Toon, The Cartoon Roleplaying Game, appears at first glance to be just an elaborate joke. A role-playing game based on Saturday morning cartoons? Is this the stuff that epic fantasy role-playing adventure is all about?
Well, no. But TOON is a genuine good idea — an original (if unlikely) concept in role-playing — that is enjoyable, fast-moving, and incredibly silly.
— 'New Heights (?) In Silliness', by Michael Dobson, Dragon Magazine #92, December 1984
These were the opening paragraphs in a review of Toon, published in the December 1984 issue of Dragon Magazine. Yes, Toon was an amazing concept in those days, a radical departure from good old D&D. What's more, after almost two decades, it's still a good game.
Toon is, as it proclaims to be, the cartoon roleplaying game. In it, you can play a 'toon', one of the inhabitants of Warner Bros-style cartoons, like Bugs Bunny, Wile E Coyote, or Tom & Jerry. Hit people with sledgehammers, dynamite, anvils and themselves. Pull an aircraft carrier out of your back pocket, or quickly disguise yourself as another species. You know the drill. Everybody knows this kind of cartoons and its main characters. Woody Woodpecker, Droopy, Daffy Duck, you've all seen them at one time or another. This is one of the greatest advantages of the game: the familiarity with the setting. There's no need to read tons and tons of background material, or long explanations to wrap your brain around the concept.
The version I'm reviewing here is the 'Deluxe Edition' and contains the original book, as well as the (now out-of-print) supplements Toon Silly Stuff, Son Of Toon and Toon Strikes Again. It also has new, previously unreleased material.
Characters and rules
In Toon, your character can be anything you want. A human, a cat, a poison ivy, a toaster: you name it, you can play it. If you don't have any good ideas regarding your species, you can pick one from the many 'Silly Species Tables' published in the book.
Your character also has a Profession, an Enemy, a Belief and a Goal. Want to be a 1920's investigator or a half-orc barbarian? A policeman? Toon lets you do this in the easiest way imaginable: just by saying so.
You're also supposed to pick a Natural Enemy. Not to be confused with D&D's Favored Enemy, a Natural Enemy is 'a kind of creature your character is out to get — or which is out to get you!' Look at Tom & Jerry and you get the idea.
A belief is something your character, well, believes in. Sample Beliefs offered in the book are 'My species is superior to all others' and 'Pain is bad'. A Goal gives your character something to do, a motivation. You can be a spoilsport and 'prevent everyone else from achieving their own Goals' or a teacher ('Educate others in the ways of the world') or something radically different.
These four things seem a rather meagre way to define a character, compared to other RPGs. You have no Alignment, no Nature or Demeanor, no nicely worked out classes, no Backgrounds, nothing, nada. And when was the last time you saw Bugs Bunny think about his 'place in the universe'? Point being: in Toon, you're not supposed to make a three-dimensional character. You play a cartoon character, for heaven's sake. This simplicity permeates the whole game, as you will see with the system.
As a cartoon character, you start off with at most eight possessions, with at least four possessions being 'normal' things like a squirting flower and a bottle of glue. Among the unusual possessions, you can have one gizmo. A gizmo is a sort of Swiss army knife possession: once you use a gizmo, it becomes the thing you needed most. Stuck on the Pacific with nothing but your gizmo? No problem: it'll be a boat, or a submarine. Falling into the Grand Canyon? Your gizmo will be a parachute.
The abilities a character has are defined with Attributes and Skills. A character has only four Attributes: Muscle (measuring physical prowess), Zip (speed and dexterity), Smarts (mental abilities, savvy) and Chutzpah (the amount of nerve a character has). Each Attribute has an amount of Skills grouped under it, like Fight under Strength and Fast-Talk under Chutzpah.
Attributes are defined by dividing 14 points between them. Each Skill under an Attribute defaults to the Attribute level and can be raised later. Namely, you get 30 points to distribute between your skills. That's it.
