Your fingers are trembling, but you tell yourself it is only the effect of the biting wind that you can hear whistling through the battlements and the rigging of the aerial.

You flip open the compartment on the side of the black cylinder and press the buttons of the timer. Ten minutes should be plenty of time to reach the ground and take cover in the alleys of the ruined city. One final check: the canister is wedged securely against the control box of the transmitter and the timed detonator is functioning. You can already feel the thrill of victory: there is enough nitro-nine packed into this bomb to blow apart the top half of the tower. Without the transmitter, the Kysarans' Termination Fleet will be unable to make landfall. You press the red button; the message 'COUNTDOWN' flashes on the LCD.

Peering through the battlements, you see the courtyard below is deserted. After one final check of the crampons digging into the crumbling stonework, you lift yourself over the parapet. As you hang by your fingers, your feet flail in the air until they find the first rung of the rope ladder. Biting your lip, you start to descend.

When you reach the roof of the guardhouse, you breathe a sigh of relief. The ladder that snakes up the tower above you is obvious evidence of an intruder, but nothing can be done about it now; you have to hope that no one spots it during the next few minutes. As you prepare to jump down to the courtyard, you hear voices.

Lying flat on the slates you peek over the edge of the roof: two gigantic Kysarans, anonymous in blood-red power armour, are marching across the flagstones towards the tower's entrance directly below you. Between them they are dragging a prisoner: the Doctor. His hands are manacled; he appears to be unconscious. The Kysarans take him into the tower. 

You try to steady your racing heart and your whirling thoughts. If the Doctor is taken to the upper levels of the tower, the imminent explosion will finish him. There is time -- perhaps just enough time -- to clamber up the ladder and stop the countdown, but just one slip, just a few seconds' delay, and you risk being blown to bits along with the tower. The Doctor's diversion has obviously failed: the Kysaran advance guard could send the landing signal to the main fleet at any moment, so the transmitter has to be destroyed. Perhaps you should continue with your plan, jump to the ground and take shelter in the nearby ruins, hoping that the Doctor will be kept in the lower part of the tower and will survive the explosion. 

You look at your watch: six minutes to detonation. Have you enough time to follow the Kysarans into the tower, rescue the Doctor and get him clear before the blast occurs? You have to decide what to do, and you have to decide now. Every second counts.

Imagine yourself in this predicament. What would you do? Can you decide? You must decide!

Have you decided what to do? You have? Congratulations, you have just taken the first step in role-playing!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ROLE-PLAYING

Role-playing lies between play-acting and real acting. When children pretend to be hunters, gladiators, fighter pilots, mums and dads, doctors and nurses, they are play-acting. So are adults who put on airs and pretend to be more genteel than they are. Actors who put on costumes and pretend to be heroes or clowns are engaged in real acting.

The above examples are at the two extremes of a spectrum. Play-acting is unstructured and the rules of play are made up as the game progresses: children's games of make-believe often degenerate into arguments, with one of the Indians refusing to be gunned down and accusations from the cowboys about cheats who don't take their shots. Real acting, on the other hand, is usually so structured that it is unchangeable, as it is when an actor performs the dialogue and actions of a play. Role-playing is semi-structured: the idea is to allow for spontaneity within a framework of rules.

Actors were almost certainly the first people to use role-playing techniques. In order to understand the personality of the character he is representing, an actor imagines himself as the character in situations other than those that occur within the text of the play. If, according to the script, the character blusters when threatened, how might he react if he were in mortal danger? And what would he do if the threat turned out to be only a practical joke? The actor, by imagining his character in such situations, hopes to project a fully rounded personality on stage.

This technique is widely used by actors today; it is known as improvisation, and most drama students are taught it. In the twentieth century, dramatic improvisation is useful in many other areas, such as psychotherapy and management training. In these contexts it came to be known as role-playing. A psychotherapist might ask a patient to imagine himself as someone else -- his own father, perhaps; two management trainees might be pitted against each other in a hypothetical setting, with one playing the role of a personnel manager and the other that of a trade union official.

As the above examples demonstrate, improvisation and role-playing are usually supervised activities bounded by a definite purpose and by rigid guidelines, yet they remain open-ended: the decisions of the participants decide the course of events.

