Adventures of Consequence

The more time passes, the more I realize that Adventures in Oz needs a revised edition. Not that it's a bad game at all. Just that I've learned some things that I didn't even think about 6 years ago.

While there are some tweaks to the rules I want to make, the Narrator chapter needs to be a bit stronger. It's decent, fairly generic Narrator advice. However, it really undersells some specifics of Oz that are baked into the rules.

The big thing about AiO is the Friends List/Oz Point rules. That's the key innovation of the game. But I don't know how strongly I sold it in the game's text. As I said a few months ago, I think I gave short shrift to that in my presentation of character creation. I'm sure the Narrator's discussion could use some bulking up, too.

But the thing I've really come here for today is to talk about another thing that didn't get talked about much in the AiO Narrator's chapter that really should have been: Adventures that are initiated by player actions. Because there are things in the rules that are intended to create adventures that aren't really discussed.

For example, the whole notion of limb loss during combat. The most I do in my discussion of this in the book is say to handle it very carefully. There's a lot of story potential that winds up left on the table.

As much as I say that I included the whole limb loss rule because of the Tin Woodman's backstory, there's another tale that can inform your Oz adventures. In Baum's the Magical Monarch of Mo, the titular monarch loses his head in battle with the Purple Dragon. While he does eventually get his head back, he spends some time in the interim trying on various replacement heads of differing materials.

So if a character in your Oz adventures loses a limb, they have just created a new set of adventures for themselves. Not only do they have the option of going on a quest for their old limb, but seeking out a craftsman to make the replacement limb that they want can be an adventure, as well. Maybe they want a cool steampunk robot arm, but all they can find are clockmakers who want to put a little cuckoo in it. So they go on a quest to find the Steam Punk. Or whatever.

The other thing that can feed adventures is the creation of magic items. A lot of games that have magic items include rules for making them. But for the most part, it's largely handled as a downtime, non-adventuring activity. AiO, by contrast, specifies that magic items require a number of ingredients that must be quested for. While there is a loophole where you can spend an Oz Point to have one of these ingredients already, the real fun is in the journey.

And the cool thing about both of these adventure possibilities is that they don't strictly come from the Narrator. While the Narrator may certainly include enemies wielding Deadly Weapons in their game, exactly how that fight plays out and whether anyone loses a specific limb should not be mandated. Also, it should be player choice exactly what they want for a replacement. Likewise, it is perfectly fine for a Narrator to say "A new threat has come to Oz and we need these 3 things to work the magic to save it." It is also fine for the player of a Sorcerer character to say "Narrator, I want my character to make a really cool magic item. What magical ingredients do I need to find to make it?"

Bad News and Good News

As I'm sure you've guessed, the times I'm able to get into the zone for proper blogging have been few and far between lately. Aside from obvious reasons that I'll get into in a moment, what is motivating me to write today is anger.

You see, earlier this week, I discovered that a friend of mine had died. Not only that, but she had died about a month ago. It was a sudden illness, so there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary last time I saw her. But that was some time ago. Longer than I care to admit, actually. She was a good person and actually pretty cool to game with. She just had a big personality that I could only really handle in limited doses. So there's a bit of guilt in with all the grieving, too.

So where does the anger come from? Well, when her old roommate came by to give me the news, I verified by checking the obituaries on the local paper's website. I found a brief notification of her death, but no mention of services or surviving family or any of that business. And that set me off. The thought that nobody cared enough to write the obituary or hold a service has really bugged me.

I later found out that she would get a memorial service next month. 2 months after her death. While I'm glad she'll have gotten some sort of memorial, the delay feels unconscionable to me.

This is relevant to this blog not only because she was a personal friend of mine, but also a gamer and an Oz fan. Regretfully, the period in which I was initially developing AiO was a time where I was taking a bit of a hiatus from her. I did give her a copy of the finished product, though.


So with all this anger at my more or less forgotten friend, I decided to take that energy and make a rare leap forward.

