What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

[Bloodshot]

Our group of irregular gamers (for which I GM) have just started a Pointless Champions game (meaning we don't worry about building characters to pre-defined point limits, just build what you want and don't worry about disads, with me okaying concepts and power levels as required), and I was trying to figure out how to define an "animated" feel to things.

 

What do you consider to be the hallmarks of an "animated" campaign? Keep in mind I'm thinking of western animation, not the tricked out anime stuff since the group hasn't watched much anime at all. I'm looking for things like genre bits, character construction ideas.

 

Generally, what can I do as a GM to impart an animated series feel to my players , who are more the role-playing than combat monster types?

[OddHat]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Power levels have almost nothing to do with combat effectiveness. Style however does.

 

Blow up a plane and everyone safely parachutes out just before the explosion. Throw a tank and everyone jumps clear. No one is actually shown dying in a graphic way, and if they do "die" off screen they will be back.

 

Villains almost all clearly look like villains. Heroes almost all look heroic. No one asks the the really awkward questions.

 

Want a real Superfriends feel? No hitting. Your players can grab people and tie them up, but never actually punch or kick. For reference: http://www.seanbaby.com/super.htm .

[stmichaeldet]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Ooo, good question. I've never really thought about it before. First off, I'd stick to a highly episodic plotting style - short (one- or two-session) stories with very little subplotting, and little concern for follow-up or repercussions. Lots of one-shot secondary characters who serve only to get Our Heroes involved. Flashy, stylized fighting, with lots of chase scenes and running battles. No big shake-ups of the status quo. And in the end, everyone learns a lesson.

 

- St. Michael

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Contermpoary Western animeation has sort of outgrown \many of those limitations. A series like Teen Titans , for exmaple, has relatively heavy sub-plotting comapred to Superfriends -- each season, while often episodic, often has an overplot, and there are characters like Terra about whom you don;t knwo whose side they;re on until it's too late.

 

The main style element that is applicable to conemproary animation such as TT, Justice League or X-Men Evolution is that combat and action is flashy, stylized, and not as deadly as it is in comics (at least on-screen). Characters frequely do things that should be phsyically impossible, like dodging machine-gun fire and leaping impossilbe heights even without Leaping. (Which you should encourage non-flying charatcers to take, by the way, unelsss their concept demands otherwise). I don't know how, for example, everyone else in Juistice league keeps up with the Flash, but somehow they do.

 

For research into that style, some episodes of any of the DC animated series since Batman would be a good start. X-Men Evolution and the MTV Spider-man series would also be good. the HBO Spawn animation would be good if you want to see how to do a darker game in that style -- it shoudl be readuily rentable.

[Bloodshot]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Thanks for all the great tips! I'll be sure to incorporate as many of them as I can in our session on Saturday!

[OddHat]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

I don't know how' date=' for example, everyone else in Juistice league keeps up with the Flash, but somehow they do.[/quote']

 

This is a big element of the animated genre that, well, always pissed me off.

 

It is still part of it though; Powers Do Not Matter As Much in an animated setting as they do in a comic book, and not nearly as much as they do in an RPG. Everyone keeps up with the Flash, and Batman is at least as good in a fight as Superman (if not better). It might help to keep active point totals low, and just allow strange stacking of megascale and other advantages to allow huge power stunts.

 

Also, all female characters will outperform all male characters (maybe build female characters on +50 points or so) most of the time.

[Theron]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Distill the characters down to their most essential elements. This doesn't mean they need to be simple, but cut the chaff from the wheat.

 

Likewise, the setting. When I ran my "animated" Bay City game some years ago, I pared down the myriad mystical organizations to two - one good, one evil. I did the same thing with the good government agency, ditching UNTIL in favor of the GUARD (who I thought had a spiffier name and a more local focus).

 

Encourage the players to narrate their characters' actions in vivid, visual terms (give them bonuses for cool descriptions).

 

Keep your adventures largely self-contained. You can create an overarching storyline, but it shouldn't be the focus of more than one in three adventures. Likewise, most adventures should be single-session affairs, or two-parters at the longest.

 

Break the game up at good cliffhanger moments and hand the players a "product" they have to improvise a commercial for. A toy based on the campaign group is a no-brainer here. Or maybe a cereal - "Champions Chunks, The Breakfast of Heroes".

[caris]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

One of the catches here is that American television animation has gone through evolution so a cartoon of today like JLU is a lot different than Silver Hawks of the 80s, which is different than the first Season of Superfriends from the 70s, which isn't like the Captain America Cartoon of the late 60s/early 70s (I forget when it came out. "When Captain America throws his mighty shield; All those that oppose....").

 

So you sort of need to figure out which type of cartoon it is that you and your friends would like to emulate. If you are going for a toy tie-in from the 80s, you have to have a little homily story done at the end of every session. Usually, something with an "every kid" learning an important lesson from one of the main characters.

[Black Rose]

Re: What Do You Consider An "Animated" Style Campaign

 

Our group of irregular gamers (for which I GM) have just started a Pointless Champions game (meaning we don't worry about building characters to pre-defined point limits, just build what you want and don't worry about disads, with me okaying concepts and power levels as required), and I was trying to figure out how to define an "animated" feel to things.

 

What do you consider to be the hallmarks of an "animated" campaign? Keep in mind I'm thinking of western animation, not the tricked out anime stuff since the group hasn't watched much anime at all. I'm looking for things like genre bits, character construction ideas.

 

What animations do you and your friends watch? A game set against the genre assumptions of the Powerpuff Girls/Dexter's Lab is gonna be very different from one set against Teen Titans/JL, which will be different from straight BtAS. I'd say go for only as much "detail" as is minimally required -- only introduce NPC groups (good, bad or indifferent) just before you plan to use them. Don't make anything too serious.. or too silly, either; kinda buffer everything with a thin coating.