All of the role-playing explained so far involves an element of acting: the role-player moves and speaks in character. But as any writer of fiction knows, role-playing can be a silent, sedentary exercise. It is possible to imagine Shakespeare, who was an actor as well as a playwright, putting himself into the personality of each of the characters in his plays without leaving his writing desk. He would have sat, quill in hand, thinking himself into a role -- for instance that of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark -- and then asked himself: what would Hamlet do when he realized that the funeral he was watching was that of his beloved Ophelia? Any novelist, and indeed any DOCTOR WHO scriptwriter, uses exactly the same technique: Ace knows that if the bomb explodes the Doctor might die, but unless the transmitter is destroyed the planet will be devastated -- what would Ace do?

To sum up, there are three elements in role-playing: a structure of rules and motivations that are supervised by one person; the other participants thinking themselves into the roles of the characters involved; and a story produced by the interactions of the decisions made by the characters.

Role-playing has become popular as an entertaining pastime. A group of friends gather together, each adopts a role, and they create a story between them. To avoid chaotic disputes about who is permitted to do what, one of the group acts as the supervisor; he usually uses a set of established rules to control the session. 

TIME LORD is a set of rules that enables a group of people to role-play the characters from the television series DOCTOR WHO: TIME LORD is the DOCTOR WHO role-playing game.

Commercially available role-playing games and the hobby of playing them have a relatively short history. The first and best known game was Dungeons & Dragons. The earliest editions of this game revealed its origins as a cross between swords and sorcery fiction and wargaming with toy soldiers. Having created a wargame campaign in which massed battalions of model humans, dwarfs, elves and goblins fought across a fantasy world, the game's inventors wanted more: they wanted to be able to play the game at an individual level, to give life to the individual heroes, generals and wizards who led the armies. They invented rules that allowed each player to make decisions on behalf of the individual characters in the game; soon, the military set pieces were being ignored in favour of small-scale adventures in which a band of individual characters would brave the dangers of subterranean labyrinths. Dungeons & Dragons was born.

The game reached Britain shortly after it appeared in the United States in the mid 1970s. At first it interested only a very few people: it was, after all, an unusual sort of game. It consisted of just three densely printed rule books; there was no board, no counters, and no definite objective except to create an adventure. But its arrival coincided with a surge of interest in games of all types, and it became a cult hobby among teenagers and young adults on both sides of the Atlantic.

Other role-playing games soon followed, and by the mid 1980s the hobby of playing games had become ingrained throughout the English-speaking world. Role-playing games, and their simplified offshoots of gamebooks and computer adventure games, were and are dominant within the hobby.

Many hundreds of role-playing games have been produced. They tend to reflect the genres of popular fiction or, to a much lesser extent, real life. Thus a gamer can play the role of an interstellar explorer, a sword-wielding warrior, a private investigator or a modern infantryman. Books, television and films were an obvious source of inspiration for role-playing games and manufacturers were quick to produce tie-ins: a gamer can be a fictional spy in the game James Bond, a member of a starship crew in Star Trek, a hobbit in Middle-earth, or even one of the Beatles in a short-lived product entitled Yellow Submarine.

DOCTOR WHO, with more than a quarter of a century of television stories that provide a mass of background details and a wealth of characters, villains and monsters, is the ideal subject for a role-playing game. 

KEY CONCEPTS IN ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

The Rule Book

In most proprietary games, the book of rules is only one of many components: a role-playing game often consists of nothing but a book of rules; no other special components are required. This book is the rule book for the DOCTOR WHO role-playing game, and it is all that is needed apart from two ordinary six-sided dice, pencils and paper to start creating and playing new adventures.

The function of a role-playing game rule book is twofold. First, it provides background information and guidelines for creating adventures, for the use of the game's supervisor (known in TIME LORD as the referee). Second, it furnishes a set of rules to govern the success or failure of the actions attempted by the characters played by the other players.

The Referee And The Players

The participants in a role-playing game are the referee and the players. The referee devises in advance the setting and basic plot of an adventure; he administers the game, interprets the rules and plays the roles of the villains, monsters and minor characters. The players take on the roles of the major characters, such as the Doctor or one of his companions.

How A Game Is Prepared

It is up to the referee to decide in advance how many players there will be, how long the game will last, how difficult the adventure will be to complete successfully, and what equipment, if any, will be required.

