I tried running a game of Toon with my girlfriend yesterday. It was the cartoon olympics intro adventure in the revised book. I figured that the system is easy and the adventure was laid out so no problem. Didn't end up being so. I told her because it's a cartoon she can do anything that works in a cartoon. First thing she says is she pulls a hammer that's spring loaded in her tail and hits Olga Hipopovna over the head with it. Had it hit, I'd have probably gotten a bit further, but her fight skill was 3, and with roll under on 2d6, she obviously missed. I completely froze with what to narrate after that. I wasn't sure what the logical reaction of a bipedal hippopotamus athlete who fancies herself a ballerina would be if she was missed by a giant hammer. Also, in retrospect I'm thinking that in cartoons the first hit never misses, so maybe the hammer missing threw me out of cartoon mode.

I read a review of Donjon a while back that said it actually required more GM preperation than a regular RPG because of the freedom players have. I'm thinking the same freedom exists in Toon, so it's possible that it's something that can't be winged. That feeling is supported by the fact that I followed up with a game of C.O.R.E. that I ran completely off the cuff and it worked well for 3 hours, without me getting stumped (similar to what I used to do with AD&D).

Having not been able to run a game of Toon (or Donjon I guess), that worked, I don't really have a comparison point of why it flat out failed for me.

I don't suppose the reaction of a bipedal hippopotamus would be logical in the first place :)

What was your initial reaction for the declaration and the result of the roll? Was the problem caused by the lack of a logical idea, or by the lack of any idea at all? Going with the first instinct would probably be the best here.

As for Donjon, the review must have lied. It definitely doesn't require more GM prep, exactly because of the player empowerment.

Filip wrote:
I don't suppose the reaction of a bipedal hippopotamus would be logical in the first place :)

What was your initial reaction for the declaration and the result of the roll? Was the problem caused by the lack of a logical idea, or by the lack of any idea at all? Going with the first instinct would probably be the best here.

As for Donjon, the review must have lied. It definitely doesn't require more GM prep, exactly because of the player empowerment.

So it was the generally abstract and alien situation, combined with a genre breaking result generated by the game and possibly paired with a moment of poor inspiration?

How did the player react to this? Did she have any suggestions fo resolving the problem? Did you try to continue the game past that point, or did it completely stop after this issue came up? Also, what were the general circumstances of the session - why did you choose Toon specifically, how strongly were both of you bought in? Did you or the player had any previous experiences with the game?

As for Donjon, well, the review must have been written by someone who didn't actually play the game, or who held his own strong assumptions about the GMs role, different from those supported by the system. It's not really the case in Donjon. The game is rather light on prep, at least in comparison with such prep-heavy games as D&D 3.0+. However, it certainly requires some improvisation skills, and good handling of unexpected twists.

Well, what you got is a premise that you can do what what would work in a cartoon, and then mechanics which say "Well, actually part of the time that's not true - you can't do it. And that's it - all these mechanics add is an absense of doing something, part of the time"

An absense of doing something doesn't really trigger the imagination. If it were 'Fight - without hitting yourself on the head', then you've got something to work on. She could hit herself on the head, stagger off a cliff (there's always a cliff) and into a pool of...so on and so on.

It's probably a hang over of aping D&D design or such like, where a monster would be applying damage to you each round, so missing set up an issue to deal with.

Filip wrote:
So it was the generally abstract and alien situation, combined with a genre breaking result generated by the game and possibly paired with a moment of poor inspiration?

How did the player react to this? Did she have any suggestions fo resolving the problem? Did you try to continue the game past that point, or did it completely stop after this issue came up? Also, what were the general circumstances of the session - why did you choose Toon specifically, how strongly were both of you bought in? Did you or the player had any previous experiences with the game?

As for Donjon, well, the review must have been written by someone who didn't actually play the game,

or who held his own strong assumptions about the GMs role, different from those supported by the system.

It's not really the case in Donjon. The game is rather light on prep, at least in comparison with such prep-heavy games as D&D 3.0+. However, it certainly requires some improvisation skills, and good handling of unexpected twists.

Callan wrote:
Well, what you got is a premise that you can do what what would work in a cartoon, and then mechanics which say "Well, actually part of the time that's not true - you can't do it. And that's it - all these mechanics add is an absense of doing something, part of the time"

An absense of doing something doesn't really trigger the imagination. If it were 'Fight - without hitting yourself on the head', then you've got something to work on. She could hit herself on the head, stagger off a cliff (there's always a cliff) and into a pool of...so on and so on.

It's probably a hang over of aping D&D design or such like, where a monster would be applying damage to you each round, so missing set up an issue to deal with.

migo wrote: That makes sense. I'm getting the feeling a toon game would almost work better as a game of narrative one up man ship. Everything the player says is true and happens. It's up to the next person to run with it and twist it with something that wasn't specified.

As for the buy in thing, what was the player's general reception of the system?

It doesn't sound like you've been particularly hyped about trying this game out (i.e. "Oh, we haven't play Toon yet, let's check it out today" as opposed to "Hey, I'm in a mood for some Toon today!"), so I suppose it could have been one of the factors that affected your poor experience, too.

You're definitely wrong about this.

You'll have to back this claim up.

It sounds to me like you just werent in a cartoony mood.  Toons dont always hit, have you ever seen the coyote going after the road runner?  The problem is you werent able to react on the spot in a toony way.  I've run into the same problem myself many times, if you arent right into the genre you dont know how to react.

