Character Creation: Cartoon Action Hour 3rd Ed

Ah, delicious nostalgia. 

The Game: Cartoon Action Hour Season 3
The Publisher: Spectrum Games
Degree of Familiarity; Plenty with the underlying inspiration, but I haven't actually played this game
Books Required: Just the one

You know, I didn't mean to do two games in a row that capitalize on 80s nostalgia, but here we are.

Cartoon Action Hour is, as the name implies, meant to emulate the 80s action cartoon/toy commercials, including G.I. Joe, Transformers, and some of my favorites, Inhumanoids and Thundarr The Barbarian. The game discuss the genre and the attendant tropes, to wit, characters don't die and in fact direct violence is rare. Mostly you'd do things like knock some rocks off a cliff face to (non-lethally) bury some bad guys. Lasers blasts are plentiful but don't hit much, and indeed, there might not be much continuity between one episode and another. 

Just reading the book, it becomes apparent that not all of this really works, or at least works easily, at the gaming table. So much of action TTRPGs come back to combat, and the combat here isn't tactical, it's emulation. Would CAH work especially well for a table of Millennials who weren't so much raised on these cartoons? I think so, we just might need to sit 'em down for a quick crash course. That wouldn't convey the feeling of watching Masters of the Universe or M.A.S.K. and then seeing the commercials for the new toys, of course, but life's like that.

The system is a pretty simple "roll a d12, add some numbers" kind of thing, though you can spend "Oomph" to alter roles and do some narrative tweaking. I've always liked this game and wanted to play it (it was actually one of the games under consideration when we wound up playing Atlantis, almost four freaking years ago). So let's make another cartoon character!

As before, when I did the above-linked second edition character, I need a series. And lo! There are several in the book. I've been rewatching Thundarr lately, so I think I'll make a character for the Rift Warriors series.

So, characters in this series are Human tier, meaning I get 18 points to spend on traits, but one trait can go above the normal maximum to 8 (all of the adventurers have that one specialty kind of thing). I think I'd like to make a character whose role in the series is healing, "soft" magic, light, and wisdom - the kind of thing that would normally be where the series stuck the token woman character, but let's assume the network heads were a little cooler about this show. 

My character's name is Lightstone. He looks a bit like Legolas - blond hair, pointy ears, blue eyes, dresses in greens and browns. He carries a staff with a moonstone in the top of it, and he's fond of saying stuff like "By the Grace of the Moon-Lady!" and "What in Mountainbrook is that!" 

My Star Power starts at 3, so that's easy (that's a measure of how important a character is in the series; mooks have Star Power 1, allies and recurring characters might have 2, PCs have 3, only the main villain has 4). This also means my base Oomph is 3 (that's how much I'd start each episode with). 

Then we get three Qualities, one Signature and two Standard. My Signature Quality is basically what my character's all about; for Lightstone, I'll say it's Gentle Moon-Sorcerer of Mountainbrook. My Standard Qualities are a little like Fate Aspects; personality quirks, backstory, and whatnot. For Lightstone, I'll say he Misses His Home in Mountainbrook and The Voice of Reason.

Traits! I get 18 points worth, as mentioned. One can go to 8, but the rest top out at four. There's a big long list, but we're encouraged to come up with our own, and that's easy. 

Well, for Lightstone, I want MOON MAGIC, obviously. I'll make that my big trait, so I'll dump 8 points there.

I want his staff to be important, so MOONSTONE STAFF 3. As I said before, I want his role on the show to be healing and knowledge, so I'll give him HEALER 4 and WISE 3. That's 18 points!

Special Rules! I get three. I want Versatile for my MOON MAGIC, which eats one of my Special Rules slots and two of my Upgrade slots for the next step. However, it means I can do various effects with magic, which would be important for Lightstone. I get to define two sub-traits that are already defined, so let's say Lightstone can create a MOONLIGHT BRIDGE and MAGICAL BARRIER. That also reduces the rating to 4, which means I want to find a way to raise it again. Oh, I can sacrifice Special Rules, that's easy. Also, I can take "adverse" Special Rules, so I'll say Lightstone's magic has a Disadvantage - it cannot be used to harm others. 

Are there any other Special Rules I'd want? I don't think so, I think I'm mostly covered. That means I can spend my other two plus the one I get for the Disadvantage and put my MOON MAGIC up to 7.

Upgrades! I get three, but I burned two of them on Versatile, so I'll spend the last one putting my MOON MAGIC back up to 8. 

And that's pretty much it! Chargen is pretty simple, that's good. Now, these messages!