BLOG Doctor Who Roleplaying's Plans For The 50th Anniversary

Cubicle 7 publishes the official Doctor Who Roleplaying Game and it has picked the 50th Anniversary year to bring all the Doctor’s incarnations into the fun. Whilst the game itself focuses on the eleventh Doctor right now, Cubicle will be releasing a series of sourcebooks, one for each Doctor, to tie in with the anniversary. Oh and don’t worry about the game keeping up to date with the show, the eleventh book in the series is an eleventh Doctor one that covers episodes not discussed in the core rules

Each of these books will focus on a single incarnation, detail all his adventures, look at the themes and notable characters of his era and, crucially for all GMs, walk you through how to set up further adventures based on the TV episodes. The books are also going to be chock full of illustrations from that incarnation and, in a really very nice move, Cubicle 7 is even keeping the first two sourcebooks in black and white to stay true to the feel of the show.

This is a big project for Cubicle 7 and they books’ll be available in shops over the course of the next year. However, it’s a big investment for fans too, and as a result, they’ve set up a pair of subscription deal for people who want the entire series. These include:

• The full set – which, unsurprisingly, involves all the books from the first up to the eleventh Doctor sourcebook. This deal also includes both physical copies and PDFs of the books and all the short, PDF-only Doctor Who projects Cubicle has planned for 2013. There are at least three of them, so that’s 11 print books and at least three PDFs.

Bought individually, these books would be £264 or $385 plus shipping. Bought using the deal, the price changes to £216/$315 plus shipping. Which basically means you’re getting two free books.

• The second deal is called The Early Years and includes physical and PDF copies of The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Doctor sourcebooks. Bought individually these would be £144 or $210. Bought through the deal the price drops to £120 or $175. That means you’re getting a free book and, like the full set, the opportunity to decide which Doctor you liked least and as a result didn’t spend any money on.

In terms of shipping, the costs change depending on where they’re being shipped to. Shipping to the UK or US will cost 10% of the total order, whilst its 20% for Canada and Europe and 35% for everywhere else.

In terms of time scale, the plan is to release a book every other month as a minimum. Of course delays happen but Cubicle will let you know about any delays and, as a subscriber, you’ll get both the book and the PDF as soon as they’re available. Likewise, if you need to cancel the subscription at any time, your refund will be in proportion to how many books you already received. So, for example, if you took the full deal and cancelled after getting the third book, you’d get 8/11ths of your subscription fee back.

It’s a good deal for what promises to be a very good set of books. The offer closes on the 4 March so if you want to own all of the 11 incarnations of the Doctor, and you’re not an elaborately collared villain hovering just outside space/time, give this a shot.

Full details can be found here .

Alasdair Stuart