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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3692473" data-attributes="member: 28553">I've been going back and forth over specifics (and the ideas here have given me more cool things to think about), but basic concept I'm considering right now is a kids-from-Earth bit with a new set of kids (five or six of them, appropriately diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, and age, etc.) who aren't trapped in a Dungeons & Dragons world, but instead find a way to go there and back more or less as they please (probably with some hassle and limitations, though).While in this other world, they would gain the skills and supernatural abilities of some standard PHB classes (right now, I'm thinking barbarian, druid, monk, rogue, sorcerer, and maybe bard), which they would get progressively better at using as the series progressed (no explicit "leveling up", but there'd definitely be some "Wow, I didn't know I could do that!" moments of growth under pressure).  It's worth pointing out that one of the significant differences between a lot of popular anime and the kind of shows most of us grew up with is that anime (and modern, anime-influenced Western cartoon) character often grow and change over the course of a show (hell, in shows like Dragonball Z and Naruto, it's almost the whole point of the show), rather than returning to a default state at the end of every episode.Anyway, while the bulk of the kids' abilities would be their learned skills, there would definitely be some magical items in the cartoon, with the kids finding new ones gradually (all the better to emphasize the loot-gathering element of the game).  I also really like the idea of each kid getting items linked to the five D&D magic damage types: fire, cold, electricity, acid, and sonic.  Each kid could have his or her own thematically-significant damage type.  If there are six rather than five kids, maybe a pair of siblings would share a damage type.The parallels to the game could be made even stronger by the kids' time in the fantasy world almost being spent under different identities.  Maybe they take locally-appropriate names (Roger calls himself "Ro-Jar", and so on), and their special skills and equipment vanish when they go back to Earth.  And I think their normal and fantasy outfits should be strongly color coded (Roger wears blue and black clothes, just like Ro-Jar's armor).  They would, of course, be the only people from Earth (except perhaps some major antagonist) who are even aware of the fantasy world (slight shades of Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia, there).As for just what they're doing in some dangerous other world if they can go home at any time, maybe there's some threat to both worlds over there, and they're the only ones who can fight it (maybe according to some prophecy, or just the nature of their powers).As some folks have already noted, the biggest killjoy for action cartoons are all the watchdog groups who have kept such a tight rein on cartoon violence for the past few decades.  To sidestep that issue, I'd have the protagonists wielding blunt weapons (which works pretty well with the classes I'm thinking of; even the Rogue could use a sap).  Whacking and blasting people is generally okay in today's cartoons, as long as you don't cut them.  Also, it'd help to have the antagonists consist primarily of skeletons, incorporeal undead, constructs, plants, oozes, and the occasional monster so big that they have to just run away instead of fighting it.  Also, I'll point out that using a Druid instead of a Cleric is a deliberate move to sidestep annoying religious issues.Oh, and for the specific fantasy world?  Part of me really wants to say Eberron, since that's the quasi-official D&D setting, these days.  Conventional wisdom would say it's too complicated for kids, but it's full of all manner of cool stuff (warforged, airships, dinosaur riders, etc.) that the target audience would love.  Much more so than, say, Greyhawk.  I ain't sold yet, though.Lord, I am thinking way too much about this, and I've actually still got a lot more to say.  I'll cut it off here, for the moment.</blockquote>

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