So this is an idea I brought up before and it's been percolating on the back of my mind for a while, and I decided to throw it out there on its own thread and see if I could, maybe, see it through. If there is enough interest. I even went and bought the latest ruleset...

Cartoon Action Hour is a pen and paper RPG that simulates 80s saturday morning cartoons. The game emphasizes fact paces interesting narrative over any sort of realism or versimilitude. It aims to simulate a type of entertainement and not a reality, even going so far as including rules for 'commercial break' and encouraging you to imagine what the 'action feature' on a toy of your character would. Since 80s cartoons couldn't be that violent, rather than defeating enemies through punching them out of HP, the conflict resolution system centers around giving out 'setback tokens' up to a certain ammount, at which point that specific character is defeated. Good guys get captures, enemies run away in shame, that sort of thing. Rather than stabbing with a weapon you make a chandelier fall on the oponent's head, or you pull the carpet from beneath their feat.

Characters are defined by a series of traits with a numerical value within a set point buy parameter and by qualities. The thing is that those traits don't come from a specific list with rules attached to them. They are descriptors that the player makes up to explain what their character is like. There is a few other rules but to put it simply you basically have to narrate to your GM what your character is attempting to do and how one of their traits apply. For exemple you can try to vault across a chasm by applying your 'Master of the Spear' trait, using your favored weapon as a pole. Or attempt diplomacy through careful application of your 'Party Dude' trait. Also available to characters is 'Oomph', based on their 'Star Power' that allows them to do all sorts of things to turn defeats into victory at the last minutes, though you don't want to cash in all your Oomph because the unused one gets turned into Proof of Purchase you can spend on future charater advancement.

I think it is a system that could be uniquely fitting to exploit with our dear ponies, and we could use it to record voice chat play sessions as podcasts to raise awareness of our setting. Rather than telling stories about the L6 though, I think we should showcase the rest of the universe we've built, and its many races, locations, and History.

Cartoon Action Hour's campaigns are refered to as 'series', with each session refered to as an 'episode', and six 'episodes' being a 'season' (you only modify your character between seasons). The playstyle and narrative styling means that if you get good enough you can wrap up an 'episode' in 30 to 45 minutes. As a result you can actually conceive an entire 'line up' of shows for a multi hour sessions. While I don't think we'd go for multi hour session I think it would be more fun to run multiple 'Series' at the same time. I had a couple of ideas, but I would be open to a few more.

Defenders of Freedom Mountain
The Hypogriffs, long held as the lowest of the lows in the Griffin Kingdom of Grim Peak have broken off from their oppressor and, with approval from the Crystal Ponies and Elk, decided to settle the wild land between the three territories. They established their first settle at Freedom Mountain, a site where they discovered the mysterious Tornado Horn, a magical device that allows them to create strong winds to prevent aerial invasion. The Hypogriffs, and any half-breed willing to help, are fighting against the wilderness to create a country of their own, and have met with relative success...

However, King Dark Talon of Grim Peak is not pleased with this development. Sending his Bleakwing Legions and his hired mercenary, he aim to destroy the fledgling land and seize the Tornado Horn! BUT never fear citizens for brave warriors have assembled to become the Defenders of Freedom Mountain! Lead by the heroic [insert character name here] and helped by the evil King's own offspring, they fly into action whenever trouble calls!

Very much in line with He-Man or She-Ra, the characters would mostly foil plans meant to make their home base fall, but also venture out to help farmers and settlers either battle the Bleakwing Legion who wants to enslave them, or face against the dangers of the wilderness. Every member of the Defenders would be some type of half-breed, not just Hypogriffs. I was thinking we could have a Crystal Pony/Elk hybrid, a Pegasus/Zebra, and even a Goat/Minotaur. It would also be possible to create a rotating cast of side characters and have guest stars join in for an episode or two.

Red Magician Mystery

Red Magician! Greatest mage of his time! Greatest Spellcraft since Clover the Clever! A unicorn of great taste, erudition and deductive power! He travels Equestria to solve mystery and help his fellow ponies when they cannot help themselves! Alongside his brother, Grey Accountant, his buttler and his young apprentice, he makes short work of all mysteries!

That is, if he doesn't get thrown out of town for being an insensitive jerk, or falls into an oblivious trap. Much to his brother's chagrin and butler's heart condition, Red Magician is horribly too self centered and oblivious to realize when he is being rude to others. He also tend to focus so much on certain details that he begins to ignore everything around him, forcing his travel companions to race to protect him from danger at every turn!

Part Inspector Gadget, part Scooby Doo, with a dash of sherlock Holmes, this sort of weird band of characters would go around either finding lost artifacts in ruins, or solving mysterious 'haunted house' cases and other clichés. There is possibility for more characters in Red Magician's entourage of course, and guest stars. There's even the potential to actually run Red himself as a DMPC instead of a player character, though it might feel a bit railroady to constantly have to manage his slapstick pratfalls.

Stardust Frontier
The mysterious island of Cheeron, also known to outsider as Stardust Island, was only recently discovered by pony kind. It was soon discovered by the island was home to the underground dwelling Cheeroonear and a major source of Opals, one of the rarest gemstone in the world (not found anywhere in the gem rich Equestria, for exemple). Soon ponies, buffalos and camels came to this dry and dusty land, forming profitable trading deals with the native to obtain the rare opals, or renting above ground land to create farms to feed this new economy.

All was well for a time, but some did not find this harmononious cohabitation to their liking. Earth pony trader Poker Blackhat would like nothing more than to run off the competition and be allowed to pay the Cheeroonear a pitance for their hard work in the underground mines, meanwhiles criminal Cheeroonear Trillion Bailey, leader of the Diamond Dogs gang, is breaking all the rules of his people to smuggle diamonds out of the island... and he's not affraid to use force to faciliate that.

