Saturday Morning Cartoon Action Hour!

 This one came about in a weird way. 

So my oldest and I have been playing AD&D 1st ed. Forgotten Realms at night when he gets off work. He is a chef and works till midnight. Recently though, we have also dipped our toes into the Fantasy Flight Games/EDGE Star Wars, which caused me to pull out a bunch of my original Star Wars figures.  These have been sitting on my desk for a while. Much to my wife's chagrin.  Anyway that is the background.

I have all these Star Wars figures on my desk along with some of the ReAction figures, including a Sorceress I repainted to look like Larina (I am dedicated to my obsessions). I also have a collection of various witches and the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon characters decorating my desk. We were talking about how much I still prefer d20 Star Wars because of the D&D connections. Liam dislikes it for that reason. He wanted to know if there was a system out there that could do both. So, I told him about Cartoon Action Hour.

I spent some time with Cartoon Action Hour Season 3 a while back and even detailed Zatanna for Super Friends.

We pulled it out and thought about making a silly game with his Mandalorian Bounty hunter (using my Boba Fett from 1979, sent in my Proofs-of-Purchase!), Larina, and my repainted astromech droid KE11-N3R, or "Kenny". Cause why not, anytime we pull out a new game we try something familiar. And there may have been some beers involved. 

It was fun and silly, and we had a great time, really. 

While I was hungover the next Thursday (and Liam was not) I was thinking that this game might make for a good system for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. Cartoon Action hour specifically calls out D&D as a great example of the Saturday Morning Cartoon they loved. So, I started to think about what would work.

A while back, I had talked about the new D&D cartoon minis and how Shelia was missing from set. I said this at the time:

 I did not watch the D&D cartoon much, but I was aware of it. I can't help but wonder if the red-headed girl with a penchant for wearing purple and hoods in 1983-85 didn't somehow influence my red-headed witch with a penchant for purple dresses and black hoods in 1986?  I honestly can't say.

In fact, I didn't even think about it until I scored this D&D Cartoon "kids" book at my local game auction.  It is called "The Witch's Spell Book."

That is the image above. 

The basic plot of this  Choose Your Own Adventure is that you have the Golden Wood by finding Agnes the Witch's Spell Book. The spell causes Tiamat's heads to argue among themselves. For reasons, only Shelia can read the spell. You would think Presto, but no, it is Shelia. Each of these books featured a different character, and they tend to go for a lot of money now on eBay. See the books for Bobby (written by Margaret Weis!), Shelia, Hank, and Eric. No idea if Presto or Diana got one, but someone was Book 2. Glad I got mine a lot cheaper than that. 

Now, not to go out on a limb too far, but does this make Shelia an initiate witch?  It would in my games. She is 13 in the show, the age witches often "hear the Call of the Goddess" in my game worlds. (BTW this is what makes Larina special, she heard the Call at age 6.) There is a witch in this book, Agnes. So I guess it is possible. 

I am not 100% out in left field here. Sheila is called "La ilusionista" (The Illusionist) in the Latin American dubbing of the cartoon. And in at least one of the Spanish intros Presto and Sheila are called, "Los Magos," or "The Wizards." Same for the German dub. In the German dub, Diana is "The Princess of Acrobats."

Why not try to make an adventure of this book? I speculated that Shelia was not going to be part of my War of the Witch Queens, but maybe this could be a side-quest. Anyway, I worked up some details for Cartoon Action Hour. I mean, a spell to get Tiamat's heads to argue with each other? That is some profound cartoon logic. don't know if I'll run it yet, but I have everything I need, really.

Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon, 1986 Season

The Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon did not make it to 1986, which is too bad, really. While I did not watch it a lot when it was on, I did watch it a ton with my kids.  I can imagine a continuation of the series (many have) where we finally get to see Skylla show up. Also, since it is my 1986, my witch would show up as well. Plus, I already did stats for her.

So here is my premise. Sheila, having realized she has a knack for witchcraft due to the events of The Witch's Spell Book, seeks out some answers. She finds two witches, one good and one evil, in Larina and Skylla, but which is which? Great cartoon logic, and a chance for me to use some of the ideas originally planned for Skylla in the Cartoon. Plus the title "Which Witch" kinda writes itself. In a perfect world, it would have been written by Paul Dini.

