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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
 
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/25/2023 13:51:05

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2023/05/reviews-doctor-who-rpg-supplements.html

Six PDFs in one ZIP file. 220+ pages total.

From the 10th Doctor era. What grabbed me first about this book was how well it looks with other Doctor Who books from other sources. This is due to the BBC mandated trade dress. While it means every era of Doctor Who will give us a different look (and core book) it also means that the books my kids were buying at school book fairs (wow, that was a long time ago!) will look great on the shelves next the RPG books.

This package includes:

138 page rulebook detailing many of the creatures faced in the Doctor's adventures, including the Cybermen, Cult of Skaro, Davros, the Weeping Angels and the Hath, additional rules for creating your own creatures both as enemies or as playable characters, and a system for creating new worlds for your adventures to take place on 32 page Adventure book, featuring a whole new ready-to-play adventure and many ideas for additional stories New gadget cards Additional Story Point Counters Detailed Creature Cards for easy reference

All to work with your 10th Doctor boxed set. The same level of art, design and layout given to the core game is here, making it one of the more attractive games out these days. Perfect for the Doctor Who gamer and the Doctor Who fan alike. And an excellent source of new things to run away from!

This is a great product, full of all sorts of monsters, aliens, and other creatures primarily from the new version of Doctor Who (but some old favorites are still there). It was nice to have writeups for various Daleks, Cybermen, Catkind, Sontarans, and more. There are even more Traits and pre-built Trait packages given to aliens. Along with aliens come their worlds, we have more detail on these as well. So you don't have to stick to Earth!

The adventure book (32 pages) has two ready-to-go adventures using these new creatures; and plenty of ideas on how to use the others.

Some printing will be required for the cards and story point counters, but that is minimal.

Despite the "trade dress" this can be used with any version of the Doctor Who RPG from Cubicle 7.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by anthony p. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/25/2019 12:22:55

lavishly illustrated and well researched you could honestly use this book just as a research tool not just a RPG book. Plenty of data that can be used to generate adventure and encounter hooks. Easy to use with a great layout. Cannot recommend this enough



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Alexander L. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/11/2011 07:12:43

Originally published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2011/08/11/tabletop-review-doctor-who-aliens-and-creatures/

When I received Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, I received Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures at the same time. I took care to not touch Aliens and Creatures until I was done reviewing the original boxed set. I did this for two reasons. First of all, I wanted to make sure the Adventures in Time and Space boxed set was self-contained enough to stand on its own. Secondly, I wanted to make sure Aliens and Creatures was not overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of content of these two products combined. As I explained in my review of Adventures in Time and Space, the Aliens section in the Gamemaster’s Guide is quite robust. If I had acquired Adventures in Time and Space without Aliens and Creatures, I would have had a hard time justifying the purchase. Honestly, how much better could this book be than the frankly spectacular content of the Adventures in Time and Space box?

The answer is “Loads.” A perfect example are the Daleks. In the Gamemaster’s Guide, the Daleks get a generous two pages. That seemed like plenty until I saw the Dalek section in Aliens and Creatures. There, the Daleks get 12 pages of content. There are stat blocks for Davros and the Cult of Skaro and the Emperor. Even the Pig Slaves get a write-up. The nine pages on the Cybermen is so thorough it even harkens back to the old type of Cybermen. Want to have the Sontarans make an appearance in your game? Here they are, with a fantastic entry that gives the gamemaster real insight into how they function as a species.

Beyond the alien descriptions and stats, which are top notch, Aliens and Creatures greatly expands on the alien creation chapter from the Gamemaster’s Guide. In step with the combat light style of Doctor Who, the emphasis is not on stat generating, but on fleshing out the place the new alien species fill in the universe. After coming up with a why, then you create the how. This makes for more interesting aliens, which usually translates into more interesting scenarios. That the stat aspect of alien creation mirrors character creation makes for a smooth process.

A chapter on players playing as aliens follows. With the right group of players, this could be a blast. Heck, the designers even mention the possibility of players playing as Daleks, though I do not envy the gamemaster who has a whole party chanting “Exterminate!” in unison. This process is simplified with the two pages of supplied Race Packages, which are a collection of stat modifiers and Traits that a player can take at a points cost. I appreciate that the designers took the time to add this, since PC aliens would almost assuredly pop up in character creation.

The final chapter of the book is a doozy: the New Worlds Generator. This series of charts and tables enables the ambitious GM to create entire solar systems or individual planets. Given the spare time and the desire, a GM could roll up a galaxy and its inhabitants. A handful of example planets and aliens are included, to either steal for your own use or as an example of what can be generated. Even in games with more robust rules, like Stars Without Number or Traveller, I could see using this system to generate planets.

The other book included with Aliens and Creatures is a 32 page Adventure Book. This book has two long-form adventures, which I will not spoil here, and nine adventure ideas. The long adventures are a nice bonus, especially for newer GMs. The adventure ideas are almost a full page each and are almost full-fledged adventures in their own right. While my favorite aspect of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space is the sandbox nature of the game, the Adventure Book is basically a free add-in with the Aliens and Creatures book and adds value.

