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
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Adventures Without Borders!
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.
Please give your support to this fundraiser. Links here.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Oz: Dark and Terrible
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.
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.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Oz Character of the Month: Ozzy McTavish
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.)
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.)
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Review: The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo
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).
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).
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I'm Back!
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.
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.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Child's Play?
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.
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.
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