PDF Review and Buyer's Guide

Note: The Eleventh Doctor Edition of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space has the same core rules as the previously released Tenth Doctor Edition. For a review of these rules, see my review on RPG.net: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14799.phtml

PD-
F Review

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (Eleventh Doctor Edition) is a beautiful, photo-heavy, and well-laid out RPG. The downloads consist of: A Read This First, The Player's Guide, The Gamemaster's Guide, The Adventures Book, Character Sheets, Gadget Cards, Story Points sheet, and Box Cover.

If you're going to download this PDF and view it on your iPad or PC laptop, you're all set. The Character Sheets and Gadget Cards are in color, but printing a few sheets won't tax your inkjet or laserprinter. You'll want to bring some counters to represent Story Points (the Dr. Who RPG version of RPG drama points), and it may be a little inconvenient passing around the iPad if you have those sort of players who want to read the Player's Guide but won't buy their own copy. (At the time of this review, only the Tenth Doctor has a separate Player's Guide PDF for purchase.)

Unfortunately, if you intend to print it all out... don't. The same eye-candy photos in the Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide will consume a good amount of ink. Assuming the Eleventh Doctor Edition is on the same glossy paper stock as the Tenth, you're much better off buying the printed version. The printed version's Player's Guide, Gamemaster's Guides, and Adventure Book are separate books, making gameplay a little easier.

Buyer's Guide

But wait -- what should you actually buy? As said, both the Tenth Doctor and Eleven Doctor editions have the same core rules. So you'll only need one copy of either edition for the game system itself. Meanwhile, the Adventures, Character Sheets, and Gadget Sheets are different. Cubicle 7 has made the Adventure books for each edition as separate downloads, at a rather nice five dollars each. Cubicle 7 is also providing a free Upgrade Pack from Tenth to Eleven Edition of new characters, new gadget cards, and new aliens. Unfortunately, as of this writing, I didn't see a "downgrade" pack, that would allow you to buy the Eleventh Edition game but play the Tenth Edition characters, etc. Hopefully, a "downgrade" pack will be made available. So for a mere five dollars, you can upgrade from the Tenth Doctor to the Eleventh. Not bad!

Overall score: PDF on iPad: 5.0 out of 5.0. PDF printed: Not recommended. Upgrade PDFs: 5.0 out of 5.0 dollars. Downgrade PDFs: Let's hope for a Tenth Doctor "downgrade" kit.