Defining Success

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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).