[If this is your first exposure to the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game, You may want to also read our look at the Core Rulebook. -dc]
So, while I was working on this sourcebook I had a few really cool things happen. I had a short article entitled “Classic Who is Best Backwards” published in the Celestial Toyroom magazine and I was invited to return to the Earth Station Who chat about the Sixth Doctor story, Vengence on Varos. My process for many reviews for TheRatHole.ca is that I sit down and binge on-topic media. In this case, that obviously meant binging Colin Baker’s stint as the Doctor. I made a very conscious decision that unless I had a specific reason for it, I would spread my Classic Doctor experiences to coincide with these sourcebook reviews. So I was Binging Baker for the first time.
His Doctor holds a unique place in pop culture history. After Tom Baker’s scarf-wearing Fourth Doctor, Colin Baker’s eccentric style as the Sixth Doctor may well make him the second most recognizable classic iteration of the character. However, he is also generally considered the least popular Doctor of all time. The Sixth Doctor is bombastic, garishly flamboyant, unstable at the best of times, and unhinged at the worst of times. The biggest problem with Colin Baker’s Doctor is that Colin Baker is a really good actor. He puts his all into a character that was meant to be a bit edgy before being edgy was a thing, but ends up written in a way as to be almost completely unlikable.
Then, just as the writing was beginning to stabilize, he was saddled Melanie Bush. Bonnie Langford’s companion was also terribly written; a supposedly brilliant computer programmer who didn’t touch a computer for the entirety of her time on screen in the TARDIS. She had a scream that would make Hollywood horror queens jealous and wore puffed sleeves so big that Anne Shirley’s gables would be green with envy. (If you don’t get that last joke, look her up and don’t forget to spell Anne with an E.)
Thankfully both actors (and their characters) have found redemption thanks to Big Finish Audio, and are continually fan-favourites there. However, the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game only includes the television adventures so this is the Doctor we have. In fact, the sourcebook introduction fittingly begins with the quote, “I am a living peril to the universe!”
The first chapter, as is usual, talks about what makes a Sixth Doctor adventure unique. It points out that, much like the Doctor himself, his adventures are vividly melodramatic in every way. Colourful locations filled with even more colourful characters. Sabalom Glitz schemes his way into several stories, before later returning to “help” Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor on the Iceworld of Svartos, taking Mel with him when they parted ways. It is only in this sourcebook that we get his stat block, much to the frustration of Seventh Doctor fans. No mention of “colourful characters” would be complete without bringing up King Yrcanos of the Krontep, played by the one person who truly makes chewing on the scenery seem regal: Brian Blessed. That man is a legend who can do no wrong.
The second chapter is short, with character sheets for The Doctor and his Companions. The Sixth Doctor wasn’t one to attract many companions. Peri was with the Fifth Doctor when he regenerated, and despite her treatment at the hands of Six, she remained with him in a tragic attempt to save the man he was and she believed he could be again. Her fate ended up being a major character shift for the Doctor. We never actually see how the Doctor meets his next companion, Mel. Our introduction to her comes during the Trial of a Timelord storyline, in the form of an adventure from the Doctor’s future. In one of the more timey-wimey plot points of Classic Who; she would soon be pulled out of the Doctor’s future by The Master, to testify for the Doctor who had yet to meet her. This giant hole in their time together is part of what has allowed both characters to flourish in audio, and similarly opens the door to near-infinite potential adventures at your gaming table. This is also the chapter that discusses the Doctor’s relationship with his TARDIS. This Doctor is continually working to correct the perceived neglect of his previous incarnations and for a short time, he even managed to (sort of) fix the perpetually broken chameleon circuit.
Chapters 3 and 4 would normally be combined into a single chapter if this was most other incarnations of the Doctor. The third chapter examines the adventures after Peter Davidson’s regeneration at the end of The Caves of Androzani at the end of Season 21 (1984), through Season 22 (1985), but Season 23 (1986) gets its own chapter. The entirety of Season 23 consisted of a single story arc: The Trial of a Time Lord. This storyline was a major event in the Doctor Who series, a major event in the lives of the Doctor as a character, and a major turning point for the Sixth Doctor’s personality, specifically. It also represented a very different way of framing the stories told during that season, which can create a bit of a challenge to translating those stories to the gaming table.
The book closes with an Appendix that covers different ways you could integrate the Time War into any of the Sixth Doctor stories, and to a lesser extent link them to the later Trail arc. It’s a short chapter, that touches on each story with some hypothetical musings to connect the dots, followed by a specific Adventure Seed. For example, perhaps the Rani isn’t a Renegade, but rather a deep cover agent under the control of the Time Lord High Council. A proposed Adventure may have her revealing all of this to the Doctor and asking for his help.
The personality of the Sixth Doctor lends itself incredibly well to being a non-player character, or even just a story catalyst, rather than an actual player character. His unstable arrogance can easily leave behind a trail of displeasure. His penchant for tinkering with his TARDIS, and often not with particular success, can easily set up any number of awkward situations for the players to clean up after. Would I personally use this Doctor, or any of his Companions, as anything more than background? Unlikely. Would I drop elements and characters from this book into other eras or non-Doctor-centric stories? You bet I will! I’ve already got ideas flowing for a Groot-ish Vervoid character. There are several non-televised accounts of Yrcanos after the Doctor left, and I would love to explore his life before and after Thoros Beta. While I would never call the Sixth Doctor Sourcebook necessary or vital other than for completionist reasons, it is an interesting timeframe to study.
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