Let's dig in Chapter #1:
BLOGGER: Mad Writter ITEM: Cartoon Action Hour: Season Two (Called CAH:S2) WRITER: Cynthia Celeste Miller (Using her initials: CCM for the blog) MAKERS: Spectrum Games CATEGORY: Tabletop RPG
[Author Note: In the previous blog, I have links so you can purchase the game to following allow fellow Troopers a change to follow around. But this time, they is a rule about not allow HTM Ls in it."
Channel #1: Introduction
Our first section is "Retro-Toons: A Definition". What is a Retro-Toons you ask? Why the style of action-adventure cartoons of the 1980s. Yes, Merchandise-Driven Western Animated cartoons from The '80s.
CCM then does what TV Tropes does—dip it's hands into the trope cauldron and yank out the following facts about retro-toons.
Innocent, Gung-Ho Enthusiasm: No angsty, apprehension or depression exists in the world of the Retro-Toons, what does exists is an abundance of exuberance and sense of optimism. They may have been got down if things look bleakest, but they usually recover their positive attitude in time to send the bad guys into next week. Retro-Heroes were a honest-to-good heroes.
Toy-Centric Nature: A.K.A Merchandise Driven. The cartoons may have either awful to watch, so-so or so good you can wait to do your homework a little bit later—but all wanted to sell children toys of action figures.
Black and White Morality: They was no in-betweens in the cartoons of the 1980s. The heroes were good guys and/or girls while the villains were bad guys and/or girls.
The Good Guys Always Finished First: There was NEVER any doubt that the good guys would come out on top. They constantly had to work hard for victory and would suffer serve setbacks but the viewers knew good always triumph over evil.
The Moral of The Story: To stop parent group's complaining, the American animated studio adds morals to the story. Sometime they were low key, but most of them were as a loud as monster truck smashing up your house.
The next sub-section is "About Cartoon Action Hour", which reveals that's can do any cartoon genre that existed in the 1980s—though it's not a universal or generic game system. The rules of CAH:S2 were created for the 1980s retro cartoon logic.
The next sub-section is "About Season Two". It reveals is the second edition of CAH. The reason behind most of changes is either 1) To more accurately capture the flavor of retro-toons upon which the game is based or 2) To balance the system.
The next sub-section is "Role-Playing Basic", which explains what a role-playing game is. They are two words that appears, "episode" as CAH:S2's equal to adventures in other role-playing and "series" as a group of linked adventures (a campaign)—complete with a example of play showing events before a battle with the bad guys.
Near this sub-section are two blue sidebars containing information on Kraggor, a failed villain from a terrible and non-existing cartoon series called "Galactic Heroes", and Jason Bravesteel, Kraggor's heroic nemesis.
The next sub-section is "Time To Gear Up!", it deals with what you need to play CAH:S2. You need pencils, scratch papers, a character sheet, the rulebook, and a few twelve-sided 12 or D12 from this point onwards. In most roll one of the D12 and add or subtract a number. This will be done by + and - symbols.
The next sub-section is "The Important Concepts". This following are the important concepts of CAH:S12.
Traits: All characters has traits. Traits can stand for skills (I.E. computer hacking), racial abilities (i.e good hearing), raw abilities (I.E. swimming)—and they can also stand for weapons (I.E. mace), spells (I.E. Fireball Magic), armor (I.E. chainmail), alien abilities (I.E. flight), vehicles (I.E. motorcycle), and companions (I.E. talking cat). There is no set-list of traits—you create the traits you want yourself.
Checks: When the GM feels that outcome of a event would be more interesting by adding a random element, the checks comes into play. Checks are to roll a D12 and add the appropriate trait rating to it. If it the trait is a Detrimental Rating or the character doesn't have a appropriate trait rating, don't add anything. The GM compares the total number to the Difficulty Number (plus a roll of a D12) that he selected to reflect the harder the task is. If the total of the Trait Rating and D12 Rolling is equal or higher then the Difficulty Number plus D12 Rolling, the character is successfully complete.
When a character's action is directly contested by another character is called "Opposed Checks". Who ever gets the highest results wins. Opposed Checks are the center for the Combat for "CAH:S2"
Sometime one or two Benefit Dice call be rolled by the characters in addition to the normal dice. In such cases, you can use the highest rolling dice. The flip side of the Benefit Dice is Detrimental Dice, which forces the character to use the lowest rolling dice out of two.
Combat: (From CCM herself:) As alluded to previously, combat checks are simply opposed checks using Traits that are appropriate to combat situations. If the attacker wins the check by as much as the defender’s Threshold score (a stat listed on every character sheet), the defender is given a Setback Token. The accumulation of a fourth Setback Token signals that the character suffers Defeat. If the attacker wins the check by more than the defender’s Threshold score, the defender is abruptly Defeated (called Insta-Defeat). A Defeated character is no longer involved in the scene; he is trapped under rubble, knocked unconscious, captured by the villains, etc.
Oomph: The Hero Point/Fate Point of CAH:S2. All Player Characters have it. Oomph is edge that the heroes have over the villains. Players can spend OOMPH on to do some cool stuff such as re-rolling checks, adding additional dice to a check, removing Set-Back Tokens, avoiding a Instra-Defeat, and using "creative control" to alter a scene or do things that are impossible for the Player Character to do.
Our final sub-section is a list of Recommend Viewing:
- Blackstar
- Bravestarr
- COPS or (Cyber-Cops as it was called in the mid of 1990s)
- The Centurions
- Challenge Of The Gobots
- Dino Riders (Error Sighting: Says the Valoria pre-historic era but according the intro theme story, it's prehistoric Earth.)
- Dinosaucers
- GI Joe (The original 1980s series)
- He Man And The Master Of The Universe (The original 1980s series)
- Jem (Error Sighting Again: Jerrica becomes Jem. The other holograms use their names Kimber, Shana, Aja and Raya.)
- MASK
- Pole Position
- She Ra Princess Of Power
- Silverhawks
- Thundarr The Barbarian (CCM's Favorite Series)
- Thundercats
- The Transformers (The original 1980s series)
- The Visionaries
Next up: Channel #2 — The Series
