There's more to Oz than the Yellow Brick Road

Oz Is Not A Cookie-Cutter Land

2012-01-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

(Except for Utensia, but I digress)

I recently discovered that an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Scarecrow of Oz was in the works by the same studio that has previously done a Tin Woodman of Oz film. (I gave it a pretty big thumbs down)

The original story was clever in many ways, mostly by subverting romantic tropes. Although the Tin Woodman and the Tin Soldier are rivals for the affection of Nimmie Amee, neither of them really loves her. You see, now that they're tin, their hearts are not as capable of properly loving her (The Tin Woodman got a heart from the Wizard, but it was a kind heart rather than a loving heart. The Tin Soldier got a tin heart from the tinsmith, but it was cold and hard.). When they finally find her, they discover that she is married to an unusual man named Chopfyt who is actually made of their original meat parts (You know, the bits that got cut off and had to be replaced with tin). So, in a sense, neither of them wound up marrying Nimmie Amee and yet both of them did.

The movie adaptation revises the story so that the love story is played straight. The Tin Soldier is gone, though Nimmie Amee is still married to Chopfyt. But this happens early in the film, rather than at the climax. Instead, the Tin Woodman meets a Tin Girl (who happens to be a tin replica of Nimmee Amee) and falls in love with her over the course of their adventures.

Even though Baum wrote 14 books in the Oz series (and a number of other books as well), he never reverted to formula. Even when he was repeating himself, he never truly repeated himself. For example, Tik-Tok of Oz was an adaptation of his musical extravaganza The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (itself an adaptation of early Oz novel Ozma of Oz) . While each of those stories shared the same basic narrative, the details quickly became radically different.

So when you're preparing for your next Oz adventure, don't worry so much about the "supposed to"s. Baum didn't.

Laying It Out

2012-01-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

The visual impact of a game book is very nearly as important as the words in it. Illustrations are part of that, but another aspect is the layout of the book. For Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, I went for 2 separate layouts.

The print version of the book is laid out to measure 6 x 9 inches, a nice compact size that can fit on the shelf with your other Oz books, or game books.
But as I contemplated the digital release of my book, I realized that this layout was not quite right. While it can look fine on a screen, there are those PDF buyers who want to print the book out, either in whole or in part. And it's current layout would waste a lot of paper. So the PDF layout would have to be 8 1/2 x 11.

One of the problems with most game books in PDF is that they use a standard 2-column layout. Once you've zoomed in to the point where you can read it comfortably on a screen, your reading process is something like this: Read, scroll down, read more, scroll right, scroll up, read, scroll down, read more. A lot of scrolling, right? So I decided that I would throw that methodology out on its head. Or, more accurately, its side.
(Typical gaming PDF. Specifically the Advanced Player's Guide for the Pathfinder RPG by Paizo Publishing)
(Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road PDF layout)

By turning the page on its side, it's much easier to read. Once you've finished one column of text, simply scroll to the right and read the next column. While you might have to do some scaling to get this to work on your tablet, it is far less scaling than would be required of your typical gaming PDF.

So why not support gaming PDFs that are designed for the way you actually read them? And don't forget, you can also get AiO in EPUB format, a specialized format that dynamically lays itself out for optimum viewing, no matter what you're using to read it.

5e Doesn't Have To Suck

2012-01-17T19:33:00.000-08:00

As new developments are announced for the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, there is a seemingly inevitable litany of complaints.

This time, it's about the announcement that the modularity of the ruleset would allow players at the same table to use different character sheets and maybe even different rules. The more I think on it, though, the more I realize that it's not a terrible idea.

Let's say that the Basic Set for D&D 5e includes the basic combat system (truly the core of any version of D&D), basic classes, and a basic skill system (maybe only a few dungeon-specific skills that advance automatically by level, as in 4e).

Then the Advanced Set introduces feats for each class (Basic Set might have only included a few feats, or gone back to something like Weapon Proficiencies and thus feats are a supplement, not necessarily a replacement, for that), maybe some more classes built around ideas in the advanced combat rules, and the skill advancement is broken down into 3e-ish skill points for finer customization.

There's really nothing keeping an Advanced Character and a Basic character from sitting side by side. The Basic character may be proficient in 5 weapons and have a static value in their skills, while the Advanced character has spent his 5 proficiency slots being that much better with his longsword (maybe picking up a few tricks) and might have fewer points in each skill, but have points in more skills.

The only real challenge here seems to be the implementation of prestige classes (or whatever they decide to call them). For much of their existence, prestige classes bribed players to take them by offering significant power boosts when compared to a base-class character. But since Basic (no p-class) and Advanced (p-class allowed) characters would have to balance against each other, this sort of thing really can't happen.

There even seems to be hints of a 3rd set for activities "beyond the dungeon." with rules for social influence and kingdom building a la Birthright.

The real sticking point here (and I think it's valid as well) is that the pitch they have provided seems geared towards letting players decide the complexity of the rules used at the table, instead of the Dungeon Master. And since the DM is the one making the rulings on the events at the table, I think letting them make the decision as to what rules are going to be used in those rulings is perfectly fair.

Adventures in Oz goes Atomic!

2012-01-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

That's right, folks. The wonderful guys over at the Atomic Array have finally managed to make my deranged ramblings sound coherent. We talk about The Wizard of Oz, in movie and book form and how that all fits into a game.

Check it out!

2012-01-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

As someone mentioned on my Facebook fan page (I have one, you should check it out), I should mention conventions where I will be demoing AiO. And if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know that my favorite convention is coming up next month. That's right, DunDraCon!

Just like last year, I have signed up to run the sample adventure The Jaded City of Oz twice: Once as a walk-up game for their kids program (though grownups have shown up) and again on the regular convention schedule (requiring convention registration). If you were at either of these last year, you know that I gave away a free print copy of the game at each of these demos, making some gamers incredibly happy and others Insanely Jealous (TM). Depending on demand and my energy level, I might also make an appearance in the open gaming area and run unscheduled demos as well. (probably no freebies there, though.)

If you've already purchased a copy of AiO and you bring it to the convention, I will gladly autograph it or let you take my picture with it or whatever.

Oz Character of the Month: The Scarecrow

2012-01-05T21:32:00.000-08:00

Amusing fact: While everyone knows about the Twelve Days of Christmas, they generally don't know that these days fall after Christmas. These twelve days mark the time between Jesus' birth (Christmas) and the arrival of the Three Wise Men. So the Twelfth Day of Christmas is today. It's also my niece's birthday, so on the off chance that she's reading this: Happy Birthday!

Now on to business.

Our Oz character this month is another preview from the Characters Pack: The Scarecrow.

Speaking of the Characters Pack, it just went down to 99 cents. This is not a sale, but a permanent price drop. So if you've ever wanted to bring the heroes from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and lots of other classic Oz stories) into your game, there's never been a better time.

Another Year Come and Gone

2011-12-29T20:44:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is over and done with. I got some quality time with my family and I hope you all spent some time with yours.

Now to take a look at the past year and consider what path to take in the coming year.

Achievements for the blog:

Most popular post: While my initial post about Oz: Dark & Terrible garnered the most hits in this calendar year, the most popular post that I wrote this year was How Not To Promote Yourself On The Internet. It also qualified as the most commented post of the year, as well.

Apparently, snark sells on the internet. I got a bit of that myself in November thanks to the Mistress of Doom. The Mistress' blog has been taken down, but that little bit of "special attention" did some good.

Speaking of the Kickstarter, it qualifies as my lowest low point this year. Sales of AiO had been pretty slow, and I felt like I may have hit a ceiling in terms of getting customers. I figured the best way to get in more customers (or at least money) was to release another supplement. In order to get the money to do it, I tried Kickstarter.

As the month wore on and it didn't look like I was going to get funded, I was getting ready to throw in the towel. While I wouldn't delete the blog or my products (I don't really do fits of pique), I was going to step back from it and maybe try something else. Another blog, another game, who knows?

Then Teach Your Kids to Game Week happened. That made November my strongest sales month of the year. Certainly not the time to call it quits. Life is a funny thing sometimes.

Thanks to that sales boost, 2011 netted me 99 sales to date. Along with 108 from last year, I'm now at 207 sales overall. Not terribly strong, and not to my goal of 300 yet.

The Characters Pack, my first supplement, pulled in only 36 sales this year. Which is not bad, considering that it has pretty much paid for itself at this point.

So what is the future of AiO?

Like I said last year, my goal is too keep things small and manageable. The big things need the money that the little things generate in order to come about. So no more Beyond the Deadly Desert talk for a while.

It has always been in my plans to do adventures for AiO and things are finally getting to a point where I can hire writers and artists and such to do them. But wait! Aren't I a writer? Why am I not writing the adventures?

Frankly, the big reason is that The Jaded City of Oz, the sample adventure in the main book, was so crazy-awesome that I don't think I can come up with anything in the same league. Once the adventure pool has diversified some, I can definitely see myself giving it a go, though.

The blog will be changing some, too. I had originally intended this blog to be a marketing tool, so that people could see what I'm selling and why it's so awesome. But my desire to keep the blog on a weekly update schedule conflicts with that sometimes and the blog has become a bit more general. So, in marketing speak, the blog has become more about "conversation" than "conversion." While I don't think I can switch completely into "shilling mode", expect a little more product visibility.

What about my goal of getting into stores? Hasn't left my mind. I've got things to a point where I just need a bit of money to afford my initial inventory.

TLDR: I have lots of things I want to do, but I need my products to sell in order to do them.

Setting the Stakes

2011-12-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

I know it's just a few days until Christmas, but I started something with last week's blog and I want to see it through.

Last week, I talked about the benefits of allowing a player, through their character, to fail. This week, we're going to look just a little bit deeper at how a Narrator can do this effectively.

In Evil Hat's game Spirit of the Century, they give a particularly good piece of advice. Whenever a player describes an action, but before you get out the dice, consider what would happen if the player succeeds at the roll. Then consider what would happen if the roll failed. Only roll the dice if both potential results are interesting. Otherwise, assume the interesting result.

Let's look at an example. A player has built a Scholar character with a respectable Brains skill and the Narrator has some information that they want this player to have. While the Narrator is considering calling for a dice roll, first they look at the result of a successful roll which is that the player gets the information. But what happens on a failed roll? The player doesn't get the information. If this information is needed to advance the story, then that means the story comes to a screeching halt until that player succeeds on that dice roll. This is what I meant when I mentioned the "Mandatory Skill Roll Bug" last week.

Since failure isn't interesting, the Narrator assumes success. They give that player the information they need to advance the story.

Now, if the information wasn't vital to the adventure, then failure becomes interesting. Because the adventure can continue, but in a different way. So if the Scholar was going with his friends to face the Nome King, this Brains roll could be to remember that Nomes are vulnerable to eggs. Going against a Nome without eggs is possible, but eggs make it much easier.

Setting stakes in combat is vital for playing AiO. Since nothing dies in Oz, the loser of a battle does not simply move aside for the victor. If the Narrator wishes to do something like this, they are free to do so, declaring that the enemy ran away or fell unconscious or similar. But that removes the possibility of certain stories. An example I gave on the Pulp Gamer podcast was a defeated dragon crying in the corner of its cave.

The other reason that setting stakes in combat is so important is the possibility of losing. Since characters will survive their defeat, all the tricks that other games use to protect them from it become less important. But that means you have to be ready for when it happens. And just like things I've been saying, failure should be just as interesting as success or else it's not worth rolling for.

The Joy of Failure

2011-12-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

While there is no way to lose an RPG, since it has no inherent win conditions, it is possible to fail at your intended objective. And that's a good thing.

Failure teaches you things that you'd never learn by succeeding. How to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. How to look for alternate paths to success.

Video games can claim this benefit as well, but what makes an RPG unique is the lack of a reset switch. If you fail in a video game, your character generally dies (occasionally in a cool explosion) and the game resets to a point before you failed and lets you try again. So you try again from exactly the same initial condition.

One thing that amused me about the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was an early mission that took me a few tries to succeed at. Each time, I would get in the car with all my "homies" to do a driveby on a rival gang. Each time, they would fire back until my car and all my "peeps" exploded (though I was usually good enough to get out of the car before that point). Then I would go get the mission again and all those people who died in that car are miraculously alive as if nothing had happened. The exact same people.

But in an RPG, you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. If you fail to sneak past someone, they don't reset and let you try again. You have to find another way to accomplish your goal that doesn't involve sneaking.

Some Narrators may do something like this on accident. They'll tell you to make a roll but assume that you'll succeed. And the situation is set up in such a way that the only way to advance is with a successful skill roll. I've seen this called the "Mandatory Skill Roll Bug" though some of you might have your own name for it.

Video games also claim to support critical thinking. This is true, as player must figure out the solution to a problem in order to advance the plot of the game. Find the right weapon or find the right pattern to use in the boss battle. Find the key to access the new area. Which is good if there's only one solution to a given situation.

In an RPG, multiple solutions are possible, because your choices aren't limited by what a computer can anticipate, but by what a player and Narrator are willing to imagine. Instead of hunting all over the game world to find the one item that will accomplish a certain task, a player may decide to attempt the task with a similar item or look for a way to accomplish it without the item at all.

"The Jaded City of Oz", the sample adventure in the back of the Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, does this sort of thing very well. Each scene along the parade route does not have a preset solution that the players must stumble upon in order to advance the story. And since the parade goes on whether or not any of the scenes are fully resolved, players can even choose to avoid or ignore the encounters without "failing the mission" or cause the story to come to a crashing halt.

Why YOU Should Be Playing Adventures In Oz

2011-12-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

If you're a gamer:

It's a refreshing break from all that traditional elves and orcs fantasy.

It's rules-light, making it great for beer & pretzels-style gaming.

The setting has surprising breadth, so if you wanted to turn your beer & pretzels game into a
campaign, it is certainly doable.

"Munchkin" is a perfectly valid character concept.

If you're an Oz fan:

"Scratch an Oz fan and you'll get an Oz story." And here's a great tool to help you get your story out. You can create nearly any Oz hero you can think of and take them on all new adventures. Or take the role of the Narrator and present your players with challenging scenarios of your own design or inspired by your favorite Oz book.

Even if you're not planning on playing, the setting material can be used by writers as a reference or source of inspiration.

If you're a Grognard (you know who you are):

It's based on the book. As a grognard, you are quite literate. Your old school gaming sessions were inspired by Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft, but we all know you slipped in an Oz book every now and again.

You want to pass on your gaming legacy. Some of you are doing this with your old red box or maybe one of the retroclones, and that's great. But for some of you, it's just not clicking for your kids. Why not try something with a little more whimsy? And as much as we want our kids to find non-violent solutions to their problems, why are we sending them to fight monsters? Why not try a game with rules for friendship that can turn into magic?

If you're gay:

You can actually put "Friend of Dorothy" on your character sheet and it will give you bonuses.

Right now Lulu is offering 25% off if you order this week with the coupon code COUNTDOWN. Order soon if you want it to arrive by Christmas.

2011-12-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

I didn't think you guys would mind if I took a week off from the blog and spend time with my family for the Thanksgiving holiday. While I normally reserve the first post of the month for statting up something from the stories, I've got some stuff on my mind that I really want to get out right now.

By the time you read this, the Kickstarter for my setting supplement will likely have closed and failed. I've been watching the terribly slow rate of contributions for the last month, so Beyond the Deadly Desert has made equally slow progress.

It's hard not to be disappointed when things don't go the way you hoped. But I did learn a few things. Mainly that Adventures in Oz is not quite ready for prime time. Neither sales of the game itself nor the outpouring of fans was enough to bring another book our way.

So my next step is to get it there. Get it in stores (something I've wanted to do for a while, but have only somewhat managed) and get eyeballs on my game. Get people talking, get people playing. But I'm only one man with a very small budget. I'm gonna need some help.

A Few Updates

2011-11-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

Still doing what I can on Adventures in Oz: Beyond the Deadly Desert, so I just have the time to post a couple of news bulletins.

Over at RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, it's Teach Your Kids to Game Week. Not only is AiO at the top of the list (alphabetical order, of course), it's also on sale. Save 10% if you buy this week.

If you're anywhere near Jacksonville, North Carolina, don't forget to check out JaxCon this weekend. Oz author Ron Baxley Jr. will be there with illustrator Gwendolyn Tenille Adams to promote his book Cabbages, Kings and Even (Odd) Queens. He'll also come with not just one but TWO copies of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road that he'll be giving away

And finally, the Kickstarter over to the side hasn't gotten any attention over the last week and is starting to think you don't love it. There are less than two weeks left to contribute.

Beyond the Deadly Desert Preview: The Wheelers

2011-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

For everyone who lost sleep over these guys in Return to Oz, I give you a slightly more Ozzy (or Evian?) take on THE WHEELERS!

Wheelers

But she looked at each letter carefully, and finally discovered that these words were written in the sand:

"BEWARE THE WHEELERS!"

"That's rather strange," declared the hen, when Dorothy had read aloudthe words. "What do you suppose the Wheelers are?"

-- Ozma of Oz

The Wheelers try very hard to give themselves a very fierce reputation. They write warnings in the beach sand of their territory. They frighten everyone they meet with fierce yelling. Their clothes are brightly colored and elaborate.

It's all a show. Since the Wheelers have wheels instead of hands and feet, they cannot use weapons or other tools. While they can move swiftly on even ground, their wheels falter on rocky or uneven terrain. They only control a small territory in the land of Ev. Occasionally, they venture into other parts of the country, but their bullying nature makes them unwelcome guests.