The referee has a considerable responsibility, and he will have to prepare the adventure in advance of a game session. If he uses a ready-made adventure, such as the one in Part Five, he will find his task relatively simple: he will be told how many players the adventure is designed for, roughly how long it will last, and whether he should provide any equipment other than the dice, pens and paper that are required for every game. It is more fun and more satisfying for the referee to create an adventure of his own, but this takes time and requires considerable planning and some previous experience of the game.

Number Of Players

In theory there is no maximum limit on the number of players that can take part, although each adventure will probably be designed for a specific number or a set maximum number of players. In any case there are practical difficulties: a game with more than half a dozen players will overload all but the most experienced, quick-witted and resilient of referees. TIME LORD works best with one referee and three or four players, each of whom controls one character.

There are also space constraints on participants, because ideally all the players should be seated round the same table, with the referee at the head of the table and slightly apart from the players. Under this arrangement the players can talk easily to each other; they have a solid surface on which to rest their notes and to write; and they can all see the centre of the table, where the referee may want to place diagrams, maps, and even models to help the players visualize the setting of the adventure. The referee, meanwhile, can see and hear all the players.

Duration Of A Game

A role-playing game need have no time limit. Even when an adventure comes to an end, the referee may choose to treat it as simply one episode in a longer story: the game can continue, in theory, for ever. Once again there are practical constraints, among them the participants' need for sleep and sustenance. It is easy for the referee to create a one-off adventure and find a group of players that can get together for one or two sessions of play; a referee cannot be expected to come up with a continuous, unending, inventive storyline. It is also difficult to gather the same players in the same place at the same time over and over again. One-off adventures, similar to one four-part DOCTOR WHO television story, will therefore be usual; episodic epics, along the lines of those linked series of DOCTOR WHO stories that last for an entire television season, will be rare.

Equipment

The referee's preparations and the imagination of the players are the most important extra components for a game of TIME LORD. Apart from a copy of this book (which only the referee needs to have, although the players will find it useful to have copies, too) the only equipment required is a supply of paper, pens and dice. 

Other equipment may be introduced at the referee's discretion. One of the most useful playing aids is a set of floor plans, which are used to provide a visual representation of the rooms and spaces in which the adventure takes place; these can be drawn in advance by the referee, or he can use one of several types on sale in games shops. 

Miniature figures, which are used to represent the players' characters, minor characters and monsters, can be placed on the floor plans to give an instant idea of the locations and relative positions of the characters and their opponents. When carefully painted, miniature figures of metal or plastic can be minor works of art and add immediacy to any game. Suitable figures can be found at specialist games shops. Floor plans and figures are particularly helpful, to both referee and players, when a skirmish takes place during an adventure. 

Finally, although the players will no doubt make their own notes, sketches and maps, the referee can provide maps and charts to help the players visualize the setting of the adventure and understand the relative locations of particular places. The information provided in this way should not, of course, exceed that which the players' characters find out during the course of the game. Such maps and charts can be as simple as a helpful scrawl, scribbled quickly to clarify a particular question, or as elaborate as facsimiles of the very maps that the characters retrieve from the TARDIS's data store.

The Objective

In most games the players compete with each other; the game finishes when one of the players wins by eliminating all the other players, for instance, or by accumulating a predetermined amount of play money.

A role-playing game is different: instead of competing, the players co-operate to explore the setting and overcome the obstacles created by the referee. Apart from the crucial business of keeping their characters alive and functioning, the players' objective in a role-playing game is usually one of two types: in some games the main objective is to collect booty and slaughter opponents, while others are more like detective stories in which the players' objective is to solve a mystery. Many role-playing games manage to combine the two aims, but in nearly all cases the key to success for the players is co-operation.

TIME LORD, true to the spirit of DOCTOR WHO, does not encourage the players' characters to take part in looting and pillaging; TIME LORD adventures involve the players' characters in solving mysteries, averting catastrophes and righting wrongs. 

The players do not oppose each other; their characters work as a team, and the opposition is provided by the referee. The villainous plot or imminent disaster, and the savage monsters or power-hungry aliens, all are provided and managed by the referee. If the players fail, their characters may end up hurt or even dead; if they succeed, they can take satisfaction from a job well done, and look forward to that relaxing holiday that the Doctor has promised them on Florana, Metebelis 3 or the Eye of Orion. 

