The Troubleshooters: 60's Cartoon Themed RPG

With influences like Tintin, Scooby-Doo, and The Man from UNCLE, The Troubleshooters is a "new action-adventure tabletop roleplaying game in the style of Franco-Belgian comics" from Swedish designer Krister Sundelin. The first adventure is called The U-Boat Mystery (which gives an idea of the tone we're talking here). Oh, and your character sheet is a passport.

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Coming to Kickstarter on April 7th, with a release this summer in English and in French, it'll be published by Helmgast AB and Modiphius. Here's the full announcement:

"Helmgast AB proudly presents The Troubleshooters, a new action-adventure tabletop roleplaying game in the style of Franco-Belgian comics.

Imagine a world where you travel the world like Tintin, unmask heinous villains like Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Gang, unravel mysteries like Nancy Drew, do heists like Carmen Sandiego, stop evil masterminds like Spirou and Fantasio, solve crimes like The Saint, and even catch spies like The Man from UNCLE. That’s the world of The Troubleshooters.

In The Troubleshooters, the characters are drawn into other people’s problems and band together to solve them. Ranging from athletes and explorers to journalists and mad scientists, the characters will travel all over Europe and across the world. Explore exotic locations, glittering metropoles, lost temples, or valleys that time forgot, and face spies, wild beasts, mafia, villains, and the nefarious graf von Zadrith, the leader of the secret organisation the Octopus!

Written by Krister Sundelin, author of the acclaimed Swedish roleplaying games “Järn” and “Hjältarnas tid”, The Troubleshooters takes you back to the mid-1960s in a world of fast-paced adventure and fun!

The Troubleshooters Core Book will be the first in a line of products for the game together with the adventure The U-Boat Mystery, followed by adventures and background books. The text for the core book is already written and has been playtested for a year and a half, and the text for the first adventure is almost complete.

The Troubleshooters is planned for release in the summer of 2020 in English and French, with a crowdfunding campaign starting April 7th. Modiphius Entertainment will be handling the distribution of the English edition into retail stores from the Autumn 2020. Arkhane Asylum will translate The Troubleshooter to French."


According to the website, "The Troubleshooters will take the characters all over Europe and across the world. They will find themselves at exotic locations, glittering metropoles, deep in the wilderness, or even in cozy country villages, where they face horrible foes: spies, wild beast, mafia, mad scientists, villains, and relatives!"

It's a percentile dice system, with a passport for a character sheet -- "The system is based on d% task checks against a skill value. With skills, abilities, complications and a Story Point economy, the system is designed from the ground up to fit the genre. Skills, abilities and complications are recorded in the character’s passport."

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JeffB

Legend
I believe you.

Just some background info about it as the game would likely market better to Americans of a certain age- The Man from Uncle though better than most tends to be thrown in with the mass of sub-par 60s James Bond/Spy knockoffs on TV.
 

Undrave

Legend
After decades of nerdery, it's still strangely thrilling to see something like "1960s Franco-Belgian adventure comics" and say, I have no idea what the hell they are talking about.
I mean, it's 2020, I can Google it, I can click the links, sure. It's just always interesting that whatever nerd stuff you're into, there's probably this other nerd stuff that is closely related, but you have just never gotten around to it.

Hahaha, there's a few of 'em on Comixology if you're ever curious.

I think for this game the closest available would be Spirou

It's a bit of a haphazard collection, covering multiple 'eras' of the character (Spirou had a lot of teams working on it, something of an oddity in the Franco-belgian world were creators work on their own characters for decades).

Ooh they also have Clifton and Blake & Mortimer too!
 


JeffB

Legend
Maybe you're not their primary market? I know it's hard to imagine.

No need to be a smartass. I thought this was a discussion thread?

I understand that Americans may not be marketed to. I'm offering it as a suggestion as I stated in my initial post if they are interested because most of us who remember 60s comics in the USA probably have no idea WTF Franco Belgian comics are. If they are only concerned about Europe then that is fine and dandy.

However, they did mention an extremely popular American TV show. So I'm throwing out another.
 


JeffB

Legend
In what way is it not a discussion thread?


Well apparently my input is being minimalized by the site owner who feels the need to push back on my post after directly quoting me, and I offered a genuine explanation to his comment/question. Then said siteowner felt the need to make a smartass comment about my explanation for no reason whatsoever.

Go play coy with some newbie, I know it's hard to imagine but I've seen you be a smartass to enough people over the 20ish years to know your schtick when I see it.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Well apparently my input is being minimalized by the site owner who feels the need to push back on my post after directly quoting me, and I offered a genuine explanation to his comment/question. Then said siteowner felt the need to make a smartass comment about my explanation for no reason whatsoever.

Go play coy with some newbie, I know it's hard to imagine but I've seen you be a smartass to enough people over the 20ish years to know your schtick when I see it.
I'll leave you to it.
 

Warren Ellis

Explorer
I mean Scooby-Doo and Carmen Sandiego both appeared on American TV, though both appeared after Jonny Quest. I find it a little weird he wouldn't be aware of them, and mentioning Jonny Quest is probably the best way to market this game to Americans. also the Venture Bros., though that's actually a tongue-in-cheek satire of Jonny Quest and other adventure cartoons from the 60's.
There was also Johnny Quest: The Real Adventures from the 1990s.
And yeah, Johnny Quest was a grest cartoon example of superscientists taking their children along with them on dangerous adventures.

To the point Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law made a hilarious episode about it.
 


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