[Box-Out]

A Revealing Question About Clothing

The simplest question is perhaps the one that could reveal the most about the Wheelers: How do they get dressed in the morning? Do they have servants or slaves of another race within their territory? Are they dressed by their mothers, who have developed hands or simply improved dexterity in their age? Or are they dressed by magic? Do they have magical clothes that go on by themselves, or a spell that every Wheeler learns to cast?

Their single appearance in the stories give us no answers to this question. Enterprising Narrators could come up with their own answer which could lead to any number of adventures.

[End Box-Out]

Wheeler Characters

The main thing to remember about building a Wheeler is their lack of arms. They should be required to take the No Arms trait. Playing up the bully aspect of a Wheeler would call for a high Presence skill, but low Wits. A Wheeler might choose to take a specialty in “wheeled speed”.

The Wheelers are unlikely to have Soldiers or Sorcerers, or else they would be taken more seriously by their neighbors.

Remember, if you want to see this book completed, please give to the Kickstarter. If I get the full amount, you can get access to Adventures in Oz: Beyond the Deadly Desert before anyone else. If not, you lose absolutely nothing.

Cast an Ozzy Spell: If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

2011-11-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

Any game designer will tell you that coming up with rules for magic is one of the toughest parts of the process. And making those rules fit the mold established by an existing work is even tougher.

One part of the rules I've never been fully happy with is Transmutation, the magical practice of transforming objects. In the book, I use a 1-5 scale to estimate the severity of change with few real guidelines. But I haven't had anything better to go on. Until now.

My current idea rates a transmutation on four points: Form, Function, Size, and Substance. Whenever a transmutation would change one of those things, the Power of the spell goes up by 1. If a category is severely altered, the Power can go up by 2. Let's run a few examples to illustrate.

Hanky Camp: This spell will transform 3 handkerchiefs into tents to allow a group of travelers to camp comfortably. From hanky to tent is a definite change to Form (1) and Function (1), as well as a severe change to Size (2). Substance is still very much the same, as both hankies and tents are made of fabric. Power 4

Mrs. Yoop's Breakfast: To start her day, Mrs. Yoop transmutes a pot of water into coffee. Form, Function, and Size are not significantly affected by the change. The main factor to change is Substance, making this only a Power 1 effect. Her “Rocks into Fishballs” spell is similarly a simple change in Substance, with the other factors staying significantly the same.

Try this rule out and let me know how it works for you.

Also, keep those contributions coming on the Kickstarter. According to that little widget over on the right, I'm only 3% funded and I have only 27 days to get the rest. And remember, according to the Kickstarter rules, if I don't get everything, I get nothing.

A Swift Kick In The Pants!

2011-11-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

A lot of people know November as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. While I may indeed have a novel in me, there's something else that I know you want more: Adventures in Oz: Beyond the Deadly Desert.

But publishing an RPG book isn't just a matter of writing it. Art, editing, layout and a number of other things are important as well. But all of those things cost money, and I don't have a whole heck of a lot of that. Sales aren't terribly strong in my little niche of a niche, so my motivation to complete the project has somewhat wavered.

Then I discovered Kickstarter. Rather than having to take out loans or owe my soul to family members, I can simply plead for the money I need in front of the entire Internet. My goal is to raise $3000 over the next 30 days. (Link Here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575175333/adventures-in-oz-beyond-the-deadly-desert)

There are a couple of particularly nifty things about Kickstarter. For one, if I don't make my entire amount, nobody pays anything. For another, creators are encouraged to offer prizes to their contributors. And I am. Smaller contributions will receive digital copies, while larger contributions will receive print copies. Some contributors can even receive a special thank-you in the book itself!

Hopefully, with these two powerful motivators, NaNoWriMo and Kickstarter, I can get Beyond the Deadly Desert into the hot little hands of my voracious fans.

Smith & Tinkering

2011-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I actually am working on Beyond the Deadly Desert (And I'll have a special announcement in that regard in a few days).

One of the things I'm wrangling with is letting players take on the role of inventors like Smith & Tinker, the duo who crafted Tik-Tok. The options that I'm thinking of are:

1) A character who has purchased the Craftsman trait can make wonders given sufficient time and effort.

2) A character who has purchased the Craftsman trait can make wonders by following the basic procedures for making magic items (gather exotic ingredients/spend Oz Points).

3) A character must purchase the Craftsman trait as well as an additional 1-point trait in order to make wonders using the rules for making magic items.

The big question is: How rare are such geniuses? Was Mr. Tinker simply specialized in a different way than Ku-Klip the Tinsmith, did he have access to better materials, or did he have a much greater understanding of his craft?

What do you think?

Occupy Emerald City

2011-10-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Not Seattle, of course, but the Emerald City of Oz.

That's the premise of a rather interesting story I read some time ago called Up The Rainbow by Susan Casper. It was published in the December 1994 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (which is the form I have it in). A quick Google search reveals that it was once available as an e-book, but none of the listed sellers are selling it any more. (If anyone can find a legal download link for this story, please let me know. It's a good story and I'd like to share it with you)

When the story opens, Dorothy Gale has died at the ripe old age of 93. Her granddaughter, Gale Osterman is therefore all alone, having separated from her husband earlier in the year and left her job behind to care for her grandmother in her final days. While it was generally acknowledged that Grandma Dorothy was THE Dorothy from the Oz stories, everyone thinks that she was merely the inspiration for the stories rather than the actual heroine.

As she's going through her grandmother's personal things along with her cat Spooky, she discovers a small stone with the letters OZ etched into it. A few moments later, they find themselves magically transported to Oz, where they discover that Spooky can now talk (and has a bit of a pottymouth).

After a bit of confusion, Gale is accepted as Dorothy's granddaughter and made a Princess of Oz. Preparations are made for a great feast to be held to mark the occasion. In the meanwhile, it's time for the Scarecrow to get his eyes repainted by Jinjur and Gale is sent along to give her something to do.

Gale and the Scarecrow are separated, leaving Gale to wander around Munchkinland on her own. While trying to find the Scarecrow and Jinjur, she winds up meeting some of the normal citizens of Oz who ask her to intercede on their behalf with Ozma. As she listens to these stories, she realizes that Oz isn't the perfect world Baum presented it as.
Although her passion for social justice faded when her marriage collapsed (her and her husband were both devoted activists), she finds it rekindled and helps organize the people of Oz into a protest movement. She even helps them paint signs with such clever mottoes as "Ban The Baum" and "Magic Is A Rite."

The land of Oz had never seen non-violent resistance. Glinda's girl army had no one to fight, even though the mob refused to disperse at Ozma's command. So they had nothing left to do but negotiate.

Now, many of you Oz fans are reading this and shaking your heads. Because you've all read stories exactly like this and they all suck. But this story showed no signs of being a Fix Fic or Author Tract, and Gale is definitely not a Mary Sue. Rather, the story focuses on Gale and how these events reignite her activist spirit. I found the main idea of the story rather close to an idea that was originally presented in Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The idea that "Whatever it is you want or think you need, you already have it."

Also, the complaints that the people of Oz have could present some interesting scenarios for adventures.

In the story, there's a little boy who would very much like to grow up, even though it means that he'll eventually grow old and die. Perhaps your players could encounter an Ozite looking to die by seeking out all of the dangers of Oz. Or a boy who wishes to undergo a Rite of Passage so that he may become a man. This is, of course, a magical rite that will transform him into an adult.

The story also challenges the ban on magic in Oz. Dr. Pipt may no longer be crooked, but all of the time and energy he spent learning his magic is now wasted without his ability to use it. Another character is a seamstress who could make magical clothing before the ban went into effect.

So what if your game includes a helpful sorcerer who is nevertheless persecuted because of his magical practice? Heck, what about Red Reera, who pretty much ended the Flathead/Skeezer War from her cottage? Although she chooses to remain hidden at the end of the story, what about later? What's going to happen when Ozma discovers her? Will her power be taken away, or will she be allowed to keep it in gratitude for her service?

This Is The (Emerald) City

2011-10-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

This week, we're stepping out of the Palace and hitting the streets of the Emerald City.

The most curious feature of the city, and all of Oz in general is its lack of money. While early stories mention money in passing, it is never a plot point. By Road to Oz, Baum had apparently decided that money didn't exist in Oz.

So why do people work if there's no money, no way to get ahead? Largely out of necessity. In communities as small as those in Oz (the largest population number we are given is 101), every hand is needed to ensure the success of the entire community. Most communities have a leader of some kind, whether they call that person Mayor, Duke, King or Queen. This person is generally well taken care of by their community, but exactly how well depends on how much the community is willing or able to provide. If the community cannot use all that it produces, the excess usually gets sent to a regional potentate (such as Emperor Nick Chopper of the Winkies) or directly to the Emerald City.

Larger communities (such as the massive Emerald City) make this sort of arrangement trickier, but not impossible. Princess Ozma (or more likely, some functionary) takes a direct role in the distribution of needed supplies to and from the Royal Storehouses, combining a degree of socialism with the relatively pure communism of rural Oz.

The Emerald City does have a number of shops lining its streets, but most of these are more accurately described as distribution centers. Emerald Citizens may go into any shop and ask for items that they want or need. Other shops are workshops, where craftsmen receive a share of raw materials from the Royal Stores and turn it into finished products before passing it on to customers.

The tradition of hospitality that exists throughout Oz is still upheld in the Emerald City. A number of inns, hotels, restaurants and pubs serve travelers and locals who need a night out, a place to meet with friends, or simply a quick bite between here and there. So if you feel like doing the whole "You all meet in a tavern" bit, you can definitely do that.

What does this do for crime? Between the lack of material need and the fact that nobody can be killed, there's not a lot of crime in the Emerald City. But the crime that does happen tends to be personal. If someone steals from you, it's because they want that object, not because they can sell it for a lot of money.

One crime that is unique to the Emerald City is that of Mooching. That is, enjoying the benefits of the Emerald City's distribution network without contributing to the welfare of the city. The easiest way to do this is to avoid work. Some gluttons take deliberate pains to accumulate all the goods they can acquire, but these criminals don't last too long. They will either get discovered in short order, or they will burn out on consumption rather soon. If you are caught breaking this law, you will either be given work or asked to leave the city.

Law enforcement is fairly weak. There are no police, but none are really necessary. Because of how the city works, criminals stand out. Thieves steal personal treasures, not costly knickknacks. Unlawful practice of magic leads to more powerful and more obvious spells. The Guardian of the Gates is most often called upon for law enforcement duties, as his previous responsibility of fitting green glasses to everyone entering the city has become irrelevant. He is not terribly clever, but he's friendly enough that he gets the help he needs to ensure the safety of the Emerald City and its people.

Cast An Ozzy Spell: The Magic Book of Records

2011-10-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

This book is said to be one of the most powerful magical objects in all of Oz. Within its pages is a description of every event as it occurs, no matter how small. Even though the book is very large, the amount of information within it means that the writing must be very small.

Power: Divination (2)
Scope: The Whole World (5)
Ritual: Complex (-1)
Item: Limited Use (-2)
Effect Power: 4

As with most information gathering magic, the Scope is determined by the area that is being scanned for information. Although the book requires no actual magical ritual to use it, it must be read closely and researched in order to gain useful knowledge, which takes sufficient effort that I'm making it worth a discount. The Limited Use modifier represents the fact that the Book is permanently housed in Glinda's Palace and anyone wishing to use it must travel there.

The Emerald Sandbox

2011-10-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

I know this is late, but it's taken some time to assemble my thoughts on this subject.

Last week, I talked about using the land of Oz, or some section thereof as a sandbox/pinball setting and creating things for characters to bounce off of. This week, I want to go to the heart of Oz, the Emerald City.

There are actually two levels to an Emerald City campaign: The Palace, and the City itself. Most familiar to Oz fans is the Palace, containing Ozma, Dorothy and all of their friends. It's where many stories start, end, or simply change.

The challenge of the Palace is that everyone gets along. A story can't really happen unless there's a conflict to resolve. Now, your characters can provide that conflict, trying to push their agenda and watching how their favorite Oz characters react to it. But if they just want to bounce off of the established cast, you should put more effort into strengthening the differences that the characters have.

While I tend to point to the Emerald City as the point where my playtest campaign fell flat, there were a couple of things that went well. Specifically, Bungle the Glass Cat and Jellia Jamb. The reason being that both of these characters had agendas. Jellia likes playing jokes on people and Bungle wants to be admired.

Coming up with conflicting agendas for the different characters doesn't mean that they have to become enemies or even stop liking each other. Take The Wogglebug and the Scarecrow, for example. Both of them are smart people, but go about it rather differently. The Scarecrow was created knowing nothing, and is eager to learn new things. The Wogglebug studied in the classroom of Professor Nowitall and is eager to show off what he knows. So the Scarecrow's agenda of "learn new things" can interact with Woigglebug's agenda "Show off what you know" in a number of ways, including a few that can create a story-worthy conflict.

Next week, I will stat some Ozzy thing from the books (If there's something you would like to see, feel free to ask for it) and the week after, I'll try to continue with a look at the mean (not really) streets of the Emerald City.

Building an Ozzy Sandbox

2011-09-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Latest results on the poll are a bit more encouraging. No one admits to having played the game (which sucks) but "No, but I really want to!" has 9 votes, beating the flat "No", which only got 5.

If you want to do a classic "Wandering Adventurers" campaign, that is totally doable (Just ask Woot) and there are tons of adventure seeds and ideas in the rulebook to support that. But what if you want to explore a single area in depth? That's when we start talking sandbox (or pinball, to use my preferred metaphor).

If you wanted to create a sandbox of original creations, both the Munchkin and Gillikin countries have plenty of unexplored space to put whatever you want. Or you could take advantage of the well-documented Quadling Country. The Emerald City is also a great setting for a campaign; Not only does it have immense variety within itself, but it can also lead to a variety of adventures in Oz at large.

The hard part about building a pinball machine from existing Oz material is that many of the countries exist by themselves, with no real relations to their neighbors. In fact some, like the Cuttenclip Village and Bunnybury, are strongly isolationist in order to protect their citizens. But there are some that can clearly benefit from connecting to other communities. For example, Bunbury and Utensia. Bunbury is populated by living baked goods, while the people of Utensia are living kitchen utensils. Perhaps, when a boy Bunn and a girl Bunn love each other very much, they take a trip over to Utensia. After much preparation, they are finally ready to put their little baby Bunn in the oven to be properly baked.

Suddenly, new adventures present themselves. What if Mayor Cinnamon Bunn's son fell in love with the daughter of his enemy, Herr Kaiser Roll and the lovebuns are dashing away to a honeymoon in Utensia? Worse yet, what if, in their hurry, they get terribly lost and head toward the Forest of Fighting Trees? Now, on top of the challenge of locating the lost couple, your players have to keep them from getting smashed into crumbs by the Fighting Trees.

Creating these sorts of connections will give your players plenty of pins and bumpers for their characters to bounce off of into all sorts of directions.

Speak Out With Your Geek Out

2011-09-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

As part of the Speak Out With Your Geek Out event, I'd like to talk about something that really gets my geek engine revving. A lot of other people are taking on the really big subjects (RPGs, Star Trek, Doctor Who), so I have decided to take on a slightly lesser known subject: The Greatest American Hero.

I was only 3 years old or so when it first aired in 1981. In fact, I can't recall seeing a complete episode until I discovered the series last year on Youtube. I devoured every episode in a pretty short time.

The series stars William Katt as Ralph Hinkley, a teacher who is trying to make a difference to a class of miscreants and troublemakers. His life changes drastically (and not always for the better) when he gets a super-suit from an alien encounter and proceeds to lose the instructions. He is helped (somewhat) by an FBI agent named Bill Maxwell and his girlfriend (later wife) Pam Davidson.

I love this show because it combined two things that I love immensely: superheroes and comedy. Ralph never really got the hang of flying (or landing, for that matter). And in spite of the immense strength granted by the suit, he was never much in the muscles department.

My favorite episode was “Captain Bellybuster and the Speed Factory.” In this episode, Ralph teams up with Captain Bellybuster, a burger chain mascot who is working to topple the meth traffickers who are putting the squeeze on his boss. While many fans point to the first season's “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” as an episode with Ralph pondering what it means to be a hero, “Captain Bellybuster” is much the same, but with a bit more humor.

One thing I've wanted to do was run a roleplaying campaign using this series as inspiration. The main characters would be granted a super-suit, but no support in using it. It would be a sandbox/pinball campaign as the players try to balance saving the world, developing their (initially meager) powers and all the other priorities in their characters' lives.

How NOT To Promote Yourself On The Internet

2011-09-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Never heard of Drylor? You're not the only one. And that makes Ryan Tomasella one sad panda.

You see, Ryan wrote a fantasy novel called Drylor: The First Artifact. Then he self-published it. Now he expects to be viewed in the same light as J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks.

As some of you may know, I'm self-published. The key difference is that I am very aware of that fact. I don't assume that because some POD firm prints copies of something that I created, I'm now on a level with L. Frank Baum, Gary Gygax, or even Michael Stackpole.

Yesterday, he attempted to create a Wikipedia page about his fantasy world of Drylor. Within 20 minutes of the page's creation, it was flagged for speedy deletion because an editor presumed it was a hoax. Only after the page was deleted (and Tomasella made a few choice edits to a number of editors' talk pages) was it finally considered not a hoax. But the deletion stands because the content does not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria.

Word to the wise: Do not create Wikipedia articles if you are not notable. Stick to TVTropes, where there's no such thing as notability.

Gaming in Oz

2011-09-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Looking at the poll over to the side, I'm finding the answers so far to be a little disheartening. 4 responses so far, all people who have never played Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. Only one of them selected something other than the flat "No" response.

