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Role-playing game From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cartoon Action Hour is a role-playing game (RPG) designed to emulate classic action-adventure cartoons, such as ThunderCats, He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Visionaries, Inhumanoids, Centurions, Thundarr the Barbarian, M.A.S.K., and Bravestarr.[1]
Cartoon Action Hour cover | |
| Designers | Cynthia Celeste Miller, Eddy Webb |
|---|---|
| Publishers | Spectrum Games |
| Publication | 2002 |
| Genres | Super Heroes, Cartoon |
| Systems | Custom |
It was e-published by Spectrum Games as a PDF role-playing game in early 2002,[1] where it garnered a sizable cult following. This prompted Z-Man Games to offer to publish the game as a hardcopy edition. The material from the PDF was revised and expanded upon for the 2003 print version.
Cartoon Action Hour implements a relatively simple ruleset. The core resolution system revolves around rolling a d12, adding a number to it, and comparing it to a Difficulty Number. If the result equals or exceeds that Difficulty Number, the character succeeds in the task at hand.
Whereas most RPGs give all characters an identical list of attributes (such as Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc.) and a variable collection of skills, Cartoon Action Hour rolls them all into one type of statistic known as Traits. Each character will have a different list of Traits, with ratings ranging from −4 (nearly non-existent) to 4 (maximum human capability), with 0 being average.[1]
To represent Traits with superhuman or supernatural levels of ability, the designers use super-ratings. Characters with a Trait rating of 4 may have another number in parentheses, ranging from 2 to 5. This super-rating allows the player to roll more than one d12 when testing that Trait, taking the best result.
Superpowers, magic spells, vehicles, weapons, armor, racial abilities, animal companions, psionic abilities, and magic artifacts—They can all be created using the Special Ability creation rules. Each Special Ability is designed by picking and choosing appropriate "components" that define it. For example, an energy blast would need the following components: Damage Rating and Range. This can easily be customized further by adding other components and modifiers, thus making the Special Ability truly unique.
Every facet of Cartoon Action Hour was created with an eye toward faithfully depicting the subject matter, using what the authors refer to as "cartoon logic". A few examples of this are as follows:
Reviewer Matthew Pook noted that "the look of Cartoon Action Hour belies its origins as an amateur publication. Its layout is overly cluttered and fussy, with its desktop publishing style readily apparent" and "there should be something to please anyone who is a fan of the genre within the pages of this book. Plus the rules and mechanics are nicely simple, making it easy to get into and play up to the epic heroism of Cartoon Action Hour".[1]
Season Two of Cartoon Action Hour was released on Oct 31, 2008 as a PDF on RPGNow.com. On December 16, 2008, the print version of the book was placed on Lulu. The rule book feature three series, Warriors of Cosmos (a science-fiction fantasy in the style of He-Man), Strikeforce Freedom (a G.I. Joe with Cobra being replaced by a spider-theme terrorist group) and Transbots (a "Transforming Robots" series in which the robots are built and work for rival companies.)
Season Three of Cartoon Action Hour was released on Nov. 8, 2013.
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