Hey /tg/, Ganker here. Remember the cool old cartoon The Pirates of Dark Water? Set on a science-fantasy world of high seas adventure, this 1990's underrated gem had its own rpg. Anyone else have fond memories of the setting, or want to talk about it?
I've been rewatching some old 1980's and 1990's cartoons that could have use inspiring /tg/ users, and bringing them up here in threads. My hope is to help inspire interest in the shows of these decades, so people will binge them and be inspired for their own creations, whether it be /tg/ campaigns or their own Ganker creations. I'm hoping that this will inspire a new generation in the future who make quality content and not shat-out corpo trash.
In particular, villains. I want to see more memorable villains, with cool designs and ruthless, bloodthirsty temperaments. Characters like Lord Bloth, Venger, Wrath-Amon. You know the type of Saturday Morning Cartoon villain from back in the day.
I've seen some episode of it in the 90s, and ended up watching the whole series on internet archive earlier this year when one website did an article of the various creatures from it and I was reminded of the cartoon's existence. It's quite good for a cartoon of its time, with an ongoing storyline that wasn't common at the time. Too bad said storyline didn't get finished (IIRC they only collected 8 out of 13 treasures they needed to find).
Incidentally, there is a Pirates of the Dark Water RPG book, which includes some elements from the series' lore-bible. However, oddly enough it doesn't seem to be made for any specific system in mind, aside from some generic d20 system.
They had Old-School Pigfaced Orcs with Green Skin in the form of Warnen, and little blue Sea Goblins who were often bullied into servitude to said orcs? Neat!
I don't remember that episode!
The series was cancelled before it could be completed, sadly. They never found all 13 Treasures of Rule.
Yeah, they only found like two. I'd rewatch it but apparently HB wants to monetize a shower than most of their animators.
They found and returned 8, I thought? They used them to revitalize the city of Octopon. One of them turned out to actually be a living creature, a tapir-monkey that revitalizes the flora of wherever it goes.
I recently watched this with some friends. Basic but competent high seas fantasy. Give your character a frontal ponytail.
I don't think you'd need too specific of a game to run it or something alike- is more of a novelty than something to actually play, on a skim. You just need good naval rules and the players to accept the fact that Dark Water Fricking Kills You.
>All those characters with maximum alcohol consumption.
The way you've formatted this feels like an AI post, but I'll engage anyway and say that I fricking loved that show, along with Wheeled Warriors. I'd have killed to get them rebooted years ago, but now I think the corpo creatures would just make them utterly godawful.
My hazy memory tells me that PoDW in particular could make for a really great game if expanded upon, but it's been a long ass time since I saw it; why don't you give a breakdown on the setting, threats, etc? Any systems you think would be well suited for running it? You mentioned it has an RPG, why not provide a PDF?
Damn, I posted too slow. Danke for the PDFs, though.
You need to stop obsessing about "warning" people about AI, especially since you're bad at making the determination.
>My hazy memory tells me that PoDW in particular could make for a really great game if expanded upon, but it's been a long ass time since I saw it; why don't you give a breakdown on the setting, threats, etc?
Not OP, but the show takes place on a planet called Mer, which is mostly covered with water, with only landmasses being various islands. Technology-wise it's mostly pre-gunpowder age of sail, except with magic (specifically "ecomancy", which is more or less druidic magic, with ability to control nature) and various local animals being used as weapons (some of the stuff seen in the cartoon include using octopus-like creatures as living grappling hooks, or a "gas pistol" that consists of a glass container holding a lizard-like creature that breathes a cloud of knockout gas). The main threat in the cartoon is the Dark Water, an oil-like substance that seeps in from a crack at the bottom of the ocean and seeks out and consumes life. Later on it's revealed that the Dark Water is not just a mindless force of destruction, but controlled by a demonic being called the Dark Dweller, who is trapped beneath the planet's surface and is using the Dark Water to corrupt the surface world. Cultists of the Dark Dweller show up in at least one episode, and the Dweller may have played a bigger role if the show had gotten another season (its existence was revealed in one of the last episodes), but for most of the series the main threat is just pirates and whatever danger the characters find on the island they travel to.
The main plot, which could easily be used as the basis of an RPG campaign, was about collecting 13 treasures that had been used to seal the rift the Dark Water was leaking out of in the past, and using them to reseal it and purge the world of Dark Water. The main characters went to different locations in search of the treasure, pursued by the pirate-king Bloth who wanted to use the treasures to control the Dark Water for his own end.
Sounds more interesting than One Piece
There was an RPG adaption.
Oops, didn't read through the thread. Still, the rpg had some pretty cool creatures, like the Skat, a skeletal demonic being with the head of a Jackal, which inhabited places of great plague and death and could control hordes of Skeletons.
>"gas pistol" that consists of a glass container holding a lizard-like creature that breathes a cloud of knockout gas
I ported that weapon into a pulpy post-apocalyptic hex crawl once. We called the lizards "snooze skinks" and they were commonly used by cannibals to tranq victims for capture
>Exosquad
An excellent show. I'd probably use Lancer for that one, something where each mech is distinct, and the focus is on the action rather than the minutiae of the build
>and the focus is on the action rather than the minutiae of the build
That is very much not Lancer.
Literally me
Never saw it on TV, had a sick Sega genesis game of it though. The monkey parrots were awesome - love little creatures like that.
