Just like the topic says - is anyone running a series of Cartoon Action Hour? What is their play experience like? How does the game play? What's the series about?

I ran a super fun CAH open demo at my FLGS. www.dlair.net
One player used a template and the other two made scratch built characters. I was pleased at how quickly the CAH system converted the players cool ideas into gameable special abilitites and we were off and bashing hordes of badguys in no time. We had a fun time and I may expand it into a series. Warroirs of the Cosmos is great stuff. I even had a guy wonder in to the store and join the battle at the last minute. It was all good fun!
Dave

gunsel wrote: I ran a super fun CAH open demo at my FLGS. www.dlair.net
One player used a template and the other two made scratch built characters. I was pleased at how quickly the CAH system converted the players cool ideas into gameable special abilitites and we were off and bashing hordes of badguys in no time. We had a fun time and I may expand it into a series. Warroirs of the Cosmos is great stuff. I even had a guy wonder in to the store and join the battle at the last minute. It was all good fun!
Dave

As you know, I am still waiting for my darn copy of the book.

But I expect it to be here next week (...though that's Cynthia's autographed copy and not the one I have ordered from a real store).
I am about to get my first regular, non-playtesting, non-eMail game going for CAH... which will probably turn out as a version of The Transbots!
Also, I'd like to run fast and loose with Warriors of the Cosmos, though at this point, this series is likely to see more action as a convention demo game this summer than as a regular campaign. I am just not sure how well it would go over with my pals, most of whom played RoleMaster, Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons beforehand.

In any case, it's something new and captivating in the world of RPGs.
In fact, nothing since my first couple of ElfQuest and RuneQuest fantasy game sessions was as captivating.
The game just needs some time to get publicity in my country.

We had :
"Shiftor" a hero with shifting arms and legs.
Diablor- a cyborg built for evil by Nekrotuss but who found no fun in evil and started a career as a comedian / children`s entertainer.
WildChild- a young squirrel guy who talks to animals and is heroically hyperactive.
It was in the city of Questra the heroes found themselves enjoying a nice day in the park when.... Evil Came From the Sky. Diablor was busy entertaining a group of school children when he noticed the hordes flying in on gliders. Unfortunately Shiftor was taken OOF by the strongest members of the horde because his player had to leave. The other heroes were outraged to see a fellow taken down by such a mean nasty bunch of goons so a big goon bashing conference commenced. Eventually the PCs wore the goons down and they fought with Nekkrotuss himself. Right when it seemed that Nekrottus was going to get the upper hand a man who was in the crowd returned from securing his wife and kids at home and battled furiously with Nekrotuss. The PCs then proceeded to thrash the bad guy soundly and produced a nice after show message about sharing and not being a bully.
Dave

I am not sure whether I follow this completely...

Who was this other man that returned from securing his wife? Did he become another hero afterward?
Did you bring him in as the "cavalry factor"... that mysterious force that always turns up in the last minute to save the Player Characters' butts?

Not bad, otherwise.
I'd be interested in knowing more about Shiftor's powers. Was he like that Modulok action-figure (multiple arms and legs that could be attached to the figure in various combinations)?
I tried to introduce a character like that into one of my games, too, with two heads and six legs, etc., but his extra appendages didn't really seem to have a big influence on combat.

Who was this other man that returned from securing his wife? Did he become another hero afterward?
Did you bring him in as the "cavalry factor"

The big problem here is that assembling a group of roleplayers on campus is next to impossible unless you include the words "White Wolf LARP" in the campaign description. So I've got a kind of small pool to deal with.
-Eliot "Until you meet the guy, you're open to playing with him" Lefebvre

gunsel wrote:

Who was this other man that returned from securing his wife? Did he become another hero afterward?
Did you bring him in as the "cavalry factor"

He was another gamer who was shopping in the store and wanted to play. So I brought him as quick fun ending to the battle. "accidental calvary"