Some of you might be telling yourselves that it's a kids' game, so you're saving it for when your kids are old enough to play. Or maybe you think it would be a hard sell with your regular gaming group. Or you can't think of any adventures that would suit the game particularly well.

Wrong on all counts. AiO has been played by grownups for as long as it's been played. If you think playing this game is going to make you have to burst into song or anything silly like that, you have really got the wrong impression. Sure, it's a game about friendship. But that doesn't mean it's all My Little Pony. (Unless you really want it to be.)

And with all the indie games out there that let you take a punch in the girlfriend or drag your character around by the Aspects, I can't see AiO being such a hard sell. Just tell your friends the origin of the Tin Woodman (Don't know it? Shame on you!) and they'll be all like "Dude, that's so cyberpunk but fairytale at the same time. I'm in."

If you can come up with adventures, you can come up with Oz adventures. In the campaign I ran, I had floating spaghetti, flying ninjas, and tea with the Cowardly Lion. Should another Oz campaign arise in my future, I expect even more awesome.

For the record, if that poll hadn't been so disappointing, this blog would have been about taverns in Oz and how you can all meet there.

So what are you waiting for? GET PLAYING!

Cast an Ozzy Spell: The Witch's Kiss

2011-09-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

First off, sorry about the late post. Work has been sucking the life out of me for a while now, and it's taking its toll.

You may have noticed that I have a new poll up. I want to know who's playing Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. So if you've ever earned, spent, or handed out an Oz Point, let us know!

Everyone who's read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz knows that the Good Witch of the North casts a spell of protection over Dorothy shortly after she arrives in Oz. But since the spell is never triggered in that story, or any other Baum Oz story, we never discover what it sort of protection it provided. Some later authors, including Eric Shanower, have provided explanations, so here's mine.

While it's easy for an author to say "spell of protection", as a game designer, I've got to figure out what that means. I ultimately decided that the spell is actually a Scrying effect. It lets the Good Witch of the North know when Dorothy is hurt or injured and allows her to use other magic wherever Dorothy is. Which is why no one dares to harm someone who has received the Witch's Kiss.

The Witch's Kiss

Power: Scrying (1)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: None (0)
Effect Power: 1

Although this spell does require the Witch to kiss the subject of the effect (a Simple Ritual), it does not require any activation once it is in place.

Remember, all this is only important if a player with a spellcasting character wants this effect. I consider this spell a perfect justification for putting the Good Witch of the North on Dorothy's Friends List. But if you've seen Dorothy's character sheet, her Friends List only has Ozma on it. What's going on?

Technically, Dorothy's Friends List is a mile long. But when I'm doing character stats, I build them according to the rules. Which means only 1 friend who isn't controlled by another player. Since Ozma is Dorothy's most powerful and iconic friend, she gets the spot. If you wanted to do a "Just Arrived" game with Dorothy controlled by a player, feel free to switch her out for the Good Witch of the North.

Pick Your Own Picaresque

2011-08-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

For those not familiar with the term, picaresque refers to a novel that is largely episodic, without an overarching plot. A number of the Oz books fit into this mold. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz and The Road to Oz are the most picaresque of the Oz stories.

The Emerald City of Oz is a curious example, because while the Nome invasion plot thread clearly demonstrates rising action building to a climax, it is interspersed with a very picaresque tour of Oz. Even in more focused stories, like Glinda of Oz, there are often small encounters that do not feed into the main plot.

The only stories that do not feature picaresque elements are The Land of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, and The Magic of Oz. While Patchwork Girl has characters wandering all over Oz, it is in support of the overarching plot of Ojo trying to rescue Unc Nunkie.

Gamers are familiar with the picaresque, though they might not think to call it that. Consider the typical "wandering adventurers" campaign. The heroes wander into town and discover some nasty bugaboo causing trouble. They seek out it's dungeon *ahem* lair, and stop the trouble. On to the next town. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you're running an AiO campaign, this basically means that you shouldn't be afraid to throw in something random and cool as your adventurers are on their way to the important stuff. Or throw in something random and cool when you can't think of an epic plot.

And now for something completely different...

2011-08-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

Inspired by this post.

One thing that's been missing from this blog has been adventure ideas. I put so many of them into the book itself that it felt like a pretty dry well. For the most part, I tried to avoid suggesting re-treading existing stories in order to emphasize the idea of making Oz your own.

But there is some mileage to be gained from going back to the classics. Just like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead provides some interesting insights into Hamlet, running an adventure that runs alongside an existing story can be fun.

For example, in The Lost Princess of Oz, four search parties set out to find Ozma, but we only see what happens to two of those search parties. What did the other parties encounter? What adventures did they have? The Magic of Oz is the story of how Trot and Dorothy got presents for Ozma's birthday. But what about some of the other gifts that Ozma received? What are the stories behind them?

And if you're ever stuck for a plot, just recycle an old one. Baum did it all the time. Ozma of Oz went on stage as The Tiktok Man of Oz and then came back to the novel series as Tik-Tok of Oz. Scarecrow of Oz runs Trot and Cap'n Bill through His Majesty the Scarecrow of Oz

Ozma's Birthday Sale!

2011-08-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

From now until Saturday, August 20th, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is going on sale. You can purchase the print version (or the print/PDF bundle where allowed) for just $11.99, 20% off the cover price. That's the print version over at Lulu, RPGNow, and Drivethru RPG, or the Print/PDF bundle offered at RPGNow and DrivethruRPG.

And for those who have been paying attention, the PDF version has been repriced to $6.99, instead of its original price of $7.99. This is a permanent adjustment and is not part of the Ozma's Birthday Sale.

Everything...is...going...dark...

2011-08-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

While it's not my favorite topic, or one I have a lot of experience with, I want to touch on "dark gaming." Because people keep thinking that Oz: Dark & Terrible is a dark game.

In my mind, darkness is about evil as the dominant force in the setting. But one thing that people forget is that good is just as important to making a setting dark. Nothing makes us realize how dark it is like a momentary burst of light.

The Oz described in Gregory MaGuire's Wicked is dark because of the domination of the power-hungry Wizard. While Elphaba is an extremist, the fact that she is doing it for a cause that she (and we) believe is morally right, it is much easier to see her as the "good guy" in that scenario.

The Dark Oz comics published by Caliber show an Oz conquered by the Nome King, with a little help from Mombi. That's pretty dark right there. The only real ray of light here is the heroes, trying to free Ozma and restore her to the throne of Oz.

Oz: Dark & Terrible has lots of grey, but damn little true darkness. The Wizard has been transformed into giant animatronic head, but he is credited with genuinely good intentions toward the people of Oz. Glinda is trying to improve the lot of the primitive African Quadlings she rules over, but she's doing it by bringing in her fellow Gillikins to lead by example.

What little darkness we do get mostly comes in the form of Wicked Witches, notably the Wicked Witch of the West and Blinkie, the former Witch of the South. And both of them are simplistic, mustache-twirling evil (not that either of them have mustaches, but you get my point).

The other problem is that there is damn little light. Some character or aspect of the setting that is noble and good could make the whole setting a lot darker, even as it is, just by simple contrast. Judicious use of light could highlight those shadows ominously.

Oz Character of the Month: The Wizard (Again)

2011-08-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated in the poll last month. A few more responses than the last one, which I find encouraging. It looks like L. Frank Baum is the winner as everyone's favorite Oz author. 9 out of 15 votes went to him. His successor on the Famous Forty, Ruth Plumly Thompson, came in second with 3 votes. The number 3 slot goes to James Wallace II, author of the Magician of Oz trilogy with 2 votes. Although he did try to "win" the poll by getting people to vote for him (I may not post much, but I do check my Facebook regularly, James ;) Only one unclaimed vote this time around, so I'm going to give it to Ron Baxley Jr.

Last month's Oz character was a non-magical version of the Wizard. This version is the Wizard from later in the series, after he learned magic from Glinda. Even though this version is technically more experienced than the version from last month, both of them are built using the same rules for starting characters.

If you're wondering why, it's for a couple of reasons. First of all, there really aren't any rules for building advanced characters in the game. The second reason is that point of posting characters in the first place is to show people what types of characters can be built using just the basic rules.

Name: Oscar Zoroaster P.I.N.H.E.A. Diggs
First Appearance: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (though the Wizard didn't learn magic until sometime before The Road to Oz)
Template: Wanderer
Size: 3

Basic Skills

Athletics: 1
Awareness: 2
Brains: 4
Presence: 4 (The Great and Powerful Oz)
Sneaking: 1
Wits: 2

Traits: Sorcery, Magical Toolkit, Poet

Friends List: Glinda

Adventures in Oz: An Inclusive RPG

2011-07-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

While Heartbreak & Heroines seems to be cancelled, it has given us all some food for thought about the idea of inclusion in RPGs. Or at very least drawn attention to the fact that we're more exclusive than we think we are.

Like it or not, the typical gamer is male. So most of the marketing dollars spent in the RPG industry are reaching out to those men, playing on their desire to be badass fantasy heroes and be surrounded by nubile women. Although some of those nubile women are now fighting alongside the heroes rather than waiting to be rescued and claimed as a quest reward.

As soon as I set about writing an Oz RPG, I knew that I could not in good conscience cater specifically to this market. Because Oz really is a setting for everyone.

My first step came with the writing. While it is commonplace to use the pronoun "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun, I decided to avoid gendered language as much as possible. This does mean that "they" comes up a good bit. There are those who say that using "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun is bad grammar, which might be why I get a lot of knocks for my grammar in reviews. I only used gendered pronouns when I was referring to a specific, gendered character. (Chick the Cherub is going to get interesting when I do Beyond the Deadly Desert)

The next step was the art. While I did not make a point of asking for non-sexed-up art, I was very glad that I did not receive any. Many of the female Oz characters are frequently described as beautiful, but this is the sexiest piece of art I received. Notice that she is sexy without being sexed up. No revealing clothing. No distorted anatomy designed to show off T&A.

The Women of Oz

2011-07-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

My original idea for this week's blog was to look at the strong female characters of the Oz stories. Heroines and villainesses, rulers and sorcerers. But then I thought of the gamers in my audience (all 3 of you) and wanted to give them something a little more concrete than a book review. So then I thought about the issue of gender at the gaming table.

Tabletop RPGs, like many other geek activities, is predominantly a male activity. (In fact, the only geek activity I can think of that is predominantly female is cosplaying). I'm male, though I have gamed with women (notably my wife). My Monday night OSRIC campaign has one female player. Since her character has the highest Strength score in the party, we all call her "Boots", as she's the one with the best chance to kick down doors. My Thursday night IronClaw game has two female players, one of whom is playing a female Rhinoceros Pit Fighter.

But I know I'm not typical. There are horror stories floating around the net about female players being sexually harassed by the other players or even the Game Master. Like the group that played the world of Gor (JFGI) and had the one female character that spent most of her time getting traded around by the male characters.

The other night, I found this interesting little item: Heartbreaks and Heroines, a feminist RPG. I found it via this great big honking thread on RPG.Net, which is probably still growing as this gets posted. What is a "feminist RPG"? Apparently one that puts women in the primary roles and focuses on the emotional journey of becoming a hero and finding your place in the world.

But wait, if all feminists really want is equality and parity with men, why have a game that emphasizes women? The answer seems to be to create a deliberate imbalance in one segment (the players of one game) in order to create parity in the gamer population at large.

While the project is fully funded, I'm sure the designers would appreciate an extra buck or two to help propel the project even further.

Probably just the sour grapes talking...

2011-07-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Before I set about whining, I'd just like to mention an Oz author who did not make it onto my big list. Ron Baxley Jr. He wrote the book "The Talking City of Oz" which was originally published by March Laumer's Vanitas Press back in 1999. He recently teamed up with an Oz author who is on the list, James Wallace III, to write Of Cabbages, Kings and Even (Odd) Queens, an Oz/Wonderland crossover novel. Both of those works are in the process of receiving second editions later this year, so hold on to your wallets until these guys have a chance to wow you.

If you want Ron to be noted as your favorite Oz author, just choose "other" in the poll on the side and then add a comment to any blog post declaring your love for Ron. And do it soon, as the poll closes in just two weeks.

Now on with the whining,

Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road has not made a huge splash in the gaming world. That's not surprising, as I don't have a large promotional budget, or a big budget at all, really. So when the Ennies rolled around for this year, I decided to go for it. It seemed like the process was deliberately designed to be accessible to the little guy, so I thought I had a chance. Especially with the good reviews that I've gotten over the past year.

But when the nominations rolled around, it quickly became clear that this playground had already been claimed by the big boys. No room for the little upstart with a small budget and a big dream.

While I was munching on sour grapes over in the corner, I stumbled upon this. Wundergeek mostly focuses on the pit of misogyny that is the video game industry, but she does take some time for us tabletop gamers every now and again. I feel slightly better now, knowing that AiO would likely pass her criteria for a successful female depiction on the cover of an RPG. (Note that I have not asked her to examine this at all, so she has not endorsed this in any way shape or form.)

While there is only one female figure in the image, that female figure is A) centered in the image and B) not sexualized at all.

So I feel slightly better. There is some standard by which I am clearly better than those pesky Ennie nominees.

And the nominees are....

2011-07-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

A bunch of people that are not me. :(

Oz Character of the Month: The Wizard

2011-07-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

While I didn't announce it last week, I did put up a new poll. I want to know who your favorite Oz author is. I put up a pretty broad list, but not broad enough, it seems. I'm hoping whoever cast that vote will tell me who their favorite Oz author is.

Also, tomorrow is the scheduled announcement for the Ennie Award nominations. There were quite a few entries, so it's still anyone's game. Watch this space, as well as the official Ennies site, tomorrow to see if I got the nomination.

There's a new poll up, as well. It's been up for a while, but I forgot to mention it last week. So who's your favorite Oz author, old or new? Inquiring minds want to know.

Now for our Oz character of the month. This a humbug version of the Wizard, as he might have been during his reign in the Emerald City or in his adventures leading up to Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. We'll take a look at a magically empowered version of the Wizard a bit later.

Name: Oscar Zoroaster P.I.N.H.E.A. Diggs
First Appearance: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Template: Wanderer
Size: 3

Basic Skills

Athletics: 2
Awareness: 2
Brains: 3
Presence: 4 (The Great and Powerful Oz)
Sneaking: 2
Wits: 2

Traits: Humbug Magic

Friends List: Bailum and Barney Consolidated Shows

Gaming Without A License

2011-06-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

A recent review of my game wondered why I had chosen to slap a copyright on my work, rather than opening up my game with an Open Gaming License or Creative Commons license. This was something that I had pondered when I was releasing the game, but I ultimately decided against it.

For one thing, just because other people can reference my work is no guarantee that they will (or won't). Back in the early days of the Open Gaming craze, Gold Rush Games released their Action System as a universal game engine released under the OGL. It failed to take off and Gold Rush Games is no longer a going concern.

And since I'm just a guy with a dream, I had no expectations that I would make a big splash in the world of gaming (and my sales numbers are bearing that out). Certainly not enough to hitch my wagon to the idea of everyone being inspired by my work.

The other reason is quality control. As many long-time D20 players will tell you, there's a lot of crap out there for the D20 System. And I do mean crap. Because when the OGL was unveiled (back in the year 2000), suddenly everyone and their dog (especially their dog) tried to make a million dollars riding the coattails of the D&D brand.

Having a single official source for AiO material means that you can expect consistency (if not quality) out of the product line.

Fording the Amazon

2011-06-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com, that is.

In last week's update, I mentioned that CreateSpace had finally accepted my files and that I had ordered a proof copy. It arrived last Friday and passes muster. As of this writing, it is available directly from CreateSpace, with Amazon following shortly. Once it hits the main site, a link will be posted forthwith. EDIT: Here it is!

Also, it seems that Lulu is closing down certain elements of their site. Such as their multimedia section. Which just happens to be where I stow my PDFs, since they don't seem to mesh with what Lulu calls an e-book. But since Lulu was kind enough to convert my PDF over to an e-book (EPUB format) for the iBookstore, I can also sell that over in the e-book section of their site (like so).

With so much news, I don't have room for my usual natter. But I'm sure it's only temporary, so I'm accumulating natter for when the news dries up.

Oz Is All Around!

2011-06-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit of good news. I have recently begun work on Adventures in Oz: Beyond the Deadly Desert. You know, that supplement that I've been meaning to work on for about a year and a half.

What's been keeping me? A number of excuses, really. But the big one I like to point at is the fact that my old laptop died. Well, its floppy drive died. And that was the only way to get information off of it. That left me with only one desktop computer to share with my wife and not enough time to squeeze in everything I wanted to do. Enough to keep up the blog, but not enough to get any serious writing done.

So in the aftermath of the wedding, we got a nice little infusion of gifts and money. Enough to get a little something that I had wanted for quite some time. A cute little netbook. Enough computer to get me writing again, but not enough computer to distract me with MMOs. And I do loves me some D&D Online.

Also, you will notice that the blog is growing a few tabs. This is because I've gotten enough digs at my old site with my lack of HTML skills and poor updating habits. So I'm going to try to flesh out this blog into an actual site and have www.adventuresinoz-rpg.com redirect straight here. Let me know if you have any tips or suggestions for this process or any content you want to make sure is included.

