(Note: I’ve researched as much as I can, but couldn’t find a reference to gender, so in these stats, it’s a girl)

Nyan Cat

Type: Animal (Cat with a cherry Pop Tart for a body)

Body: Mediocre
Mind: Good
Heart: Good
Agility: Superb
Friendship: Great

Benefits:
Singing makes people happy +2
Flies through space
Can get into the darnedest places

Subplots:
Diet of candy; vegetables are poison to her
Many natural enemies due to having a cherry Pop Tart for a body
Despite her high Agility, has a limited range of movement

But really, I can hear some of you saying, that all seems like bribery. Why can’t you just say what you want to do, roll the dice and let the results fall where they may? After all, if it’s an important plot point, or the Game Master wants to make sure nothing bad happens to your character, he can always just fudge those rolls.

This is true, but to me, constant fudging really cheapens the experience. After all, why even roll the dice if the GM is just going to undo the results? Come to think of it, why is the GM supposed to do all this work anyways? Where’s the fun in this?

The way I figure it, the traditional style would basically be Dungeons & Dragons in Oz.

Bear this in mind: I like Dungeons & Dragons. It’s what got me into role-playing. I even like the current 4th edition of the game (just don’t get me started on Essentials). But if I wanted D&D, I would play D&D, and as much as I like it, I don’t believe it would work to emulate playing in an Oz story.

As I also said in the last post, it’s the characters that makes things happen in a story. In order for that to happen, the responsibility for making those things happen goes to the player.

This is going to be a radical shift in thinking for those of you used to the traditional model of role-playing. I understand. I had to make that shift as well, but once I did, it opened up a whole new world.

So what exactly do Story Points do? Simple: They allow the player to rewrite part of the world to their character’s benefit.

Yeah, you read that right. By spending a Story Point, you can make the world benefit the character. Need an axe conveniently laying around? Spend a Story Point. Does the witch you’re facing owe you a favor? Spend a Story Point. Did the dice give you a really bad result? A Story Point gives you a do-over. Do you want to make sure that the final act of the story results in a happy ending? Save a Story Point and spend it at the right moment to make everything work out nicely.

To use this nice little rule, the Historian (Heroes of Oz‘s name for the Game Master), need only remember three little words to tell the player: “You tell me.”

“Hey, is there an axe laying around?”
“You tell me.”

“Would it be all right if the witch and i knew each other before?”
“You tell me.”

“I just rolled -4? Dang, can I reroll?”
“You tell me.”

That’s right, player, get creative. This isn’t one of those games where the GM has to do all the work. This is your game! Your story. Make it such.

Of course, you have to be able to acquire these points as well. How do you get them? While the rules will expand upon this, there are three ways to get them:

1. Start out with a minimum number at the beginning of each story.
2. Let the Historian do something bad to your character.
3. Do something really cool that makes the Historian or the other players laugh, stare in awe or cheer.

Role-playing hath its rewards.

I know some of you are saying that using Story Points can bring about the situation I mentioned at the beginning of the article, and it could. But then again, it’s the player doing all the fudging, not the Historian. She is in control of the character’s destiny. You could even go entirely diceless this way. If that’s what you like go for it.

Of course, the final consideration is this: Story Points are finite. Use them all up right away on every little thing and you won’t have any for later. And you can’t just throw yourself in harm’s way or some something debilitating just to try and get more points. The bad things that happen to your character have to work for the story, not just happen to happen.

Besides, is there really something wrong with living with a bad die roll? It’s Oz. It’s not like you can die…

Next post, you’ll get to see what a Heroes of Oz character looks like, using an original character as well as a character pulled right from the books. Until then, take care.

I hope everybody reading enjoyed my little April 1 story yesterday. Was any of the real? I’ll let you decide because I’m not saying.

In that story, as you saw, quite a few bad things happened during its telling. People were hurt. Oz was invaded. Any of us that could be there would hate to be involved in such a horrible things. We don’t like it when bad things happen to us.

The same thing holds true in role-playing games. We spend time rolling up characters (or building them, depending on the system) and we want them to the last as long as we can make them last. In most games, we try to avoid bad things. After all, when bad things happen, at best the character’s taken out of the game. Maybe a little humiliation. At worst, your character is dead and you have to make a new one.

