Toon

" "Toon is a role-playing game in which the players take the roles of cartoon characters. It is subtitled The Cartoon Roleplaying Game.

Toon was designed by Greg Costikyan and developed by Warren Spector, and first published in 1984 by Steve Jackson Games.

Although Toon is a genuine role-playing game requiring the participation of players and a game master (called the "Animator" here), it is designed with a tongue-in-cheek style that deliberately parodies many of the conventions of more standard, "serious" role-playing games."

Toon has its own terminology. The game master is referred to as the Animator.

Each character has four attributes that they can assign a numerical value to. Character creation is done with die rolls. A person creating a character will roll one D6 four times. The first roll is your Muscle score, the second is your Zip score, the third will be your Smarts and the fourth will be your Chuztpah.

A character also has Skills, Shticks, and Possessions. Players are encouraged to reach deep into cartoon land and pull out as many wacky ideas as possible.

Examples of Skills include Climbing, Driving and Fast-talking. Skills are based on Attributes, a nod to the GURPS system.

Shticks are special powers taken by spending skill points. Certain Shticks are item-based such as the Coat of Arms, while others are a special power such as Change Shape.

Adventures are short! They are based off of the Loony Toons style of cartooning; simple plots to be played in one evening are encouraged. One of the hallmarks of Toon is that players do not die, but rather they "Fall Down," removing them from gameplay for three minutes. (The three minutes are real-time.)

The Toon book comes with 21 adventures for an Animator to run. Some are longer stories but most are short. There is also a table to help an Animator create his own game.

Sidebars explain various cartoon tropes that an Animator or player may want to include in their adventure. Examples include "The Incredibly Busy Empty Street" or "Portable Holes."

Toon recommends players approach the game with the will to act as silly and as unrealistically as possible. "Real" cartoons involve pianos falling from the sky, walking into thin air and only falling down when you realize you've done so, and sight gags."

Source: Wikipedia, "Toon_(role-playing_game)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.

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the Designer says .. Correct orthography is "Toon."
please do not make corrections to change it to TOON