I remember an SNES beat 'em up.
I'd recommend the 16bit games as well, you got to see a lot of the world in them.
To add to the list of other recommended shows I'd love to do a campaign in, there's Inhumanoids, Invasion America and Exosquad.
... why do zoomers obsess so hard about this cartoon? It was barely watchable, is even worse those 30 years later, and yet all the underage bait that wasn't even born when it was aired has their panties full of jello about it. The frick?
I ain't no zoomie, I was denied my satisfying conclusion as a child and would like to see it made whole
>I don't like this thing, so it can't be popular
Why are morons so dumb?
>A 30 yo C-tier cartoon suddenly spikes to popularity, despite containing nothing to write home about
>morons need this explained, because they are moronic
Cope and Sneed, SEED AND FEED!
>muh, I don't like this thing!
>why do you like this thing I don't like guise?????
>you must be moronic morons from moronistan
I never even heard of this and just looked it up. I thought it was a Tailspin spinoff and honestly that'd probably have been more interesting TTRPG than generic action cartoon #581.
/tg/ made a great TaleSpin setting once.
Your post reminded me that there's a Gummi Bears rpg.
The one that used Haribos for damage right? Remember reading a playtest thread where one of the Players had to leave the call mid fight as he was shitting himself pretty bad.
>The one that used Haribos for damage right?
LMAO no, I meant this one. Please post the one you're talking about though.
TaleSpin is just (kid-friendly) straight dieselpunk, and it works.
Yeah that's what he was referring to. Could have sworn there was an OGL version upped a while back.
>you can't like what I don't like guise!!1!!one!!
I took the series to a weekend hangout with some friends, and we binged the whole show. (Also, picking "chongo-longo" for the drinking game was a huge mistake) Everyone agrees it would make a kickass setting. That said, I'm not sold on the official system. I think I might use 2d20 Conan as a base instead.
If you use that, check out Conan the Adventurer. Wrath-Amon was as cool of a villain as Bloth.
Pretty sure there was an old Pirates of Darkwater d6 netbook. Have a look in the holocron archives.
You could always use Flash Blades with the pirate supplement.
I loved this show as a kid. It was on at a weird time but I always tried to catch it when I could.
this comment reads like someone with four numbers after their username
Anyone know what this moron is talking about?
Dunno. Frickin' Discord reference or something? baka
No Guts, No Glory!
Reminds me of Bravestar.
The space western set in New Texas with the sidekick character being a horse with that could grow hands named 30-30 with a shotgun he was fond of using and the MC being a straight up shaman.
It was bizarre.
Bravestarr is a classic example of the intro being a hundred times better than the show. It's a banger. A lot of those Filmation ones(He-man, She-ra, Blackstar, etc.) were pretty bad, but I can absolutely believe a bunch of nerds just dumped a bucketload of crap and ideas from their own campaigns into a blender to sell toys. Don't care what your political leaning is, God bless Reagan for opening up cartoons to the possiblity of being thirty-minute toy commercials just for all the wild ideas that sprung out of it.
you ok there "anon"
Nah, it's pretty basic Fantasy stuff. There is plenty of that already.
Captain Simian and the Space Monkies is just the right level of moronic/absurd that it would make a good game though.
Loved that shit OP.
Shame it never finished.
I'm starting to watch Thundarr the Barbarian now that I finished Pirates of Dark Water. I wonder how a villain party composed of characters based off Bloth from The Pirates of Dark Water, Wrath-Amon from Conan the Adventurer, and Gemini from Thundarr the Barbarian would go. A warforged wizard, a lizardman cleric to a snake god, an ogre/orc swashbuckler. Who else could be added to this villain party?
Which sort of setting are we engaging in? High seas fantasy, gonzo post-apocalypse, or something else?
An artificer based on this guy. Maybe even multiclass with necromancer or death cleric/knight for his second form.
https://inhumanoids.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Herman_Manglar
Alternatively, you could use BoL to emulate something akin to this, with a few alterations to character descriptors.
I'm going to try this, thanks.
What else are you planning to do with the players for the game? There are a veriety of additional materials.
I'm not
, I just suggested Mangler/Nightcrawler for his party and liked the suggestion of BoL. Personally want to suggest it to my DM for a oneshot.
Thanks! I think you will have alot of fun running BoL for your Players! Let us know if you would like some the extras to spice up the game for them!
I didn't know there was an RPG for it
I've only seen fan-made material, myself.
Still, good show: it inspired my Talislanta campaign back in the day. Players really enjoyed themselves.
I also saw the new Looper video. Letting youtube define your opinions is Fun!
Also, play Earthdawn.
You're gonna end up with psoriasis of the liver Anon
i've never seen this show, but looking at the character designs it looks like the platonic ideal of a 90s cartoon, like you measure how much a 90s cartoon something is by how similar it is to this
Yeah, I actually have the whole filmed series and comics saved.
Was a fan as a kid. Really tragic for the show to flop so untimely, it had potential.
The alien designs and ecosystem are what really sold me, it was genuinely interesting to watch.
But I don't think it could be resurrected without fricking it up in one way or the other.
Well, not in the current era of woke horseshit. Unless Bentkey could get ahold of the rights, maybe.
Woke horseshit like an ecological message and a major female character who is competent, right?
Noi jitat
Imagine if the made the main character a brown skinned twink