Just now, they were talking about Everway over in the Amber forum; and it suddenly hit me: Wouldn't Everway be an ideal system to run a campaign of "Avatar: the Last Airbender"?

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This show provokes endless debate on RPG fora.  Could someone explain why this action cartoon has more RPG appeal than, say, Transformers?

It infuriates my son when I call it "Avatar: The Last Airbiscuit"

Its got a brilliant background, sophisticated setting, a unique fantasy world, with a whole set of metaphysics, special abilities that would naturally lend themselves to an RPG, and the right  mix of cutesy-poo and cool action, plus very very good animation.

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For a show aimed at kids it's really great. And if Pundit and I agree then it must be true.

One thing I found interesting is that they modeled each style of bending (one per element) after a specific martial art that best reflects the idealized version of that element.

As for which game system to use, I'm not sure. I think the Silver Age Sentinels system would work fairly well, but require some strict limitations on what powers and effects you can do. I'm sure there has to be a better one though.

What little I've seen of Wushu seems like it could work well as a base, but that "little" equates to "just the online teaser rules."

Quote from: fonkaygarryThis show provokes endless debate on RPG fora.  Could someone explain why this action cartoon has more RPG appeal than, say, Transformers?

Well for one thing, it doesn't have giant robots.

In fact, I think there are numerous games which would fit Avatar well. My current favorite, Unisystem, is just one.  Savage Worlds would probably work nicely, also.

I'm not familiar with Everway; what about it would suggest an exceptional pairing?

I'm afraid I don't know anything about Everway, so I don't know.

D20 would work, but not D&D so much.  

For the most part, people conform to one class as far as their main abilities go.  They have one bending style (except the avatar)  or are warriors, or schemers or tradesmen.

Multiclassing or a wide variety of feats would be needed - you can see amongst the fire benders a wide array of non-fire abilities.  In any system, I'd  limit the rate that bending can go up or in some way force them to pick non-bending skillls.  Pretty much everyone has other abilities, but most rpgs encourage maxing out on one domain.  A non-D20 system could handle this well as long as you're not allowed to dump all your pts/whatever in one place.

The show is heroic in two ways - mooks and rate of advancement.  Katara could barely bend water at teh beginning, now she can take out half a dozen common soldiers at once.  D20 handles these decently well, but others would work too.

Hit points would not be optimal, maybe something like in M&M/T20 instead, with most attacks merely stunning someone.  Death is extremely rare and it's common to recover from a blow by the end of the battle.

Quote from: fonkaygarryThis show provokes endless debate on RPG fora.  Could someone explain why this action cartoon has more RPG appeal than, say, Transformers?

Well for me personally? I hated Transformers, Thundercats, GI Joe, He-Man, and the like.

Avatar makes all of them look like they were produced by crack-headed amateurs.

Transformers etc. definitely rocked, don't get me wrong, but the ongoing story in Avatar puts them to shame. It was rare that a story arc of an 80s cartoon lasted longer than a single episode, four being exceedingly rare for most cartoons. In at least that aspect Avatar is more like Star Blazers than any of the rest: it has a story to tell, and while there may be subplots galore, there's still a goal, and getting closer to that goal is what drives the episodes along and keeps peeople coming back.

The cool thing about Avatar is that it's obviously influenced by anime in the art and story arc but it goes beyond that and is also clearly American.  It doesn't try to mimic anime; it's absorbed the good parts of anime and does its own thing.

All of the major characters have interesting personalities.  It also goes way beyond the simplistic good/bad view of 80s cartoon.

Quote from: PhishStyxIn fact, I think there are numerous games which would fit Avatar well. My current favorite, Unisystem, is just one.  Savage Worlds would probably work nicely, also.

I'm not familiar with Everway; what about it would suggest an exceptional pairing?

Well, for starters, its a very similar kind of fantasy to what Avatar is.  Second, it uses a 4-element system just like Avatar.  I had also considered Qin, of course, but Qin uses the chinese 5-element system, so that one would need more work.

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