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| He's Way Past Cool |
Being an aspiring micro-celebrity on the internet is fun. The majority of the effort needed to accrue an adoring public involves making oneself accessible to them, and they to your hilarious skeets on bluesky. My longest running endeavor to curate a space for all Gadda, all the time is my beloved Discord Server, which has never created problems or been a distraction for my writing process. Adam Seats, who you may very well know, pinged me in broad daylight to pitch an idea they'd had. We would watch the 1992 DiC cartoon, "Sonic The Hedgehog", and attempt to adapt concepts and elements of them into ttrpg blogposts and release them as a sort of cross-marketing technique to trick our audiences into giving attention to the other. Struck by the sheer gall needed to stop praising me with the rest of the masses, I instantly accepted. Not only would this be a fantastic project to share with a blogging peer I admire, it would give me a chance to rewatch what is still considered by many fans to be the high point of Sonic's animated outings. The rest of you masses can go on praising me, though. The Gall thing won't work on me again.
"Sonic the Hedgehog," known by it's more googleable nickname "Sonic SATAM" (as it aired on Saturday mornings, you see), was one of two animated series produced by the same Canadian company in the same year as it's sister series - "The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog". AoSTH focused more on Looney Tunes-style slapstick and comedy over SATAM's darker and plot driven action. SATAM featured the titular Hedgehog as a member of a guerilla rebellion of other woodland critters, fighting against the oppressive regime of Dr. Robotnik, who threatens their existence with urban development, pollution, and most horrifying of all, the complete stripping of their minds and bodily autonomy via a process called "Roboticization" which replaces organic material with robotics, converting victims into mindless slaves. Jim Cummings voiced the Doctor, and they added a sick reverb effect that makes him sound all encompassing and inescapable. One of the best to ever do it, ol' Jim.
Sonic was in a bizarre place in the early 90's. Sega capitalized on the success of the video games and merchandise sales by essentially offering the liscence up to anyone willing to pay, and were relatively hands off in the adaptation process. The video games having a fairly loose setting, along with a lack of oversight of it's American branch's shenanigans lead to vastly different interpretations of the character showing up across media. SATAM and AoSTH being on tv screens concurrently, despite the different tones, is the best example of the extremes the Hog could go to.
It is in this fertile ground that we shall dig deep for nuggets of inspiration to apply to our imaginary elfgames in a series of blogposts that will continue until we run out of material or otherwise get bored. There's only 26 episodes in this thing, but who knows? Maybe I'll have the chance to subject Adam to Sonic Underground. (Nobody tell them it's a musical)
THE ACTUAL BLOGPOST -
We chose to watch the first two episodes for this first duo of blogposts, the Pilot, "Heads or Tails", and the actual first episode to air, "Sonic Boom."
S1 EP13: HEADS OR TAILS
For some reason, despite all the elements of setting being established here, this episode wouldn't air on television until the very end of Season 1, thus being officially labeled as Episode 13. Thankfully, the playlist we're working off of places the episodes in -intended- order, as opposed to chronological release. A couple of other episodes have similar issues, but it's been 30 years, so they're well documented.
The key bits are as follows
- Dr. Robotnik has essentially won, taking over the world(?) and building a massive city called "Robotropolis." He converts people into robots with the previously mentioned "Roboticization" process. He even did it to Sonic's pet dog, Muttsky, which is wild.
- He REALLY hates Sonic the Hedgehog, to the point of his illogical fixation on killing him distracting him from anything else. The episode doesn't do anything to explain why this is the status quo, just that it is.
- Sonic and his crew live in the Great Forest, a massive wood that is apparently too large and dense for Robotnik to properly search to find them. They live in a location called "Knothole", which is hidden by a log slide in a specific tree. The tv show has this location in the open air, but other media places it as being a system of underground tunnels. I prefer that, but what can ya do.
- Sonic alone can make use of a power-up called a "Power Ring," which emerges from a small pond within Knothole. I believe the show better establishes this later, but I remember the rings being limited to 1 a day, making them a consistant but scarce resource.
The actual plot of the episode is light, acting as an excuse to highlight the setting details more than anything. There is a chemical weapon Robotnik intends to deploy to kill off the trees of the Great Forest, exposing Knothole. The Freedom Fighters anti-air weaponry (A bunch of wooden catapaults) keep breaking, leaving them open to attack. Sonic makes a supply trip to Robotropolis for the scrap resources required to fix them, and learns of the Chemical attack. He is discovered, and must use the Power Ring to escape. There is a showdown where the weapon, escorted by a bunch of airborne Buzz Bombers, approaches the forest, and Sonic uses himself as bait to divert their course into range of the Catapaults.
S1 EP1: SONIC BOOM
The first adventure proper, and surprisingly dark when compared to the more slapstick vibe of the pilot! The episode begins during a stealth mission into Robotropolis to sabotage the launch of a fleet of aircraft, though what makes them important enough to take preemptive measures is never explained. While working within the computer system, Princess Sally discovers coordinates labeled with the childhood nickname her father, the missing King Acorn, used to call her. Attempting to learn more distracts Sally from the mission, which ends with the team being discovered and splitting up to reconvene elsewhere. During the escape, a member of the team realizes how close they are to being captured and chooses to use himself as bait to lure their pursuers away from the Princess. There is a scene where Jim Cummings has an absolutely banger line, hissing with menace that Robotnik has "-machines of all kinds. Marvelous machines; they can do things you would not believe." heavily implying an off-screen torture session.
