News & Updates

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A new "Approach" to Heroes of Oz

All righty, folks, another quick update for y'all. I'm finishing up on revising Instant Oz, and it will be going into layout shortly. Also, Evil Hat finally released the open content for Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition, so I'm also preparing a FAE version for your enjoyment, too. Just to give you an idea of what an Oz character looks like in Fate Accelerated, here's Red Reera the Yookoohoo: http://bit.ly/11CbbO4

But first, I will finish and upload the updated Fudge game. Here's the thing, though: There's going to be two versions of the Fudge game going  up. See, FAE has this great way of building characters: instead of distributing levels for WHAT your character can do, she has Approaches, defining HOW she does it instead. I just fell in love with this. The game has six Approaches: Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky. How cool is this? So when you go to do something, you tell the GM how you're doing it and roll against it. In FAE, your Aspects tell you what you can do, and aren't leveled; just the Approaches are. I think this is a real innovation here. So, when doing all this revising, I decided to swipe the Approaches method and convert it to Fudge (easy enough, considering Fate's origins). So far, it seems to work like a charm.

Just to give you an idea of what I've been up to, here's how I have Dorothy statted up, both for the standard version, and for the Approaches version.

First off, here's the updated Ladder: Outstanding Superb Great Good Fair So-So Awful "Fair" is still the "average" for Heroes, just like in Plain Vanilla Fudge. So, having that, here she is, first using the regular (updated) rules: Type: Human Body: Fair Brains: Fair Heart: Great Agility: So-So Friendship: Good Talent (Kansas Farm girl): Good Gifts: Forceful Personality: +2 to Friendship when confronting someone socially; Princess of Oz Trouble: Honest to a fault And now the Approaches rules: Concept: Kansas farm girl and princess of Oz Careful: Good Clever: Fair Flashy: Fair Forceful: Great Quick: Good Sneaky: So-So Gift: Forceful personality: +2 when Forcefully confronting someone socially Trouble: Honest to a Fault I will be uploading both revised versions of Instant Oz (complete with a couple of adventures, to make it even more "instant") to RPGNow and to this web site, and then I'll put up a poll for you, the players, to vote for which you like better. See, I'm kind of leaning towards the Approaches method, but I still like the work I've done with the other rules, so I can't make up my mind which to make the default version. Therefore, it'll be up to you, and whichever version you like more, that's what will become the one, true Heroes of Oz RPG. -Mike

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Time for updates!

Hello, faithful readers. 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!