talk down to new players, which is quite refreshing. The core rules themselves take up only a scant 52 pages, less than a quarter of the book, and covers all the basics. The rules are meant to be simple, only enough to carry the story which is the primary focus of the game. Players are given the opportunity of going through a "Chose your own Adventure" styled solo game and are given the choice between two of the Doctor's companions, Tegan the Australian stewardess and Jamie the Scottish highlander. The solo game works well and naturally leads to explaining the fundamentals of character. Characters are described by a series of abilities: Strength, Control, Size, Weight, Move, Knowledge, Determination, and Awareness. These are graded on a simple scale, 1 being poor and 6 being exceptional. In only once case, Size, is the attribute weird – I assumed that a larger number meant a larger size but the inverse is true. Abilities are then augmented by a selection of special abilities, which include things like Cheat Death, Astrogation, Bench-thumping and Gloating. Other abilities can easily be added as the Game Master desires and on average, characters have between five and thirty of these. Note, that so far I have not used the term "character creation" but have discussed only the mechanics that describe characters. More on that later. The game mechanics hinge on a concept called "Beat the Difference." For example, let's say you and I each have a character in a game of Time Lord. We are in the middle of a maze-like set of corridors being chased by a Dalek intent on "exterminating" us. We know there is a hidden doorway somewhere in the dead end because we ran out of it earlier but we don't know the location of the activation button. We both have an Awareness of 3 but I also have the special ability, Keen Sight, with a value of 1. The Referee assigns a difficulty of 5 to spot the trigger (it is supposed to be a secret after all). Now we get to roll! When trying to "beat the difference", you are trying to beat the difference between the assigned difficulty and the character's combined score if they have something to combine. In this case, my score is combined while yours is not. You have to beat a difficulty of 2, whereas I have to beat a difficulty of only 1. Now roll two six-sided dice and subtract the lower from the higher. You roll a 5 and a 1, giving you a difference of 4. You easily spot the trigger. My roll is less lucky (as they normally are) and I roll double 3s, meaning I have 0 total, leaving my character only able to see that corridors need a paint job. Of course, if your ability and special ability combined are higher than the difficulty, you automatically succeed. And that's it. It's all about assigned difficulties and "beating the difference." It's a very rules-light game that offers a simple resolution system to Referees who can then concentrate on the story. If your players like lots of rules, charts, and procedures, they will think this game is … well, they will think lots of nasty things about it. If, however, your players are very rules-light, story oriented, then this may be the system for your group. These rules were originally the writers' home-brew game system and it likely could be adapted to game that emphasises story over structure. What makes Doctor Who, well, Doctor Who, is the setting, so I am sure you are asking, okay, what do I get in the other 150+ pages? First off, you get seven different character sheets for the Doctor, one for each regeneration. You then get each and every one of the Doctor's companions throughout the series, not one missing and each with a detailed written history and personality description. Add 23 aliens archetypes and the classic villains we love to hate like Davros, the Rani, the Meddling Monk, and (one of my personal favourite villains of all time) the Master. You'll also find a detailed section on time, transportation and the TARDIS. The Referee section gives advice to new referees on how to use the mechanics, how to create adventures, how to capture the mood of Doctor Who and offers a wide array of charts to assist in his tasks, specifically the descriptive terms that define attributes and difficulties. All very handy, practical, straightforward stuff. The creating adventures section lists some of the reoccurring themes of the television show as starting points and include "technology gone wrong", "things from another dimension", "mad scientists", "arch-enemy", "altering history" and more. This is followed by a very detailed and systematic adventure entitled "The Templar Throne." It includes an overview of the basic story, carefully constructed maps, things to do before starting the game, referee's notes, adventure timeline, NPCs, advice about starting the game, the adventure itself (divided into modules with many tree-branch connections to other modules, allowing for flexible play), how to deal with the unexpected and how to end the game. You even get italic-set paragraphs to read to your players as they proceed through the game. All in all, Time Lord is a very solid package. So, What's Missing? Remember when I mentioned having not mentioned "character creation?" There is a very good reason – there is no section devoted to character creation. Neither is there one devoted to character advancement. (Waits for you to start breathing again.) No, I'm not kidding. Creating and advancing characters is finally addressed deep, deep in the book in Appendix 1: Creating Companions, with reference to why it was left out in Appendix 3: Designer's Notes. It's a complete and total 180 from traditional game thinking. Why is this? The answer is twofold. The game's perspective is that 99.9 times out of a 100 you will be playing the Doctor or one of his companions. Each of the Doctor's character sheets and information has a list of the groups of companions that were typically together concurrently with that incarnation; for example, the groups for the fourth Doctor includes Sarah and Harry, Leela and K9, Romana I and K9, Romana II, Adric and K9, and Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. The other reason was that, from the designers' perspectives, Time Lord isn't about accumulating points but to tell meaningful, intelligent stories in the Doctor Who universe. They make reference to their hopes of someday adding these elements in a future supplement, the "Time Lord Companion," which, of course, we know never came out. The rules for creating companions is very sparse and meant to be pretty much left to the whim of the Referee after getting a detailed understanding of what the player wants in the character. This is why the characters presented in the book have widely different numbers of special abilities – as in life, some people are inherently more gifted or knowledgeable than others and the have to work together anyways. A Time Lord certainly is more experienced and skilled than a standard twentieth century human being, but that flies in the face of standard views and game-related concerns of party balance. But Time Lord is certainly not a standard game and its approach fits with the overall theme of the television show which is what a good adaptation is supposed to do, in my opinion. Besides not having character creation and advancement rules, the game also doesn't have the list of gadgets and world/alien-creation prompts of the FASA game. Time Lord takes a holistic approach to adventure creation whereas the FASA game focused on nuts-and-bolts tools to help the Referee. There is more background information in the FASA game but I feel the rule structure of Time Lord is superior. With FASA's level system for attributes, character conversion should be fairly simple, though skills may end up being pared down or fabricated for Time Lord use. The FASA game (see my earlier review) contains a lot of history of the series that Time Lord lacks. In my opinion, the best tactic is to use the FASA game as a supplement to Time Lord by using the support information, the idea prompt tables and even character creation which can then be roughly "translated" into Time Lord terms. Overall In short, I think Time Lord is neat but certainly not everyone's cup of tea, or favourite flavour of jelly baby for that matter. An inventive Referee, or one with a good knowledge of the show, will be able to craft fine adventures with Time Lord alone. If you like the idea of time travel and the premise of Doctor Who, but have seen little of the series, get the FASA game to help fill in the gaps, supply a timeline, and give you a few short cuts to help you along the way. Either way, you'll be impressed at how intelligently Time Lords is written. If you can find it, it's a valuable addition to your collection. Here are the breakdowns of my ratings: Style – 3 for a plain, no-nonsense presentation, though the trade paperback format may present difficulties. Substance – 3 for streamlined rules, full character roster, excellent holistic advice, but could have benefited from more detailed information on the series, though I would really have loved to give it a 4 out of 5. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)