Jesus Christ.
Sonic is presented with two scenarios and must prioritize. Princess Sally is adamant on following the coordinates to a known dangerous location called "The Dark Swamp" in search of her father, but Cat is missing and presumed captured by Robotnik. Sonic chooses to rescue Cat, and then join Sally in the swamp. He finds Cat in a prisoner cell, but is warned before he can bust him out - Robotnik is aware of where Sally is going, and intends to ambush her at her destination. Unable to save Cat in that moment, he chases after Sally.
There's some generic adventuring in the swamp and the abandoned prison structure within it, the bridge breaks with them on it, there's a robot guard that attacks them, standard fare for this kind of tv show. What they gain is evidence that the King was once held there, and a computer system that contains a display of the full blueprints of Robotropolis and it's surrounding geographic features, including cave systems that neither the Freedom Fighters or Robotnik were aware of. Using this information, and that day's power ring to destroy the robot guard, the team manage to return to the hangar with the aircraft, complete their original mission, and escape. Sonic returns to the prison cell to find it empty, and it is implied that Cat has been roboticized. The character will never return.
There is a final good feelings moment, as the aircraft are launched and subsequently exploded, with Sonic using one of Robotnik's surveilance drones to directly call out that the action was revenge for Cat. Who is, again, functionally dead offscreen after presumably being tortured.
Jesus fucking Christ.
THE DIGESTION
After watching both episodes, Adam and I conferred via discord, sharing our thoughts about the episodes and throwing ideas for what our respective blog posts would be about. Adam suggested a number of systems that would be successful at emulating the sort of adventures shown here, however, my love and attention always circles back around to Elfgames and the uses thereof.
The entire time I spent watching these episodes, especially during episode 2, I couldn't help but think of Dodecahedron's Old School Rebellion, a series of blog posts I like so much, I've printed them out into booklets so I can read them again and again. The premise of these posts is a theoretical reframing of elfgame/osr procedures to be about revolutionary forces aimed at liberating peoples and resources that have been consumed by an encompassing empire instead of more traditional elfgame experience of value extraction from holes in the ground and the people living in them. It's a good trilogy of theory posts, with links to others who have investigated similar avenues of elfgame design, and I highly recommend them.
Among the many great ideas within is the concept of an exposure clock- where actions taken raises the amount of attention the group gains from the powers that be, and measures how much longer they can act in one location before the weight of the tyrrany is pressed down on them, forcing them to flee and leaving the locals to suffer the empire's wrath. Balancing the need to do good without attracting too much attention is a fascinating element of Rowan's theorycrafting. That's not quite what we see in Sonic Satam, as the fuzzballs are region locked to one location for a couple reasons.
FINALLY, THE POINT
There is a familiar and sound game cycle in most OSR campaigns. The Dungeon/Wilderness/Underground is a dangerous location you delve into, risking going deeper while your resources hold out, and returning to The Town/The Surface/Society and thus, safety, with your goods to prepare for another delve. The assured protection of being In Town is key to the gameloop, as resources can be expended in the Dungeon without consequence on the way back. I don't want to argue with this, but as with the inverse of power dynamics in Old School Rebellion, so too does the concept of safe zones shift.
The Power Ring is a recurring resource, but a limited one, that acts as the final safety net before the characters are completely on their own. It's use is functionally a win button, but it's limited application (only Sonic can truly make use of them) and the window of their use is narrow (the invincibility and speed boost seems to only last moments, after which it is expended). Not only that, but it's only produced in one physical location, which cannot be moved, meaning that losing it would effectively mean losing the war. This is a seperate but equal concern to the potential loss of Princess Sally, who the show establishes as being the figurehead and primary tactician of the surviving populace. As with the risk of losing their tactician, Sonic is himself a limited resource. No other member, except maybe Bunnie Rabbot, who we'll see more of later, is capable of superhuman feats. His speed, and Robotniks fixation on him, are quite literally the strongest tool the rebellion has, and deciding where and when to deploy him is crucial to their continued survival. In Episode 1, Sonic being torn between two important missions requires him to prioritize the safety of the Princess over the life of another Freedom Fighter, a trade that Cat understood and willingly took earlier in the episode. Sonic could have used the Power Ring to blast Cat away, but we, the audience, are aware that without it, Sally would have presumably been killed by the Robot guard later that same day.
The idea that not only can your resources be expended inefficiently, but the very ability to acquire those resources in the future being something you risk every time you step away from it, is a fascinating one. Do you, the heroes with magic and shit, leave the city defenseless while you go out for whatever reason? Can you afford not to? In the Pilot, Sonic leaves Knothole for materials, leaving it essentially undefended, because not having the air protection the catapaults provide would make defending it in the future even harder. Can the safety of Knothole be assured without the tactical mind and morale Princess Sally brings to the table? Is another Freedom Fighter's life worth sacrificing to preserve her use to the cause? An attack aimed at deforesting the only bastion they have is on par with total destruction, while torture and death of an individual the heroes know by name and presumably have history with is a cost that the individual himself was willing to pay. How many of these choices can they make while still believing themselves to be morally just?
And for our purposes, what on earth would all of this do to an Elfgame campaign? Placing an irreplacable resource within a region who's safety is in question would completely upend the traditional game loop in a way that could be fantastic or horrible depending on how prepared the table is to deal with these questions. Going forward, I want to keep this in mind as we watch and adapt more episodes of this silly cartoon show for children.
Until Next Time,
Farmer Gadda
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