Here is our star, Sheila the Thief. I am posting the sheets instead of text because these sheets are just to damn fun NOT to post. I gave her Cloak of Invisibility a score of 6 because it is supposed to be an artifact. 

Skylla belongs here. She is a great evil character and always up to no good. Besides, what are heroes without their villains? 

Here is Larina, for her as a GMC I would tone her down a bit to the same level as Skylla.

I fully expect some of my numbers to be off. Please remember, we were drinking while doing this. Well, I am sure Sheila's stats are good.

I also just noticed that the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon premiered on Sept. 17, 1983. So 42 years ago!

We will have to come back to this game more often.

Witches Larina and Solaine make a potion

Well, this is a fun little treat!

My good friend and wonderful artist Djinn not only created a wonderful little toon of our witches Larina (mine) and Solaine (her's) but she animated them too. And Larina talks!

These are part of her "Dirty Sticky Journal" series, little cartoons like this featuring her character and others she has drawn over the years. She has done a lot of art of Larina, but seeing her come to life like this is really fun.

You can find them on her Instagram page and this one in particular.

The best place though is her Patreon site. And her Linktree.

I have shared her art in the past and she was one of my earliest Featured Artists.

Oh, and speaking of art. I shared The Simbul, Witch Queen of Aglarond yesterday on Twitter and I got this from Ed himself.

I LOVE these portraits!!!!! Spot on!!!!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 28, 2022

All in all a pretty red letter geek day for me!

Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series: Requiem The Final Episode

Well here is an unexpected treat.

Growing up I didn't watch much of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I caught it when I could, but I worked most Saturdays and didn't always see it.  This was also back before DVRs or even on-demand viewing, so unless recorded it on VHS, well I missed out.

Many years later I picked it up on DVD when it was packaged with some wonderful 3rd Edition content. This was about the same time my oldest was getting interested in D&D and the D&D animated series was the perfect gateway drug for him.  If it is possible to wear out a DVD then he would have done it.

On the DVD extras were a lot of neat little things. One of them was the script for Requiem, the last episode of the series.  Written by series writer Michael Reeves it detailed the last adventure of Hank, Eric, Diana, Bobby, Sheila and Uni. It had been put on as a radio play in 2006 and was also included in the DVD release. 

Now some enterprising animators pulled together clips from the series and new animations to give us the final episode in full animated form.

Watch it while you can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsNHTnY6HQg

I think they did a pretty good job, to be honest, all things considered.  

Caverna do Dragão / Cave of the Dragon

Like many gamers my age I have had a "complicated" relationship with the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon of the 80s.  At the time I thought it was stupid. But as I got older I came to appreciate it for what it really was.  My kids LOVED it, especially my youngest son.  I bought the boxed set that came out with the D&D 3.0 stats and it was a great blast.

So the whole Internet has been abuzz when these pictures start coming out.

A cosplay group?  A new movie!? A Netflix series??
Nope. It's a Brazilian car commercial for the new Renault Outsider!




I have to admit. Tiamat looks freaking awesome here, and they really captured the feel of the characters.  I swear that Eric and Diana looked like they walked right out of the cartoon and into this commercial. 

My orginal DM just said on Facebook that they must have had a bigger budget for this 1 minute 45 second TV spot than the first D&D movie.  I am inclined to believe that.

AND now thanks to Renault we know how the story ends.

Now maybe Paizo can team up with Nissan for a Pathfinder commercial?

Zatannurday: New DC Super Hero Girls Series

WHAT? A Zatannurday post??
Yes, it is and there is something cool coming.

Years ago we used to get an animated short, Super Best Friends Forever featuring Supergirl, Batgirl, and Wondergirl in crazy little adventures.  It was created by Lauren Faust, the same creative genius behind PowerPuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Creatures.

A little bit later a new multimedia merchandising line came out, DC Super Hero Girls. It featured books, toys and some animated shorts as well featuring a lot of DC's most famous superhero women, such as Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, as well as Poison Ivy, Killer Frost, and Harley Quinn.

Well now DC has combined the two and Lauren Faust is once again in charge.
So premiering next month is the New DC Super Hero Girls Series.
The visual cues are DC Super Hero Girls, but the execution is Super Best Friends Forever.