As with Adventures in Time and Space, Aliens and Creatures is laid out extremely well. The text is in two columns, with occasional sidebars. The art design of the book is fantastic and the photos used for each alien species are well chosen. The stat blocks are easy to find at a glance because they are separated from the main text in red text boxes. My non-gamer wife even used the book as an art reference for a Doctor Who project she is working on. One negative, for the PDF version, is the lack of comprehensive bookmarks. This is a minor quibble, for most, but it is noteworthy to a primarily digital GM, like myself.

Aliens and Creatures is a worthy successor to the Adventures in Time and Space set. There is plenty here to admire, from the sheer volume of aliens described to the New Worlds Generator to the Adventure Book. If you own Adventures in Time and Space, do yourself a favor and pick up Aliens and Creatures.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Marc T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/13/2011 08:29:58

Everything I said in my review of the main game (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space) apply to this supplement as well. An absolutely fantastic product. I hope some of the other companies out there are paying attention - these guys are definitely setting the bar for top quality design and production. When you pay $30-$50 for a game, THIS is the sort of thing you should get.

I love that besides the overall quality, they hit all the right buttons! I'm not left scrambling to fill the rules/fluff gaps - all the tools and info I need is right here. Amazing stuff.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/27/2010 05:36:28

Herewith a collection of aliens and creatures to meet, outwit and... well, do everything apart from hiding from them behind the sofa! For with these materials and the core game, you can recreate stories from the TV show and pursue your own adventures in time and space. Again this a boxed set (with PDF customers getting ALL the componets although they'll need to print and cut out counters and cards for full effect), comprising the main book of Aliens and Creatures, an Adventure Book with two full-blown adventures and several adventure seeds, ready-reference 'Creature Cards' and more Gadget Cards and Story Point tokens.

The Aliens and Creatures book opens with an introductory chapter 'But they're so... alien!" This explores, in the main, technical issues such as terminology and presentation of information; although there is a note about other sources of Doctor Who information such as novelisations (a statement of intent to stick to creatures that have appeared in post-2005 TV episodes as far as published material for this game is concerned). Such matters dealt with, on to Chapter 2: Category - Non-Human, which contains an alphabetic catalogue of aliens encountered by the Doctor during post-2005 TV adventures, including expanded notes on significant individuals as well as material on the race in general. Naturally some of them featured in the earlier series, but all illustrations and examples are post-2005. Plenty of background and history is provided, much of which is usful in formulating your own adventures. This is by far the main part of the book, and it is followed by Chapter 3: Creatures of Metal, Fire and Blood, which explores the possibilities of creating your own aliens within this ruleset - whither as adversaries, allied NPCs or as player-characters. A useful feature is the concept of designing your alien according to their purpose and role within the story in which you intend to use them. An Appendix looks at the creation of new worlds on which to have those adventures, along with a few sample worlds built using the semi-random system presented here.

The Adventure Book, as mentioned earlier, contains two complete adventures and some further ideas for you to develop into your own storylines. The first - 'The Next World' by Steve Lyons - utilises Cybermen in an innovative way, providing a situation which should prove interesting and entertaining to figure out and resolve. The adventure is well constructed and presented - and, in true Doctor Who style, whatever solution the characters choose has its consequences. The other complete adventure is 'The Rosetta Plague' by Alasdair Stuart, involves a visit to a Torchwood spaceship and the urgent need to solve a problem that has arisen aboard; this indeed is a good adventure for groups who like solving problems even more than defeating foes! At every point there are various options and suggestions for the gamemaster on how to use them to best effect depending on the style of game desired. The adventure seeds are all in similar vein: an intriguing situation with a few options and ideas of how it might be developed.

This is a good addition to the game line, and jam-packed with resources that will be useful in planning and playing adventures.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Adrian S. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/01/2010 04:52:28

How anyone could expect to run a game of Doctor Who without this resource is completely beyond me. It gives an overview of all of the major races found in the most recent series of Doctor Who (From Christopher Eccleston through to David Tennat in Series 4), but refreshingly, it makes reference of how the alien races were encountered by former incarnations of the Doctor. Each race is given a detailed treatment from history to culture and notes detailing how they have interacted with the Doctor (think plot summaries of episodes, sometimes from the aliens’ viewpoint). All the classics are here, the Daleks and Cybermen await your leisure, whilst newer foes such as the Weeping Angels are covered too. The PDF comes in six parts, being the Aliens & Creatures Book, an Adventure Book (32 pages of adventures and adventure ideas); Creature Cards; Gadget Cards (providing a ‘ready reference’ tool for GMs, a Handout (a spaceship deck plan usable in one of the Adventures) and a page of Story Point counters that can be cut out for use during play. My main criticism would be that cards produced could have been made a standard size and shape (ie playing cards) which would make them more functional in my opinion. The adventures do need a little work as most of them focus a little heavily on how neat/erratic/centre-stage the Doctor is, and a GM needs to bring the focus firmly back to the PCs. However, this is a danger in any RPG based on a popular Intellectual Property.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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