How To Start Playing

The referee devises an adventure or studies a ready-made adventure. He gathers together a supply a pens, paper and dice. He prepares any other equipment that he thinks will prove useful to himself or to the players -- for instance maps, models, pictures, and character sheets. He invites players, usually one for each character in the adventure, to a gaming session.

If the players are familiar with DOCTOR WHO and TIME LORD, the adventure can commence immediately. If not, the referee explains how a role-playing game works, describes the background of the characters, and makes sure that all the players understand their characters' abilities and the basic principle of the TIME LORD rules: beat the difference.

The referee describes the situation in which the players' characters find themselves at the start of the adventure: the game begins as soon as the players respond by telling the referee how their characters react. 

Characters 

Character is the general term used to describe any role that the referee and players of TIME LORD assume during an adventure: the Doctor, his companions and even enemies such as the Master and the Meddling Monk are all characters. Those characters that are played by the referee are called referee characters; those adopted by the players are player characters. 

All characters have beliefs and mannerisms that make them unique. TIME LORD is about playing such aspects of a character to the full, not about manipulating the numbers that are used to define his physical and mental prowess.

A player will generally play either a generation of the Doctor or one of his companions -- an ordinary person who has joined the Doctor on his travels. Which characters are played depends on the adventure the referee has planned and on the number of players. It is suggested that players pick or are given companions who have travelled with the Doctor at the same time: a group of four players might choose to play Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Susan Foreman in addition to the first Doctor; a group of two players might choose to play Jo Grant with the third Doctor. Especially large groups can be catered for by bringing in irregularly appearing characters such as the Brigadier, Captain Yates and Sergeant Benton. Suitable groups are listed with the details of each Doctor in Part Four.

The referee can also introduce characters he has created which a player can run during an adventure or even carry on playing in future adventures. Companions often make temporary friends during an adventure and these referee characters can temporarily become player characters to ensure that anyone who wants to play TIME LORD can be assured of a role. Ace, for example, made friends with a Chinese girl, Shou Yuing, in Battlefield and teamed up with her to find out what was going on. In Delta and the Bannermen, the Welsh girl Rachel -- who had made motor bike maintenance a hobby -- proved a useful ally to the Doctor. Such characters are ideal choices as new companions; in the TIME LORD game they can easily join the Doctor on other adventures. 

The most challenging way of providing players with balanced characters is to allow each player to assume an incarnation of the Doctor and to play an adventure like The Five Doctors or The Three Doctors. This solution is recommended only for experienced players: the Doctor's mysterious nature and erratic genius makes him difficult to role-play well -- having five Doctors around magnifies the problem tremendously! 

New players, especially those who are unfamiliar with role-playing, should not be daunted by the character they are given. Role-playing is like acting: some people are good at it and others are appalling. There are some splendid examples of bad acting in the television series, so a player who cannot throw himself into a role is hardly setting a precedent -- in fact he is making an accurate contribution to the adventure!

Players should use the descriptions of their characters provided in Part Four to help them imagine how they should act in a given situation. The player should not act in the way he would ordinarily react but in the way he imagines the character would respond. This is the essence of a role-playing game. A player who, for example, is a member of the Territorial Army might be tempted to have his character fight any alien that was encountered: such behaviour would be accurate if he were playing Sergeant Benton but would be out of character if he were playing Victoria or Nyssa. 

There are some basic tips to ensure your survival in a hostile universe: dodge and run! Most characters can out pace their pursuers, so running away is always a good idea if the Daleks are still approaching; once they are on top of you, dodge everything unless you are very competent in close combat. If the enemy is in strength, surrender to buy thinking time. Fighting is dangerous, so get involved only if you can get the advantages of surprise or numbers.

TIME LORD is a game and is meant to be fun. The enjoyment should come as much from playing a character well as successfully completing an adventure. Characters should co-operate with each other most of the time because teamwork is vital to the successful completion of an adventure. Yet conflict between characters should not be overlooked as a source of enjoyment: teasing or outright personality clashes are very much a part of DOCTOR WHO.

SWITCHBACK

A solitaire DOCTOR WHO adventure

On the following pages you will find an excerpt from the DOCTOR WHO adventure Switchback. The excerpt has been configured as a solo role-playing game: you will play the role of one of the Doctor's companions. 

