You Should Be Buying These

Well, the first couple of items are Kickstarters, but I do believe them to be deserving of money.

The first one is Adventures in the Land of Oz, an Oz RPG project from Wicked Studios. It's almost over and might not make its funding goal, but it does look like a good project. As an Oz RPG designer myself, I tend to be rather picky about the projects that I endorse. Oz is not a typical RPG fantasy world and I tend to shudder every time someone tries to make it one.

But this project shows definite promise. It uses a modified version of The Window RPG system, which looks like it could be a good fit. The art that is shown is realistic, rather than either cartoony or grim.

Then we have Tim Brannan's Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch and Warlock. I only really know Tim from his blog, but one thing that's pretty obvious over there is that he loves his witches. If you love witches and you love Pathfinder, I don't see how you can miss with this one.

Now for a product that's actually out. Joseph Bloch's Castle of the Mad Archmage has finally been released! It comes in three parts, the Map Book (maps of every level of the dungeon), the Adventure Book (The "key" to the maps in the Map Book, with descriptions of all the things to encounter in the megadungeon) and the Illustration Book (a set of illustrations to show your players at various points in the dungeon). You should have all three products for maximum enjoyment. It should be fully useful with just the Map Book and the Adventure Book, but the Illustration book is such a neat idea that I can't see anyone turning it down.

I've been using the original version of the Castle for my home campaign and it has led to over two and a half years of awesome gaming (and we're not done yet). I'm still waiting for my print copies to arrive, but I've got my PDFs and am loving the added details, including 2 new upper levels.

My DunDraCon Plans

Wow, my first post of the year. And it's an interesting one.

First of all, I will be going to DunDraCon, as is my tradition. If anyone is in northern California and has the ability to attend, you are encouraged. It's a fun con, and I'd love to meet my fans.

In an interesting twist, I will not be running "The Jaded City of Oz" this year, for grown ups or for kids. I will instead be running "The Castle of the Mad Archmage," the megadungeon by Joseph Bloch as part of the con's Teen Room. I downloaded it a couple of years ago when it was a fan project, and have been running an Old School campaign focused on it ever since. He is putting a bit more effort into it and turning it into a professional release coming very soon. Depending on when this release happens and my own personal resources, I may run the old version or the new at the con. Either way, I will be running it under Joseph's Adventures Dark & Deep rules. I bought a set of the rulebooks for my birthday a few months back and would very much like to try it out.

But why would I do such a thing? A couple of reasons, actually. Before I submitted a game to the scheduling committee, my wife submitted hers and was rejected on the basis that she had submitted the same adventure for the last 3 years (In truth, she only submitted the same pitch to the committee. It's been a different adventure every year). While they might have a slightly different criteria for publishers or Kids Room games, I didn't want to push it.

So why not write another Oz adventure to run? Well, I am working on another Oz adventure. But it's not quite ready yet, and it was even less so when the deadline for submissions came. So I submitted something that I would be willing to run at a moment's notice. (And it's less of a leap than you might think.)

It's certainly possible that this new adventure will premiere at DunDraCon, in the Open Gaming areas. More news on that as it comes available.

Another Year Gone

It's been a while since I've posted, and this seems as good a time as any, so here goes.

 Looking back, it has been a pretty awesome year for Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

Oz the Great and Powerful started the year off with a fairly strong sales boost, particularly over at Amazon.com. Although it's not an RPG specific site, it's a very good barometer of general interest.

The game was the subject of not one, but two podcasts at the Ruthless Diastema and I wound up doing 2 vidcasts with Pete Figtree (one solo and one as part of a roundtable discussion with some other really cool publishers and designers), the man behind Ruthless Diastema. This also led to a guest spot on the Indie Talks podcast that was also quite fun.

Somewhere in between all of that, I decided to experiment with Pay What You Want pricing. While the initial rush was actually pretty nice, activity rather quickly faded to the looky-loos. It's still nice to see when someone feels kind enough to buy it in print or pay more than a token price.

The biggest news of all came latest in the year. The Bundle of Holding. While Allen Varney had been trying to get Wil Wheaton's attention on the project for a while, he finally succeeded with his Family Friendly Bundle of games, featuring AiO. The Bundle of Holding is currently doing a series of "reruns" of early bundles, before the site had achieved its current audience. For the next day or so, he's offering up the original Bundle of Holding, which is a collection of novels whose authors worked in the gaming industry (including Allen Varney). Once that's done, I'm sure he'll have something else cool for you.

