Time Lord

Book review by Paul Scoones

This is a roleplaying game book, created by role playing designer Ian Marsh and Doctor Who book editor Peter Darvill-Evans. The game system has been created specifically for the Doctor Who universe, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the list of character skills, featuring 'Bench-thumping' (the ability to make a malfunctioning device come right again by thumping it); 'MacGuffin' (building gadgets out of spare parts); 'Pseudo-science' (the ability to come up with complex and highly technical-sounding explanations), 'Resourceful Pockets', 'Serendipity', and 'Screaming'! The rules are thankfully brief and easy to understand for even the complete novice roleplayer, and all calculations are based on the difference between the scores on two six-sided dice. All of the Doctors, companions, and a selection of monsters and villains are pre-generated, and the last part of the book features a complete role playing scenario for the game. It's a good, user-friendly book, some 300 pages long.