If you caught the blog a few days ago, you'll know that I got a couple of local shops to carry a copy of AiO. Not long after that, I got a notice from Lulu that they had completed the process of converting my book into an ePub and placing it on Apple's iBookstore. Although I had mostly given up on CreateSpace (their file review process is finicky and at least a little inconsistent), I finally got them to accept the files for AiO there. I've ordered a proof copy and it should show up sometime in the next week. If it passes muster (I have reservations on that front), Amazon.com customers will be able to buy Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road from that site.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll off on the right. It's helping me get a view on my readership. The majority (4 out of 11 responses) of you seem to have gotten the game from Lulu. This could be because it's where the link on my homepage sends you, or the fact that it's been up there the longest. There are two of you who have not purchased the game yet. I hope you guys are finding value in the blog, even if you don't own a copy. And as for the guys who voted "other", I'm curious where you picked it up if not from an official outlet. If you're pirates, it's clear that you were impressed enough with the game to track down the blog, so I'll take that as a compliment. If you picked up the physical book on the used rack at your local gamestore, I'm just a little curious as to where this store is. Maybe they'd like a few copies to put on their regular shelves.

I'll try to have a new poll up by next week, giving me a better picture of my fanbase. Thanks for participating in this one.

Now Sold In Stores!

2011-06-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Well, kind of. I finally got around to scouting some somewhat local book and game stores (a little farther field than I normally go) up in Arcata, California. It's another city, so it's not a commute I like to do regularly. Another reason it's taken me this long is that I was afraid of getting turned down. For quite some time, there has been only one creditable game store in the county. And it's a game store that had lost my business many years ago (long story). Also, there was another local publisher several years ago (Vajra Enterprises, to be exact, though the fellow is no longer local), and I don't know if he got any respect from this game store. I saw a copy of his first game (Fates Worse Than Death) on the used rack at this store, but never on the regular shelves.

But then I recently heard of a new game store (specifically NuGames) in a nearby city. It's primarily a LAN arcade, but they do have regular Magic: The Gathering tournaments as well as supporting the D&D Encounters Organized Play program (though or some reason it's not mentioned on their site). The store's owner was very nice to me, but did warn me that it might be a tough sell. She did accept a copy for consignment sale.

My next stop was at Northtown Books. When I had been asking around my hometown of Eureka, this was a store that had been mentioned to me as someplace that was supportive of local authors. They asked remarkably few questions about the book and set about getting a consignment set up for the copy I had brought along.

So there are now two stores that have Adventures in Oz available on a consignment basis. Please tell people to buy them so that this can become a regular thing.

Marshall the Troupes!

2011-06-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

No, that's not a mis-spelling. This post is going to be talking about what is often called "troupe-style" roleplaying.

The most common style of play in RPGs involves a player playing a single character until that character dies or retires. Then they create another character and plays through their adventuring life and so on.

Troupe-style play gives each player multiple characters to choose from for any given adventure. So if you were playing a Star Trek RPG, you would play your Starfleet Marine for a combat mission, but bring your Diplomacy Corps officer for a diplomatic mission. Or maybe your pilot who just happens to speak Romulan, since the diplomatic mission takes place near Romulan space.

For those following Barking Alien's Muppet RPG as he's posting it on his blog, you might notice that each player begins play with multiple characters. While each player participates in every scene/sketch, they do so as different characters.

Old School gamers already did something like this back in the day, pulling out one from a binder of character sheets depending on the difficulty level of the dungeon and the specific roles that need to be filled. MMO gamers do something similar with their "alts," bringing in their "tank", "DPS", or "healer" into play as needed.

It can also be used on a short term basis in a regular game to give all the players something to do. For example, in a recent D&D session (a friend of mine is running the game, not me) 3 of the 6 characters were called on to serve as the prosecution, defense, and judge in a trial. Which left 3 players (including me) with nothing to do as this trial scene played out. So my friend gave us witnesses to play so that we could be part of that dramatic scene, even if our regular characters weren't there.

Troupe-style play is also very Ozzy. While some series maintain a consistent core cast, there is very little consistency in the cast of an Oz story. While everyone remembers the classic adventuring party of Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, that grouping has never occurred since. In fact, no more than 2 of these characters have ever adventured together again in the Baum canon (typically the Tin Woodman adventures with the Scarecrow, or Dorothy teams up with the Lion).

Baum would even change up the cast in mid-story. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, he trades out the Woozy and the Glass Cat for Dorothy and the Scarecrow (an odd exception to the pattern noted above). So if you've got a player who is having a hard time settling on one character, you might want to let them create two and let them play in alternate adventures or find points in the story where they can switch off.

And one of the cool things about doing this in AiO is that even if a character isn't present, they can still have an influence if they are on another character's Friends List.

Oz Character of the Month: Tip

2011-06-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Before we tackle our main topic today, I just wanted to take some time for some announcements.

First of all, a number of you Oz fans are going to the Oz-Stravaganza over in Chittenango, New York. I wish I could be there, but the budget does not allow me significant travel (like across the country) at this point. However, the budget does allow for me to send a few books in that direction in the care of James C. Wallace II. So if you've gotten tired of reading me shill this book on the blog and want to see it for yourself, seek him out on the Author's Alley.

Second, there are only about 2 more weeks to take the poll over on the right. If you are a follower of the blog, or just keeping up with it, please post your answer. The more I know about my customers, the better I can take care of them. Once this poll wraps up, I plan on posting another to help me get more information on you guys.

And now for a new Oz character. As a number of you are aware, June is Pride Month. For some reason, Oz connects very strongly with the gay community. Quite a few of the Oz fans I have encountered on the internet are gay or otherwise queer. Many people point to Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman as a gay couple, especially when you see their relationship presented in The Tin Woodman of Oz (though how they are gay when they don't have a sex is a conundrum). But one thing that not everyone notices is that there was a transgendered Oz character.

In The Land of Oz, the main character is a young boy named Tippetarius, but the story ends with his transformation into a fairy princess.

Name: Tippetarius
First Appearance: The Land of Oz
Template: Child in Oz

Size: 2

Athletics: 2
Awareness: 3
Brains: 3
Presence: 2
Sneaking: 3
Wits: 3

Traits: Craftsman (Wood)

Friends List: Mombi

While Mombi may seem an odd choice for a friend, the appearance of the Wishing Pills later in the story seems to fit the plot device nature of how Oz Points work. And since he got them in something he took from Mombi, that kind of makes her his friend.

2011-05-27T11:55:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the late (and 100% Content Free!) post this week. You see, I'm getting married tomorrow. So you can imagine how this last week has been for me. I love you guys, I really do. I just love her more.

It Lifts And Separates!

2011-05-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

Not that kind of support. I'm here to talk about support in RPGs. You know, sourcebooks, setting books, and other material that adds on to what you get in the main rulebook of an RPG. In fact, some gamers won't even consider a game until it's got a few supplements out.

Publishers love supplements too. Because they are another chance to make money from the same customers. They also represent another chance to catch new customers by highlighting something really cool about your game that you were forced to skim over in the core book.

Which means I am very glad to announce that there is finally a supplement for AiO. It's the Adventures in Oz Characters Pack (Lulu/Paizo/RPGNow/DriveThruRPG). 15 characters from the Oz stories ready to play in your AiO campaign. You may have seen some of these on the blog already but there are also characters that I have statted especially for this product. And all characters have received special treatment, getting put on their own full page deluxe character sheet complete with an illustration of the character., including some that were commissioned specifically for this project from Oz artist S.P. Maldonado.

I'll be watching this supplement's sales with interest. For starters, sales of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road have been rather lackluster. 131 copies between print and PDF over the past year. Maybe it's just that my shoestring promotional budget is actually thin enough to count as fishing line and I haven't been able to get out as much to promote the game.

When I contributed AiO to the DriveThruRPG Pakistan Relief Bundle, around 2500 people downloaded the game. I got two (positive) reviews out of that and did experience an uptick in print sales at that time. But what if I had had a nice little app-priced bit of bonus material out then? And now that I do, are they still interested?

Also, I've started a poll off to the side there. I want to know who reads this blog and where they get their RPGs (my RPG at least.)

Confessions of an Oz/Gaming Snob

2011-05-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This is the post that Blogger ate last week. They didn't get around to reposting it, so I am.

Just about any fandom has its share of snobs and elitists. This becomes especially problematic when the elitist attitudes drive off the n00bs, or even the more casual fans.

On the gaming side, this manifests as a sort of stigma against D&D. We deride its hack and slash focus and the excessive lengths some players will go through to "win" at RPGs. While we acknowledge that D&D is one of the most common introductions to RPGs, we wait for those players to branch out and start playing "real" RPGs.

I actually found myself harboring this attitude. When I met Kevin Andrew Murphy at DunDraCon, I discovered that he had been working for Paizo Publishing (home of the Pathfinder RPG, a successor to 3rd edition D&D) and made some comment about how I had "grown up" out of D&D some time ago (no offense).

He then proceeded to explain to me that D&D isn't just a stepping stone, but should in fact be viewed as a lingua franca, a common experience that unites all gamers. Even if D&D wasn't your first game, you've likely played it at some point in your gaming career.

So I try to keep an open mind on this, especially since I am playing in one D&D game and have recently launched an exploration of The Castle of the Mad Archmage using OSRIC. It can be hard at times, though.

When I first saw this video, I was initially unimpressed. The tune was catchy and the visuals were good, but the lyrics were all about hack& slash play (including the oft-repeated line "hackin' them all up"). While I try to avoid telling people that they're doing it wrong, the lack of context was bothersome to me. They seemed to be fighting monsters for the sole reason that the Dungeon Master put them there to be killed. We don't see what this fighting accomplished or why they were fighting in the first place.

On the Oz side, we have The Movie. The 1939 MGM musical with Judy Garland. It's been broadcast on TV regularly through the years and has sustained several DVD releases. But, like D&D, it's got that reputation as the "Lowest Common Denominator" of the fandom. We keep waiting for people to eventually pick up the books that made Oz into a delightful and rich fairyland.

I have no problem with this. It was a good movie and I enjoy it myself (Though it has been a while since I've seen it). But I will say that a rich fairyland will make for more interesting gaming. That said, you certainly don't need to restrict your adventures in Oz to L. Frank Baum's work. If you want to adventure in Movie-verse Oz or Wicked Oz, go right ahead. But you will have to put some of the meat on those bones yourself. Thankfully, AiO gives you the tools to do just that.

Happy Birthday, L. Frank Baum!

2011-05-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, today is the 155th birthday of L. Frank Baum, the creator of Oz. And Oz fans everywhere are celebrating.

Jane Albright of the International Wizard of Oz Club, is putting together a video composed of contributed photos of Oz fans doing Ozzy things today. Here's my contribution, a photo of my with my book, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. I also decided to highlight my geek side by wearing a nerdy t-shirt and posing in front of my D&D shelf. If you want to contribute a photo of you doing something Ozzy today (like playing AiO), you can email it to IWOCEvent@aol.com

Also, I contributed a voice to Jared Davis' latest Royal Podcast of Oz, as the Wizard in the Little Wizard Story "Tik-Tok and the Nome King."

Cast An Ozzy Spell: Out of Oogaboo

2011-05-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

This is a fun one, because it touches on the interesting space between spells and magic items. The Travel power is generally limited to magic items, but this was clearly a one-time effect. Another reason one-shot items like this are useful is that manufacturing them doesn't require a roll. So if your Brains skill isn't what you need it to be to achieve a certain magical effect, maybe you should look into making it a single use item.

It's easy to imagine that characters like Dr. Pipt are on the low end of the Brains spectrum for Sorcerers and so rely on items rather than spells in order to avoid the risk of failure.

Power: Travel (3)
Scope: City/Race (2)
Ritual: No Ritual (0)
Item: Single Use (-3)
Effect Power: 2

This is the spell Glinda used on Queen Ann Soforth and the Army of Oogaboo to transport them out of Oz into the unknown lands beyond the Deadly Desert, kicking off the story of Tik-Tok of Oz.

Those of you following along with your book at home, you'll notice that I didn't include a Ritual modifier to drop the Effect Power down to 1. While this would have been more efficient choice, I felt that a magical effect of this magnitude should have a more significant cost. 2 Oz Points/exotic ingredients sounds about right.

Baum Proliferation Sale!

In celebration of L. Frank Baum's birthday on May 15, I'm offering a 15% discount on Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. Pick it up at Lulu.com in print or PDF, RPGNow, (print, PDF and bundle) and DriveThruRPG (print, PDF and bundle) through the links over on the right. (Use these links when ordering from RPGNow or DriveThruRPG, or else you won't get the discount.)

Sandbox Pinball

2011-04-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

The idea of a "sandbox" RPG conjures a rather interesting image in the mind of the layman. The prospective player exists in an unformed expanse that is waiting to be formed by his actions. Their character sheet and the rules of the game are the bucket and shovel that the player uses to sculpt the setting into something truly awesome.

I actually tried to do something like this back in my Oz playtest game. Once the characters had made it to the Emerald City, I basically said, "Okay guys, you've made it to the Emerald City. What are you going to do now?"

Which failed. After a session or two of the characters not knowing what to do with all that sand, the party broke their oath to stay away from Utensia.

It was my recent acquisition of the Smallville RPG that helped me most with coming up with a good metaphor for this sort of open-world gaming. Character creation in Smallville is equal parts defining your character's abilities and defining their relationships, including drawing a "relationship map" that can become very complex as the process continues.

Items on this relationship map not only have lines linking them to the player's characters, but a rating describing how strongly each of the characters is connected to that minor character or location. Which basically explains why Clark Kent is always rescuing Lana Lang rather than Random Victim #4; His connection to her is stronger, so he is stronger in scenes and activities that connect to her.

So we have a complex map and a strong motivation to stay within it's framework. Sounds like pinball to me.

Rather than talking about sandbox gaming, we should instead talk about pinball gaming. Narrators (and increasingly, players) create a setting full of pins and bumpers for the players to interact with and bounce off of during play.

Death, Fireballs, And The Lack Thereof

2011-04-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things that we talked about in the podcast (I've you haven't heard it yet, go to it!) was that Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road has a No Death Rule and a No Fireball Rule.

When I was designing AiO, one of my big questions was how to resolve the inconsistencies of the Oz stories. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodman winds up doing a lot of killing with his ax. The Road to Oz mentions a suicide. Later stories, however take a decidedly different turn, declaring death impossible.

But without death, there tends to be little risk in combat. One thing that particularly irritated me about Faery's Tale was that losing a fight meant that your character had to sit out for a scene. Probably a stern consequence for the young children that the game was designed for, but feels a little too milquetoast to be effective for grownups.

Ultimately, I decided that the worst thing next to death was living with your defeat. Opponents may take advantage of your reduced Wits score to use an Impress maneuver and force a concession. Or, as I mentioned on the podcast, beating someone down to 0 Wits could mean that they collapse into a bawling heap that you then have to deal with.

Now imagine that you've just had an epic battle with a dragon and you have emerged victorious. Instead of a dead body and a hoard of gold, the party now faces the dragon crying prehistoric crocodile tears and sobbing about how none of the other dragons will take him seriously now. Consequences? Yes. Death? No. Adventure possibility? Totally!

The Deadly Weapon trait and the Deadly Strike maneuver it allows is another opportunity for adventure. Although they have Deadly in their names, they are very much not lethal, but it does serve to convey their impact. When the Tin Woodman swings his ax, it's best to watch out. Seeking out replacement limbs from a craftsman of some sort or maybe a secret sorcerer is bound to be an interesting adventure. And the limbs that you wind up with can be fun, too. I seem to recall an Oz character from the Ruth Plumly Thompson era with a "game leg", an artificial leg that housed a number of games within it.

The lack of direct combat magic (fireballs, lightning spells and other fun zappy stuff) came about for two reasons. First of all, it never happened in the stories. In fact, I think the only time magic was used in a conflict was when Dorothy used the Magic Belt on Ugu the Shoemaker. The other reason is that the combat system didn't really have room to shoehorn it in.

Talking About Oz

2011-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a little podcast released by the wonderful folks at PulpGamer.com that lets me and a couple other gamers geek out about Oz.

If you're checking out the blog in response to that podcast, here are a few items of interest:

First of all, over on the right you'll find links to all of the places you can purchase Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. RPGNow and DrivethruRPG also offer AiO in print via their POD service.

This blog entry contains links to reviews of Adventures in Oz, and this one is a FAQ about the game that I compiled some time ago. If you come up with new questions for me to answer, feel free to ask by commenting on this post, that post, or via email at adventuresinoz@thegame.com

If you want some idea of the variety in the Oz stories, and the simple flexibility that the AiO system provides, check out the Oz characters and magic items that I've written up for the blog.

Finally, I do have an actual website over at www.adventuresinoz-rpg.com that has printable Oz maps and character sheets for your downloading and printing pleasure.

Oz Character of the Month: Princess Dorothy Gale

2011-04-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

I hope you guys enjoyed my little April Fool's joke last week. Unfortunately, RPG success is nowhere near rockstar success. I do hate to disappoint Adam, but there are no hookers or blow to be had here. Chris Pramas and Green Ronin are real (and awesome), but I have no real relationship with them. So even RPG success is currently outside my grasp.

Wednesday night, I participated in a roundtable discussion with a couple of other Oz game designers put on by the wonderful people over at Pulp Gamer.com. It will be released as one of their Out of Character Podcasts in the next few weeks. Links will be coming as soon as it has been edited down into something listenable and posted at their site.

I know that this is usually the week where I post an Oz character or spell, and have I got a treat for you. I've been talking about this "characters pack" thing for a couple of months now and it is finally taking shape. So here's a little preview. A deluxe character sheet with stats and details for Princess Dorothy Gale. The characters pack will contain 14 other classic Oz characters as well, suitable for use by players or Narrators to bring a little more Oz flavor to your games.

Important Announcement!

2011-04-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

As you know, I don't like to announce things until they're final, because real life has a funny way of happening.