I know I teased the notion of a magic supplement, giving some more depth to the magic rules for AiO called The Wizard's Magic Bag. And that teasing went unfulfilled. Behind the scenes, the product was done, complete with interior art and layout. But I still needed cover art. I was in talks with one of my artists to do the cover, but that fell through the cracks like so much else has done lately.

So I decided to kitbash a cover for this product and release it, not only to get my own rear in gear, but as something of a memorial to my friend. This one's for you, Meghan.

The Wizard's Magic Bag, now available!

Also, since it is L. Frank Baum's birthday today, the Royal Podcast of Oz did another full-cast reading of one of the Little Wizard Stories. This year, it was "The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman," featuring me as the Tin Woodman!

Give it a listen!

Filling Up The Magic Bag

One of the reasons for my silence over the last few weeks has been because I have been trying to focus on writing The Wizard's Magic Bag. And I think I can safely say that I'm 90-95% done polishing the text that originated from the blog, making it a bit less casual, but hopefully easier to read.

Now I'm just thinking of what I want to add. Because if it was all blog stuff, it wouldn't be worth it for you to buy it. I do have some things that I want in there, and I am working on getting them in, too.

But what would you like to see? What magical thing would you like to accomplish in your games? What magic item from the stories excited your imagination? Or maybe you'd like to see me import a magic item, rule, or idea from one of your favorite games into Oz.

What's in the Wizard's Magic Bag?

Okay, The Wizard's Magic Bag is slowly but surely becoming a thing. Although a lot of the stuff going into it is from the blog, it still takes some time.

For one thing, I'm rewriting everything that I had previously written. Not only with this allow it to have a unified voice, I'm also rewriting it trying to replicate the writing style that I used in AiO. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but the writing style in AiO is not what I use on this blog. It's much more simplified, though I try to avoid being overly simplistic. My primary enemy is commas. Not that there's anything wrong with commas, and I don't misuse them, but I tend to use an awful lot of them. In fact, all but one sentence in this paragraph uses a comma for some purpose or other.

For another thing, I'll be adding some things. Not just more magic items, but new magical options. Including some rules for letting your character chuck fireballs with the best of them, and an alternate system for sorcery based on Oz Points.

Here's the current list of what's going in:

Errata & Clarifications

This is where the "Effect Power is a penalty to your Brains Skill" is explained to those customers who don't read the blog. (Note: Make sure to include a link to the blog) The expanded Transmutation rules are going in there as well. This is first so that when RPGNow and DriveThruRPG show a preview on the product page, customers can get the patches for free.

New Rules

Here, we'll have rules for minor magics, battle magic, and using friendship as magic. Stuff that I haven't mentioned on the blog before. Something totally new.

Magic Items

Here's the big list of magic items from the books. I also want to touch on some interesting details and quirks of the magic rules, like when an item is just a spell, or having a magic item as a character's starting friend. I'd also like to try to find some room to discuss the story possibilities

Cast an Ozzy Spell: The Witch's Kiss

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.

Cast An Ozzy Spell: Out of Oogaboo

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.)

Cast An Ozzy Spell: The Powder of Life

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.

Errata Cadabra!

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.

Burning Magical Ninjas!

The playtest session was a blast last Saturday. Everyone seems to be playing it as a comedy game, which is certainly a valid approach. When ninjas (from the Kawasaki Ninja Clan) leapt out and attacked the party (a test of the combat system that actually went rather well) I mentioned that they were wielding katanas (because katanas are just better). One of my players is something of a Japan-ophile and asked why they didn't have ninja-tos. Another player jumped in and said "Of course they have ninja-toes. They each have 10 of them."

The magic rules took another battering this week. Not in play, though. One of my more creative players prepared a list of "broken spells" over the week, and presented it to me. There were a few things that struck me about his list.

The first was how clever he was. A spell entitled "Last Chapter" that allows the caster to teleport the party directly to the Emerald City. "Download Walkthrough" gives the caster the knowledge they need to defeat a particular opponent instantly. And then there's a spell with actual precedent from the stories: "Ass to Bass" which turns the victim into a fish.

