I'm pretty sure "toon" is a misnomer for character stemming from "cartoon character."
A lot of people were new to RPG / MUDs / paper pen when EQ and other 3d games came out and might have been confused by the term character and associated it with cartoon character and 'toon' caught on.
I had never played many computer games before EQ and even the term and concept of "character" was new to me.
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