I had heard of Cynthia Celeste Miller’s latest opus through RPG.NET and various other gaming channels. Having enjoyed previous games of hers, I requested a review copy of CAH. This request was quickly and politely honored, forcing me to do a surreptitious Happy Office Monkey Dance. I want to take this opportunity to thank the affable and talented Ms. Miller, as well as all the folks at Spectrum Games. I’m honored to have been chosen to review this game.
Events in the last few days have made it such that a playtest was not feasible. Therefore, everything that follows is based on a reading of the book itself.
The book weighs in at 108 pages, with a full color cover page and black and white illustrations throughout. There has been some mention of the star background and the way the text follows it. I thought this was a nice touch, and like the use of white space on the right hand side, where most of the illustrations and sidebars come into play.
Every review I read seems to start with the art in the book, so I will do the same. My copy has a cover illustration reminiscent of the old TV Guide or comic book ads for the new cartoon season. There are four different “series” shown, with times for each. Each of these appears in the text, as either a ready to run series or series seed. The artwork on the cover and throughout the book is solid, and runs the gamut in styles, as did the action cartoons of the eighties. Much of the art is reminiscent of characters or scenes from various cartoons, which adds a bit of recognition, and adds to the spirit of the game.
The writing in the book is easy to read and quickly grasped. Cynthia provides several examples and an amusing dialogue between her and Kargorr, a villain with a bloated ego and questionable fashion sense. The pair makes for a surreal Goofus and Gallant, with the levelheaded Cynthia giving good advice and trying to be generally helpful and proper, while the laughable Kargorr (think Skeletor on welfare) tries to muck up the players, offering them advice on how to munchkin up their characters, and telling the GMs it’s OK to “…use cheating to crush, maim and otherwise decimate your players and their egos. Slay their characters! Run them into the ground for your own fiendish pleasure.”
The book is broken up into major divisions called “Channels” to further replicate the cartoon watching experience. Channel One is the basic introduction all RPGs have: A little background text, a crash course in roleplaying and a quick overview of the rest of the book. Channel Two is the rules on character creation. Channel Three gives the basic game rules, and Chapter Four deals with combat issues. Chapter Five is the Game Master’s section, divided into four sections: Miscellaneous Rules, Game Mastering, The Series and The Episode. Chapter Six is a set of useable (and useful) backgrounds to allow for quicker gaming. Added to the Six channels are three appendices: A Cartoon Action Hour and 80s Slang Glossaries, Recommended Viewing and Designers Notes.
Channel One is two pages long. In that short space, we get some background, a crash course in roleplaying and we get to meet Cynthia and Kargorr. It’s a quick read in the book, and as such, deserves a quick mention here.
The meat of the book is Character creation in Channel Two. Weighing in at 33 pages, this is where players will spend most of their time. Character creation is the first step of all roleplaying games, and it is treated in loving detail here. Characters are point-based, with traits ranging from -4 to 4, sometimes higher. Traits are more along the lines of skills and talents instead of vague attributes. Many of the traits have specialties that can be used to further define them, making it different to have ranged combat 3 and ranged combat 3 (pistol 1). The first would be a general ranged combat skill, while the second would be someone who is very, very good with pistols, but not quite as good with anything else. (Cynthia explains this all much better than I do.) After the basic characters are figured up, then it’s time for special abilities. These are the gimmicks that cartoon heroes used in their fight against evil. Special abilities are built using a number of modifiers to give them the effect that is warranted (much like in HERO). Along with such things as mechanical suits, magic swords and infinitely-repeating laser rifles, there are also vehicles and animal companions available to use. Finally, each character and special ability is given a story hook, which is a shorthand way of dealing with the background, motivations, and general why-do-I-caredness of the person or object in question. These can be as simple as “talks with a hissing lisp” to “was traumatized and rendered mute by an explosive gas leak to the face in Viet Nam, so now he acts as a silent warrior, stalking evil wherever he may find it.” This helps add yet another dimension to the character creation process. One of the traits I have not mentioned is “Oomph”. Oomph is a quantitative record of your character’s flair or élan. It is used when you roll a 12 or for help with initiative rolls. A character that is dashing and filled with derring-do would have a high Oomph score, while your common lowlife thug would have a very low Oomph.