In some types of games, that’s a good thing. When you live by what the dice have to tell you, it puts you on edge. You don’t know what can happen next. But the same time, we invest a lot in our characters. We don’t want one fatal dice roll, a single stroke of bad luck, to put an end to all our hard work.

On the other hand, when we read a book (or for that matter, a comic book, or watch a TV show, or enjoy any kind of fiction), we live for the moments that bad things happen to the characters. After all, a story that has no conflict is absolutely no fun to read at all. What’s the point? We thrill to the heroes of the story overcoming adversity!

Role-playing games are a completely different animal than stories – or are they? A better question: do they have to be?

I spent years trying to figure this part out. My goal was to create a game that emulated being in an Oz book. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I looked into games that were supposed to emulate genres: being in a superhero comic book, being in an eighties cartoon series, etc. Good stuff, but I had a little bit of a difficult time with it. Maybe I just wasn’t getting it.

Evil Hat Games created a Fudge-based engine called FATE. The FATE System is currently used in games like Spirit of the Century and the Dresden Files, as well as other games by other publishers. Looking through FATE games (as well as a Fudge build called Marvelous Superheroes) I came to realize one thing:

To emulate a story, players had to love bad things happening to their characters.

Yes, a radical concept, to be sure. It flies in the face of RPG convention. You want to AVOID bad things, right? But, to play a story-based game, you have to desire the bad things.

When looking at FATE and MS, I realized another thing: it’s the characters that make things happen in a story.

Think about it. You don’t enjoy a story for the adventures; you enjoy it for what the characters do during an adventure. This means that a story-based game has to be purely centered on the characters.

The result is a tradeoff: let bad things happen to your character and in return, the character will have greater control of the story later.

Oz is no exception to this. In any given Oz book, characters get captured, lost, enchanted, and anything else the writer can think of. Therefore, Heroes of Oz had to follow these two concepts.

The FATE System does this using Fate Points. If you let something bad happened to your character, you get a Fate Point. You then spend the Fate Point later to have a greater effect on the story. Heroes of Oz does this with the Story Point.

Of course, bad things aren’t the only way to get a Fate/Story Point, but they are the most exciting way to get them!

I’ll talk about Story Points more in the next post. Until then, be blessed and brush up on your Oz history. You’re going to need it!

After all this time, I’m sure many of you are wondering why it is exactly that I haven’t given up on getting this game out. The fact is, I made a promise. Not just to you, although you all are a large part of it. The fact is, I made a promise to my wife.

My wife is a Ozma, ruling princess of the land of Oz.

You see, in another lifetime, I was a part of a group of people called The Circle of the Crescent Moon that went to Oz. We were fighting the forces of evil, beings that were meant to destroy the dreams of mankind. Oz was a key part of their plans. Of course, we had to stop them.

Back then, my name was Harper, King of Harpies. No, I’m not going to explain why I was the king of the harpies. It has to do with a certain Emerald city maid, a misunderstanding, and a fit of jealousy. Long story.

Princess Ozma took a shine to our leader, whose name was Orryn. After many adventures, and for a variety of reasons, Orryn and Ozma got married. The marriage surprised everybody.

A little disclaimer: I was also married at the time. Her name was Vorestia, the Princess of Unicorns. She was a true vision of beauty. Looking at her, you wouldn’t know that this demure figure was a truly fierce warrior. She could become a unicorn herself, and she took every advantage of that form.

At some point, I might go into more detail about the Circle. For now, it’s unimportant.

Orryn and the Circle received word of a major invasion of another land by our enemies. I was told to stay behind. I was to guard Ozma. To this point, Ozma and I didn’t really get along. The first time we met, we’d gotten off on the wrong foot. But for now, with the Circle gone, we were both left alone.

War is scary, and both Ozma and I knew that there was the possibility of losing our spouses. They weren’t in Oz, so they could be killed. Neither of us liked that.

After a month, Ozma showed signs, very clear signs, of missing her husband. She was worried. In spite of our animosity, I entered the empty throne room one day and asked if she wanted to talk. She seemed surprised, but then she asked me to close the doors to the chamber. I did so. She then descended from the throne and in her graceful way, walked up to me.