You will need two dice; paper and a pen will be useful, too. This Switchback excerpt has been adapted to use the TIME LORD game rules. As you play it, you will gain a good idea of how a game of TIME LORD progresses. A few unavoidable simplifications, however, have been made. There will be only one player -- you -- and therefore you will not experience the complexities that arise in multi-player games. More significantly, there is no referee: the book controls the game, providing you with information about your character's situation and prompting you to decide what your character should do. 

In a real game with a human referee, the possible actions of your character are almost infinite: if you were role-playing Jamie, for instance, and Jamie were to meet an unfriendly monster, you might decide that Jamie would attack, or run away, or pretend to faint, or play the bagpipes, or dance a reel, or anything else that you decide Jamie might do. In Switchback, because there is no human referee to respond to the potential variety of your character's behaviour, your character will be offered only a few options.

Within these limitations, however, this extract from Switchback will introduce you to the concept of playing a character and to the basic rules of TIME LORD.

How To Play

Before you start you should choose which character you want to play. Printed here are summaries of the character sheets of two of the Doctor's companions: Tegan, the Australian air hostess, and Jamie, the Highland piper. Full details of these characters are given in Part Four on pages 84 and 76 respectively.

Alongside each illustration you will find a list of the character's abilities. Each ability has a numerical value. Next to some of the abilities you will see special abilities, which also have numerical values. The use of these numbers will be explained in the course of the game. The important thing to notice is that the two characters have different ability scores: Jamie has a higher Strength ability than Tegan, for instance, but Tegan has a higher Knowledge ability. 

If you play Switchback twice, once as Jamie and then as Tegan, you will appreciate how these different ability scores affect each character's actions. 

Jamie McCrimmon

Abilities and special abilities
Strength: 5, Cheat Death 1
Control: 4, Brawling 2, Edged Weapons 2, Marksmanship 2, Mountaineering 2
Size: 4
Weight: 4
Move: 3, Running 1
Knowledge: 3
Determination: 4
Awareness: 3, Acute Hearing 1, Musicianship (bagpipes) 1
Equipment: dirk (edged weapon, Wounds 4)

Tegan Jovanka

Abilities and special abilities
Strength: 3, Cheat Death 2
Control: 4, Marksmanship 1
Size: 3
Weight: 4
Move: 3, Driving 1, Running 1
Knowledge: 4, First Aid 1, TARDIS 1
Determination: 5, Independent Spirit 1
Awareness: 3, Acute Hearing 2, Artist 2, Con 1, Striking Appearance 2
Equipment: laser cutter (counts as edged weapon, Wounds 4)

Make a note of this page number; you will need to consult these character sheets while you play Switchback.

Now choose your character, think yourself into your chosen role, turn the page, read The Story So Far and follow the written instructions. Good luck!

The Story So Far
The TARDIS has stopped moving, much to the Doctor's surprise. It seems to have materialized somewhere, although the Doctor has been unable to understand the sensor readings. The viewing screen reveals nothing except darkness. The Doctor has tried without success to make his craft take off again. He has decided that he has to find out where the TARDIS has landed; he has gone to explore outside, leaving you in the TARDIS control room with strict instructions to wait until he returns. Turn to Module 1.

Module 1

The Doctor has been absent for about half an hour and you are becoming very bored. Suddenly you hear a noise: a familiar, raucous grinding sound. The time rotor is moving -- the TARDIS is about to take off! If it dematerializes without the Doctor on board, he will be stranded and you will be adrift in time and space. You must do something. 

Rushing over to the central console, you stare at the bewildering array of flashing lights. You must try to work out how to switch off the dematerialization sequence. The TARDIS consists of very advanced technology. Using even a simple control requires some skill and knowledge. Every task in TIME LORD is given a difficulty: stopping the dematerialization sequence has a difficulty of 6.

What is your Knowledge? Look it up on your character sheet. Your Knowledge represents, among other things, your understanding of technology. If you have the TARDIS special ability, add that number to your Knowledge to determine your total ability in this case; if not, your Knowledge on its own is your ability score. 

Just so you know whether you are right, your ability to operate the TARDIS should be 3 if you are playing Jamie; if you are playing Tegan, you should have worked out that your ability is 5.

