New format idea for playing CAH

[Slant]

Hi all-

My group has come up with quite a few ideas for series and a good four or five of them really rock (Did I just say "really rock?"  I need to get back on meds.)  Rather than concentrate on just one, we have decided to try this:

We will role-play an entire Saturday morning!

That is to say, we plan to run five campains in an episodic format.  Each one will be run by a different person and we will play an episode of each one on the days we game, for half an hour per episode.  That is to say, we will run Heather's game for 30 minutes, then mine, then Jim's, then Laura's, etc, each for half an hour: just like a real Saturday morning!  The only challenge will be to make an episode that runs for exactly thirty minutes, but I'm certain we can do it.  Then the following week, we pick up the story lines with new episodes!  

We are even going to be doing our own commercials :o)

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

Now THAT is frigging innovative.  I'm going to try doing this as well.  Perhaps we can compare notes and hash out an ATM article on how to best handle this.

I'm seriously stoked!

[Slant]

Thank you for your enthusiasm Cynthia :o)  I'd love to get with you on an article if you'd like.  You can reach me at Finesse77@aol.com.


Right now we have four cartoons and by the time we start actually playing we will have added a fifth.  They are (in very brief)

BEASTLANDS: A sword and sorcery tale invloving evolved animals attempting to prevent their world from regressing back to the days of unintelligent beasts.

SPI CORP: A clandestine agency set in a world where people with super-powers are common in order to secretly insure that none of them go rogue and endanger normal humans.

WORLD WRESTLING LEAGUE: Flashy wrestlers travel the globe,  competing in high-profile matches while saving the world from secret evils.

SOUTHERN CROSS: Australian superhero team fights criminals, flirts with the media, and hangs out at the beach, all the while putting up with each other  (MTVs Real World: Marvel).

We are also doing commercials for each other's tv shows.  I am going to be hawking Beastlands action figures, light-up swords,  and playsets during the commercial break for World Wrestling League.

[Norbert]

Hey, Slant!
I also believe that you are on to something really spectacular. It's a cool, cool, cool concept and -- I'd simply like to congratulate you.
In fact I wish I had a group that could help me do something like that.

World Wrestling League sounds particularly great. Boy, I'd love to play in that one, too!

Cynthia, do you remember when I mentioned on our mailing list a while back how I imagined the plot of a CAH episode "edited" down to exactly 25 minutes, because a real cartoon ep was only 25-30 minutes long (usually 22 minutes without the music and commercial breaks)?
But Slant now appears to be the first individual on the planet to actually run the game this way. That's exciting.

See ya.

[Slant]

Thanxx Norbert :o)

We now have our fifth Saturday morning cartoon:

TOUGH JUSTICE: An aging lawman in the wild west reluctantly gathers others (including his former arch-enemy) to help him fight a myriad of supernatural menaces popping up all over the frontier.

I am particularly psyched about this one because I get to play the former arch-enemy who I am loosely basing on Lee Van Cleef's Man in Black from "For a Few Dollars More."

We start play, by no small coincidence, this coming Saturday morning.  I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

Oh, and just so you all know, there is a book out called "Saturday Morning Fever" that details the history of how Saturday morning TV became a kid zone and tells about allllll the cartoons over the years with some interesting background stuff on many of them.  It is worth picking up if you are even vaguely interested in the subject matter (ie: you were once a kid who spent Saturday mornings eating Frankenberry cereal and watching toons from six in the morning), which SHOULD include every single person playing CAH!

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

Hey, Slant!
Cynthia, do you remember when I mentioned on our mailing list a while back how I imagined the plot of a CAH episode "edited" down to exactly 25 minutes, because a real cartoon ep was only 25-30 minutes long (usually 22 minutes without the music and commercial breaks)?
But Slant now appears to be the first individual on the planet to actually run the game this way. That's exciting.

See ya.

Yes indeedy.  I certainly do remember.  It was a cool idea that I'm glad to see materialize.

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

Oh, and just so you all know, there is a book out called "Saturday Morning Fever" that details the history of how Saturday morning TV became a kid zone and tells about allllll the cartoons over the years with some interesting background stuff on many of them.  It is worth picking up if you are even vaguely interested in the subject matter (ie: you were once a kid who spent Saturday mornings eating Frankenberry cereal and watching toons from six in the morning), which SHOULD include every single person playing CAH!

Sounds like another cool series you've got there.  Lots of roleplaying opportunities.

As for the book you mentioned, it is a great read, though it concentrates primarily on 1970s cartoons and at one point, the authors (two brothers IIRC) slam the 1980s cartoons as being unimaginative toy commercials with few redeeming qualities.

Even still, I enjoyed the book immensely.

[Slant]

No way you can tell me that Thundarr and GI Joe didn't kick butt all over Scooby Doo and the Smurfs!  80's cartoons rule.

[Slant]

Well, we played our our entire Saturday morning yesterday, and it was FUN!  The games ran smoothly and we were able to get most of our episodes down to 35-40 minutes.  The thing that made our sessions go longer than 30 minutes wasn't the combat, which I THOUGHT it would be (in fact, CAH combat runs very smoothly and quick), but rather the relative rapidity in which the players picked up the clues that lead to the advancement of the plot.  I found that when the plot episodes were more straightforward, the episodes tended to be quicker and everything moved at a rapid clip.  When the episode hinged on the characters having to figure something out or to follow several leads at once took understandably longer.

Still, at no longer than 40 minutes per episode, I think the experiment was a rousing success.  We all enjoyed it greatly and we are already talking about doing a couple of crossovers at some point down the line.  For next week we are going to do little intorductions to each series (a couple of us are planning to do theme songs even).

[Norbert]

Wow!! That is beyond cool.

You made me very jealous with that post. ;-)
I wish I could at least get my Transbots game going. Well, hey, ...at least I am on my way.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Four different series run in one Saturday game session is no mean feat, that's all I can say.

[Slant]

FIVE actually ;)


And I'll be sure to let you all know if it runs just as smoothly this coming Saturday.

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

Hey, Slant...check your Private Messages please.  =0)

[Slant]

Hi all  :)

Sorry I have been away from the board for a while.  Life just seems to get in the way of all my important postings and whatnot.  Heh.  

Anyway, since I last posted we have played the Saturday Morning version of CAH twice more and the results have been positive.  The sessions have been staying closer to 30 minutes each (although one of our sessions yesterday ran for nearly 40 minutes).  As the players become accustomed to the other characters there is less of the other players haveing to describe their characters attacks and special abilities and thus game play runs more smoothly.  

There was only one problem: what to do when a session is coming to an end but the characters are nowhere near finished.  After all, we ARE trying to keep it to 30 minutes here, right?  So what to do?  The answer was so simple: you just do exactly what they did during the cartoons of the 80's when time ran out but the action was still hot and heavy: you do a freeze frame at a dramatic moment and the words "to be continued" flash on the screen.  Then you just pick up the action next Saturday morning.

Cynthia, I DID get your mail in my box, but for some odd reason when I went to read it the whole thing just deleted itself somehow.  What was the message?  Can you send it to me again?

Well, I am off.  Let me know if any of you out there are running any really good games of CAH.  I am always looking for ideas.

Now you know, and knowings half the battle.  (GI Joe)

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

If you want to send your email to babycindi@cox.net, I'll resend you the message that way.  =0)