Then she kissed me.

I won’t go into the details here, but during that time that our spouses were gone, there were many nights when we never parted. That’s all you need to know.

Eventually, the Circle came home. Long story short, Orryn and Vorestia did find out about the affair. Vorestia was much more forgiving than Orryn was. (although at first, Vorestia was upset, calling Ozma a “common trollop.”)

In time, the circle had to leave. I and a few others stayed behind in Oz. Perhaps understandably, Orryn didn’t look back as he left. I think in time, though, he would forgive her and even think fondly of her.

A year later, the Circle’s enemies found Oz. The land was successfully invaded, and Ozma did what she normally felt would be unthinkable: from Ev, the citizens of Oz mounted a counterstrike and drove out the invaders. Taking back Oz, however, came at a terrible price. Many were killed (long story about that, too), and I was one of those killed. Before I died, I did get the opportunity to say goodbye to Ozma.

No, Ozma and I were not right in we did. But it happened.

In a new lifetime, I became the person that wrote this post that you’re reading right now. But that’s not the end. Vorestia came looking for me. She found me, and reported back to Ozma. Over time, and with the help of a friend of mine who is psychic, I learned how to see them and even how to travel to Oz in my sleep to be with them.

A few years ago, I married Ozma.

Yes, in a distant land, I’m the proud husband of two women. Isn’t that big o’ me?

Anyway, since I had read the Oz books in my youth, I had wanted to do a role – playing game that spotlighted the land I loved. Ozma gave me her blessing. I promised it would be out no matter what. Heroes of Oz is my gift to her. I will not fail her.

Coming back my website and looking at the date of my last post, I have to say that I feel really bad. A full year without any updates. Really, there’s no excuse for that. First off, I’d like to offer my apologies to you, my faithful readers.

2010, as far as years go, but particularly bad. I lost where I live, so I experienced homelessness for a while. Trust me, I don’t wish that on anybody. After losing my home, I also lost my father. And all that was only in the first half of the year!

However, I choose not to dwell on the past, as doing so is to merely provide an excuse and I don’t want to be making excuses. 2010 is over, and 2011 is here. But so far, I’d say it’s going pretty well.

In case anybody’s been talking, no, I have NOT given up on Heroes of Oz. However, after many years, the rules finally do exactly what I want them to do: they emulate playing an adventure in an Oz book. I am ecstatically happy with these rules. They have been playtested and, I have to say, it was the most fun I’ve ever played a game.

My goal is to post at least once a week. I’m keeping you all in the loop, because things are getting more and more exciting with this game. Currently, I’m getting all of the rules merged with all the setting information, then it goes into layout. As the weeks go on, I’ll be providing previews of the rules as well as character write ups both from the books as well as original characters.

By the way, as promised, I will continue my series on video games and tabletop roleplaying.

Anyways, keep coming back for more updates. I look for to what’s coming and I hope you do, too.

For Oz!

Today, I’m going to share with you what I feel are the top 5 reasons the role-playing games are better than video games.

Now, this post will serve as more of an overview of the 5 reasons, but each week I will go into much more detail as to why I believe these to be true.

Alright, now that the disclaimer is finished with, let’s begin.

Top 5 Reasons Why Role-Playing Games Are Better Than Video Games

Reason 1: Role-playing games teach teamwork and social interaction skills.

Teamwork is definitely a learned skill. And if today’s workplace full of back-stabbers and those who are merely asking, “what’s in it for me?” is any indication – a skill that is greatly lacking. Also, anyone else noticing how more and more people would rather spend 6 – 8 hours a night on the computer and/or online? Whether to play games, chat with friends, or any of the million other things people do on their electronics – less time is being spent with real people inside our real world.

Reason 2: Role-playing games develop the participant’s imagination.

Without imagination, the human race would not be able to survive. Everyday there is something new invented to fulfill a new need of the population – and all these inventions first start as a thought. Now I am not saying that there are any scientific studies (that I know of) that prove that a player or game master will become a genius just by participating in role-playing games, but I do know for a fact that you cannot play the game without a very active and willing imagination. Besides, just like any other muscle in our bodies, the more we use the brain, the bigger and better it gets!