Task resolution is easy. Roll two sided dice: if the sum of the dice is equal or less than the appropriate Skill rating, your character succeeds. If the sum exceeds your Skill rating, you fail. If you're actively opposed in an action by another character, you both roll an appropriate Skill. If both rolls succeed or fail, nothing happens, as neither character gains the upper hand. Effectively, both actions fail. If one roll succeeds while the other fails, something happens: you sneak past the guard (See/Hear/Smell vs. Sneak) or talk a character into walking of a cliff (Fast-Talk vs. Resist Fast-Talk).
Shticks round out your character and represent typical cartoon abilities. Incredible Speed, Invisibility and Coat of Arms (think Inspector Gadget) are examples. Shticks are to be bought with the same points as the ones that you use for raising Skill levels. To balance things, different Shticks cost different amount of points.
My discussion of character creation and task resolution takes up a lot of space here, but they really are very simple and easily explained.
Advice, adventures and assorted extra's
After these rules, which take up 47 pages of the book, we get to a chapter with advice and tips. And they're good — they really help the Animator (Toon-speak for Game Master). Apart from solid advice it lists cartoony things (dehydrated water, instant fine print). It gives guidelines for awarding plot points (experience points, used to buy extra gizmoes and raise Skill levels), writing adventures and lots of hands-on advice. One example: when in doubt about whether something happens or not, reduce the situation to a yes-or-no question. When you can't answer this question, roll a six-sider. On a roll less than four, the answer is 'yes', otherwise it is 'no'. This so-called Fifty Percent Rule isn't mindblowingly brilliant, but it works.
The rest of the book mainly describes adventures. Adventures in Toon are brief affairs and take about one to three hours. The adventures in the book are very well described, complete with plot summary, location descriptions, NPC listings and plot point award guidelines. Best of all, each adventure has a Big Finish: a way the adventure can be concluded in a grand fashion.
Toon is ideally suited for one-shots with its simple system and familiar setting, but there are several thoroughly worked out ideas for continuing campaigns included, called Feature Films.
If you have no idea what to do, and don't like the many adventure ideas or complete adventures, you can always use the Adventure Generator. With some quick rolls you can create a complete adventure. A sample result:
You'll have a survival Adventure.
Players trapped in Milky Way are bothered by witch as they attempt to survive and/or get home.
Secret: Witch wants Sail Boat in players' possession.
Random Event: Very hungry termites invade, eat all wood.
Apocalyptic big finish: Cartoon company runs out of ink.
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Usually, I scoff at random creation, but it works in Toon. And if you don't like the result, just roll again or browse through the tables until something jumps at you.
The book is rounded out with sample locations (The Haunted House, The Old West), NPCs (superspy James Bomb, Igor the typical Transylvanian butler) and random tables. Need something to fall from the sky? A means of transport? ('Call me a taxi' table — unicycle with cyclist) An unbelievable silly species for your character? Chances are you'll find an excellent suggestion here.
Completists will be pleased to hear that Toon has an index, and even an index of characters.
Presentation
Toon is a soft-cover book with 208 pages. The cover is full colour and depicts some toons in random chaos. The interior is black and white and is mainly formatted in a two-column layout: one broad column with the main text, and one smaller column that functions as a sidebar. The paragraphs in the sidebars are always on one page: they never wrap around and thus do not produce page flipping.
The main font is rather large, I would say about twelve points. However, the font size varies somewhat: less important sections are in a smaller font, and sometimes large, bold letters are used to make items stand out. This results in a rather chaotic look. However, most of the space on the pages is filled, as the margins aren't very large.
Most of the pictures are done by Kyle Miller in a characteristic style, quite similar to the Warner Bros look and feel. The book also credits Carl Anderson with 'Additional Ridiculous Illustrations'. Regrettably, Anderson does not deliver good artwork: his static illustrations lack a certain 'swing'. To both artists' and the lay out person's credit, most of the illustrations have a strong relationship with the text they're placed next to.
The writing style of the book is very casual and funny. The authors (apart from Greg Costikyan, a whole lot of other people have contributed to the book, among them Steve Jackson and Allen Varney) provide silly suggestions. Fortunately, they never forget to give helpful advice and solid examples. Also, typos and grammar mistakes are very rare.