Lostfactor wrote: The big problem here is that assembling a group of roleplayers on campus is next to impossible unless you include the words "White Wolf LARP" in the campaign description. So I've got a kind of small pool to deal with.
-Eliot "Until you meet the guy, you're open to playing with him" Lefebvre

Cynthia Celeste Miller wrote:
I feel your pain, Eliot. Around my area, it's usually next to impossible to run anything but Vampire or D&D3. Fortunately, I dug up all the gamers who'll try practically any game. =0)

gunsel wrote: I ran a super fun CAH open demo at my FLGS. www.dlair.net
One player used a template and the other two made scratch built characters. I was pleased at how quickly the CAH system converted the players cool ideas into gameable special abilitites and we were off and bashing hordes of badguys in no time. We had a fun time and I may expand it into a series. Warroirs of the Cosmos is great stuff. I even had a guy wonder in to the store and join the battle at the last minute. It was all good fun!
Dave

It was the Burnet Road store in Austin. I have not seen it on the shelves since I bought mine and that was the first friday it was in stores. I love gaming there soo much I am gonna do another game this Thursday. It may be on the shelves and I may have not seen it. They did some major moving things around recently. I am really hawking this baby also one of the coolest rpgs in recent history.
:-)
Dave

Hello,

just wanted to keep you all "updated":
I'm going to run -- yes, effectively: RUN -- Cartoon Action Hour with two guys from my old group this afternoon. In fact, I'll have to catch a bus really soon to get there on time.
There are only those two friends as players so far, with a third one possibly joining in about two weeks' time. I've left it up to them whether we're only going to sit around and make up new characters for the two of them, or jump into The Hunt for Galdrek from the Iconia Action Pack, for which I'd like to use two pre-generated Iconia player-characters.

I'll let you know how it goes.

See ya.

Okay, folks. I'm back...
What we did today was basically make up new characters. We are planning to try at least a modified version of Warriors of the Cosmos, though one of my two friends specifically said that he saw only a few episodes of Masters of the Universe in the old days, never liked them, and was not interested in playing in a Masters of the Universe-derived series. Well, I'm flexible.
I would have offered Skull Gulch or The Transbots instead, but I didn't have a lot of information with me _on those series_. I only had the familiar Warriors of the Cosmos material.
We took ample time to discuss character generation; my friends flipped through the write-ups for Kazgull, Noblara, Sure-Shot, Bouldarr, Falcor and Lorxan, but decided to create their own heroes from scratch.

One of the two new characters is now a cybernetically enhanced Doctor of Engineering named "Genius", who can manipulate gravity and has 4(2) in both Athletics and Body. The other is a magic-resistant halfling who grew up among Elves and other people, wields twin throwing-knives, and has many other adventuring skills. He is actually a former player-character of one of my friends in the RoleMaster game who at one point met some goblins who said they could teleport him back to his home. Instead, they teleported him -- for whatever reason -- to Iconia.
That's all I can tell you for the moment.

Norbert,

It sounds like you did a good job adjusting Warriors of the Cosmos for the fellow who didn't like Masters of the Universe. Did you go more into the fantasy elements?

Pretty much, yes. Though I haven't even started with the explanation of the magic rules last time, and we haven't agreed on how much magic, and how powerful spells, are going to be in the game.

What I said was, you don't have to know a lot of He-Man things to enjoy this game. This is different. It is _not_ He-Man: The Roleplaying Game. ;-)

It is not that you have to know all the characters from any real show, or even the characters from the Iconia book, for that matter.
If you don't like the sample characters for Guardians of Iconia, you just design your own heroes and they will automatically be the main characters of the show.
I also said, with winged warriors, airships, warring kingdoms and so on, this is actually more like Flash Gordon than He-Man. We are going to cut back on the funny interludes and comic relief, and go more into the dark nature of the Blackskull Empire, the life on the frontlines, and so on.

Norbert wrote: I also said, with winged warriors, airships, warring kingdoms and so on, this is actually more like Flash Gordon than He-Man. We are going to cut back on the funny interludes and comic relief, and go more into the dark nature of the Blackskull Empire, the life on the frontlines, and so on.