Subtract your ability score from the difficulty (6) of the task you are attempting. This value is known as the difference:

Difficulty minus Ability (including special ability if applicable) equals Difference

Now you must try to beat the difference (Jamie needs to beat a difference of 3 to succeed; Tegan must beat a difference of 1). Roll two dice. Subtract the lower number from the higher. If the result is greater than the difference, you manage to switch off the time rotor. If the result is equal to or less than the difference, you fail.

Whether or not you succeeded in turning off the time rotor, give yourself a pat on the back: beat the difference is the single most important concept in the TIME LORD rules, and you have just learned how to use it.

Now back to the adventure: if you managed to stop the time rotor, turn to Module 13; if you failed, turn to Module 5.

Module 2

You can see the pulse of energy expanding from the Drekkar's blaster, but you are powerless to avoid it. A ball of fire seems to engulf you. The blaster inflicts 6 Wounds, which is greater than your Strength ability: you are unable to withstand the assault on your nervous system and are thrown to the floor. You lie there, inert and unconscious.

In time, your body tries to recover. You have taken 6 Wounds. Subtract your Strength from 6. The result is the difference that you have to beat in order to recover. 

Roll two dice. Subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is greater than the difference, you regain consciousness and, with an aching head and shaking limbs, you wander into the darkness, turn to Module 4. If the result is equal to or less than the difference, you fail to recover, turn to Module 14.

Module 3

Your weapon is suitable for use only in close combat, so you will have to close with the Drekkar before you can attack it. Your Move is 3 and the Drekkar is about three metres away (a difficulty of 1), so you can reach it.

If you decide to hurl yourself at the creature and attack it, turn to Module 11.

If you would rather advance on it cautiously, weaving and dodging as you move, with a view to attacking it later, turn to Module 7.

Module 4

The darkness is almost absolute. You sense, rather than see, that you have wandered into a maze of corridors. With your hands outstretched you stumble towards the dimmest hint of light. You eyes are not deceiving you; there is light ahead. You turn a corner and see an illuminated cubicle that looks something like a lift. You step into it without hesitation. A shutter descends behind you, and you wait for the cubicle to start moving upwards or downwards. Instead, you become aware of a regular droning noise; the light starts to pulsate. You have wandered into a Drekkar control box: the device is attempting to overcome your will and make you subservient. 

Fortunately, a Drekkar's Determination is lower than a human's, and the control box cannot automatically control you in the way that it controls a Drekkar. It has an Determination ability of 1, which with its Hypnotize special ability of 2 gives it a total ability of 3 when attempting to control you. Your Determination is higher than 3, so the control box has to beat the difference to subjugate you.

Subtract 3 from your Determination: the result is the Difference that the control box has to beat. Roll two dice on behalf of the control box. Subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is greater than the difference, turn to Module 6; if the result is equal to or less than the difference, turn to Module 12.

Module 5

You simply cannot work out how to shut down the dematerialization sequence. The longer you gaze at the winking displays, the more confused you become. Suddenly you remember that the TARDIS cannot dematerialize if its doors are open. You run to the side of the room and throw yourself at one of the huge doors. It moves, but only a little. The TARDIS is obviously on the point of dematerializing. Opening the door will be a real test of your strength.

This task has a difficulty of 5. Look up your Strength score on your character sheet. Subtract your Strength from the difficulty of 5 to produce the difference that you have to beat. If your Strength ability score is 5, the difference is zero (5 minus 5 equals 0), but you still have to try to beat it and there is still a chance that you might fail.

Roll two dice. Subtract the lowest number from the highest. 

If the result is greater than the difference, you manage to push the door open. Behind you, the time rotor slows and stops, and the lights fade as every other circuit in the TARDIS seizes up in sympathy. You squeeze through the half-open door. Turn to Module 9.

If the result is equal to or less than the difference, you cannot make the door budge. The time rotor accelerates relentlessly. Turn to Module 18.

Module 6

You cannot resist the power of the control box. You feel your willpower dwindling and shrivelling while your mind is filled with comforting thoughts of order and obedience. You become a brainless slave, destined to patrol the dark corridors of this hijacked interstellar colony ship -- until and unless you are rescued by the Doctor, the occurrence of which is beyond the scope of this small solo game. Turn to Module 19.