But now that the i's have been dotted and the t's have been crossed, I feel safe announcing this. Chris Pramas of Green Ronin has bought out the rights to Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road and plans to provide support like never before.

His proposal came attached with synopses for a trilogy of adventure modules:

Descent into the Depths of the Earth, which would return to the land of the Mangaboos and explore the interior of Pyramid Mountain,

Vault of the Nomes, getting the PCs involved in Nome politics with the earth's supply of precious metals and gems hanging in the balance,

and Queen Zixi in the Pits, which brings the party to Ix where they must attempt to cheer up the Queen before her birthday celebration.

What's my role in this? Frankly, now that I've made my fortune in the RPG business, I am officially retiring and spending all of my money on hookers and blow (or something like that).

(April Fool!)

Bundle Up For Spring!

2011-03-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

As you know, I've been working on getting everything ready to sell the print version of AiO via DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. After a couple of false starts, everything is finally in order. Much hard work has gone into correcting the graphical issues, and it has paid off.

Now when you visit the Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road product page on those sites, you can choose to buy the PDF, the print version, or both. That's right, that Holy Grail of RPG marketing, the Print/PDF bundle is now available for just $14.99! It's like buying the book and getting the PDF for FREE!

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=83891
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83891

Also, Lulu has sent me a discount code for their site. If you purchase the print version there between now and March 31 and use the coupon code MARCHSPECIAL305, you can get 20% off your purchase.

Time to Celebrate Oz!

2011-03-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, welcome all Oz fans, old and young, new and familiar! And if you're just getting to this blog from the Oz Celebration, you're in for a treat.

My name is F. Douglas Wall and I am the designer and publisher of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. AiO (as I call it for short) is a roleplaying game intended to help you create your own Oz story with characters you create. All you need are this rulebook, some friends, some dice from your favorite board game, paper, pencils, and imagination.

In honor of the Oz celebration, for this weekend only, you can purchase the Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road rulebook for 10% off the regular price of $14.99. In addition, Lulu.com is currently offering free ground shipping with the coupon code GROUND305

If you've been intimidated by other roleplaying games, like Dungeons & Dragons with multiple thick books full of rules to learn, have no fear! AiO is only 136 pages long and is the only rulebook you need. It features simple rules that let you quickly make your own Oz character, advice on serving as the Narrator to guide other players through your own Oz adventures, and descriptions of over 35 locations from the original Oz stories with goodies for both players and Narrators.

And if you have any questions or want more information, this blog is updated every Thursday with new info on Oz, RPGs, and publishing.

See what others are saying about Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road:

"...after reading it, you'll want to start having your own adventures in Oz"
-- Jared Davis, The Royal Blog of Oz

"The game’s magic system, background material, and other elements nicely capture the tone of this classic book series"
--David Millians, educator

"An in-depth look at the land of Oz, incorporating TONS of detail..."
-- Jason Levine, RPG author

"Adventures in Oz is a labour of love which takes a more child-friendly fantasy world with different tropes than the classic Tolkein ones and presents a very playable game"
-- George Quail

"Like the stories, it has been designed for the youngest and oldest of children."
-- Jo Kriel

"... this game celebrates imagination and whimsy."
-- Jordan Block, Victorian Adventure Enthusiast

Dr. Nikidik, I Presume?

2011-03-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

While Baum was not famous for consistency within the Oz stories, the differences between the two appearances of the Powder of Life were significant enough to affect how they were represented in the rules of AiO. But were they really intended to be the same?

David Maxine does accurately point out that while Dr. Nikidik's Celebrated Wishing Pills are indeed a product of Dr. Nikidik, the Powder of Life isn't necessarily. Though the connection is strong enough for Gregory Maguire to have Nikidik's appearance in Wicked include a demonstration of a prototype Powder of Life.

In The Road to Oz, we learn some more details of the fate of the Crooked Sorcerer. He apparently fell off of a precipice and died (this is apparently before Baum instituted the "no death" rule), leaving his possessions, including a small batch of the Powder of Life, to a distant relation named Dyna. This Powder was used to accidentally animate a blue bearskin rug, creating a rather pathetic creature.

But in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, we meet Dr. Pipt, who claims to be the inventor of the Powder of Life. He also claims that he gave Mombi (and ultimately Tip) the batch that was used to animate Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse and the Gump. He doesn't mention the Wishing Pills, so it's certainly possible that Dr. Pipt and Dr. Nikidik are two different people.

However, this does not tell us who died and left the Powder of Life to Dyna. Did Dr. Nikidik fake his own death? Or did he actually try to kill himself only to be thwarted by the magic of Oz? Maybe the bearskin rug knows. But without the lungs he used to have, he is rather unable to speak.

Although when you think about it, many things without lungs are able to speak in Oz. Maybe it's actually a curse of silence. So lifting the curse may be the first step in unraveling the mystery. Where it leads is up to you.

Disaster Averted

2011-03-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

I know that yesterday, there was a lot of worry about the tsunami resulting from the earthquake that hit Japan.

My fiancee woke me up quite early because she had gotten a phone call warning of the tsunami and suggesting evacuation. (I later heard from a coworker who lived in another section of town that her phone call was soon followed by emergency workers showing up to evacuate her.) Eager to get back to sleep, and realizing that any kind of tsunami coming all the way from Japan isn't going to be terribly scary after expending so much energy crossing the ocean, I told her not to worry about it.

Before going back to bed, I did get her set up streaming local radio station KHUM, which was broadcasting news and information about what was going on. Streaming because we don't really have a radio in the house. Also, I figured if any link in that chain broke (power, internet), then it would be a good time to worry.

Time to worry never came. Although most of Old Town was closed because of fears of flooding, it never materialized. It was just a lot of disruption of business. Two items that came up on KHUM were bakeries that were unable to serve customers in their usual way (one had to close their Eureka store for the day and the other couldn't deliver to grocery stores that were closed) and were therefore having a huge sale for the customers that they could reach.

Crescent City, 100 miles to the north of me, did take significant damage to boats in the harbor. 4 people were reported to have been washed out to sea there, apparently ignoring ample warnings to stay away from the water.

When I got to work, I heard that they had had a very interesting lunch rush. Since we were one of the few restaurants in town that was open (and I'm pretty sure the only pizzeria), lunch was a madhouse. From there on, it went on to be a mostly normal day at work.

Now, for the people who didn't get off as lucky as myself and most of us on this side of the ocean, DrivethruRPG is holding a Red Cross fundraiser. They didn't take the time to gather a bundle of stuff to bribe people with, so the only compensation you'll get is the knowledge that you helped. And that's enough, isn't it?

Third Time's a Charm

2011-03-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been paying attention, I've been having a little trouble with printing my book anywhere other than Lulu.com. I recently got back the revised files for the book, which should have corrected the graphical issues. Wednesday morning, I ordered my third proof copy from OneBookShelf in the hopes that this will be the one that will finally have no graphical defects.

Along with the graphical revisions, there was a little errata busting as well. Remember that little glitch in the magic system? Fixed. Also, I've added a lower resolution version to the PDF package, so maybe printing it out won't be as much of an issue. All of my lovely PDF customers should have been alerted to the update. If not, consider this the alert you've been waiting for.

I'm a little worried that my print customers won't get the updates. But then, there are a few copies out there that don't have a proper gutter in the map, so some of it gets lost in the binding. Should I put on a sale to let my print customers cheaply update the older copy? Put the PDF on sale to encourage customers to go digital? Or just shrug and say "Such is the lot of the early adopter?"

Cast An Ozzy Spell: The Powder of Life

2011-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

While the first post of the month has traditionally been an Oz character, I thought it might be fun to mix things up a bit. Especially since the list of protagonists in the Baum stories is relatively small (though if someone wanted to stat up a character from the extended canon, I would post it). Between what I've got on the blog and some of the characters in the upcoming characters pack, I've cut a pretty wide swathe through that list. Also, part of the idea of posting characters was to get people comfortable with the system and to show off how well the system represented Oz. Posting magic spells can serve much the same effect.

Dr. Nikidik's Powder of Life
First Appearance: The Marvelous Land of Oz

Power: Animation (4)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: Complex (-1)
Item: Limited Use (-2)
Effect Power: 1

Dr. Pipt's Powder of Life
First Appearance: The Patchwork Girl of Oz

Power: Animation (4)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: None/Simple (0)
Item: Limited Use (-2)
Effect Power: 2

The Powder of Life is the main example of the Animation power. When sprinkled on an inanimate object, it has the power to grant the semblance of life to that object. The sole difference between the two versions of this powder is the ritual required to activate it. Dr. Nikidik's powder requires a 3 step ritual, while Dr. Pipt's seems to simply require exposure to the powder for it to work.

Dr. Pipt's powder has two known ingredients: 5 years of the creator's life and 4 kettles stirred simultaneously. Of course, nobody ages in Oz, so the 5 years must be invested in the creation of the powder. So for all of you AiO Narrators out there, it is perfectly fine to require exotic ingredients that are not necessarily objects.

My Convention Adventure

2011-02-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

I had expected my Thursday to be very boring. Our transportation would be leaving Thursday night rather than the Friday morning I had rather hoped for, but I had all day to prepare, right? Wrong.

I woke up at 10:30 that morning (I slept in) to find a message on my answering machine that I was due to work at 8. Which was a surprise, since I had believed that I had the day off. I usually get Thursdays off because it's my game night with my friends. Quickly throwing my uniform on, I hurried in to work. They let me finish out my shift (very nice of them) and I was back home by about 5. I expected my friend Mike to come pick up me and my fiancee at around 7, so I still had time, right? Wrong again.

Shortly after I got home, I got a call from Mike warning me that his sister (who was tagging along for something else) was in a bit of a hurry and they would be leaving just as soon as she was ready. So now we had no real idea when we would be leaving, so we had to hurry on our final packing (and wound up forgetting a few things). We still wound up leaving around 7 PM, but we did it with more adrenalin and less done than we had originally intended.

We were traveling in the dead of night, so I don't have any traveling pictures this time. We did wind up seeing a little bit of snow, but it was too dark to consider getting a shot of it. Since our hotel reservation didn't cover Thursday night (and I'm not sure I want to consider paying full price for a room there), our friend arranged for us to sleep on his parent's couch. (He didn't have the money to attend the con himself, but he did have family business to take care of).

We arrived on Friday rather early, which is good, since we had been warned that the hotel had overbooked and we might have to be accommodated at another hotel. I much prefer it when my commute to convention activities is simply the elevator.

It wound up being a pretty boring day, all around. I wasn't running a game, there weren't any games that I was particularly interested in playing, and the Dealers Room didn't open until Saturday. My fiancee and I attended part of one seminar on online resources for RPGs, but found it rather dry and wound up leaving early.

We also managed to replace some of the items we had left behind, like a digital camera, at the local Target. Hey, if the Nikon Coolpix is good enough for Ashton Kutcher, then it's certainly good enough for me. (And thanks to the nearby Borders going out of business, I picked up inexpensive copies of Son of a Witch and Lion Among Men.)

Saturday was a bit more exciting for me, as I was scheduled to run "The Jaded City of Oz" as part of the convention's Kid's Room. Thankfully, I had time to visit the Dealers Room beforehand, because I wasn't fully set on six-siders and gaming stones (I know I bought them years ago, but those wound up buried in the boxes during the move and we haven't had time for archeology).

I was a little worried, because nobody had showed up by the time my game was scheduled to run at 10 AM. It took a while, but I did get a pretty full group for the game. Check them out!

And yes, I was pretty impressed that I had so many grownups show up for a kid's game. Though that might have been because the con organizers decided to double-bill it as a "Demo game" in a separate part of the program. Either way, I had players and they had fun.

I spent most of the rest of the day shopping in the Dealers Room and the Buyers Bazaar. The Buyers Bazaar is more of a swap meet with individuals selling off their old games. I found a significant deal on a lot of old Talislanta stuff (It's a very cool setting. Check it out!) including some stuff that isn't available on that site.

That night was a city-building seminar which I was very happy I didn't miss, what with me being a Ken Hite fanboy and all. While I had been hoping for a chance to say hi to him this con, things wound up taking an interesting turn. My fiancee and I wound up chatting (and eventually having dinner with) Kevin Andrew Murphy, who was another panelist.

I even wound up giving him a print copy of AiO that I had been planning to give to Ken Hite. He seemed to like the idea of the game, and I'm hopeful he likes the implementation. He was good enough to let us get pictures with him. My fiancee took this one, and I took one with Kevin and her. (If you're a fan on Facebook, you can see that shot, as well as several others that won't make it here.)

The next morning was another game of Oz. The amazing thing was that people actually signed up to play. Though before we settled in, one of the players bowed out. So another player volunteered to call in a friend (on his phone, not by using an Oz Point) to round out the group.

In general, the players liked the scenario. There was some disappointment that the final scene wasn't as awesome as I had pitched it. You see, the final scene is the Jaded City of Oz, a place so magical that its inhabitants have literally seen everything. The challenge of the scene is very much about lateral thinking, as you must show these people something that they haven't seen before.

It can be easy for a Narrator to make this scene too hard, by countering everything the players propose with something wonderful and magical from the city itself. This group only stumbled for a little bit before a player decided to present their unique and interesting character, Bungle the Glass Cat for inspection. I couldn't come up with a good counter to that. So things were over rather quickly in what was supposed to be the "boss fight" of the adventure (although I've never had to use the combat rules in one of these games)

I sat in on two rather boring seminars on designing and publishing RPGs. They were very broad overviews of the process, with no real meat.

That evening, I wound up signing up for the one game that I played in: Spaceballs Back in Action. It was a lot of fun and everyone got a kick out of recreating roles from that classic film. I was Yogurt the Wise, who I played as this kind of dirty old man character with plenty of merchandising jokes. To the point of hitting a bad guy upside the head with Spaceballs: The Frying Pan. I don't know if I would play with the rules they were using again, but there was some fun to be had.

And of course, I spend a good chunk of money every year on all of that stuff that I've been holding out on for the whole year. Like Volume 2 of the Dresden Files RPG. And before you start dissing me for being an emo teen and picking up the Smallville RPG, I actually heard very good things about it on RPG.net. In order to make super-powered characters compare favorably with normals, they shift the balance point of the game to focusing on the relationship drama. Which is exactly the same as what I did in Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

The other major item of note (I mentioned Talislanta earlier) is FantasyCraft, a d20 successor system, of which Pathfinder is the most successful. It does have the advantage of a lot more flexibility in terms of characters and campaign options than Pathfinder, but it looks like the d20 audience is mostly crying for their D&D fix.

The Cost of Gaming

2011-02-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

I apologize for missing my usual Thursday blog last week. Thursday wound up being an insane day (I'll tell you more about it in my official con post), so I didn't get a chance to get anything together.

But one thing that's been bothering me, and the con has helped bring it into focus: The cost of RPGs has steadily risen over the last several years.

When I started gaming around 12 years ago, I like to think that things were relatively inexpensive. My typical purchase back in those days was a GURPS supplement. 8 1/2 x 11, 128 pages, Black and white art for around 20 bucks. If the book was bigger, hardcover, or a core rulebook for a game, it was more expensive. Box sets full of booklets, handouts and gewgaws were also in this more expensive category. If something was particularly cool, I would cough up the 30 bucks. When the Forgotten Realms setting book for D&D 3rd edition came out, it was right around $40. It was cool, but it took my fiancee breaking out the puppy dog eyes for me to break down and buy it.

Lately, though, this has been increasing. The 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons has rulebooks that cost $35 each and 3 of them are required to play (a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide, and a Monster Manual) for a total of $105 before dice and minis. Pathfinder is only slightly better. They only require 2 books (the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary) to give you the same level of information with a total required investment of $90 ($50 for the rulebook and $40 for the Bestiary).

This even seems to extend to indie games. Books only slightly larger than my own AiO were selling for $20-$30 at the con. The Dresden Files RPG main rulebook sells for $50 and the setting book is another $40 (and I will admit, not a necessary purchase. The rulebook comes with enough stuff to keep you busy for quite some time. The setting book is mostly a nice big reference to the series with game stats included).

I wound up swallowing my pride and buying a couple of newer games full price. It felt slightly wrong though. Maybe I'm being a crotchety old man on this. Which is funny, because I'm not that old (I swear!).

Here are a couple of reasons that I can think of why prices may have gone up.

Inflation: What with the economy as a whole going down the toilet in recent years, a dollar may not buy what it did just a few short years ago.

POD: While Print on Demand presents itself as cheap, it's still not quite on a par with traditional printing. It's pretty close and getting closer, but it's not there yet. While it may be only a buck or two difference, that adds up when you need to fit your entire operating budget into 40% of your retail price.

Production values: I'm sure people are going to bring this up. While more books are going the full-color hardcover route and doing some really interesting things visually, I'm not sure it really justifies the prices people are charging.

Capitalism: It may simply be that people have realized that they can charge these kind of prices and the average gamer will cough it up.

While this (among other) phenomena has kept me from buying as much new gaming books as I'd like, my main concern is for the hobby itself. These prices may be nothing new to the typical gamer, but I think they are growing to the point that it's choking out the new blood.

And I'm clearly not alone in this. While experienced gamers have been wondering about the D&D Essentials line from Wizards of the Coast, I very clearly saw it as reaching out to new players. The new Starter Set resembles the classic Red Box D&D to bring in those old school, potentially lapsed, gamers, while the box more clearly says "game" than a book does, and the lower price points clearly make the line more accessible to people who haven't jumped on the D&D bandwagon yet.

