Merry Christmas!

Just a little post to wish all of you a merry Christmas. I do have some more numbers I could be putting up, but who wants a boring dose of reality on this of all days?

Even if today isn't Christmas for you, I hope you have a blessed day today.

Getting Ready

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!

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.

Merry Christmas from the Laughing Valley!

As Christmas rolls around here in the land of Oz, the focus shifts to L. Frank Baum's interpretation of the Santa Claus story, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

While I'm not a fan of the story (I blogged about that fact last year), I'm not about to step on anyone's Christmas fun.

This year, I present to you Santa Claus as a playable character for Adventures in Oz!

Template: Wanderer

Size: 3

Athletics 2
Awareness 2
Brains 3
Presence 4
Sneaking 2 (on Christmas)
Wits 2

Traits: Craftsman (Toys)

Friends List

Necile

Note: This version of Santa was created using the standard character creation rules and is suitable for a player. If any Narrators want to use Santa in their stories as a supporting cast member, or allow Santa to appear on another character's Friends List, they are not bound by these numbers in the slightest.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

I bet you were wondering if I would bring myself to post this Thursday, or if I would wait until the holiday was over. As it turns out, I've got just enough time while the rice pudding is in the oven to get this posted.

My playtesters have already received their Christmas present. The latest playtest kit is headed their way as we speak. Now to gift the loyal readers of my blog with a new Oz art preview.

This is the Tin Woodman as done by Brad McDevitt. This is copyright Brad and used with permission.

For those not in the know, L. Frank Baum wrote his own version of the legend of Santa Claus, called "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus". It is, interestingly enough, the only hardcopy Baum book that I own. Both Jared Davis and VoVat have extensive blogs on this tale, so I won't bore you by rehashing what they've already said. I will say that it's my least favorite of Baum's works. Not that it's badly written (Baum's worst book is still more readable than some author's best book), but the simple fact is that Santa does little throughout the book but make toys and deliver them. All of the conflicts and challenges that Santa faces are instead overcome by his fairy friends.