Module 7

You zigzag towards the Drekkar, trying to prevent it taking aim at you. The Drekkar tries to shoot you: the difficulty of this task is your Size plus your Control plus the difficulty arising from the range, which in this case is 1. Consult your character sheet and calculate this difficulty. The Drekkar has stopped moving, so its total ability is its Control of 3 plus its Marksmanship special ability of 1: a total of 4. Subtract this figure from the difficulty to find the difference that the Drekkar has to beat. Make a note of this value. 

Now, on behalf of the Drekkar, try to beat the difference. Roll two dice, and subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is greater than the difference, the Drekkar hits you, turn to Module 2.

If the result is equal to or less than the difference, the Drekkar's shot misses you, turn to Module 10.

Module 8

The Drekkar is less impressive than it looks. It has a Strength of only 2, and therefore one successful blow from your weapon (which inflicts more Wounds than the Drekkar's Strength) is enough to disable the large creature. 

The Drekkar topples slowly and silently, landing with a crash on the metal floor. You do not wait to find out how quickly it recovers: you run into the darkness. Turn to Module 4.

Module 9

You throw yourself through the door, only to find that the outside world is darker than the interior of the TARDIS. The floor sounds as if it is made of metal. Your footsteps echo faintly, suggesting that you are in a cavernous void. You can see nothing at all at first, then a light appears in the distance. It approaches slowly and you can make out the shape of a tall, lumbering, metal-encased humanoid. 

You will find out later -- perhaps -- that the creature is known as a Drekkar. Make a note of these abilities:

Drekkar

Abilities and special abilities
Strength: 2
Control: 3, Marksmanship 1
Size: 2
Move: 2
Determination: 2
Equipment: blaster (ranged weapon, Wounds 6), metal skin (counts as Armour 5)

You call out a greeting, but there is no reply. When the Drekkar is about three metres away from you, it lifts some sort of gun and points it at you. You have only two choices: run (turn to Module 16) or attack (turn to Module 3).

Module 10

A bolt of blue energy from the Drekkar's blaster flashes past your head. The weapon jerks upward in the creature's claw, and you are close enough now to hear its muted curse. You can seize your chance to attack it or to run clear.

If you decide to attack, turn to Module 15. If you carry on running past the Drekkar and into the darkness, turn to Module 4.

Module 11

You hurl yourself towards the Drekkar without thinking about dodging, but even as you charge you see a spurt of light from the muzzle of its weapon. You present quite an easy target for the creature: the difficulty of its task is your Size plus the difficulty of shooting at the distance between it and you (1). Consult your character sheet, calculate this difficulty, and make a note of it. 

The Drekkar's total ability in this situation is its Control of 3 plus its Marksmanship special ability of 1, a total of 4. Subtract this from the difficulty to produce the difference that the Drekkar has to beat to hit you. 

Roll two dice on the Drekkar's behalf. Subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is higher than the difference, the Drekkar's shot hits you, turn to Module 2.

If the result is equal to or less than the difference, the Drekkar misses and you get your turn to attack. Turn to Module 15.

Module 12

Persuasive images of order and obedience to a higher cause batter your brain, but you remain unconvinced. The control box is unable to overwhelm your will. As the mental pressure recedes, you become aware of a familiar voice intruding into your mind.

'There you are last!' says the Doctor's unmistakable voice. He sounds distinctly peevish. 'What kept you? I've been trapped inside this mental imposition machine for at least ten minutes, and that's ten minutes too long as far as I'm concerned. Now run along, find my body, and put my mind back into it. And do hurry up about it.'

Reuniting the Doctor's mind and body is a task that takes us beyond the confines of this brief game. Congratulations are in order, however, for you have taken your character out of the erratically behaving TARDIS, encountered a Drekkar guard and successfully thrown off the effects of a mind-controlling machine. Turn to Module 19.

Module 13

Your fingers stab uncertainly at the controls. You hold your breath: the time rotor begins to slow. As it stops, however, your sigh of relief turns to an exclamation of alarm. Every circuit in the TARDIS is failing. The lights are fading fast. Just in time, you throw the door switch before all the power disappears and the doors inch open. You have no idea what is wrong with the TARDIS, but you know you cannot repair it by yourself. You have to find the Doctor. You feel your way through the darkness to the door. Turn to Module 9.

Module 14

Your attempt to recover from your wounds has failed, at least for the time being. In a full game of TIME LORD you would be given further opportunities to try to recover and, of course, there is always the possibility that the referee would arrange for someone -- the Doctor, the Drekkar, a passerby -- to give you medical attention. You would probably survive, but you can take no further part in this adventure. Turn to Module 19.