The scary part of this line of thinking is that I'm debating raising the price of the print version of AiO up from $15 to $20. My gut is telling me "Hell No!" but my brain is steadily finding it more compelling. The new price wouldn't be hideously unreasonable and would allow me more profit per sale. It would also make getting into distribution a bit easier.

Just a few paragraphs up, when I mentioned fitting your entire operating budget into 40% of your retail cost, I was talking about distribution. When a distributor buys your book, they require a 60% discount. So AiO, which should sell for $14.99, would have to be sold to the distributor for only $6. But my manufacturing cost per book from Lulu is around $7. While Lulu does offer bulk discounts, a quick check reveals that I'd have to order in volumes of 300 or more to make any kind of money in distribution at my current price point. Which would cost more than my tax return this year.

But with a retail price of $19.99 that 60% discount means I'm selling them into distribution for $8, making profit possible at much smaller (more affordable) volumes.

Just to be clear, I am still working on getting OneBookShelf set up for POD with a much lower manufacturing cost, but this would allow me to do this sort of thing right now.

What do you, my loyal readers, think of all of this?

And now for our regularly scheduled blog

2011-02-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, I'm still keeping on my regular Thursday schedule. That little bonus blog a few days ago was just a spark in my brain that I had to get out.

Although I haven't talked much about it, DunDraCon is a go. I'm running "The Jaded City of Oz" twice (deliberately this time), once for adults and once for kids. I wanted to run it for adults for a couple of reasons: 1) I wanted to see if other adults would have fun with it like my playgroup did, 2) Kid's games are walk-up, while adults have to make an effort to sign up, and 3) because parents are really the ones with the money and if I want to use this event to rack up sales, that's who I really need to impress.

DunDraCon is typically close enough to Valentine's Day that my customary gift to my fiancee is a room in a nice hotel with a swimming pool and a restaurant and tons of gamers. Yes folks, if you didn't know before, my fiancee is a hot gamer chick. She's even creative enough to try to design her own campaign world for the Pathfinder RPG. Check out her blog here!

So what are you doing for your Oz/geek sweetheart?

Playing Internet Connect The Dots

2011-02-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Op-Ed: The Licensing Trap.

Interesting Article on Generation Y , Today's Job Market and their Expectations—Draw Your Own Connection to D&D's Game Design of Recent Years.

Steve Long says that licensed games signal a lack of unique IPs in the gaming industry.

JoeTheLawyer says that modern gamers expect their fantasies to be spoonfed to them.

Sign of the times?

Oz Character of the Month: Ojo the Lucky

2011-02-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

I know that I didn't post a character last month, as I wanted to start out with some New Year's Resolutions and then I got distracted by some other stuff and went into cynical mode (which I do a little too often lately). But this month, there is definitely a character for you, as well as a slightly amusing story.

You see, as I was acquiring artwork for my character pack, I asked S. P. Maldonado for some illustrations. He came through grandly, with some really neat stuff. He also gave me a little more than what I had asked for. Namely, an illustration of Ojo the Lucky.

I was sorely tempted to use him, but I already had the two examples of the "Child in Oz" template that I needed, and I wanted to make sure that every template got fair representation. So I resolved to make him my next Oz Character of the Month. And so, without further ado, here's Ojo!

Name: Ojo the Lucky
First Appearance: The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Template: Child in Oz

Size: 3

Athletics: 3
Awareness: 3
Brains: 1
Presence: 2
Sneaking: 4
Wits: 4 (helping others)

Traits: None

Friends List: Dr. Pipt OR Unc Nunkie

When choosing Friends for write-ups like this, I tend to go with the most invokable option. In this case, it would be Dr. Pipt who gives Ojo a basket of vaguely defined goodies. I even used that as an example in the rule book (page 28 if you don't believe me) of how Friends and Oz Points work. But there are those who prefer to stick with Friends that the characters have a clear closeness with, in this case Unc Nunkie. So I give you a choice with this one.

Thou Shalt Not Plot?

2011-01-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

I recently found this interesting bit of Game Master advice. A whole book of it, actually.

As a Game Master of moderate experience (ten years, off and on), I tend to take tomes like this with a grain of salt. Not because I already know most of it (I'm still learning new things), but because Game Mastering is very individual. The guy who wrote this prefers a very character-oriented sandbox approach. This is certainly fine, and he provides a decent set of tools for doing this.

But every so often, he feels the need to stand up on his soapbox. These really stand out because the majority of his writing is neutral/dry. In fact, his rants are the only part of the book that I have more than simply skimmed, because they stuck out so strongly against the overall dry writing style that he uses everywhere else.

The first major rant is against video games that call themselves RPGs. While I agree with this, it seems a little odd to wind up in a book of Game Mastering advice. Anyone looking for a book on GMing is going to know the difference between a tabletop RPG and a console RPG. Something possibly more helpful would be advice to the poor schmuck who's trying to figure out how to escape the traps of trying to run a tabletop game as if it was a console RPG.

The one that gets me, though, is his rant against plotting. The idea that by devising a plot, you've created a foregone conclusion and therefore there's no point in playing it out, because the ending is already written. I've seen this complaint numerous times on RPG forums, more often from players, though. "Don't railroad me!" they whine. "If the GM has anything prepared for the session, he's railroading me and trying to crush my soul!"

Well, here's the thing. I plot. And I never railroad. If I wind up tossing out my plot notes 5 minutes into the session, I'm okay with that. But those notes were still useful, because they got me thinking about what comes next. Even if the players don't do what my plot says, those things that I put in my notes are still out there. People that they could meet, even if they didn't have the dialog I wanted them to initially. Places that are out there, even if they didn't go there this session. Am I going to make them go there next session? No, because I don't make the players do anything.

I don't world-build extensively. I'd rather focus on those things that are directly in front of the players rather than populate the 7 Islands of Doom that the players will never go to. I'll wait until the players decide to go there before investing any serious effort.

Another important lesson here is that everyone is different, and that includes GMing styles. Kris Newton, a friend of mine and writer of "The Jaded City of Oz" adventure, has his own method of doing things which doesn't resemble my methods or Brian Jamison's. But they have all led to some rather enjoyable games.

I find it rather useful to look over the Game Master sections of every game that I own, because each has a different approach and each one has things to teach me. But I will rarely consider any one method or suggestion as superior. Which is one of the other ways this book bothers me. No matter how much experience you have as a GM, yours is not the One True Way. If it's a good way, I might borrow some ideas and some of your advice. But it would be very unlikely to make me abandon those things that my own experiences have taught me.

The Magic of Friendship

2011-01-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

In Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (if you don't have it yet, check the links over on the right), the main way for characters to grow in power is to make friends. This certainly works for Dorothy, who spends much of the stories making friends with powerful people and then calling in potent favors.

But what about the Wizard? In his appearances in Wizard and Dorothy & the Wizard, he is firmly in the mode of humbug wizard, relying on tricks and gizmos to make it through. But by Road, he is shown using actual magic. How does AiO account for that?

I did include a rule that players could spend significant sums of Oz Points to permanently increase a character's abilities. But something occurred to me recently: Why couldn't we just say that the Wizard has Glinda on his Friends List? So instead of purchasing the Sorcery Trait, he simply spends an Oz Point to call on Glinda every time he uses magic?

It's actually rather cool that the game features multiple ways to do the same thing. Just like how the Tin Soldier could be built as a Crafted Person or a Soldier.

Errata Cadabra!

2011-01-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

Everyone makes mistakes. As much as I worked to make AiO the best Oz game out there, some things slipped through. For the most part, it was a lot of extra apostrophes when it came to "its" (Even though there is a nifty song to help you remember). But there was one mistake that could keep people from enjoying the game.

In Chapter 4, the magic rules, most of the chapter is devoted to helping you figure out the Effect Power of a spell, but no specifics on what to do with that number. Well, here it is: The Effect Power of a spell is intended to serve as the penalty on the Brains roll made to cast the spell. So if the Effect Power of a spell is 3, you must succeed at a Brains roll with a -3 penalty to successfully cast it.

I also meant to include an example of spell casting, but I wound up doing some pretty heavy changes to the magic rules late in the process (which is probably why that mistake got through). While adding it back into the book would be pretty heavy work for my layout person (and irritate the people who have already bought it) I can put up an example here.

Let's say that the Wizard of Oz is traveling with a group of friends and the time has come to set up camp. He asks around and gets three handkerchiefs which he will proceed to turn into tents using Transmutation magic. This is Power 3 according to the Transmutation table on page 35 of the book.

Now to figure Duration. Transmutations are usually permanent and have a Duration of 2. But if the caster specifies a way to end the effect, it goes down to 0. Since the Wizard want to make cleanup easy in the morning and is sure his friends want their handkerchiefs back, he designates a magic word that he will say in the morning to end the spell. Duration 0.

The Scope of the spell is 2, as it affects a Group of 3 handkerchiefs.

The Effect Power is currently 5 (3 + 0 + 2), which is pretty high. Which brings us to the last element of the spell: Ritual. This give you a chance to buy down the cost of the spell by making lots of effort in the casting. The Wizard attempts a Poetry Ritual, making a roll against his Presence skill. He has the Poet trait, so he takes no penalty on the attempt. His highest successful result is a 3, providing a Ritual modifier of 3. Poetry rituals are chancy, but this one paid off nicely.

Once all factors are considered, the final Effect Power of the spell is only 2. The Wizard makes a Brains -2 roll (and maybe spends an Oz Point or two) and camp is set up and ready to go.

New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

I actually did pretty good on my resolutions for 2010. There are only 2 things on that list that didn't wind up happening. I wound up dropping out of the Simian Circle Design Contest and I only published one item for sale, rather than the 2 I had hoped.

Slightly humbled (but only slightly), I bring you my resolutions for the year 2011.

Think smaller. As much as I would love to put out something big and huge like Beyond The Deadly Desert, it's a rather expensive proposition. Perhaps something smaller that will help bring money in to pay for the big projects. I've got the characters pack close enough to say it should be ready by February.

Other things on the todo list include an adventure scenario (another resource-light moneymaker) and Wicked Roads (tentative title for my Dark Oz sourcebook). Whether all of this happens this year is hard to say.

Also, I really need to get into stores. And the big key to that seems to be getting a strong grip on my manufacturing costs. Currently, my manufacturing cost at Lulu are nearly 50% of my retail cost. To get into distribution profitably, I need to fit my manufacturing costs into below 40% of my retail price. Lower than that if I want to make a significant profit.

I'd also like to do at least one more podcast this year, hopefully 2.

Also, I have had an idea to do a supplement for the Pathfinder RPG. While psionics rules have been in the D20 System for a long time, they've never really felt like psionics in any other media. So I've decided to come up with a feat-based model (not feat and skill, like some other attempts) that feels a little more like the psychics we read about in novels and see on TV.

More personally, I've got to get back in the saddle as a Game Master. I had a campaign fall apart for a number of reasons, including scheduling, work stress, and a few system issues last year. And with the other GM in my group getting hit by a car (he survived and is recovered and back to work and play), my own gaming life is running pretty low right now.

One campaign idea that I had would be GURPS Greatest American Hero. The characters in that game would be granted dorky looking supersuits and forced to master the powers they receive. I chose GURPS because it's the only system I'm aware of that has rules for sucking at your powers. I just need to finish building the home city and find some players to go in it.

Also, I'm interested in starting up an Oz campaign using AiO. While Skype sessions would make interesting podcast fodder, it may turn out that scheduling is enough of an issue that a play-by-post format would be better, allowing the players to contribute when they had time to do so, rather than on a set schedule.

OMGWTFBBQ!

2011-01-06T09:06:00.001-08:00

As much as I don't normally go for netspeak, something happened yesterday that absolutely boggled my mind.

First, a little background: Some time ago, OneBookShelf, the operators of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG struck a deal with POD printer Lightning Source to provide print products via those sites.(Though it is only recently that this has gone live).

Needless to say, I'm all over this. The ability to offer my customers both print and PDF with a single click? And at a nice bundled price? What's not to love?

But there have been problems. A tiny glitch in the file caused the some of the illustrations to come out pixellated, like this piece by S.P. Maldonado:

And this picture is of my second proof copy, after I requested that my layout person perform a little file massage. I have recently requested a more extensive file surgery to attempt to repair the glitch.

While this is irritating, it's not that big of a deal. Glitch or no, Lulu has been providing decent quality printing of my game for some time now. So my customers can purchase print copies there no matter what, right?

I recently ordered a copy from (always reliable) Lulu to show around to people (having misplaced the last one I had when I moved a few months ago). It arrived last night, in optimum condition. Here's that same S.P. Maldonado piece, the way it should look.

Here's the weird part: As I examined this new copy, I noticed a couple of small touches that indicated this copy was printed by Lightning Source. As in the same people who printed the pixellated proof copies I ordered from OBS. In fact, it would seem that they were both printed in the same facility in Lavergne Tennessee.

The top one (white paper, November printing date) is my OBS proof copy. The lower one (cream paper, December printing date) is my new arrival from Lulu.

Any idea what's going on?

2010: The Year That Was

2010-12-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

Now that Christmas is past, it's time to start looking back on the previous year and looking ahead to next year. This post is going to be focusing on 2010, while next week's post will be my resolutions for 2011.

Unlike previous years, there are two categories of achievements: Those for the blog and those for the game itself.

The most popular blog entry this year (based on Google Analytics data) is How I Spent My Winter Vacation, my blog recounting my experiences at DunDraCon. Among the number of photos I snapped that weekend, I managed to snag a picture of a minor celebrity (other than Ken Hite). It turns out that this is not just any girl in a chainmail bikini, but is in fact the geek superstar Chainmail Girl. My fiancee, however, insists that she's the prettiest girl in that blog post. I'm inclined to agree.

The most actively commented blog for this year was Adventures in Oz Now Available! in which I announce the availability of the print version of the game.

My favorite blog post of this year has got to be Firing Characters (Out Of A Canon!). For one thing, I think the title was a pretty good joke. Plus the comments really got me thinking about the difference between tabletop gamers and what I called "fanfic roleplayers." I haven't drawn any conclusions yet, but some definite food for thought.

This was also the year I actually put out a podcast. I definitely enjoyed the experience and would like to do it again. I'm currently on the lookout for anyone or anything to talk about. If there's something you'd like to see covered in the blog or as a podcast, drop me a line at adventuresinoz (at) thegame (dot) com.

Now for the accomplishments of the book.

It looks like I'm closing out the year with 108 sales, with slightly over half of them being from the PDF market. But that's not whole picture. That only represents the people who paid me money for the game. About 30 print copies of the game have gone out to playtesters, artists and reviewers to get some goodwill and press for AiO.

And then there was the Doctors Without Borders fundraiser put on by OneBookShelf. Not only did a lot of money get raised to help flood victims in Pakistan, but around 2500 people downloaded Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. To a certain extent, this was a good thing. While the fundraiser was going on, print sales over at Lulu surged (for a given value of "surged") and I got a nice little bit of good press. I am particularly proud of this review, not only because he gave me 5 out of 5 stars, but because he's someone whose books I own. Jason Levine is the author of GURPS Psionic Powers and the Assistant GURPS Line Editor over at Steve Jackson Games.

Merry Christmas To All And To All A Good Night

2010-12-23T08:31:00.001-08:00

Perhaps my Christmas posts have been a little too cynical this year, what with having to hawk a product and all. So I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all of that good stuff.

I recently received a pretty nifty gift. If you were a fan of the Adventures in Oz Facebook Page, you would have seen that last week, I finally sold the 100th copy of AiO. Which officially makes me a schmuck.

Just in case Santa is reading this, here's my Christmas wish list: A print copy of Tik-Tok of Oz (for research purposes), The Dresden Files RPG: Our World (the setting book for the game. I got the rulebook as a birthday present for myself last month), GURPS Low-Tech (their latest hardcover release), and a netbook (so I can do more writing without having to fight the fiancee for the desktop).

What's on your Oz/gaming wishlist?

Are You Afraid of The Dark?

2010-12-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

Probably not an appropriate topic for the Christmas season, but it's something that's been on my mind lately.

For one thing, why take Oz dark? Why not simply make it more realistic or consistent? I think it's because people tend to view Oz as a bright, pleasant place and the easiest way to create a contrast is to go all the way dark.

Another question that is relevant to ask is: What makes something dark? For those of you who don't know, it takes more than vampires to make something dark.

Darkness in fiction (and gaming) has to do with the role of evil in the story. If evil is winning, or has already won, it's dark. If the heroes live in the Good Kingdom and fight against the armies of the Evil Kingdom next door, you've got a fairly light situation. If the heroes live in the Evil Kingdom, and are rebels against the Evil King, then you've got darkness.

Both Caliber Comics and Disney produced a dark version of Oz by allowing it to be conquered by the Nome King. While this technique is effective, and lets your favorite Oz characters become heroic freedom fighters, it's a pretty severe change to the setting.

Another way to "darken" a setting is to apply a "dark mirror," taking things that are normally good and making them evil. A dark mirror Oz may have the Wizard, or Ozma, or Glinda in charge, but they are dark versions of their literary selves, harming others for their own self-gratification. Wicked uses this technique, casting the Wizard as the antagonist and Elphaba as a crusader for Animal rights.

With all this dark Oz stuff going around, I'm wondering if I should try and come up with a supplement for AiO with advice and suggestions for running a dark campaign.

If You Thought Star Wars: Episode 1 Was Bad...

2010-12-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

...well, I'm right there with you on that one.

On a completely different subject, I have completed my first podcast. The Adventures in Oz Podcast Episode 1 is now available!

MP3

While I had wanted to do a podcast for some time, getting it together proved to be something of a challenge. For one thing, I wanted a co-host, or at least someone to talk to. I find podcasts more fun to listen to if it's not just one voice, especially if there's a little banter and crosstalk going on. But it never really presented itself. Sure, I could have asked someone, but where's the fun in that?

