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Doctor Who - Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook
 
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Doctor Who - Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook
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Doctor Who - Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/25/2023 13:50:55

Updated review here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2023/05/reviews-doctor-who-rpg-supplements.html

The latest Doctor Who source book is out for the "Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Game". This book is the UNIT source book, "Defending the Earth".

Like all the Who books this one is full color. While it skews more to the new Who series, there in a lot of Classic Who material here including stats for the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee).

The UNIT (United Intelligence Taskforce) is tasked by the UN with protecting the Earth from Alien threats. This book allows you to create UNIT bases, personal and comes with two sample adventures.

In many ways a UNIT based game can be more interesting that a Doctor-based one. In this everyone can have a nicely defined role. You have field scientists, soldiers of all sorts and even civilians.

Among the features of this book are the expanded firearms and mass combat rules. The History of UNIT. Personnel, which includes plenty of new traits for military, science and civilians. And two UNIT based adventures.

This is one of my favorite sourcebooks for DW so far. Not just because of the limitless possibilities, but also because there is more attention paid to the older series than other books (note I am not saying this is a flaw of the other books, but it is a nice feature of this one).

I also see this as one of the more flexible books. You can set up a small UNIT command base and let the wackiness ensue. In fact, my own playtests adventures with DW could easily be converted into a UNIT game. Think back to the 3rd Doctor's adventures, these were mostly Earth based with UNIT. All of those are great ideas for a game. Or even the Sarah Jane Adventures.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out the cross-game compatibility with this and Primeval. While such a thing is never stated in either book and I am certain that it was not design consideration, there is nothing the ARC can't do that UNIT can't also do and visa-versa. By adding them together you get something very cool AND adventures to last for a couple of campaigns.

As with all books in this line, it is full color, well laid out and full of stills from the show.

A great addition to the collections of gamers or Who fans.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who - Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 01/11/2016 08:29:50

This book provides all that you need to run adventures using UNIT, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (originally United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, back in the days of the Third Doctor when we first encountered them). UNIT is Earth's front line of defence against alien incursion, and can be a potent source of adventures with or without the Doctor being involved, especially for groups who enjoy a more military, combative approach than the Doctor's likely to tolerate! UNIT also hires researchers and scientists along with investigators, so there's plenty for characters who do not wish to be soldiers to do as well. If you are playing a game with the Doctor and his companions (or another group of time-travellers with or without Time Lord) UNIT may be encountered as allies or even adversaries during your travels, or like the Third Doctor, your group may work with them on a more regular basis. Or a single UNIT member may join the companions... Whatever you choose to do, this sourcebook will provide the basis for doing it.

All this explained, Chapter 2: UNIT History deals with the history not just of UNIT itself but of precursor attempts to defend Earth (or at least the UK) against alien invasions. UNIT itself was formed when the British Army struggled to repulse Daleks, War Machines and Robotic Yeti. Although the Second Doctor met them occasionally, a long-term relationship was formed with the Third Doctor, and more recent regenerations have interacted with UNIT upon occasion. This history is quite detailed and illustrated with some magnificent (but alas uncaptioned) stills from the TV show, and gives an excellent account of UNIT from its inception to the present day.

Next, Chapter 3: Modern UNIT describes how the organisation functions in the 21st century. This covers its organisation and goes into considerable detail on what you'd find in a typical UNIT base - if you are running a game based on UNIT it's likely that you'll need one to serve as a home for the group. Mechanically, a base - just like a character - has a series of Traits, good and bad, that define its general nature. As an example the UNIT HQ in the UK is described in detail. Next is a discussion of security clearances, for people and for documents, so you can give everything the appropriate feel... there are also some brief uniform notes for those characters who want to know what they'll be wearing. A few gadgets round this chapter out.

Chapter 4: UNIT Personnel provides details necessary to create a UNIT character from scratch. This includes ideas on the various sorts of teams that you might set up in a UNIT-focussed game, depending on the nature of adventures you want to have. Some archetypes are provided for those occasions when you need a UNIT operator in a hurry, or to use as a basic outline on which to construct your own character. There are also biographic notes and full character sheets for several notable UNIT characters who have turned up in the TV show.

Then Chapter 5: UNIT Tactics provides some expanded combat rules. The core rules regard combat very much as a last resort (much as does the Doctor), but UNIT gives an opportunity to have a few brawls... so here's how. So there's a fair bit about firearms and a few other things, and a piece on how to handle mass battles including how to involve individual characters, laying siege to bases and more.

Next is Chapter 6: Covering Up. UNIT would be much happier if the rest of us didn't even know about aliens, let alone what they are trying to get up to (like invading Earth), so here we learn how they keep a wrap on things... or at least try to. An Exposure system is included to cope with the times when the cover-up fails, with the assumption that knowledge of aliens is going to cause mass panic.

This is followed by Chapter 7: Gamemastering UNIT which covers everything from the sort of themes you might employ - loyalty, morality, fear - to the likely nature of a UNIT-based campaign. That can be defending the Earth or it might take a more exotic twist - perhaps the UNIT team has acces to a TARDIS or other time-travel device and goes out exploring. They could even provide protective details to important individuals, or guard alien captives. There is a wealth of ideas here, well worth reading if you intend UNIT to turn up at all in your game never mind be the centre of it. Then the chapter gets down to the nitty-gritty of designing and running UNIT-based adventures, addressing issues like having a military hierarchy which never sits easily in the context of a role-playing game.

Finally, Chapter 8: UNIT Adventures provides masses of material to get you going, with two complete adventures and several adventure outlines/seeds which you can develop further. Armed with this book, you'll be ready to bring UNIT to life in your Doctor Who game, whether you want them as a central part with the party as UNIT operatives, or just have them turn up occasionally in a convention Doctor and companions campaign. Pretty much essential reading...



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Doctor Who - Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook
Publisher: Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
by Michael R. J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/15/2013 22:47:43

Read my full review on my blog: http://ofdiceandpenblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/defending-earth-unit-sourcebook.html

With UNIT playing such a major role in the history of the television show, it only makes sense that any game based on Doctor Who should need to address and describe the organization so that it can be used in the game, too. This is where Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, a supplement for Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, comes in. The book gives an in-depth look at UNIT and how to use it in Doctor Who roleplaying games that feature UNIT in any way, from games completely about UNIT where there is no Time Lord character and all the PCs are members of, or affiliated with, UNIT to games where UNIT only appears on rare occasions, to everything in between. The book contains material, too, that is applicable beyond just UNIT, such as some of the new traits and gadgets, as well as the expanded firearm rules. Defending the Earth continues the trend of high-quality, well-thought-out books for the Adventures in Time and Space game.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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