Cartoon Action Hour
Somewhere between the silliness of "Toon" and the serious of "Prime Time Adventures", there sits a book. This book is Cartoon Action Hour, a tabletop RPG that invokes the spirit of the Merchandise-Driven action cartoons of The Eighties.
Cartoon Action Hour has a lot of a shout-outs to 1980s cartoons, including Transformers (Transbots), Thundercats (Action Cats), and G.I. Joe (the Inhumanoids-like Dark Brigade and the regular version as Strikeforce Freedom, replacing snake-themed villains with spider-themed villains), for example.
"Cartoon Action Hour: Season Two" was released on Oct 30, 2008. Season Three is currently in development.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: You earn extra experience by playing your characters in the After-the-Show Message.
- Experience Point: Guilty as charged.
- Expy: More then its fair share.
- Captain Ersatz: All over the dang place.
- Critical Failure: Called a "Flub".
- Greek Chorus: Kargorr, a fictional villain from a fictional series, shows you how not to play the game. For CAH: Season 2, John Bravesteel, a fictional hero from the same fictional series as Kargorr, keeps Kargorr in check.
- Hit Points: Called Hurt Points in CAH:S1. Avoided in CAH: Season 2, replaced with "Set Back Tokens". Even more cartoon logical!
- Mana: Avoided with Spell Clusters.
- Merchandise-Driven: At least in the first version, players were encouraged to think of creating their character as coming up with that character's action figure.
- Mooks: called Goons. Rules are provided to handle those who get their hides kicked time and time again.
- Never Say "Die": Completely embraced. Characters don't die, they're only knocked out or captured. Unless you're gaming out The Movie.
- Noodle Incident: Kargorr, the failed villain complains about a comic relief character, Ziggle. John Bravesteel, Kargorr's heroic counterpart, says that Kargorr is just upset that Ziggle defeated him once--and tries to tell it to the audience, Kargorr shuts Bravesteel up by saying no one wants to hear from him.
- Point Build System: Uses Character Points (First season) and Proof of Purchase Points (Second season).
- Retraux: The rule book even includes a glossary of 80's slang, but only in the first edition.
- Shout-Out: The whole RPG and 'Cartoon Logic' is a Shout-Out to cartoons of the 1980s.
- Ted Baxter: Kargorr, so very much. His whole shtick is that he's an incompetent Harmless Villain (bordering on a Dastardly Whiplash) who thinks of himself as a fearsome Big Bad.
- Word of God: Cynthia Celeste Miller, creator of Cartoon Action Hour.
Warriors of the Cosmos
The fictional series, Warriors of the Cosmos, deals with Iconia, a once peaceful planet, now under the attack of Nekkrottus's Blackskull Empire. The Big Good, King Rastor of Haven, bringso together a group of heroes called Guardians of Iconia to defeat Nekkrottus' forces once and for all.
- Bare Your Midriff: Noblara.
- Big Bad: Nekkrottus.
- Eek! a Mouse!, or Why Did It Have to Be Snakes??: Serpentina has a fear of rodents.
- The Empire: The Blackskull Empire.
- The Kingdom: Haven.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Guardians of Iconia themselves--Justified as they are a mixture of different humanoids and races of Iconia.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Serpentina.
- Shout-Out: To He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
- Spin-Off: Ladies of Might, which happen to be in a special St. Valentine's Day PDF file.
- The Starscream: Shadow Queen fits this role.
- Take Over the World: Nekkrottus's goal.
Strikeforce Freedom
The fictional series Strikeforce Freedom deals with the titular military force fighting SPIDER, a terrorist organization that wants take over the world.
- The Baroness: Her blonde haired Expy, The Black Widow.
- Big Bad: General Arachnid.
- Shout-Out: To G.I. Joe.
- The Squad
- Take Over the World: The goal of SPIDER chaos warfare.
Transbots
The fictional series, Transbots deals with Trevor Hastings' Transbots as they battle against Maximillian Mercy's Warbots.
- Big Bad: Maximillian Mercy.
- Shout-Out: To Transformers Generation 1.
- Take Over the World: Maximillian's goal.
- Transforming Mecha: Both the Transbots and the Warbots fit this trope.