What I find helps is to get into the right mind frame, know where the game is going.  So if you want the hippo to get hit the hippo is going to get hit all that the missed roll means is that the hippo didnt get hit this time.  What you have to do is come up with something appropriate to keep the game rolling to that point.  The hammer misses, makes a huge crack in the floor but the hippo doesnt notice keeps dancing her ballet, roll again. 

This is of course advice specifically for the type of game you seemed to be looking for with toon.  Illusionism works for that type of Sim game, that's why it became popular. 

 

Callan wrote:
Not as much as you'd think. When you get to say whatever, well, you could have done that at home by yourself with no one else around. Yeah, someones else then has to roll with it, but then whatever they say goes, so they could have done that at home by themselves. Mechancially it kinda makes everyone issolated, since they could do what their doing while alone.

Some systems (I want to say conflict resolution, but I'm probably using the term incorrectly) have a pivot system, where usually someone determines one side of the result and someone determines what the other result produces. Once that's specified it kind of produces a hybrid, since each person will end up considering what they'll do if the roll goes against them. Further, considering this often makes them look for and find some value in the other persons idea - even if the roll goes their way, they may borrow from the other persons result, adding it to their own result in some way. Importantly this consideration is done because the person cares about how things pan out, it's not a requirement of the rules. Contrast this against having to do it because you have to pick up from a previous narration or your are breaking the rules.

Anyway, that's a technical discussion of it - how playtest works out is how playtest works out! :)

Filip wrote:
As for the buy in thing, what was the player's general reception of the system?

It doesn't sound like you've been particularly hyped about trying this game out (i.e. "Oh, we haven't play Toon yet, let's check it out today" as opposed to "Hey, I'm in a mood for some Toon today!"), so I suppose it could have been one of the factors that affected your poor experience, too.

Sure.

A year ago I've run a pretty fun, if a bit short, pick up session of Donjon that didn't involve any pre-game prep, so my experience tells me it's possible. I'm not too keen on doing pre-game prep in general, so if the game requires me to spend more than half an hour on prep outside the session I'll be disinclined to run it. But in Donjon it turned out to be possible to effectively run the game without prep and still have fun. For most of the session, I've been to busy coming up with immediate responses to player's actions and test results to even have space for using any pre-defined material.

Note the "responses" part. Callan's point about working in isolation is very accurate. Working with each other's input is very important in such open games, I believe.

I wasn't playing the game stricktly by the book the way I've been doing it, however. The system gives pretty concrete GM prep instructions. Namely, as explained in Running Donjon section you need to create the town and have about 5-10 scenes ready. That's about half an hour to an hour of work, maybe a bit more if you're writing up your own monsters.

The procedure is as it is, so regardless what one actually does with the game, it's hard to say that the system itself works differently than it does. I didn't need any prep for my session, but by ommiting it I effectively neglected part of the system and if the resulting experience wasn't fun I could blame only myself, not the game. Similarly, over-preparation would be playing the game in a way it obviosuly wasn't meant to.

That's why the review you mention seems unreriable to me, but that's often the case with reviews. Can you provide a link to it, by the way?

migo wrote:

Callan wrote:
Not as much as you'd think. When you get to say whatever, well, you could have done that at home by yourself with no one else around. Yeah, someones else then has to roll with it, but then whatever they say goes, so they could have done that at home by themselves. Mechancially it kinda makes everyone issolated, since they could do what their doing while alone.

Not at all. You feed off each other's responses that you can't think of yourself. I've done this with my ex-roommates where we try to one-up each other on insults, trying to come with either a rebuttal or an insult that can't be responded to without being awkward. It's nowhere near as fun if you try to insult yourself back and forth. Obviously, not for everyone, but there is a definite benefit to not doing it yourself.

That's a good point about the Win-Lose conditions. I'll see how it goes.

So, if you don't mind, now I'll ask about your own experiences with Donjon. Can you elaborate how exactly they relate to this particular experience with Toon of yours?

Also, maybe you have some specific direction for this thread in mind, i.e. you want to discuss some particular broader issues? Cause, now I'm not sure if my initial impression of it being a thread of a "diagnostic" kind is correct.

migo wrote: I saw both Donjon and Toon as designed for little GM work because the players have so much input and control. I brought up the Donjon review because contrary to what people expect, it turned out to be more work for him. Contrary to what I expected with Toon, I couldn't get away without prep.

Lord_Steelhand wrote:

migo wrote: I saw both Donjon and Toon as designed for little GM work because the players have so much input and control. I brought up the Donjon review because contrary to what people expect, it turned out to be more work for him. Contrary to what I expected with Toon, I couldn't get away without prep.

Can you explain what sort of prep would have, in your opinion, solved the issue?

Would you suggest that a Toon Gm should have a list of gags to deal with failed hammer blows?  This sort of thing, given the numerous possibilities, will just drive a GM mad.  What I think you should do is decide how the hammer blow didn't do its intended damage.  For cartoons, this presents a plethora of ways, since the answer need not be logical (and indeed, humor may be served by having an illogical reason for the failure).

For example, she slams the NPC with the hammer, but fails.  Either of you could decide what that means, suing the Toon genre as a guide.  For example, she may think it is funny that she delivers a massive blow to the foe, but the hammer suddenly cracks and hatters into a million shards.  The two of you agree this is a funny way to explain the result and the next part of thenarration is dealt with.

It would be VERY hard to prepare for such an interpretation beyond just "limbering up" your mind to think outside of the logical box when such a call is required.