My son Brennen is all grown up <tears of pride well up in writer’s eyes> and GMing for the gaming group. He started playing RPGs in elementary school and has been with Friday Nite Skype for a few months now. Recently, he picked up the PDF of Toon, which he remembered playing a few years ago. Toon is Steve Jackson Games’ soda and chips (or beer and pretzels, if you’re legal age) cartoon RPG which costs US$14.99 in PDF. (The PDF is a scan of the last printed edition, so it doesn’t have conveniences like being searchable or clickable contents pages.)
Toon includes several modules and he picked “Witchdusters.” The introduction: (Toon, © 1984, 1985, 1986, 1991 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated):
“The creatures of the night – the spectres of the unknown – the really spooky whatchamacallits that haunt the corners of the globe: These are the prey of the ‘Witchdusters.’ These heroic (well, mostly) investigators search out occult doings the world over, week after week. They have to keep searching – their home base has an enormous rent bill, and none of them want to take on an honest job!”
So off we went to dust a few witches. Character creation is easy: traditional dice rolling or point buy for attributes, point buy for skills and a Schtick or 2 (special ability). Attributes and Skills are cartoonishly simple. The four Attributes are Muscles, Zip, Smarts, and Chutzpah, with a handful of Skills under each Attribute, such as Pick Up Heavy Thing, Fire Gun, Fast-talk, and Identify Dangerous Thing. Character creation takes only minutes. Skills are very versatile; I used Set/Disarm Trap to try to deal with a witch’s broomstick that was smacking me. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and the broom got away, probably due to me having to roll 2 or under on 2D6, as my PC only had Smarts 2 and 0 ranks in Set/Disarm Trap.
The Witchdusters cast was 3 crazed cartoons. Mine was the were-penguin Addie Lea (named after the Adélie penguin species, Pygoscelis adeliae). Addie is a sweet, darling lady-penguin with a Southern (US) accent who turns into a gigantic, not-at-all cute penguin. Think the Tweety Bird Monster, only black and white. She usually carries a parasol (can substitute for Witchdusters Ray-gun) and feather duster (dusting off teammates who have been crushed under statues). Not too smart but very adorable–and fun.
The Wtichdusters’ Tech-toon is Blueberry Lincoln Technologies, aka BLT, a psychic blueberry muffin (note to editor–“psychic blueberry muffin” is correct) from Outer Space, who resides in a discarded Disney Animatronic President Lincoln with all kinds of gadgets inside from Boo-boo Treatments to Old-Fashioned Car-Crusher Magnets. BLT has incorporated himself (itself?) after learning that corporations are legally persons or something.
Triangle-ing out the team is Norman, the human. He would be quite normal if it weren’t for waking up one fine day with a magic hat on his head. Norman hasn’t quite got the hang of his hat, so odd things can happen on a roll of 12 on 2d6. I think the player, Donovan Morningfire, should have had to pay for a second Schtick, called Pun Fetishist, for the number of puns produced by the PC–but I wasn’t the Animator (aka GM), so not my call. After making a dozen or so, Dono asked me privately if I thought he would get Brennen to “regret running the game.” I immediately replied, “Nope. He’s a third generation punster.” (Got the trait honestly from his dad and grandpa.)
Our latest paying gig was from an elderly and somewhat flaky Eccentric Museum Curator, to deal with odd happenings in the exhibit. Since Big Rent Bill coincidentally came due about the time the hapless scholar showed up, we headed off to the museum. Animator Brennen seemed disappointed that we preferred the statues and suits of armor–Addie Lea tried to dance with one–to the Occult Section. WE tangled with the annoying witch Grishelda and her cat Greymalkin. As I mentioned above, Grishelda’s broom gave Addie Lea a lot of grief and Norman ended up under a fallen statue, in between his player’s punning.
Eventually, a terrified scream led us to the Egyptian Wing, where we confronted a Mummy, who wrapped up BLT. In spite of the cartoon chaos, we were able to eventually talk to the Mummy, who wanted his—wait for it–Mommy. BLT rang her up on his phone ans she proceeded to guilt-trip the ancient prince of Egypt, who according to Mommy-mummy, wasn’t nearly as smart, dutiful, or devoted as his brother. The prince insisted he had to get back to Egypt, which Normal started to point out was going to be a logistical nightmare. The Animator, however, reminded us that in Toon, to get somewhere Out of the City, you just have to leave the city. I guess FFG Star Wars doesn’t have the most abstract way of handling distance after all.
Once we saw The Mummy off, came the hard part–getting paid. Our employer suddenly had a lot of bills himself. Time for the very charming (I mean high-Chutzpah) Addie Lea to start Fast-talking. She persuaded him that he did have a big bag of money, enough for our bill and the others. Was it? As long as we got the rent paid, we weren’t worried. The other bills weren’t our bills, after all.
Was it fun? Oh, it was hilarious! Toon is a great RPG to have handy for a change-of-pace or as a Plan B game when someone can’t make it. Plus, Brennen is a pretty good GM. He kept things moving and responded quickly to player actions and questions as well. Since the group either hadn’t played Toon before or not for a long time, he even started with a short Q&A time. He also did a couple character portraits, which is a really cool touch. So I couldn’t ask more of this tricky treat–a fun game with friends and playing under a promising young GM who just happens to be my son.
Happy Halloween, Gamer Nation!
Artwork credit: Character portraits are © 2016 Brennen Whitson
Linda Whitson
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