Channel three deals with the rules of the game. These mostly are very simple: roll over a certain number on your D12s, and you defeat the challenge. I didn’t care for the idea of the GM secretly setting the difficulty of the rolls, as it would be too easy to fudge this. However, this does not detract from the beauty of the system. If a one is rolled, that’s an automatic failure; likewise, a 12 is an automatic success, which gets to have the characters Oomph score added onto it. Opposed checks are simply done by rolling for both characters and adding the appropriate trait.
The fourth channel in the book deals with a major thing that can make or break a roleplaying game: combat. Combat in Cartoon Action Hour has an interesting feature. Much like Toon, characters don’t die, they just get knocked out or blasted clear or something like that. This may not be the most realistic depiction of battle in a game, but is rings true for the genre it’s based on. Vehicles take full damage (minus armor bonuses). Combat itself is set up as a simple set of opposed action checks, so it moves relatively quickly and painlessly (so to speak), although there are a series of situational modifiers for combat.
Channel five is the UHF of Cartoon Action Hour. As a whole, it is the Game Master section, but there are four different sub-channels you can turn to under the heading “Channel Five”. The first, Miscellaneous Rules, explains how to go about the process of giving your characters experience points; how to handle goons, fire, drowning, falling and lifting; and how to monitor degrees of success, inventions, wealth and money. It also explains the concepts of “episodes” and “seasons”. Episodes are complete adventures, while a season is a series of adventures. There are usually 10 to 15 episodes in a season. Between each season is when changes usually take place. This might be where a new character is introduced, or subtle changes in the characters themselves might become apparent. Bad guys and their goons may appear or disappear at this stage. Generally, a change in season causes a need for newer solutions to old problems, or even a whole new toy line. Sub-channel 2 (listed as “Sub-Channel One” in my review copy) gives an overview to the job, tricks and roles of a Game Master. It goes over such things as how to use acting, storytelling and the morality of the genre to evoke the feeling of the genre. The Third Sub-channel teaches the basics of series creation, from background and concept of a series to the NPCs and rogues gallery of the series. It also addresses designing a villain, from mannerisms and clothes to dark fortress and goons. The fourth sub-channel focuses on the episodes themselves, from establishing a situation and presenting a problem to confronting the problem and finally climax and resolution.
The Sixth Channel is a listing of ready to run series and some series seeds that need a little development. Basically, any cartoon from the 80s you can think of has an analog in here somewhere, as well as the works of Sid and Marty Kroft, among others. I found this section quite helpful, as you can quickly immerse yourself in the different concepts to get a feel of the way they work.
The first two appendices are useful for the player who wants to quickly get a grasp on the mechanics and background, as the first appendix is a glossary of the terms Cartoon Action Hour uses. The second appendix is a glossary as well, but a glossary of 80s slang that might come in handy when trying to play in character, or for describing scenes. (Dude! It was sooo grody!) The third appendix is actually a touching short essay by Ms. Miller about the real evils around us, and how “…maybe the world could use a heaping dose of optimism. To show that the good guys can win, against all odds…no matter what.”
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it for anyone who wants to play the cartoons of yesteryear, or for that matter, today. The system is very flexible, and allows for so much freedom in character creation, that I can see using it for any campaign that requires cinematic heroes. My only warning for anyone planning on playing would be the steep learning curve around the special abilities (Again, like HERO). I would suggest this for intermediate-to high level gamers, but I think it would be a great place for novices to cut their teeth, as long as they had a more experienced player or GM to help out. This book is one of the very few large downloads that I have actually printed out, and it is the first that I plan to buy. I’m giving the fine folks at Spectrum Games two thumbs up and another happy monkey dance for this one.
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