To start off my month-long exploration of the various Doctor Who RPGs, I thought I would start off with the very first Doctor Who game from FASA. But before I get into the details, let's look at two of the three variations of this game.
There are two boxes for the FASA Doctor Who RPG, featuring Tom Baker's fourth Doctor and Louise Jamison as Leela. The first box (1985) features them in an artistic style (is that...The Guardian of Forever? More on that!) and the other a publicity shot (1986).
The game was published in 1985. The materials in the "art box" are all dated 1985. The materials in the "photo" box are a mix of 1985 and 1986. For the purposes of this review/overview only I will refer to them as the 1985 and 1986 boxes respectively.
The books inside are also different looking.
For the most part, the text seems the same. That is to say, I did not find any differences. The art used, in particular, the photos are different in places. Often Tom Baker's 4th Doctor replaces Colin Baker's then-current 6th Doctor.
This is explained well by the fact that in the US in 1985/6 it was Tom Baker's Doctor on PBS and most popular at the time.
Other differences often include the addition of an element of art here and there.
The Doctor Who RPG is described as been close to, but not exactly the same as, the FASA Star Trek RPG.
The games have very similar rules and very similar layouts. This would lead to some confusion in the mind of your good author here, but these games are still more similar to each other than they are different.
The Doctor Who RPG uses 2d6 for most of its resolutions and rolls while Star Trek uses d% and d10s. Both my boxes have their original dice and I think if I tried rolling those d6s now they might shatter.
Thankfully I have my Doctor Who dice from the Cubicle Seven Doctor Who RPG (also 2d6 based) I can use. Plus I have my clock-face d12 that I like to use when playing the C7 Doctor Who RPG that could work here too. It would mess up the probabilities a bit.
No discussions about the FASA Doctor Who RPG would be complete without a nod to the famous Doctor Who Technical Manual. This gem of a book was always used in every Doctor Who game I ever saw or played in.
I know I am not the only one that did that too. I'd later use the various Star Trek technical manuals (esp. during the early TNG days) with the Star Trek RPG.
I'll talk more about the relationship between the Doctor Who and Trek RPGs at a later date (Friday maybe).
The rules between the various printings (1985/1986) appear to be the same so when I do my review I'll just game one set. I am partial to the 1985 box, but 1986 books.
I did say I was looking at Two of the Three. What is the third one?
The Third FASA Doctor Who game shares the same box as the 1986 edition, but the books inside have a different look to them. I do not have a copy of this one, but it appears to be a later one. Wayne's Books though has pictures showing all three printings. The TARDIS Captain also has a copy of this other printing that he showed off during his character creation month.
4 comments:
Kind of odd that the slightly later edition goes back to a non-current Doctor, but that is I suppose the power of popularity. There are of course similar things in stamps, baseball cards, and even action figures where there are slight changes made to the product that in some cases can make one version or the other far more valuable.
Trust me. These dice will not shatter. I still have mine and they roll fine.
It's worth noting that not only was the 4th Doctor more popular, especially in the U.S., the 6th Doctor was unpopular everywhere. By 1985, halfway through his tenure, Colin Baker was pretty much universally despised, so that might explain the change. I purchased and ran the third printing of the Doctor Who Role Playing Game in 1986 and a popular topic among the players was how much everyone hated Colin Baker.
My understanding is that the replacement of the Colin Baker photos had less to do with the relative popularity of the two Bakers, but more to do with FASA using the photos but not making sure if they had permission to use Colin's likeness. Folks may remember that at that time, if memory serves me right, Colin was having some kind of likeness rights issue with the BBC which is why none of the Target novelizations of his episodes that came out contemporaneously had him on the cover either (and some had to replace already done covers with his face with new ones without at short notice).
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