Doctors and Daleks is a module for DnD 5e by Cubicle 7 Games, slightly altering the system to fit in to the world of Doctor Who.

Before we begin with the review, I’d like to clear up something: Cubicle 7 also has a completely different Doctor Who RPG not based on 5e, and this is NOT it – so take care if you want to purchase either of those not to mix them up.

Let’s start with the very basics. Something that is often repeated throughout the Player’s Guide is that the Doctor, and thus the whole system, abhors violence and often saves the day through dialogue – or various hijinks that do not require direct combat. As such, don’t expect much in the way of weapons, spells, guns, et cetera – although you can occasionally make use of them, it’s just not that kind of game. You might ask, why would you ignore one of the 3 main pillars of gameplay (exploration, social, combat) that 5e revolves around? Well, it’s not exactly completely out, but replaced with a sort of “social combat”, and I’ll get into the details in a bit.

Let’s get into the character creation. The fundamentals are all the same; Strength, Dexterity, etc, skills, AC, initiative, HP, and so on, but the classes you knew are (understandably) gone. Not only are they a bit too violent for the adventures of the Doctor, they’re also ill fitting in a time-traveling scifi (or sci fantasy) setting with spaceships and sonic screwdrivers. They are replaced with 6 new classes, each one with a different primary attribute: the Charmer (CHA), the Empath (WIS), the Protector (STR), the Stalwart (CON), the Thinker (INT), and the Trickster (DEX), each with 3 subclasses of their own. In addition, Arcana and Nature are replaced with Engineering and Science.

Besides your class, you also have a Species and a Background. Species don’t have any set ability score bonuses, working with the +2/+1 to any rule. However, Species also (generally) set your Tech Level, which is a measure of how well you understand technology, with modern humans being at tech level 5 (well, around 4.5 really), going to 10 for a Time lord, and up to 12 for “beyond comprehension”. Obviously how well you understand tech is important, but you can always just smash important-looking things to solve your problems, a tactic I’m pretty sure the Doctor has employed quite often. You also have a Concept, something i should have perhaps mentioned before all the others: This is essentially a 2-5 word description of your character, like “Retired Bus Driver” or “Trainee Electric Engineer”. Something that gives a general sense of your skills and experience, although of course it’s not necessary for it to be your profession. Your Concept doesn’t have an impact on the mechanics on its own, but it generally guides you on picking the rest of your stuff, like class. There are also several Feats you can take, which mostly give you access to SRD spells.

Let’s take a closer look at how combat works, and what the classes can do. First of all, as I mentioned, combat is now primarily social, and this is supported by 2 new damage types: logical and social. Essentially, someone’s HP now represents how committed they are to their course of action, roughly speaking: confusing, distracting, persuading, and so on will reduce their HP and at 0, you have stopped them from going through with their plan. These new types of damage as dealt through Quips, abilities that every class has access to and could be seen as analogous to spells. There are a few basic Quips that everyone has access to, like Emotional Argument and Logical Argument, and there are others specific to classes. There are also different levels of Quips, from Cantrip Quips that are, well, cantrips and have unlimited uses, to higher level Quips that are limited use.

This is where I begin to have some reservations. Without getting into too much details, my issue is that everything sort of looks pretty much the same. All the quips do a bit of emotional or logical damage, and they might boost your defense as a side effect, but it none of them really stand out to me – they all blend together. Well, there is one where you offer a jelly candy to someone which is pretty nice, I’ll admit, but that’s about it. The same goes for the classes; while they do each have their distinct identity, they’re all still kinda… same-y. Give a bonus to your ally. Deal some emotional or logical damage. Resist that damage. So this makes combat seem mechanically barren, although there is a section later on, that does help a lot alleviate that, regarding environmental actions. Essentially, this allows you to use gadgets/equipment, as well as whatever else is laying around, to deal damage and impose conditions on your enemies.

Moving on though, there’s a lot more left on the supplement, although a very large part of it is Doctor Who lore. This is definitely going to be very useful to everyone, both to make characters and plan out adventures, since I think only the most hardcore fans of the show are going to know all the little details. There are also explanations for additional mechanics, such as how to handle things like radiation, decompression on a spaceship, dangerous atmospheres in alien planets, and of course time traveling – with a TARDIS or with some other machine.

Finally, there is a chapter dedicated with helping a GM plan and run a Doctor Who adventure, going in depth in the differences we mentioned earlier (pacifism, the technobabble common in the setting, etc) as well as a quite detailed chapter on how to set up an encounter. This is also exceedingly useful, with tables, explanations, and examples, and deserves kudos. Of course, there are also entries about the most iconic villains of the series, such as the Daleks (they’re in the title, how could they not be here?) the Cybermen, the Master, and more.

Overall, what is my opinion on Doctors and Daleks? I have to say it’s mixed. Not because it’s a badly written or designed supplement, far from it. It’s well thought-out, of course all the editing and layout and such is great, I just can’t get past the fact that not only would it be better served with a standalone RPG system – there already is one, and from the same group.