I was nearly giving up when the whole Oz: Dark and Terrible thing came up. Having managed to get my hands on a copy (I actually traded someone a copy of AiO for it), I decided that my review of it would be long enough that it would probably be boring to read, but probably a good length for a podcast.

So once I had everything written and recorded, then began the arduous process of editing. I had no idea I was such a Shatner. So many pauses! Thankfully, I was able to trim them out and shave about 10 minutes off of the recording time.

Just a little commercial here: The Big 25 Sale is still going on at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and Lulu.com. On top of that, Lulu is offering coupon codes out the wazoo this holiday season. Until December 14, you can get free ground shipping with the coupon code HOLIDAY305. And they're also giving out a new coupon code every day until Christmas here. And remember, these coupon codes are cumulative (not sure exactly how, but they are) with the Big 25 discount of 25% off.

The Big 25 sale is ongoing through Christmas Day, so if your favorite Oz fan or gamer gets forgotten by Santa, it's easy to fix. Just check out one of the participating sites and order the instant gratification download and start playing the sample adventure, "The Jaded City of Oz."

Oz Character of the Month: Zeb Hugson

2010-12-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

Something of an unusual choice this month. I already did Santa Claus last December, so the easy one is done.

Name: Zeb Hugson
First Appearance: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
Template: Child in Oz

Size: 2

Athletics: 4
Awareness: 4
Brains: 1
Presence: 2 (horsemanship)
Sneaking: 3
Wits: 3

Traits:

Friends List: Jim the Cab-Horse

Goodbye Thanksgiving, it's time for Christmas already!

2010-11-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many of you are getting stuffed with turkey today, and plan on doing your shopping tomorrow on the infamous Black Friday. But thanks to the glories of the internet, some stores never close. And some of those stores are mine.

Starting today is the Big 25 sale at RPGnow, DrivethruRPG, and Lulu.com (print and PDF). From November 25 (Thanksgiving Day) through December 25 (Christmas Day), you can save 25% on Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. That's only $5.99 for the PDF or $11.24 for print.

Also, a new item is available today. Now you can get your own poster map of Oz over at Zazzle.com. It's the same map from the Adventures in Oz rulebook, now for display on your wall or wherever you put your Oz collectibles.

In other news, I got my hands on a copy of Oz: Dark and Terrible and am planning on posting a review in podcast form. Watch this space for updates on that.

Getting Ready

2010-11-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the late blog post.

As much as I hate the mad mercantile rush around Christmas, I am forcing myself to participate. I've got a couple things that will be happening come Thanksgiving Day. I'll be having a Christmas sale at Lulu, DriveThruRPG, and RPGnow. And I'll be debuting a new product over at Zazzle. on that day as well.

Slightly farther out: I've been working on getting POD book printing through OneBookShelf. The first proof copy I ordered had some problems, and I had to get the file massaged before trying again. I ordered my second proof copy today. If that passes inspection, people can buy a print copy of AiO from DriveThruRPG and RPGnow. That also means that I'll be able to sell that holy grail of modern RPG marketing: The Print/PDF Bundle.

I am working on a new product right now: You've all seen my "Oz Character of the Month"? Well, I'm planning on putting that information onto nicely formatted character sheets. I've got a collection picked out featuring characters you've seen before and some statted out for the first time in this product. Illustrations have been provided by Oz illustrator S.P. Maldonado. I just need to do a little more writing, then get it certified and laid out pretty. No timetable yet, but I'm hoping it'll be available during the Christmas holiday season.

I Hate Christmas!

2010-11-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Actually, I really enjoy Christmas. While I don't get as many toys anymore (damn growing up!), it's still fun to check up with the family and play with the nephews' toys (though they're getting older now).

What I don't like about Christmas is how aggressively mercantile it's become. While out shopping for Halloween candy, I see displays with Christmas trees and Santa Claus. Thanksgiving gets no breathing room at all. It's primarily used to mark the day before "Black Friday", which is the day that people trample other people to death at Wal-Mart... I mean, the biggest shopping day of the year.

The worst part about this is that this is my first Christmas on the other side of the fence. As someone with something to sell, I'm going to have to find a way to tap all of this mercantile Christmas spirit while trying to make sure that I don't lose my personal love of Christmas.

Oz Character of the Month: Jack Pumpkinhead

2010-11-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

There are those who would say I'm late with this one, but I say I'm right on time.

Name: Jack Pumpkinhead
First Appearance: The Marvelous Land of Oz
Template: Crafted Person

Size: 3

Athletics: 2
Awareness: 3
Brains: 2 (pumpkins)
Presence: 3
Sneaking: 1
Wits: 2

Traits: Crafted, Craftsman: Pumpkins

Friends List: Ozma

Jack Pumpkinhead is the most curiously mortal being in the land of Oz. While his wooden body will not wear out, his pumpkin head spoils on a regular basis. So he maintains a pumpkin farm in the Winkie country near the Emerald City so he always has a fresh pumpkin on hand to carve into a new head whenever he needs it. He has also carved a home from a particularly large pumpkin where he entertains guests and serves them various pumpkin-based delicacies, made from pumpkins that he has no need of as heads.

What do I do for an encore?

2010-10-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who purchased the charity bundle from RPGNow. Over $60,000 was raised to help Doctors Without Borders as they provide relief to flood victims in Pakistan.

But now I've got an interesting problem. Over 2,000 people have downloaded my game (even if they bought the bundle to get their hands on big name games like Icons, Exalted, or Starblazer Adventures) and I have nothing to follow it with. No supplements, no extra promotional items.

Typically, when you give away something for free, it's because you want them to buy a product later. Give away a free sample of cereal to get the customer to buy a box of it. Give away a core rulebook to encourage people to buy supplements.

But my supplement plans are proceeding slowly. I do have a fairly quick and easy project in the works, but I've had such bad luck with announcing release dates that I don't want to risk it right now. In the meanwhile, if you came here looking for supplements, sourcebooks or adventures modules (Take that, Google!), you can always find a new Oz character posted here every month.

To all the people who found Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road in their bundle: Tell your friends about this game. The more people buy the game, the more ability I will have to produce those supplements for you.

Gareth-Michael Skarka is full of crap

2010-10-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

Gareth-Michael Skarka has been in the RPG industry for quite some time. And so he knows lots of stuff. But sometimes, he drops the ball.

In a recent blog, Gareth predicts the upcoming death of the tabletop RPG industry. A startling claim. His evidence? The Dresden Files RPG sold 3,000 books in the 3rd quarter of 2010. "Back in my day," I can hear the old man voice creaking "3,000 copies was a solid initial order."

But what does this really prove? Not as much as Gareth thinks it does. It proves that the RPG industry works differently than it did back in the 90's.

Because in the 1990's, the only way to get an economical price on book printing was to buy a lot of them. Only printing one or two at a time was an insane proposition. You had to order in volume. At least 1,000. 3,000 isn't too far off. Thanks to print on demand technology, those low per-book prices can be had at a much smaller volume.

Also, once you printed up your 3,000 copies in the year 199x, the next step was to sell to a distributor. Once you had done that, your involvement with selling those books was essentially done. It was now up to the distributor to sell the product to retailers, who then sold it to the end-user.

But come the year 2000, we got the 3rd edition of D&D and the resulting d20 glut. Gareth calls it an "explosion", but really, it was a glut. Too many people were trying to hitch their wagon to the d20 brand, publishing their old D&D campaigns and modules and trying to make a million dollars. Some of them might have actually done it. But they did so at the expense of the distributors. Distributors and retailers wound up saddled with literally tons of stuff that nobody wanted as customers realized that the d20 System logo was not an assurance of quality.

Fast forward to now and you might find a distributor who'll buy 3,000 copies of your game, if you're lucky and have an established track record. They've learned their lesson on that one.

So today's RPG publisher is leaner and meaner than those of yore. Instead of printing 3,000 books that will probably still be sitting in a warehouse somewhere six months from now, they are able to print a few at a time, responding swiftly as demand increases and scaling back when it doesn't happen.

Nothing's going away. It's just changing.

In which I invoke a meme

2010-10-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder: The Pakistan Relief Bundle at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow is only going to be available until Monday, October 25 at 10 AM EST. It's only $25 to support a really good cause and get some cool schwag in the process.

Since everyone else in the gaming blogosphere is doing it, I guess I'll have to do it, too. Here is a list of the 15 games that have inspired me as a player, Narrator, and game designer. And I have only 15 minutes to come up with them all.

1. GURPS
2. Exalted
3. Ironclaw
4. Dream Park
5. Dungeons & Dragons
6. Cartoon Action Hour
7. Palladium
8. Pokethulhu
9. World of Darkness
10. Ars Magica
11. Great Ork Gods
12. Feng Shui
13. Big Eyes, Small Mouth
14. Burning Wheel
15. Spirit of the Century

Adventures Without Borders!

2010-10-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Back in January, OneBookShelf held a fundraiser to help Doctors Without Borders provide relief to Haiti after that country suffered a massive earthquake. Now they're doing it again. This time, it's to help flood victims in Pakistan. This time, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond The Yellow Brick Road is there. I have donated the PDF version of the game to the bundle of free product you'll get when you donate $25 to DWB through OneBookShelf.

Please give your support to this fundraiser. Links here.

Oz: Dark and Terrible

2010-10-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

As I try to keep abreast of both roleplaying and Oz, this particular item got my attention.

As I said in my interview with Blair Frodelius over at the Daily Ozmapolitan, I don't generally care for dark takes on Oz. I think they're missing the point. It seems to me that they're trying to make Oz more "grown up" and "mature", which really isn't necessary.

For one thing, although Baum did include a lot of whimsy and silliness in the stories, he always treated his characters with respect, never sacrificing them for cheap drama or cheap jokes. Danger was always real and escape was always earned. Oz was never a land where major crises were resolved by some last minute deus ex machina, and The Nome King would never allow himself to be defeated by Delicious Fruit Pies. So they should pass nearly any test of "grown-up-ness" you'd care to apply.

"But it can't be mature until there's sex, violence and lots of explosions!" seems to be the opinion of a lot of people. "If it's not rated R, it must be kid's stuff." But not C.S Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, he once wrote: "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I do wish them the best, and I hope they bring some new people to Oz. My main criticism is on "dark Oz" in general, not Oz: Dark & Terrible is particular. I'll save comments on the game itself for after I have actually seen it.

Oz Character of the Month: Ozzy McTavish

2010-10-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of Halloween, that wondrous day when we all like to dress up like people we aren't, I present a character that originally (and up til now, only) existed as a costume. Those of you who attended Winkie 2010 might have seen Eric Gjovaag wandering the convention with his Emerald City jersey and big plastic bat. Now Ozzy McTavish can be a character at your gaming table!

Name: Ozzy McTavish
First Appearance: Winkie 2010
Template: Wanderer

Size: 3

Athletics: 4 (Baseball)
Awareness: 3
Brains: 2
Presence: 2
Sneaking: 3
Wits: 2

Traits: None

Friends List: Emerald City Green Sox

"I was blown away," says Emerald City Green Sox manager Henry Gale of sensation Ozzy McTavish.

Sports fans were certainly blown away last week as the Green Sox triumphed over the Wonderland White Wabbits in the Fantasy League Playoffs. A McTavish home run in the 6th inning earned him 3 RBIs and gave the Sox an unbeatable 8-3 lead against those wascally wabbits.

McTavish wasn't the only hero in that game, though. Second baseman Hip Hopper bravely attempted to counter the fancy footwork of the Wabbits, but wound up pulling his (only) hamstring trying to tag the Cheshire Cat on his way to/through second base. Sal Shaker, traded up from the Utensia Knicknacks, stepped in to relieve him and particularly shined as a pinch hitter.

Fellow Knicknack Clay Jugg stood firm on the pitcher's mound, pouring out a steady stream of strikes against the visiting Wonderlanders. Although Joe Candy was strongly favored as pitcher by the Championship Committee, it was revealed that he took the performance enhancing drug zosozo and was therefore ineligible to compete.

(Thanks to Eric Gjovaag for letting me do this.)

Review: The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo

2010-09-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Author: Chad Underkoffler
Publisher: Atomic Sock Monkey Press

The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo (hereafter ZoZ) is a relatively small book (6x9 inches, about 200 pages) with a significant punch. It contains a trimmed down version of the Prose Descriptive Qualities system (also known as PDQ, the house system of Atomic Sock Monkey Press), advice for running fairy tale themed RPGs, a description of the land of Zo, and details of the ZoZ campaign that the author ran for two of his friends.

The preface of the book explains how the book came to be. It had all started as a game that Chad Underkoffler had run for his friends. They both loved the game and wanted him to publish the setting. But there wasn’t much to the setting. Only what had been created for the needs of the campaign. Then he realized that over the history of RPGs, several books had been written about what you could do or should do in a game, but very few presented what people had actually had done.

The PDQ system is a very lite and abstract system. Characters are made up of Qualities, traits that are created by the player, rather than chosen from a list. These Qualities are then rated either Master, Expert, Good, Average or Poor. All characters must have a Quality with a Poor rating. This is their Weakness and represents a character flaw or disability. Characters also have a Special Move, which provides a bonus to one or more of their Qualities.

So if our good friend the Tin Woodman were being played in a PDQ game, he might look something like this:

Name: Nick Chopper

Qualities: Master [+6] Tin Plating, Expert [+4] Woodchopper, Good [+2] Kind Heart, Poor [-2] Rust Prone

Special Move: Badaxe!

Notes: The numbers in brackets are the numerical bonuses that Qualities of that rank provide when rolling dice. The Special Move “Badaxe!” grants a free Upshift whenever Nick uses his ax, typically with his Woodchopper Quality.

The mechanics are fairly simple: Roll 2d6, add the bonuses from any applicable Qualities and compare the result to a Difficulty number. If you roll higher than the Difficulty, you succeed.

The aspect of the system that is particularly noteworthy is how it handles damage. I have heard PDQ described as the only system where you can take a punch in the girlfriend. Rather than having a separate pool of hit points, characters take damage to their Qualities. Since Qualities are defined by the player, it is possible for one to represent a relationship their character has with another.

Which Quality you use to take damage first is also important, as the Narrator is supposed to use that to generate Story Hooks. If your character does wind up “taking a punch in the girlfriend”, that means that your girlfriend will be significant in some way later in the story.

Example: Nick Chopper is fighting a pack of wolves and has just taken 2 ranks of damage. He could apply them to his Tin Plating Quality, reducing it from Master [+6] to Good [+2]. This would generate a Story Hook related to his tin nature. If he applied those ranks to his Kind Heart Quality, it would go from Good [+2] all the way down to Poor [-2] (the lowest it can go) and he would find his kindness challenged later in the story.

The book particularly shines in presenting the Actual Play material. The main text is written by Chad, who was the Narrator of this particular campaign, and details the setting, some major characters, and finally, the story that was created over the course of play. But Chad and his players also provide “DVD commentary tracks”, a series of text-box asides that give their perspective on what’s going on in the main text. When the main characters are presented, they also feature the player describing the process of coming up with the character and even bring up a few different concepts that they almost used, but didn’t.

Is it Oz? Yes and no. The land of Zo does have a small resemblance to Oz, mostly in terms of geography (see the map on the back cover), but draws from a variety of sources. That said, the PDQ system could handle an Oz game pretty easily.

The only thing marring my recommendation is the price tag: $30. Most RPGs of its size are less expensive (My own AiO is 14.99, about half the price), and most RPGs of its price are fancier (at that price point, most major publishers are able to offer hardcover books, usually with full color illustrations).

I'm Back!

2010-09-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

At last the boxes are getting unpacked and the internet is finally connected at the new house! But in the interim, I have missed another weekly blog post.

It might not matter much to you, my loyal readers, but it matters to me. As a small publisher, I don't have big ad campaigns or slick websites. This blog is my primary marketing outlet and connection to my fans. If I forsake that, or even look like I'm forsaking it, I stand to lose everything I have built over the last two and a half years.

Child's Play?

2010-09-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

There is an expanding market for kid's RPGs these days. Dungeons & Dragons is over 30 years old. A 10-year old kid who got one of those early boxed sets back in the '70's has grown into his 40's by now, and probably has a career and family. So whether he's looking to pass on the legacy of fun that RPGs have given him over the years or simply trying to demonstrate to his kids what daddy does with his friends every Saturday night, having an RPG that they can relate to is becoming remarkably valuable.

To fill this gap, games like Faery's Tale and Meddling Kids have arisen. But what about AiO? Is it a kid's game?

Yes and no.

Yes, Oz is something that is generally considered "kid stuff." Yes, I wrote the game to be accessible to beginners, regardless of age. Yes, the rules are actually pretty simple compared to most RPGs.

But no, I did not design the game with any particular age group in mind. I've played it with a group of kids and I've played it with a group of twenty-somethings and both groups had a lot of fun. And I don't plan on revising the game to make it more "kid-friendly."

For one thing, neither L. Frank Baum or Gary Gygax, father of RPGs, ever talked down to their audience. In fact, many early gamers give Gygax significant credit for their vocabulary, as they often had to reference the dictionary in order to figure out what he was saying.

And even in a kid's RPG, the person you need to explain things to is not necessarily the player, but the Narrator. It's more common for the Narrator to be a grown-up in a group of kids rather than the other way around, so writing the book for a 5th grade reading level is going to be insulting to a college-educated adult.

It's Finally Here!

2010-09-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been patiently waiting for me to get everything together, it's finally here. The PDF version of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is now available. You can get it from your favorite PDF site.