Module 15

You try to strike the Drekkar. This is a basic combat situation and the difficulty of your task is calculated very easily: the difficulty is the Size, or relative smallness, of your target which in this case is 2, as a Drekkar is quite large. 

Your total ability is your Control plus any relevant special ability if you have one. (Tegan's Marksmanship special ability will not help her to use a laser cutter, but Jamie's Edged Weapons special ability will add 2 to his total ability because he is using his dirk.)

Your total ability is greater than the Difficulty, so there is no difference to beat: you automatically hit the Drekkar. The damage you inflict is equal to the Wounds rating of your weapon, but can you penetrate the Drekkar's armour-plating? 

The Drekkar's metal casing has a protection value of 5, but your weapon inflicts only 4 Wounds -- less than the Drekkar's Armour. Subtract your weapon's Wounds from the Drekkar's Armour of 5. The result (1) is the difference that you have to beat.

Roll two dice. Subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is greater than the difference, your blow penetrates the Drekkar's Armour, turn to Module 8. 

If the result is equal to or less than the difference, your weapon slides harmlessly across the creature's armour, turn to Module 17.

Module 16

The Drekkar has a Move ability of only 2. Your Move ability is 3 and in this situation your Running special ability of 1 also proves very useful! You can easily outdistance the Drekkar, but as it lumbers after you it takes a shot at you with its blaster. 

Add your Size to the difficulty of firing at the distance between the Drekkar and you (now 2). The result is the difficulty of the Drekkar's task in hitting you. The Drekkar's total ability is its Control of 3 plus its Marksmanship special ability of 1, minus the difficulty caused by its movement (1) -- a total of 3. Subtract this total from the difficulty to produce the difference -- the answer should be 3, whether you are playing Jamie or Tegan. 

The Drekkar has to beat this difficulty of 3 to hit you. Roll the dice and subtract the lowest number from the highest. If the result is greater than the difference, the Drekkar's shot has struck you, turn to Module 2. Otherwise the pulse of blue energy crackles harmlessly past you, turn to Module 4.

Module 17

No emotion shows in the Drekkar's face as your weapon skids uselessly across the metallic plates of the creature's armour. It merely continues to bring its blaster to bear on you. You find yourself staring into the smoking muzzle of the energy weapon. Will you try to dodge the next pulse of energy (turn to Module 7), or will you throw yourself into combat against the Drekkar in another frontal attack (turn to Module 11)?

Module 18

You are trapped in the TARDIS and you cannot prevent it from dematerializing. Eventually the time rotor slows to a stop, and you know the TARDIS has come to rest. But you could be anywhere in time and space. You will just have to hope that the Doctor finds some way of rescuing you; for the moment, however, this adventure is at an end. 

Go back to the beginning and try again!

Module 19

We have to leave Switchback at this point: if we printed the entire adventure there would be no room for anything else in the book. But if you play through this solo game a few times, using first one character and then the other, you will find that you learn a great deal about the mechanics of playing TIME LORD. 

This small extract from an adventure includes: the use of an ability to attempt a simple task, close combat and ranged combat, recovery from wounds, the use of an ability to resist a mental attack, many examples of the effects of different abilities on the balance of play, and frequent use of the basic rule of TIME LORD: beat the difference.

Don't be put off by the number of calculations you have to do during Switchback: this is a solo game and you have to do the work of both player and referee. If you were playing the character of Tegan or Jamie in a real game, the referee would know the difficulty of each task your character might attempt, the relevant ability of your character and therefore the difference you would have to beat. All you would have to do is to roll two dice!

A Note For Beginners

Even if you had never heard of DOCTOR WHO and role-playing games until you started reading this book, you should now be ready to play a character in a game of TIME LORD if you have read and understood everything up to this point.

Part Three and Part Four of this book will provide you with a wealth of further information about the game and about the DOCTOR WHO universe, much of which will be very useful to you as a player.

A Note For Prospective Referees

By now you know the basic concepts behind TIME LORD. But don't start rushing to design your own adventures just yet. You will need a thorough understanding of Part Three and Part Four of this book, and then you should study Part Five, which is full of information for referees. 

Now let's plunge into Part Three, which is a detailed exposition of the TIME LORD rules.