All in all, this book has a very solid presentation, but it never is as beautiful as, say, a Vampire book.
Playtest
Toon is by far the easiest RPG I have ever played. It's also one of the most difficult RPGs to GM. Seems like a contradiction? Let me explain.
Toon starts with an introduction to roleplaying and the world of cartoons. Right after that, the basics are covered. You'll learn what to do with those skills, how to fight, how damage works, and some more really necessary things. Not the whole system, mind you. Just what you need to play (or run) 'The Cartoon Olympics', the introductory adventure. In it, up to four pregenerated characters bash it out between each other to win eternal glory. The characters only have 7 skills, and that's quite enough for a first-timer.
After this, all the other rules, skills, shticks and character creation is explained. As you've read above, they are really simple. Even the 'Superstar rules' (advanced, optional rules that are sometimes provided) are ridiculously simple. Toon is the only game we've played where it's enough to read through the rules once and then run it. I read the character creation rules only once and three days before my first session as a GM at that. With the book by my side, it took four players and me about half an hour to create four new characters.
Toon is very forgiving to the characters — they can't die. That's right, if your character has absorbed more damage than he has hitpoints, she 'falls down'. This effectively means that she can't do anything for the next three minutes, real time. This rules simulates cartoons excellently, and makes players think less about whether an action is a good idea or not. If said action results in the character being killed, so be it. In three minutes, you're back in play!
The many adventures in the book are a godsend. Toon is an excellent game to play while waiting for the real session to start, or as a break from other games. Need a one-shot? Toon will do in a pinch. As the GM, you only have to read an adventure and ZAP, you're off. A player doesn't know the game yet? Explain, or better yet, let another player explain it. In about 5 or 10 minutes, the newbie will have the game under his belt. It helps that the standard game resembles a board game in the way it handles turns. Each player has one turn in a round. In a round, you can walk around, talk and do other simple things — until you have to make a skill check. After your skill check, the turn passes to the next player. It doesn't matter if the roll succeeds or not, your turn's over. This keeps the game fast-paced and makes it more familiar to non-RPGers. But what if players take they're time and begin long, rambling rants about their motivations, or can't make up their mind about what to do? Then the character is 'boggled' and his turn passes along.
But what about players who can't think fast? Or who perform poorly under stress? That's more of a problem, and there's is not much to do about it. The only thing you know is that the system won't be the cause for long considerations. This problem becomes even larger with the GM, who is under a greater amount of stress to think of something. The players can think ahead, and try to make something up. The GM doesn't have this luxury, and is forced to improvise constantly. As the rules are very easy but also very loose, a GM will often have to make judgement calls. Just what exactly does my Profession cover? Also, as the universe is likewise very loosely defined, the GM can be surprised quite often by another turn of events. An adventure will start in Anytown, and can end at Mars, or the Statue of Liberty. The many tables help the GM, sure, but he'd better be a fast thinker and confident of his abilities.
Another thing is that Toon is supposed to be funny. It usually is, but if the GM can't make it work, you're screwed. If he just doesn't have the proper silly skills, the whole game can fall down. Pun intended. There's not very much to compensate for this: no interesting plot, no grand storytelling feats, no detailed characters, no brilliant method-acting. Toon depends on one thing: silliness. If it works, you'll have a great time. If it, for whatever reason, does not, then it's game over. 'That's all folks!'
Conclusion
All in all, Toon is a wonderful game and rightfully deserves its name as a classic. The rules are very easy yet often sufficient. The book is very complete and has all you need for many games of cartoon silliness. The game's simple rules and familiar setting make it the best introductory RPG I've seen so far. The only disadvantage I can see is that it needs an experienced, fast-thinking GM to run it.
For the perfect match between setting and system, the sparkling writing and overall great layout and good artwork, the book gets a Style rating of 5 out of 5. The Substance rating is a 5 too, since the book is very complete, with all the rules you'll ever need, and many adventures to boot. Buy this book!
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