E is for Emerald City

The Emerald City is not only at the heart of Oz (being right in the middle of the four major countries of Oz), but it is also the heart of most of the Oz stories. Quite a few of the stories begin there and nearly all of them end there.

A few months ago, I spent a couple of posts looking at the Emerald City as a place for your characters to hang out and have adventures in. Rather than simply regurgitate that material, I think I'll just provide some links.

The Emerald Sandbox

This is the (Emerald) City

And if you are interested in purchasing Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, you can buy it at DriveThruRPG in print and PDF!

D is for Dorothy

It's almost not an Oz story if it doesn't have Dorothy. L. Frank Baum learned that lesson rather quickly. His second Oz novel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, is the only one to not feature Dorothy. Every other Oz novel he wrote featured her in some capacity. In most of the stories, she is one of the main protagonists. In some others, she appears in some other capacity, such as to welcome the story's hero or heroine to the Emerald City or to rescue an imprisoned protagonist (such as in Rinkitink in Oz). But Dorothy is always there.

For Adventures in Oz game stats on Dorothy and info on the Adventures in Oz Characters Pack, click here.

C is for Children

“To please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.”
-- L. Frank Baum

This is just a reminder that April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

B is for Blog

Conveniently enough, today marks the fourth anniversary of this blog. I had been designing the game as something of a thought experiment for about a year beforehand, but developing the drive and the will to turn it into an actual product didn't come until early 2008. I would have started the blog on April 1st, but I was afraid it might come off as an April Fool's joke.

From the beginning, I was committed to a weekly update schedule. The idea was to keep the blog in front of any potential readers and also to push me into having something to say every week. Though as something of a side effect, I fear I might be more of a blogger than a publisher these days.

So to all of those who have been following my blog for all these years (or most or some or none), thank you! For those new arrivals, feel free to check out where it all began.

Purchase Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road!

A is for Adventures in Oz

For those of you just tuning in, this is the promotional blog for Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. It's a tabletop roleplaying game designed for creating your own Oz stories with your friends.

While I normally update this blog once a week, I have decided to participate in the April A to Z challenge this year. So for 26 days this month, I'll be posting something new, one post for each letter of the alphabet.

One the one hand, keeping a focus on Oz and gaming for a whole month could be quite the challenge. On the other hand, I'll have a much easier time than most with some of the tougher letters. While L. Frank Baum may not have been a free with making up words as Dr. Seuss, he did come up with a few.

Purchase Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

Episode 2: Attack of the Actual Play

And now for the next Adventures in Oz Podcast. I recorded this at DunDraCon over the space of 3 and a half hours. And then there was the daunting task of editing it. While some people may prefer an unedited recording for Actual Play, I decided to edit this for a few reasons.

1) Dead air/Dithering: This is one of my major sins as a Narrator. I wound up taking out a lot of "Um"s, as well as trimming down a lot of the silent moments during the session.

2) Distractions: During this portion of the recording, we had a couple of people pop into the room for various reasons. Since this effectively stopped play while it was going on, it was no loss to the recording to remove it.

3) Content: This was a session involving grown-ups, who occasionally talk about grown-up things. While I've tried to preserve as much of the fun and humor of the session as possible, I have edited out some of the more ribald jokes.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Please note: This version is extremely reduced in quality in order to keep file size down. If you want a higher quality version for your iPod, you can get it here

First of all, sorry about missing last week. I was editing the audio for my Actual Play podcast and I very nearly had it ready last Thursday. But it still needs a little more work and the time to do it is not presenting itself. Maybe next week.

This week, on top of letting all of you know that I'm still alive, I'd like to announce that I've signed up for the A to Z blogging challenge starting April 1st. So look for the podcast next week and not long after, 26 blogs, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, throughout the month of April.