I have them all you know: Fasa's Doctor Who RPG, Timelord, and Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space. But the Doctor's appeared in more than just his own role-playing games. He's bigger than that. He travels wider. And my collection holds at least two of his other appearances, though he does tend to go by an assumed name.
The first is from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' World of Greyhawk Adventure (TSR, 1988). This is a collection of comedic dungeon levels, each with its own "sense of humor" (note the quotation marks). Level 5's brand of comedy is parody, and so all the encounters seem to be based on popular culture. There are Marvel superheroes in there, and Indiana Jones and Star Trek personnel, all in D&D drag. Area 17 on the map is D&D crossover with Doctor Who. Although they call him Professor Why, and he's a curly-haired and scarfed (so the 4th Doctor) halfling that travels in the CURDIS with his armored blink dog B-9 and generic Absolutely Gorgeous Women. CURDIS stands for Chronically Unable to Reach Destination In Silence (see my quotation marks, from earlier). In the dungeon, he's being chased by Baba Yaga from whom he stole his time machine and the DM is encouraged to do an Abbot and Costello routine when she shows up. He appears, he leaves, Baba Yaga appears, she leaves. Time well wasted.
For you stat-whores:
The Doctor's other appearance is much more substantial and occurs in Paranoia's Vulture Warriors of Dimension X Campaign Pack (West End Games, 1990). Paranoia is an excellent comedy game, but this is part of the Post-Crash arc that signaled the game's eventual demise. After your friend (and mine, citizen!) the Computer crashed, West End came out with various adventures that took the Troubleshooters into other genres to make fun of them. Vulture Warriors has time travel in it and the catalyst for this is a the rather familiar figure of Doctor Whom, who travels in the TORTIS (this time: Time-Oriented, Relativity-Transcending Interdimensional Spacecraft). The Doctor is a Time Laird from the planet Faraway (should I be using quotation marks again?), and he looks just like the 4th Doctor, though he wears a carrot on his lapel (homage to the 5th Doctor):
As this Doctor spends the entire adventure with the Troubleshooters, he's fleshed out a lot more. The TORTIS gets its own tables for "Minor Contretemps" (buggy stuff that happens) and "Handy Oddments" (funky stuff to find) and regeneration is treated as a special form of clone replacement (in Paranoia, everyone gets 6 clones, i.e. lives, none of them very long or fulfilling). All Hail the Computer!
Again, for the stat-whores (not that there's anything wrong with that):
So, any other RPG cameos I should be aware of/made to hunt for?
The first is from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' World of Greyhawk Adventure (TSR, 1988). This is a collection of comedic dungeon levels, each with its own "sense of humor" (note the quotation marks). Level 5's brand of comedy is parody, and so all the encounters seem to be based on popular culture. There are Marvel superheroes in there, and Indiana Jones and Star Trek personnel, all in D&D drag. Area 17 on the map is D&D crossover with Doctor Who. Although they call him Professor Why, and he's a curly-haired and scarfed (so the 4th Doctor) halfling that travels in the CURDIS with his armored blink dog B-9 and generic Absolutely Gorgeous Women. CURDIS stands for Chronically Unable to Reach Destination In Silence (see my quotation marks, from earlier). In the dungeon, he's being chased by Baba Yaga from whom he stole his time machine and the DM is encouraged to do an Abbot and Costello routine when she shows up. He appears, he leaves, Baba Yaga appears, she leaves. Time well wasted.For you stat-whores:
The Doctor's other appearance is much more substantial and occurs in Paranoia's Vulture Warriors of Dimension X Campaign Pack (West End Games, 1990). Paranoia is an excellent comedy game, but this is part of the Post-Crash arc that signaled the game's eventual demise. After your friend (and mine, citizen!) the Computer crashed, West End came out with various adventures that took the Troubleshooters into other genres to make fun of them. Vulture Warriors has time travel in it and the catalyst for this is a the rather familiar figure of Doctor Whom, who travels in the TORTIS (this time: Time-Oriented, Relativity-Transcending Interdimensional Spacecraft). The Doctor is a Time Laird from the planet Faraway (should I be using quotation marks again?), and he looks just like the 4th Doctor, though he wears a carrot on his lapel (homage to the 5th Doctor):
As this Doctor spends the entire adventure with the Troubleshooters, he's fleshed out a lot more. The TORTIS gets its own tables for "Minor Contretemps" (buggy stuff that happens) and "Handy Oddments" (funky stuff to find) and regeneration is treated as a special form of clone replacement (in Paranoia, everyone gets 6 clones, i.e. lives, none of them very long or fulfilling). All Hail the Computer!Again, for the stat-whores (not that there's anything wrong with that):
So, any other RPG cameos I should be aware of/made to hunt for?
Comments
My handle on the SJ Games BBS way back when was Dr. What, and my participation in the IOU sub-board there was the basis of the character in GURPS IOU.
I used the character for a while in a Toon parody I presented at Gencon, then altered it a bit when I wrote the Vulture Warriors supplement for West End Games.
I haven't written any RPG supplements since then, but thanks for bringing back some good memories!