Cartoon TTRPG 'Toon' Set to Return with New Second Edition

Steve Jackson Games has confirmed that the 80's cartoon tabletop RPG Toon will receive a new 2nd edition. The project is planned to launch through a crowdfunder on Backerkit on 17 December 2025.

Toon was first released in 1984 and became known for its slapstick approach to roleplaying. Players take on the roles of cartoon characters and experience chaotic antics that mirror classic animated shorts. Characters may be flattened by pianos or blown up by dynamite, yet they never truly perish. Instead they simply fall down and return to the action a moment later.

The upcoming edition aims to preserve the spirit of the original while updating the rules for modern audiences. The new version features simplified character creation, an expanded set of Silly Tables, and more than a dozen cartoon adventures.

Fans of the original game and newcomers interested in cartoon-style tabletop play can follow the project ahead of the crowdfunding launch in just over a week's time.

 

[overgeeked]

Pretty well. It was interesting listening to Millennial English folks engage with it, since I think of Warner Brothers cartoons as being probably a bit more universal than they apparently are. But the game they played was recognizably a Looney Tunes inspired world and fun and zippy.

Nice.

It didn't seem like it would sustain more of a "campaign" than three or four adventures in a row, but I don't think that's a big shock to anyone, nor what anyone was hoping for with Toon.

I always thought of it more like working as an episodic show rather than a serialized show. So Doctor Who or Star Trek rather than Babylon 5. You can play as long as you want, but the idea of trying to do anything like a story-based campaign would be a non-starter.

Though I do wonder about the absolute chaos that would be a D&D 5E 1-15 module or a Pathfinder AP with Toon. The Deluxe Toon book even says linear adventures just don't work. Maybe something more sandboxy would.

Toon has rules for Mad Max style games so something like Avernus could work.

ETA: The Tooniversal Tour Guide has a genre hopping campaign framework. That could be a lot of fun. One suggestion is to hop through other RPGs as you go. That would be wild.