Reason 3: Role-playing games show how one is in control of their own destiny through their own choices and actions.

Accepting responsibility for one’s actions and taking the consequences for any actions one has taken is the sign of a man or woman who is to become very successful – just read any self-help business book to see this for yourself. — For a role-player, being in control of their character, making decisions that could quite literally decide the character’s fate, and then accepting the consequences of their actions by the role of the dice – there is no better way I know of learning in such a fun and exciting way to be responsible and how to take proper risks.

Reason 4: Role-playing games encourage the participant to express themselves creatively.

One sin that we as a planet have bestowed on one another is the act of ‘group-think’. What I mean by this is that we tell our children, all the way up through adulthood, that they must think a certain way – dress a certain way – speak a certain way – and do things a certain way. We take any shred of individuality left in a person and help them fit in society, just like everyone else. Luckily for some out there, role-playing games have created an outlet where role-players are free to express themselves through a character any way that they wish. This freedom can, and in many cases has, overflowed into other aspects of their lives, helping them to truly be themselves.

Reason 5: Role-playing games will make the person think outside of the box.

Finally, we end with something I am quite familiar with. In life, we are often presented with a challenge that traditionally is taken care of in one certain way – but who says that this way is always and forevermore the best way there is to proceed? If we don’t allow ourselves to use both sides of our brains – left for logic and right for creativity – then how are we ever to grow and evolve? Without outside-the-box thinkers, we would never have the telephone, airplanes or even light-bulbs!

With role-playing games, the game master’s creativity can lead the players into many a situation that can appear utterly impossible to conquer, but with a little creative out-of-the-box thinking, the group can complete their quest and harvest the rewards!

——————————————————-
Well, there you have it – the five reasons I personally believe role-playing games are superior to today’s video games.

Please tune in next week when I go into more detail on each of these, and feel free to leave a comment on what you read today.

Thank you!

This is the place for all the news and support material (meaning free stuff) for the game and its supplements.

We have a lot planned, so stay tuned fellow OZ Adventurers!

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”

Three simple characters that have touched our lives in such deep and inspiring ways.

But a question always remained, both for the young and old alike:

“What if *I* was able to travel to the marvelous Land of Oz?”

Well, no longer will you have to wish really hard and click your silver slippers together three times (or for the men out there, no longer will you have to build a hot air balloon and belong to a carnival)!

Coming soon: HEROES OF OZ, the official Wizard of Oz role-playing game.

Stay tuned to this website to find out the date this game will be published, and sign up to our mailing list to receive news, tips, and free gifts!

The book was an instant success and Baum was inundated with letters from fans. Five years later, he followed his fairy tale up with a sequel, “The Marvelous Land of Oz.” This book reintroduced the familiar characters from the first book and introduced new ones, like Jack Pumpkinhead and Princess Ozma.

After that, Baum wrote an Oz book each year. He tried to end the series and start another, even placing it in the same universe (Polychrome, the Rainbow’s daughter showed up in “Sky Island”). But it was not to be, and Baum went back to Oz, producing a total of 14 books before his death in 1919. The publishers hired other authors to continue the series, and people got their yearly dose of Oz. 40 books total were published.

There’s a saying that “If you scratch an Oz fan, you’ll find an Oz book inside.” Truer words were never spoken. Oz seems to have the quality to inspire. over 200 books today have been written by fans returning again and again to the magical fairyland.

Heroes of Oz Role-Playing Game and Guidebook is the next step in Oz fiction. With a role-playing game (RPG), you and a few other players can make your own characters and take them on adventures. One player takes the role of the Historian, who guides the other players.  This makes for an immersive experience  greater than any video game, because you can do (or at least try) anything.

“Heroes of Oz” is written by Mike Conway (that would be me) and Bruce Gray, a true Oz scholar. Bruce took the task of creating a comprehensive history and gazetteer of Oz, and I took care of the rules, and made sure they made for easy play and fast character creation. With a prepared adventure (the rulebook has one for you), you can be up and running in a half hour.

I’m in the process of getting the main Heroes of Oz website rebuilt, after it was lost by our last web host. We’re planning a slew of stuff to help you and get you going. so please keep coming back or subscribe to our mailing list for more.

–Mike Conway