Why am I posting this here, now and bringing Zatannurday out of retirement?  Well, take a guess.



Like I mentioned, the style is a nice mix of SBBF and Super Hero Girls.





You can get more information here:

• YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRdVJ9XqHCb6BqApCIO_TYg
• Instgram, https://www.instagram.com/DCSuperHeroGirls/
• Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/DCSuperHeroGirls/
• The main site at DC Kids.

Zatannurday: Young Justice Girls Cameo in Scooby Doo

The DC Universe of any sort has always had an odd relationship with the Scooby-Doo one.  Going all the way back to Scooby-doo meets Batman and even recently in Batman Brave and the Bold.

Well the latest Scooby-doo entry was not where I was expecting to see another one.
Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery features cameos of the girls of Young Justice; Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandmark), Artemis, Zatanna and Miss Martian.

Somehow it makes sense that the girls like WWE.  Can't be any stranger than the fact that WWE is on the SyFy channel.

Makes my Zatanna/Hex Girls crossover seem more likely too!

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery is out March 25, 2014.

Review: Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3

I just got my pdf of Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 thanks to pledging in their Kickstarter.

This one was a no-brainer for me.  I loved CAH:S2 and have really enjoyed all of Spectrum Games products to date.

How does CAH:S3 stack up?  In an 80's word, Awesome!

CAH:S3 takes us back to the 80s Saturday morning (and week day afternoon) cartoons AND the toys that were so linked to them.   But I am getting ahead of myself.

And while I am still ahead of myself this game has the most awesome character sheet EVER!

Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 (CAH:S3) is a game about cartoon and toy emulation. Specially 80s cartoons and toy emulation.  So there are some things that a given out of the box.  You won't see any deaths. Violence happens in terms of gun fire, explosions and maybe a fist fight, but you won't see people getting hurt.  There is a moral or message to every "episode"  and the bad guy is going to get away in the end only to be back next time like nothing happened.

The book, like Season 2, is divided into "Channels".  Channel 1 is the intro material, Channel 2 is the game system, Channel 3 is series creation (potentially more important than the characters themselves), Channel 4 is all about the Players, Channel 5 is the Game Master's section and finally we have an Appendix.

Channel 1 is the simple introductory material, but more over there is a great overview of how these cartoons (and this game) worked. There is a logic at work here in these and to get the most out of this game it is one you should follow.  The best feature of this Channel is of course the overview of the 80s cartoons.  It's not a laundry list of every toon, but a selective "bibliography" and must see TV.  

Channel 2 covers the game system itself.  In many games this is the Character creation chapter, but since character creation and series creation are so closely tied together we will discuss the system first.   The game is made up of a Series (the game), Seasons (a campaign), Episodes and Scenes.  Characters are PCs and GMC (Game Master Characters).  A Season for example is made up of 6 Episodes.  I might stick with my more familiar 12 and allow a mid-season break.  Why is this important? At season breaks is when you can improve your character or change it all together.

Characters are made up of Traits and Qualities.  Traits are something definitive about the character like "Strongest Man in World" or "Sneaky Thief" or "Leader of the Decipti-bots".  Stuff like that.  Qualities are more quantifiable and are measured based on how powerful your series is.  Characters can also be ranked in terms of their Star Power.  Stars (and PCs) have the highest at 3, your nameless, faceless goon has 1.  If there is only one star, then they are Star Power 4.

Oomph is the power-, hero- or drama point mechanic.  Collect "Proofs of Purchase" to get more Oomph!
It is equal to your Star Power but changes through out the game.

The basic mechanic of the game is the Check.
Traits and Qualities (and Oomph) add to the dice rolls on a Check.

Characters may not die, but they can loose an important scene.  For that there are Setback Tokens.  These Crucial Checks are usually the ones right before a commercial break or even worse, the ones at the end of an episode and continued next time (granted there were not a lot of those, but GI Joe first season comes to mind).  Gain more Setbacks than your Star Power and you are out of the scene.

Season 3 has something new in it, or at least something I don't recall from Season 2. Gestalts.  This allows you to combine powers, bodies or whatever into something greater.  Think Voltron or some Transformers.

