To call this a tabletop battle system is a bit unfair TBH as this game is more suited on a bed or the floor depending on how big your toys are. This is one of the most random games I’ve ever played and its dead easy to pick up. It was suggested as a passing comment by the guy who runs the comic shop in town and I squirreled a copy away for a birthday present. Although it was written in 92 its still doing the rounds and you can even get it online as a pdf from rpg.drivethrustuff.com for about $8.

The mechanics are simple, grab some stuffed toys, plastic toys, any kind of toy and start working out its stats based on size, number of legs, colour, if it has a mouth and any obvious bonus bits like horns or wings. It boils down really easily after that. Stats are based around a few basics like to hit, damage resistance, hit points and damage caused. The larger the toy the tougher it is but it will be easier to hit, if its pink its easier to hit than if its green and if it has 20 legs it will move like the clappers.

Our first run through was a three way between Cadence from Club Penguin & giraffe, a guinea pig & squirrel and a pink rabbit & pink poodle (FYI pink is a terrible colour to have in this game as pink has a massive negative modifier on your defense). The three groups squared off over a landscape modeled from socks and pillows and started charging at each other intent on ripping the stuffing out of the belly of their foes. The simple movement mechanics (slow down near sock trees) is based around number of legs so it was fairly even as the penguin got a movement bonus for trainers on. Attacking comes when you are within 6″ of the enemy and gets down to throwing three dice per attack you have. The pink stuff was easy to hit but was larger so could soak up the punishment but the real star was the guinea pig. Being small and brown he was nigh on impossible to hit and we had great fun imagining him weaving around like a small brown ninja only taking minor hits here and there but managing to dodge the big lumbering beasts flailing at him. I sort of pictured him a bit like SPG from the young ones, headbutting left right and centre before finally falling but not before taking a few ribs out first.

The basic rules are just that, basic. You can play a game in minutes as long as you have the tables for generating stats to hand, while the more advanced rules cover missile weapons (fire breath on a dragon!) more terrain and story examples. They are easy to bolt on and just add more ways of creating weird games.

I’m sitting here with some smurfs, a cyberman, Luigi in a kart and a Robotech mecha on my desk wondering what their stats are like. You won’t look at toys again in the same way.