TIME LORD: JOURNIES
After my previous review of the Time Lord RPG (www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9532.phtml), I noticed that a few people had dismissed the game for a lack of character generation and oversimplified rules. While I feel that Time Lord was ahead of its time in this regard, many did not agree and have missed out on what I feel is a game very suited to its subject matter: capturing the feel of the universe of Doctor Who (or the Whoniverse, as fans like to call it).
With all of these comments in mind, and an encouraging word from the authour, Ian Marsh, I set about to expand upon the game and provide a supplement that might allow those who like ‘crunchier’ systems to have another look at, what I feel, is a gem of a game.
What follows is not a playtest review, as such, but more of a product announcement that will provide you with everything you need to know about the expansion so you can determine whether or not you’d like to spend the time downloading it. That download time, by the way, is all you’ll spend on this supplement, as it is totally free of charge and can be found on my website (see the Web Links section below) along with the main rulebook and other additions to the game.
FORMAT
Time Lord: Journies is a 60 page, full-colour PDF document. It has a comprehensive table of contents for printouts and corresponding bookmarks for quickly navigating the manual onscreen. In addition, the individual chapter borders are colour coded to make flipping through the manual to find what you need a breeze.
CHAPTER
1: CHARACTER GENERATION
The first chapter presents a template based character generation system, which emphasizes roles over rolls. It is quick and painless, allowing a new player to create a character in under 15 minutes. There are six different templates to choose from, all of them based on the types of characters commonly found in the programme, and each with their own special quirks:
The Experienced Time Lord: A great selection of abilities, but a number of used regenerations and a personal Enemy to hound them around time and space.
The Novice Time Lord: Fresh from the Academy and ready to explore. Not as skilled as the Experienced Time Lord, but with a full cycle of regenerations and the option to tweak one Ability score.
The Companion: That most quisessential character in the series, this average man or woman on the street is often underestimated by the villain and able to cause a great deal of trouble for him/her/it.
The Specialist: From Scientists with a particular area of study, to espionage specialists with a multitude of skills for breaking and entering to the Diplomat who specializes in personal interaction, the Specialist is highly focused and capable in a certain area of expertise.
The Soldier: All times and places can produce soldiers, from Greek hoplites to starship troopers. This character is based around combat and survival, with a military specialty thrown in to provide a bit of flexibility.
The Alien: This catch-all template allows you to create a myriad of alien species and includes a special list of abilities only aliens may acquire.
In addition to the templates, this section also provides you with pre-generated characters, Resource and Authority rules, and a guide for creating a good mixed party of characters.
CHAPTER 2:
RULES & CLARIFICATIONS
This chapter provides new rules for use in the game and expansion of existing rules for clarification purposes or to add ‘crunch.’
Regeneration: Now that the players can create Time Lord characters, rules for handling regeneration are necessary. This section covers voluntary and involuntary regeneration and includes advice for role-playing the after effects.
Genre Tropes: This section introduces the use of Drama Points to make things happen that could only happen in a television programme like Doctor Who, such as arriving somewhere or completing some task at the last moment, regardless of how long it should have taken.
Learning: Experiences rules for the game.
Rules Clarifications: Further detail on the MacGuffin, Regenerative Powers and Pseudoscience special abilities, as well as an expansion of the History special ability.
CHAPTER 3:
RANDOM JOURNIES
This is a quick, easy and extensive random adventure generator for those times when you need a story but are out of ideas.
FUTURE
EXPANSIONS
Journies is a living document, and as such, it will be periodically updated with more new material and corrections for old material. In this way it beats out most RPG products as the game will grow and expand and at no cost to the players. Monthly updates are planned, when possible, and you can directly influence the direction of those updates by sending your feedback to me via the Doctor Who RPG group (link listed below).
The Journies PDF is not the only expansion in the works for Time Lord. I am also currently writing the TARDIS Manual (for a November 40th Anniversary release) and a three episode adventure for the game as well, so continued support of the game is ongoing. I hope Journies will be of great use to you in the meantime and will give you another reason to try out the Time Lord RPG...
