Who watched cartoons when they were growing up? Or still watches them, perhaps covertly, today? (You don’t need to answer that!) In the Foreword the point is made that not only are cartoons very entertaining for youngsters, they also provided a fertile inspiration for games on the playground… so why not for role-playing as well?

Channel 1: Introduction (to promote the TV show feeling, ‘chapters’ are called ‘channels’!) begins by attempting to define what sort of cartoons this game is intended to emulate – the 1980s action-adventure ones, which have been grouped together as ‘retro-toons.’ Now I’m a bit old to have been entranced by them (I graduated in 1980!), but certainly caught the odd episode and can see the appeal. Typified by boundless enthusiasm, violence that was brief and never seemed to draw blood (although robots came apart a lot) and no difficulty whatsoever in distinguishing between the Good Guys and the Bad ‘Uns, the sheer innocence and capacity for boundless fun is at the center of their appeal.

There are two ways to go about writing a super hero RPG. The first is to focus on the Heroes, such as with Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, or Godlike. These games are interested in the setting and world view. They have rules, but aren’t really dictated by them. The second way is to study the philosophy of Super Heroics and then apply some mechanics to it. It is here that we find games like Capes, Truth and Justice, and eCollapse. Here we find ourselves asking questions like “what does it mean to be a hero” or “what kind of choices can I live with.” Both roads can lead to some excellent gaming, but I usually find myself playing the former and reading the latter.

Spectrum Games is pleased to announce the release of the Killer Collection, the very first hardcopy supplement for the Slasher Flick RPG.

The Killer Collection is a compilation of three supplements previously only released as PDF products, plus a brand new 24-page mini-supplement that will also be released as a PDF soon. That’s four supplements in one book!

It features CASTING CALL (offering 100 pre-made characters, each of which is completely customizable), HORROR ISLAND (A full length adventure that sends the characters to a remote island that isn’t as uninhabited as they thought), DELETED SCENES (Rules and information that was cut from the rulebook due to space limitations) and SPECIAL FEATURES (Yet more new material, including random character creation, new special abilities, Director’s advice and three ready-to-use killers that have several plot seeds each).

Our game design series continues with a new essay from Bill White telling us about his fantasy RPG, Ganakagok.

Ganakagok is a fantasy where characters are members of a tribe that lives in a night-time world on an island of ice who must deal with the coming of the Dawn and the changes it brings. Play involves the use of a deck of cards to generate situation, prompt narration, and inspire characters; each session produces an authentic-seeming myth of an imaginary people.

Designing Ganakagok

When people ask me what my game Ganakagok is about, I say, “It’s a fantasy.” I tell them that it’s about a people called the Nitu, who live on a starlit island of ice in a world where the sun has never risen. They live in darkness, revering the Stars, honoring their Ancestors, and marveling at the handiwork of the Forgotten Ones, who long ago wrought Ganakagok into its current form.

Welcome to the third of the 13 Doors: an exclusive look behind the door at the upcoming Little Fears Nightmare Edition – The Game of Childhood Terror.

Door #3: Monster Factory

Little Fears Nightmare Edition is a game about kids fighting monsters. We already know about the kids, so what about the monsters?

The monsters in Little Fears Nightmare Edition can come from anywhere, that’s part of what makes them so much fun. Monsters can come from your own bad dreams, the fears of the players, urban legends, myths, cryptozoology, regular old zoology, a movie, literature—anywhere. Monsters in Little Fears are anything people fear. Fear is what gives them life, shape, form, power. Without people fearing them, they’re not really monsters at all.

As the Last War rages, ancient adversaries emerge. But new heroes rise, armed with terrifying abilities and the darkest of magics.

Written by Enrique Cachafeiro, Dire: The First Creed of Pandemonium is a new sourcebook for Dread that expands the Pandemonium Universe into strange new directions. Published by Pandora Peeks Press, this 48-page sourcebook features:

25 mind-bending new spells, including Detritavore, Pinata, Sangrial, Ferialis, Versacrum, Dispater, Actaeon, and Nero.

The Meiga, a new character class. Deformed and inhumane, Meigas wield the powers of demonkind to stalk, hunt, and defile. This power comes at a price, though, because Meigas who can’t learn to control these abilities can lose their humanity, becoming just like the demons that they fight.

Dire: The First Creed of Pandemonium is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

MSG™ Executive Edition is a satirical RPG about what I shall reservedly term ‘Corporate marketing bollocks’ and the rat race. Players take on the roles of company representatives, ‘reps’ and each turn The Company (the role of which shifts between players) tries to crush the players or get them to crush each other. Yes, it’s one of those new-wave poncey indie games under the thick shell of satire and piss-taking. In spite of that, for an indie game, it’s a fairly weighty 130+ pages.

MSG™ Executive Edition is a story-focussed, semi-GMless, resource management and risk assessment oriented indie game. That’s a torrent of buzzwords that wouldn’t be out of place in the game itself. To clarify…

This is a fairly rules-light game thereby focusing more intently on the story and drama, rather than complex rules mechanics.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Spectrum Games is pleased to announce the release of Slasher Flick, the role-playing game that brings the thrills and chills of the “psycho killer” horror movies from the screen to your tabletop.

According to Cynthia Celeste Miller, “As with any of our games that emulate a particular genre or medium, Slasher Flick was designed to reflect every aspect of the source material. This isn’t a universal system. It was created specifically to feel like a slasher film in play. And I’m extremely confident that the game does exactly that. One of the most important keys to capturing the feel of the slasher movies was the implementation of something we call ‘kill scenes’. A kill scene begins when the killer appears in any given scene and ends when the character(s) present drops to below zero survival points (death) or gains a total of eight survival points (escape). Survival points are gained and lost by making crucial stat checks throughout the kill scene.

Burning Wheel Fantasy Roleplaying System (BW) isn’t like other RPGs. Yes, that first sentence is maddening; “What is BW like, then?!” you shout, frustrated. Let me sum up…

First off, Burning Wheel is a story-driven game. Kept simple, the rules are astonishingly playable, with sample-of-play threads written throughout the main book and the supplements that remind the GM and the players that they are sharing a story that they tell together. The entire point is to be fun; well, isn’t that the point of hobbies?

Review by Aly Condon

The new game by the Origins Award-winning author of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea!

Ambition. Lust. Revenge. You cannot have one without the others.

Thousands of years ago, the ven ruled the world. They were a passionate people, obsessed with Romance and Revenge, opera and theater, and all the forbidden delights their decadent culture provided. In the end, that which made them beautiful was also the key to their own destruction. Houses of the Blooded is a game about tragic obsession. Set in the fantastic world of ven myth and legend, players take the roles of powerful characters bent on conquering their world, destroying their enemies and possessing all they desire.

Useful supplements are hard to come by nowadays; not only does the information in it have to be worth the price you pay, but the information needs to be useful in a way that you’d want to incorporate it into your gaming. Cold, Hard World is an expansion for the roleplaying game Dead Inside—offering more nuts and bolts to the original game than fluff. The supplement is a seventy-four page expansion of the first three chapters of the corebook.

Similar to Dead Inside, the pdf is written with definitive voice changes throughout. Dead Inside draws you in at key moments by addressing the reader; other times you’ll hear the voice of an instructor showing you how to play the game.