Surprisingly, prior to 2007 only eight game books based on Doctor Who had been released, and all of them had been published in 1986.

As with their more famous cousins, the Choose Your Own Adventure books, the reader is generally required to make decisions throughout the narrative that can lead to either a successful conclusion to the story or the need to start from the beginning again after suffering humiliating defeat — usually death!

The first six titles were released in the UK by Severn House between the June and November of 1986, with the main character being the Sixth Doctor.

The authors chosen to contribute to the range all had previous experience of writing for the series in one form or another, but sales weren't sufficent for the series to proceed beyond the initial six titles — something which wasn't helped by the generally poor stories, of which Michael Holt's Crisis in Space was the main offender.

All six titles were subsequently released in the United States under the Find Your Fate banner, although with rather more impressive cover art than was used on the UK editions.

The same year also saw two titles being published in the United States by FASA Corporation, who already held the license to produce a Doctor Who role-playing game. As might be expected from a company with experience in this area, the books were of a far higher standard, as well as being much longer.

More recently, Stephen Cole's Ten Little Aliens for BBC Book's range of Previous Doctor Adventures novels borrowed the format as, between pages 197 and 242 the reader is given various options as to which characters' viewpoint they would like to follow. Unlike the earlier Make Your Own Adventure books, each possible route ultimately leads to the same outcome.

With the runaway success of the new series of Doctor Who on BBC One, a new range of Decide Your Destiny books was launched by Penguin Character Books in 2007.