The real down side to everything has been the day job. It's made money tighter, and life more stressful than it really should be. Which is probably the big thing holding up Deadly Desert. Many people have described the original game as "joyful" and "full of love." But it's getting harder to find that "happy place" for that sort of writing.

I wanted to have The Wizard's Magic Bag out by now, but my layout person is having some personal issues that have delayed things.

I've got another project in the works, but it's still in the early stages.

See you next year!

What a Long Strange Trip it's Been

This last week has been one of the most exciting weeks in pretty much ever for me. The Bundle of Holding reached heights I never would have expected. That sort of thing happens when Wil Wheaton sends his Flying Monkeys after you. I would have spent the whole weekend staring at my screen clicking Refresh, but the page auto-updates.

There is a new Bundle of Holding up now, with an Asian theme. A couple of the games are actually from Japan amd translated into English, and one is even designed to teach you Korean as you play.

In other Christmas news, designer Kris Newton has brought back The 12 Doors of Christmas, a hilarious kinda-photocomic with "bonus material" following each entry for use in your Pathfinder compatible campaigns.

All Bundled Up

This week, The Bundle of Holding is offering a collection of family friendly and introductory RPGs. Naturally, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is there. It's Pay What You Want for a sleigh full of games to play (minimum $4.95) and if you beat the average price ($12.47 as I write this) you'll get the entire set! AiO is one of the bonus titles, so be sure to aim high.

A portion of the proceeds from the sales will be donated to some really cool children's charities: Save the Children and the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

They've also implemented gifting, so you can choose to give a Bundle to a friend. The gift code you receive on purchase is not tied to any given Bundle, so you can even save it for another Bundle of Holding at another time.

In other news, The Wizard's Magic Bag is proceeding, but slowly. The writing is done and it has gone on to layout, which is taking time. Beyond the Deadly Desert has gotten some progress over the last month, but it is not complete. It is a big project and frankly, writing up setting is one of my least favorite parts of this project. But I have fans to please, so I will keep at it until it is done.

Now for a little bit of "Where are they now?" for contributors to Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

Amanda Webb, who provided a few illustrations for AiO, launched a webcomic, The Ascendants at http://legendsofaukera.com/.

Kris Newton, the writer of "The Jaded City of Oz", AiO's sample adventure, has come out with his own RPG. Feed: The Vampire Mythos RPG. He ran a Kickstarter for it last month, and was able to release it the day after the Kickstarter closed. While there are those who say that it seems like a fast turnaround for a Kickstarter, I'm inclined to think that he was a little closer to the ransom model than a proper Kickstarter.

Love and Monsters

I know I should probably be focusing my writing efforts on Beyond the Deadly Desert right now, but I'm in a little bit of a pickle.

You see, for most of the areas and regions of Oz and beyond that I've written about, I've been able to say something about linking your character to that place. Sometimes, it's about building your character as though they were from that area, like playing a bunny from Bunnybury. Other times, I talk about the benefits of having a friend from that place.

But there are a number of places beyond the Deadly Desert that are really very not nice. Particularly the regions that General Guph recruits from as he built his Army of Conquest in The Emerald City of Oz.

So I'm wondering: Should I make an effort to make the Growleywogs or Phanfasms playable or sympathetic, even though they had distinctly villainous roles in the story they appeared in? Has any Oz writer taken the opportunity to make any of those creatures into relatable characters? Or should I treat them as monsters or villains?

My view might evolve as I knuckle down into that section of the job, and get a better picture of what these guys are really like, but as I'm getting a run-up on it, that's what I'm seeing in front of me.

And This Is Why I'll Never Win NaNoWriMo

Because today is the first day this month I've gotten to sit down and write anything. Between work and other scheduled activities (including a little gaming), I have been run ragged over the last few days. Last night, I finally got to bed at a human hour with no chance of anything else happening first thing in the morning. We'll see how long this lasts.

I still love NaNoWriMo (and NaGaDeMon for those who participate in it). Don't get me wrong. Because it's a good excuse, a kick in the butt to do the thing that you really want to do. And sometimes, that's what I need.

The day job and real life have left me pretty stressed and depressed recently, so I haven't been putting as much attention into some things. Like this blog, for example, or the thing that this blog is supposedly about. I've still got all the work I've done on Beyond the Deadly Desert, but it's been lying fallow for far too long. I think I'll take advantage of the excuse to blow the dust off of it and finish it.

I don't think it will be finished this month, but hopefully I can use NaGaDeMon to build up some steam and momentum and see how far that takes me.