I think one of the rules I like the most here is "The Movie" which allows you, within the game, to throw out some of conceits of the game.  So in this characters can die! Bad guys hit their targets!  Mechanically you get more Oomph and damage and Setback tokens are not removed as often (no commercials after all) the risks are higher but characters that make it out gain experience and can be changed.  Think "The Transformers Movie" from 1986.

Channel 3 covers Series Creation. Wait, where is Character creation you ask? Well it's here too.  Series and Characters are created together.  You can't have GI Joe without the Joes or Transformers without the Autobots.  First this is create a Series guideline.  First figure out what your series in named and it's tagline.  So the example I used last time was The Hex Girls with the tagline "We'll put a spell on you!".   Next up figure out the details of the series. Tech level, twists, genre.  What is your elevator pitch on this.  "Modern Earth, magic is real, but no one believes in it. Characters are supernaturals and try to lead normal lives." Something like that, only more detail.   The newest feature of the series creation is the Dial. Dials tell you the levels of the game.  How comedic is it? How realistic? What's the violence?

Now we get into character creation.
Characters are ranked as either human, superhuman or cosmic.  The GM will decide, based on the series, on what traits can't be used, or limits on the traits and other details before the characters are made.   So as an example a series about wizard kids must all have a trait "Wizard" at 3 or better, but no technology-based traits.
After that character creation is a breeze.
There are some special abilities and then we discuss GMC (Game Master Characters). They are created much the same way, only less details.  Some templates such as goons and Master Villains are presented.
Playsets are where the action takes place and they are created in a similar way.

How cool is this sheet?

Character advancement is handled next.  Among the obvious places for advancement you can also put in points to the playset to upgrade your base.  So something like in Season 2 getting a new super smart computer in the base or a new book of spells.

We end with 8 series ideas.

Channel 4 covers advice to the Players.  A game like CAH requires a lot of buy in from the players.  You can't go into it like you do other games.  This is not "Dungeons & Dragons" this is the "Dungeons & Dragons cartoon".  So the players have to go in with the right frame of mind.  You want your game to be like the first season of G.I. Joe where everyone worked together, not the seasons that featured (and were dominated by) Sgt. Slaughter.

Channel 5 has similar advice for the Game Master.  Again emphasis here is placed on cartoon logic, and creating a fun series and episode. Don't forget the "And Now You Know" messages at the end! That's not a bug, it's a feature of the game.

In the end what we have is a crazy fun game again.  If you were a kid in the 80s and watched any cartoons then there is something here for you.  It is also a great change of pace from all the other games I play. This game focuses on having fun as well as being fun.

There are no conversions for CAH:S2 here.  But the conversions look simple to be honest.  Enough that I feel fine moving characters from one to the next with little to no effort.

Character Creation is much improved in this edition and much more streamlined.  Series creation is about the same, but it was just right in the last version.

Looking forward to doing a lot more with this one!

Links

• Spectrum Games
• Spectrum Games on Facebook
• Cartoon Action Hour Fans Yahoo Group.  Tons of great material here.

Zatannurday: Cartoon Action Hour Season 3

With the release of Cartoon Action Hour Season 3 I thought it might be fun to do Zatanna's stats as if she were a guest star on the Super Friends show!

Of course Zatanna was never on the Super Friends, which is too bad.  I would have loved her even then.
Here she is!

http://superfriends.wikia.com/wiki/Zatanna

Just Talkin' 'bout My Generation

Gary Greenwald and Phil Philips talk about the evils of toys from the 80s.

Just watch.



Shorter version here:


Holy crap!
I have never seen so many jumps to conclusions in my life.  Followed only by how many words they get wrong.  Or details of the toy lines.  Or anything related to reality.

Can we stop using the word "Occultic"!! "Occult" is all you need.
It's "Eternia" not "Ethernia". "Necomancy" not "Necromology". It's....oh I give up.

I love how neither one of these idiots can tell the difference between reality and cartoons.  Or how "D&D pieces" will scream when burned.

Seriously. You have to watch this. It's insane.

Makes you wonder what they would think of my book!

Don't forget, you can win a copy of my books.  Just two more days!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/11/post-2000.html