Faced with this lawless frontier the various communities came together and recruited law officiers from the Buffalo Tribe, Naqua and various Pony nation to form the Stardust Marshalls to enforce the law on this land! Lead by Sheriff Bravehoof, a buffalo with shaman training, guided by Cheeroonear Rocky, these marshalls will be shining stars of Justice in the darkness!

Western, with magic, on a fictional version of Australia, where the native are still important. Kinda Bravestar-like, though I haven't seen much of Bravestar. Once again potential for guest stars and rotating characters.

Phew that took a while to type out, but here we go. Anybody would be interested in joining in? I would have to site down and probably watch some more He-Man and stuff to get in the mindset and write some plot outlines but we could have something interesting. We could record a couple of episodes and release them on a set schedule (people like regularity in their podcasts) and see if we can attract some ears and eyeballs. Maybe I could work with Multi on doing some cover art too.

Sounds interesting. I might want to going in. Is this going to be like 80's MLP(Gen 1) or your typical 80's cartoon? G1 could actually get pretty dark and actually killed villains. Could we add that little edge or is this going to be pure 80's cartoon?

I remain a fan of this idea and would totally be in for giving it a try! Though it would depend on when we'd be planning on playing this.

The plan is still to set it in the Lunaverse, yes?

I'd be interested in joining in however being on a different continent might from most of you might make timing difficult.

I've actually got a copy of this somewhere. I'd be interested in playing; how would we pull this off?

Either Option 1 or 3, in my opinion, is the most interesting setup.

4630177 Well we won't kill any recurring characters, but I wouldn't be againat a few dramatic deaths here or there, either good or bad. It will also depend on what the players want.

4630348 Don't know quite yet when exactly, probably late in the evening. And yes it would be set in the Lunaverse, but just not in the present unless we come up with a concept. Luna will probably have at least a mention in each of these.

4630429 we'll see. My schedule is a bit wonky anyway and the goal will be to record multiple episodes before releasing them.

4630430 I need to look into what type of softwares needed but it would probably be through a voice chat like Skype. I'd need folks with good quality mics too.

Ideally we would record an episode of each series each session, then when we have enough ready we'd start releasing them at a regular pace.

This sounds like fun! I'd be interested in joining, if you can get this up and running. How many people did you want involved?

4630713 I dunno, 4 or 5 players per serie but they don't have to be the same across every serie, though having consistency would make logistics simpler.

I would also be open to other GM coming up with their own series.

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What I don't have is a mic hookup for Skype; text only.

4631956 Yeah a microphone would be a necessity to participate.

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I think my laptop's built in microphone might work. If it doesn't, I will see if I can get a good cheap one.

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Then it looks like I'll have to drop out. Sorry.

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I need to get myself a new headset, but once I do we could look to see if we can set up a Skype chat and get to talking about this (I need to send you guys copies of the PDF too). and anybody else interested in joining. Maybe AlchemyStudent would like the idea?

Rixizu you should look into a headset too, but not the cheapest either. I don't really know much about audio equipment but I know that a good microphone can make up for a lot of deficiency in equipment. I don't think a top of the line pro microphone would be needed, but something that doesn't sound like your on a call in show on AM radio in the 90s would. Avoiding echoes is important for clarity too.

In the meantime...

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I've got a headset from a good few years ago but it should be serviceable. As I'm in the UK timing could be tricky but I'm willing to give it a go. I'm on holiday and away from my main computer for the next two days though.

4637074 I was thinking sometimes during the weekends where I'm not working could work. Like around this time of the day it would be late for you but you'd have free time.

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I got a microphone, but not a head set, per ce. We'll have to give it a try and see how nice the audio quality is.

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Yeah, about now (11:30 pm) I'd probably be free most Friday's and Saturdays for a few hours. Although this Friday i m having some friend's over for board games.

4637118 Ah you can just combine with some earphones, the important is that there's no chance of audio feedback.

4637140 I dunno when I'll have time to shop for a microphone in the next week anyway.

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Yeah, I do have headphones, so that should work just fine.

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I don't have headphones, but I do have a pair of earbuds I can use. I did splurge on a $100 microphone last year that I've only used a couple of times, so equipment-wise I'm good to go whenever you are. Additionally, I'm still unemployed, so for now I can play pretty much anytime.

4639989 Sweet!

Ok, I got myself a headset. It is one of those KINGSTON HyperX ones. Hopefully it will work out well enough.

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After a few tests and some calibration my mike seems to be working and I've set up a Skype account.

4648996 Sweet! I'll be shopping for a (new) microphone tomorow.

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So I splurged and got a fancy Snowball microphone by Blue! I've heard about it before and it seems to be a high quality thingie. If you guys (and anybody else really) is interested to join, send me a PM with an email adress so I can send you the rules!

Well I've hit a bit of a snag...

I can't record Skype calls! There's a ton of apps for that on Windows and none on Mac! Unless I pay a premium but I already sank money into a fancy microphone >< and even there I checked and my Mac OS X is only 10.6.8 and most of them require 10.7!

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This might help?

4666410 Most of those require 10.7 and up, and also things changed since 2013, Microsoft bought Skype and discontinued a developer's kit that a lot of free app relied on to work :/

Though I'll try to see if Audacity can record calls.

Just so you all know, we're still trying to get this to work, we're just not rushing into production or anything but we're still talking.

We'd still be open to a fifth player for our games too.

Iooh, I'm interested, I actually own the system and have played a bit. Saadly, I only have a tablet and a smart phonw, so I have no idea if I can join in on voice chat.