RPGnow

Drivethru RPG

Lulu.com

Your Games Now

Paizo.com

Happy downloading!

Oz Character of the Month: The Thing

2010-09-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

Things are getting pretty crazy here at the Wall household. For one thing, the household is moving to another house. Also, I have recently changed jobs to something that is hopefully much less stressful. And most exciting of all, I have become engaged to the most charming girl and am hip-deep in wedding preparations. I apologize if any of these causes the blog to suffer.

For this month’s Oz Character of the Month, we bring you a character you may not really think of as a character.

Name: The Thing
First Appearance: The Marvelous Land of Oz
Template: Large Animal

Size: 4

Athletics: 3 (Long Distance Flying)
Awareness: 3
Brains: 1
Presence: 1
Sneaking: 2
Wits: 2

Traits: Crafted, Flight, No Arms

Friends List: Ozma

The Thing (sometimes called the Gump, though this isn’t wholly accurate) was assembled as a vehicle of escape when the Emerald City was under siege from General Jinjur and her army. Two couches form its body, while four palm fronds function as wings. A broom serves as a rudder, and the mounted head of a Gump provides intelligent guidance. This entire assemblage was animated with the power of the magical Powder of Life owned by the boy Tip. Once the emergency was over, the Thing chose to be disassembled into its components. While the Gump’s head still bears the enchantment of life and speaks whenever he chooses, all of the Thing’s other pieces have resumed their previous, unliving, roles around the palace.

ARRRRR!!! A Pirate's Life For Me!

2010-08-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

As the PDF version of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road nears completion, one of the things that must be addressed is data piracy. More specifically, how afraid should I be that my book will be pirated?

The answer seems to be a fairly qualified “not very.”

In spite of what some people claim, a pirate copy is not necessarily a lost sale. There are a couple of reasons for this:

Some people download pirated RPGs as a form of “free trial.” If they like the game, they will purchase it legitimately. A few small publishers will even include a note in their games to the effect of “I know you pirated this. I’m just a regular joe like you trying to make it in this business. Please help a guy out by paying for this.” in order to encourage this effect.

Also, there are those who say that the people who pirate RPGs weren’t going to pay for them anyway. They just like raiding torrent sites to see what they can get for free. One story I read has a guy joining an online session of an RPG, only to discover that the Narrator of the game had pirated the rulebooks. He also noticed that the Narrator was very poorly organized and didn’t know the rules as well as a Narrator should. This player came to the conclusion that since the Narrator hadn’t paid for the book, he wasn’t invested in it and didn’t really care about the game he was running.

This makes a degree of sense. One of my favorite old saws is “The Story of the $20 Kittens.” Now you might have seen someone giving away free kittens from a cardboard box outside the grocery store or something similar. The person who told me this story saw a similar scene, but rather than saying “Free Kitenz”, the sign on the cardboard box read “Kittens $20.” Now these kittens weren’t terribly different from the free variety, so my source felt compelled to ask what made these kittens so special.

The people selling the kittens explained that if they gave the kittens away for free, the people who received them would not attach value to the kitten, and potentially mistreat them. But if you give the kitten a cost, it therefore has value. And a valued kitten will get a much better home than one that does not have a value attached.

Another reason not to fear piracy: I’m just a small fish in a pretty big pond. If AiO is getting pirated, I tend to view it as a sign of success. There’s enough of a demand that someone found a value in making it available via pirate channels.

And all of the potential headache is worth it for the payoff it creates. Putting the game up on PDF sites increases the places it is available by 4 or 5. The lack of manufacturing costs means that I can sell it for less while still making money.

Some of the biggest marketing successes of the last two years have been due to PDFs. In 2009, Paizo Publishing released the electronic version of the rulebook for their Pathfinder RPG for only $9.99. Considering that the print version had an MSRP of $49.99 (it was a full-color, very thick hardcover book), this made a lot of progress towards making Pathfinder one of the RPGs to watch ever since.

Some publishers take advantage of the format to release books before they’re technically ready. Since PDF retailers allows their customers to re-download the file if the publishers revise them, those early adopters are not left out in the cold. Steve Jackson Games has taken to releasing the PDF first and encouraging their customers to report errata for the book before it is sent to the printers. Evil Hat released their Dresden Files RPG electronically before the layout was finalized.

While I’m tempted to try something like this (I do have a preliminary draft of the PDF), I do not feel confident that I can pull off the same stunt. Since this is my first product and I do not have an established reputation, the first impression people will have of me will be the game that I release. If that is imperfect, or not the best it could be, then my chances of eventual success will be much reduced.

Princess Ozma's Birthday is coming!

2010-08-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Do you have a present ready?

In honor of Princess Ozma's birthday, August 20th, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is going on sale. For the next 5 days, it will be $5 off the cover price. Instead of $14.99, the game will be only $9.99.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/adventures-in-oz-fantasy-roleplaying-beyond-the-yellow-brick-road/11166659

Save vs. Boxed Text

2010-08-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have purchased pre-written adventures (rather than writing your own), you are familiar with boxed text. It is text that is usually set aside from the rest of the adventure and intended for you to read aloud to your players. "The Jaded City of Oz", the sample adventure in my book, includes such "boxed text", though I mention it in quotes because it's not boxed.

The idea is that the guy who wrote the adventure is helping out the Narrator by feeding him descriptions of the various things that the player's characters encounter. This is good. But there is a wrong way to do it. Some friends of mine are currently playing through a pre-written adventure for D&D and laughing at a lot of the mistakes that the writer made in writing these descriptions.

Overwrought: The "dungeon" in the scenario is actually a haunted house, so the writer is clearly going for "spooky" descriptions. But they can easily sound clumsy, like the writer is trying too hard to be scary. And they tend to be long, comparatively speaking. Especially since each room of the mansion is accompanied by a paragraph of spooky description. This really undermined any attempt at a horror scenario, as we found ourselves making jokes about "save vs. boxed text" (for non-D&D nerds, a save, or saving throw, is a die roll made to avoid a particular hazard).

Useless: In at least one instance, a paragraph of supposedly evocative boxed text is followed by "There's nothing of interest in this room." Meaning that the full minute we spent listening to the Narrator read that paragraph was pretty much wasted. Good boxed text should present the players at least one thing in the room to interact with. It doesn't have to be plot relevant, but it should be something. Give me a brick wall so I can search for the secret brick that opens the hidden door. It doesn't matter if the hidden door doesn't exist. It would have been more effective if the Narrator had simply said "The room is creepy looking. Here's the door to the next room."

Inconsistent: While the main floor of the haunted house had long descriptions, by the time we got to exploring the basement, the descriptions got a lot more succinct. What happened? Did the writer get tired? Run out of synonyms for "dark"? Even though there was a very scary monster in the basement, the boxed text provides no build-up to this.

Oz Character of the Month: Toto

2010-08-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

First of all, a correction. My last posting stated that GenCon was last weekend. GenCon is actually this weekend, starting today. I regret the error and hope everyone who is going to GenCon has a blast. If you take your copy of Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road along with you, please spread the Oz love by running a game for your con-friends.

This month's Character of the Month is actually one that I've wanted to do for a while. If often stated that one of my design goals was the ability to re-create any Oz protagonist. To demonstrate how serious I am about that, I present Toto, suitable for playing in your AiO game.

Name: Toto
First Appearance: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Template: Small Animal
Size: 1

Athletics: 4
Awareness: 3
Brains: 2
Sneaking: 3
Presence: 4 (Growl)
Wits: 3

Traits: No Arms

Friends List

Dorothy

Adventures in Staying At Home

2010-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

This certainly has been an exciting week. Wish I was there.

Last weekend was the San Diego Comic Con (congratulations on those two Eisners, Eric!) as well as W inkie Con. This upcoming weekend is GenCon, one of the first (and certainly the biggest) RPG conventions out there. And during this week, it is Read an RPG Book In Public Week.

The only thing I've been able to participate in was Read an RPG in Public Week. But then, this is something I do anyway. My Facebook Friends and Fans have seen my photo of me reading AiO at the local Starbucks. The funny thing is, that was pretty much a publicity stunt. Sure, I read the book on my own (it's full of good stuff), but later that day, I wound up taking my D&D Dungeon Master's Guide to work with me so I could do some research for my current game.

I would have loved to attend any of the events going on right now, but traveling is a rather expensive proposition for me. DunDraCon is largely paid for by my tax return (I have to e-file to make sure that I get it in time). Hopefully, next year I will have some extra income from sales of the game, which should help me get out a bit more and drum up more sales of the game.

So remember, if you want to see me at Winkie next year, buy my stuff!

On a related note, the layout for the PDF version of the game is nearing completion and I'm hoping it will be done by next month. Even if it's ready sooner, I'm tempted to delay release until August 20th (Princess Ozma's birthday). This is mostly because I missed that date last year with the game.

Defining Success

2010-07-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

This entry is not about success in roleplaying games, but in the RPG industry. How do you know when you've "made it" as an RPG publisher?

So I've done some thinking and come up with a couple of milestones to guide me along the way to success.

1st) "I'm free!": 81 sales. This is the amount of sales I need to have everyone paid off that I currently owe. Publishing something as lovely as AiO is an expensive proposition and I still owe people money for helping me put it together.

2nd) Schmuck: 100 sales. There's a bit of "common knowledge" that says "Any schmuck can sell 100 of anything."

3rd) "Don't laugh, it's paid for": 237 sales. This is about the point where I have actually earned back all of the money I spent on getting the game produced. Now I can talk about getting the money back from all the marketing expenses (which I'm trying to keep low, anyway).

4th) "Made it": 300 sales. This is the point where I can declare myself a survivor of the rat race that is self-publishing. It's not a record, but a badge of honor for my experience.

The Crimes of Dr. Pipt

2010-07-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

Dr. Pipt is a character who showed up in The Patchwork Girl of Oz and is the creator of the titular heroine. He is also known as the Crooked Magician because his body is rather crooked and he practices magic in defiance of the laws of Oz.

As I was reading the story as research for AiO, it felt a little jarring to have Dr. Pipt's magic stripped from him at the end of the story. He's not a villainous character, nor is he unsympathetic, and yet Ozma treats him much like a criminal in the climax of the story. So what did he do that was so terrible?

1) Improper storage of magical liquids. This is what creates the main thrust of the story, as the Liquid of Petrifaction is spilled on Unc Nunkie and Margolotte which requires Ojo to undertake his journey in the first place. But it's not his only crime. Read on.

2) Improper use of magic to solve a mundane problem. Bungle the Glass Cat was originally created to catch mice around the Pipt home. To drive home this particular lesson, it backfired on him. Bungle has no stomach with which to digest mice and her other features are notable enough that she's rather pay attention to those. (Baum repeats this theme in a conversation between Dorothy and Ozma in Glinda of Oz)

3) Animation with intent to enslave. Probably a strong term there, but it's accurate. Scraps was intended to be a servant. Her original batch of magical brains was intended to make her competent and complacent in her role as maid. It was Ojo's additions that made her a unique and independent character.

4) Animation and abandonment. This is poor Vic, the living phonograph. He was brought to life when Scraps knocked the Powder of Life from Dr. Pipt's hand. He likes to do what he has been built for, which is to play the record on his turntable, but it's a horrible record and so he is cast out by Dr. Pipt.

Why Go Beyond The Deadly Desert?

2010-07-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

As I still have a plan to put together "Adventures in Oz: Beyond the Deadly Desert", I must pose the question: Why did L. Frank Baum go beyond the Deadly Desert in his Oz stories? Why didn't he just set all of his action there?

I think the answer is: Because it wouldn't have been realistic. Part of the charm of Baum's writing is that there is a level of realism (or more accurately, verisimilitude) along with the fantasy. And despite the Oz fandom's love of tornadoes as plot devices, notice that Baum only used it once. Because to use it more than once would be to stretch credulity just a little too much. Do it three times and you've completely battered any suspension of disbelief into the ground.

In fact, Baum's first Oz sequel, The Land of Oz, doesn't even include Dorothy. This is probably because he thought that bringing Dorothy back to Oz would have been hard to do believably. And when he did bring her back in Ozma of Oz, she doesn't return to Oz, but finds herself in the neighboring land of Ev. Because he had already established that Oz is surrounded by desert and to use a shipwreck to bring Dorothy directly to Oz would have been a cheat.

Then, in The Road to Oz, Baum introduces his Oz readers to a number of characters from his other stories, functionally tying those non-Oz stories into Oz lore. This process becomes complete with Scarecrow of Oz bringing Trot and Cap'n Bill to Oz. So now we've got lots of interconnected material to draw from that happens outside the borders of Oz itself.

Oz Character of the Month: Shaggy Man

2010-07-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of announcements first: Another round of complimentary copies of the game went out today, mostly to thank people who helped me out with the game (you know who you are) but a couple of them went to the good folks at Indie Press Revolution, a consignment distributor of independent games. These copies will not be for sale, but for review. IPR is unique in requiring that products be reviewed before they are accepted for distribution. This not only helps them maintain a high standard of quality for their products, but it also means that the people selling the game have actually read it and have a better idea of how to sell it.

Also, I have recently obtained the domain http://adventuresinoz-rpg.com and am in the process of migrating my old site there. A lot easier to remember than the old URL.

Now, without further ado, I present our Oz Character of the Month for July, The Shaggy Man.

Name: Shaggy Man
First Appearance: The Road to Oz
Template: Wanderer
Size: 3

Athletics: 3 (baseball)
Awareness: 2
Brains: 2
Sneaking: 2
Presence: 3
Wits: 2

Traits: Magic Item (The Love Magnet [AiO rulebook p 41]), Poet (2 points)

Friends List

Johnny Dooit

Food for thought

2010-06-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

I actually have a pretty ambitious post in the works, but it's not ready yet. Maybe next week.

For now, let's think of all of those bits in the Oz stories that you may not notice when you're younger, but can become really odd or creepy when you grow up.

Like the Tin Woodman. After trading in his meat body for metal, he searches for a heart. Fairy tale character, or the ancestor of all cyberpunk?

Princess Langwidere: Someone who treats heads as just another fashion accessory. Up-and-coming trendsetter, or body horror?

Anybody got any others?

A Few Random Things

2010-06-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

I actually had a pretty cool blog post in mind for this week, but never found the time to write it.

So I'll start by wishing Happy Birthday to fellow Oz blogger Jared Davis. I don't know how old he is, and I'm enough of a gentleman not to ask.

And now I direct your attention to the Daily Ozmapolitan, where the intrepid Blair Frodelius has posted an interview with yours truly. For those of you who would rather listen, here's a blast from the past: Jared's Royal Podcast of Oz from September of last year, where he interviewed me on the same topic.

Last, but certainly not least, don't forget that this Saturday is Free RPG Day. Check the site to see if a retailer near you is participating this year. If not, you know what to do: "I want my Free RPG!"

Happy Father's Day this Sunday.

Prince Inga - Redux

2010-06-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

There were a couple things I wanted to do with Prince Inga as my Oz character of the month. First of all, I had not yet presented any characters using the Noble template and I wanted that to get some exposure. Also, I wanted to show a character that began play with a magic item, to demonstrate how that works. But once I sat down to do it, I realized that his pearls took up too many of his points and made him distinctly unimpressive without them.

So here's a revised version of Prince Inga that puts the Pearls of Pingaree on his Friends List where they don't cost him skill points. Instead, he'll have to spend an Oz Point whenever he wants to use them.

Name: Prince Inga
First Appearance: Rinkitink in Oz
Template: Noble
Size: 3

Athletics: 3 (Tree Climbing)
Awareness: 2
Brains: 3
Presence: 3
Sneaking: 1
Wits: 4

Traits: None

Friends

The Pearls of Pingaree

Note: Although Prince Inga is known to be rather young, his thoughtfulness and general maturity lead me to think of him as an older youth. So I've left his Size at 3 (adult size) rather than reducing it to 2 (child size).

Oz Character of the Month: Prince Inga of Pingaree

2010-06-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

While there are plenty of examples of characters using templates like "Child in Oz" or "Crafted Person", not so many characters count as "Nobles". At least not among main characters. And, for added challenge, Prince Inga has the Magic Pearls, magical items that are integral to his adventures.

Name: Prince Inga
First Appearance: Rinkitink in Oz
Template: Noble
Size: 2

Basic Skills

Athletics: 1 (Tree Climbing)
Awareness: 2
Brains: 2
Presence: 2
Sneaking: 1
Wits: 3

Traits: Magic Items (Blue Pearl, Pink Pearl, White Pearl) (6 points)

Friends List

King Rinkitink

Blue Pearl

Power: Help/Hinder, +2 Athletics (2)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: None (0)
Item: Unlimited Use (-1)
Effect Power: 1
Description: This pearl has the ability to grant whoever carries it +2 to all Athletics rolls to attempt feats of strength.

Pink Pearl

Power: Wishing (5)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: None (0)
Item: Unlimited Use (-1)
Effect Power: 4
Description: This pearl causes whoever owns it to become immune to all harm from any source.

White Pearl

Power: Divination (2)
Scope: Self/Person/Object (0)
Ritual: Simple (0)
Item: Unlimited Use (-1)
Effect Power: 1
Description: This pearl speaks with a small voice that always seems to give good advice. The ritual required to use it is simply asking the pearl a question and holding it to your ear to hear the response.

Note: This is actually a very ineffective build for Prince Inga. His magic pearls cost more points than he is normally allowed, so a few points were trimmed from his Basic Skills to compensate. Another possibility would be to treat the magic pearls as his starting Friend, allowing him to call on their powers for the cost of an Oz Point.