Doctors & Daleks – Fifth Edition Doctor Who Roleplaying Announcement Receives Backlash

As we announced at the end of our issue 63 cover story on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Cubicle 7, the roleplaying game company are to create a new Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition version of the popular Doctor Who roleplaying game.

The new system promises the likes of stat blocks for Daleks for Fifth Edition, and the chance to really do some time travelling mischief with the help of the TARDIS.

This announcement follows Cubicle 7’s announcement of the Doctor Who The Roleplaying Game Second Edition starter set, which is currently available for preorder. The Second Edition of the Cubicle 7 has been going strong for a decade or so.

The new D&D compatible source and setting books likely to come from the announcement will not replace the in-house designed Doctor Who RPG.

Much like the recent controversy around Steamgforged Games’ use of Fifth Edition for the Dark Souls RPG (more in that in the upcoming issue), Cubicle 7 received a great deal of social media ‘heat’ for their announcement, which can be found here:

We are delighted to announce that we are working on Doctors and Daleks – a new line of products that brings Doctor Who adventures to your table using 5th Edition rules! The first release – The Doctors and Daleks Player’s Guide will launch soon.

Doctor Who logo ™ & © BBC 2018. pic.twitter.com/X5hZ6ZncMt

— Cubicle 7 (@cubicle7) February 18, 2022

With a surprising amount of vitriol, a number of twitter users decided to pounce on the announcement suggesting that Fifth Edition was ‘the wrong system’ and that the news was ‘disappointing’. Most of the comments complaining about the announcement revolve around the (sometimes fair) ‘it’s just hitting things’ criticism of Fifth Edition, while others helpfully pointed out to the publishers of Doctor Who The Roleplaying Game, that someone had already published a very good Doctor Who roleplaying game.

It's easy to forget that TTRPG publishers are often very small teams, especially when using the world’s most popular roleplaying system.

Emmet Byrne, creative director at Cubicle 7 and co-designer of the publisher’s Soulbound games weighed in on the response:

If anyone who dunked on Doctors and Daleks is reading this, regardless of what you think, there are real people behind that company logo, and what you're saying hurts them. By all means critique once it comes out, but don't be cruel or write it off before you've even read it

— Emmet Byrne (@Emmetation) February 19, 2022

While Fifth Edition might not be everyone’s preferred system to use for roleplaying, it’s clear to see that the knee-jerk reaction to this news has little to do with the health of the wider community, or indeed, supporting the fandom around the ever-popular television show.