Three Tips for running 80s cartoon style games

Earlier today I ran my first game for my daughter in awhile.  Since she is now 12 she tends to play solely with her friends usually at the local library or part of her middle school’s D&D club (which she founded I may add).  Unfortunately with Thanksgiving break upon them the two weekly games (Saturday Library group and Thursday school group) were cancelled for various reasons and my daughter and 3 of her friends were left without a DM or a game.

Using Anti-Paladin’s Mini-Six system I created a new group of Silver Hawks and after playing the theme song that you all see above went at it.  However, you cannot run an 80s cartoon game without some standards of 80s cartoons.

1.  No one dies, they just go into a coma.

A hero never dies, they just go into a coma.  While not always the case (as proof see the death of Optimus Prime) the heroes never die, they just go into comas until the plot demands they come out of it and need no physical training or recovery time.

2.  Toy tie in

The heroes always get a power-up of some kind that gives them new weapons, powers, etc.  However, a part of this is always a new more bad-ass outfit.

For this I created a table of temporary “tie-in” effects that lasted throughout a single encounter, because as is the case in all 80s cartoons, that shit will only show up once.

3. The Bad Guys are there Own Worst Enemy

Whether it is through evil comrades trying to off one another in the hopes of gaining favor with the big guy who is typically either a coward, limited because of a cosmic off switch (see Mon-Starr or Mum-ra), or grossly incompetent.

For this I rolled a special dice with every bad guy roll (for this I stole from F-Age)  On doubles from the normal dice an effect from equal to the score on the special dice occurred.

1. Fellow bad guy abandons you (will tell big bad you went down like a coward)
2. Fellow bad guy sabotages your equipment or somehow inhibits your powers
3. Overcome by extreme fear you attempt to escape if success you tell the big bad the good numbers were 10x what they actually were
4. Presses perceived advantage and instead puts self in a worse situation (Heroes gain a morale dice for the next turn)
5. Pick any combination of the first four that equals 5
6. Big Bad appears, deems you a failure and kills you on the spot before departing after telling the heroes that they “aren’t worth his/her/its time”