The second thing that struck me is that all of these effects were too easy to cast under the rules as written. "Last Chapter" by itself would make any Oz story far less exciting and could be cast with eerie ease by our resident sorcerer.

This is the part where I start singing the praises of Burning Wheel. Leafing through the Magic Burner, I discovered an alternate magic system that was very much what I was looking for. Simple, flexible, and ideal for small scale effects, but would have to be stretched to pull of really big things.

No, I'm not converting the whole thing over to Burning Wheel. I'm just making modifications to my own system while cribbing heavily from Art Magic. This should become part of the playtest kit that will be hitting my playtesters at the end of the month. Assuming, of course, that it passes peer review with my own group.

Do you believe in magic?

This was actually the primary aspect that convinced me that Oz needed it's own system. Just about every ruleset that I was familiar with (which is quite a few, I'll warn you now), had battle magic, such as the obligatory fireball spell. While it's cool to allow wizards to be useful in combat situations, that's not how the Oz stories worked. Magic was very much a plot device.

The first question I faced was whether to use a freeform magic system, with no set spells, or a more structured system. Faced with the plot device magic of the stories, I chose to go with a freeform system, since all the magic users seemed to have the right spell at the right time. Unless they didn't, of course.

Now to give it some structure. One of the first things I knew was that there was no fireballs. While it's certainly possible for a wizard to make an opponent uncomfortable in a number of ways, there are no direct damage effects. That just left me to dig up exactly what kind of effects were appropriate.

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" had quite a lot of magic in it. The Silver Shoes which enabled Dorothy to return home at the end. The Magic Cap which allowed the Wicked Witch of the West (and later Dorothy) to command the Winged Monkeys. The Witch's Silver Whistle which summoned wolves, jackdaws, and wasps. The Witch's plot to make an iron bar invisible so that Dorothy would trip over it.

Then there was the Powder of Life and the Wishing Pills from "The Marvelous Land of Oz." The Magic Belt from "Ozma of Oz." Are we detecting a pattern yet?

Most of the early magic was in the form of items with very little spell-casting. It wasn't until much later in the series that spells and such came to the fore. It's a fairly safe bet that the Wizard making a camp out of handkerchiefs in "The Emerald City of Oz" was the first onstage spell-casting in the series.

A case could be made that most of the magical items were used by wicked spell-casters, while good spell-casters were able to pull out whatever spell they needed. This tied neatly into my concept of friends and their relationship to Oz Points. Since wicked characters don't have friends, they don't have pools of Oz Points, and so must resort to other methods. Magic items are reliable, and the exotic ingredients required to make potions and notions help offset the lack of Oz Points.

And then there's the use of cute little poems. Many characters used poems and songs to some degree, but the Wizard used them a few times to use his magic. This led to the Rhyming skill and the means to use it to make magic easier. The Rhyming skill also made sense for a character like Scraps, the Patchwork Girl with all of her silly rhymes.

I still have one hurdle left. I need to figure out how to cancel spells. When Ozma reversed Mrs. Yoops transformations in "The Tin Woodman of Oz", she was unable to completely undo Woot's shapechange. A portion of the plot of "The Magic of Oz" revolved around the Wizard's attempts to free Trot and Cap'n Bill from a magical trap. In "Glinda of Oz", Glinda is completely unsuccessful in using her magic to control the Skeezer island and must resort to figuring out Queen Coo-ee-oh's magic to raise the island.

"The Magic of Oz" also brings up an interesting case. Before he can attempt to free Trot and Cap'n Bill, the Wizard must recover his Magic Bag, which has become lost. This bag also goes missing when Ugu the Shoemaker steals all of the magic in Oz in "The Lost Princess of Oz." Even the potent Yookoohoos may require magical tools of some sort. Mrs. Yoop needed none when she transformed the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow and Woot the Wanderer in "The Tin Woodman of Oz", but Red Reera used a magic powder for her transformations in "Glinda of Oz". That is why both of the magical character templates include the Magical Toolkit trait, but may buy it off.