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The Wonderful Wizards of Nehwon

One of my daughter's friends recently expressed an interest in learning to play RPGs, so I've been putting together a campaign that's both appropriate for and appealing to a group of girls under the age of 10. The friend is a big fan of the musical Wicked, so I settled on L. Frank Baum's Oz as a setting and F. Douglas Wall's Adventures in Oz as a ruleset. AiO is a wonderful little game with an elegant core mechanic, an experience system that supports Baumian stories (characters earn Oz points to improve die rolls and character abilities by helping friends and making new ones), and a surprisingly flexible set of character creation rules. Wall's blog includes stats for non-Oz characters as diverse as Twilight Sparkle (from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) and Gord the Rogue (as a tribute to Gary Gygax). My daughter has made up her character, a glass bunny named Liana, and I'll be posting Liana's stats and character portrait soon (i.e., once I scan my daughter's drawing). In the meantime, I thought I'd take a shot at translating some sword-and-sorcery heroes into AiO terms . . .

Name: Fafhrd
First Appearance: "Two Sought Adventure"
Template: Wanderer
Size: 3

Basic Skills

Athletics: 3 (feats of strength)
Awareness: 2
Brains: 2
Presence: 3
Sneaking: 1
Wits: 2

 Traits: Deadly Weapon, Poet

Friends List: Grey Mouser, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes


Name: The Grey Mouser
First Appearance: "Two Sought Adventure"
Template: Wanderer
Size: 3

Basic Skills

Athletics: 3 (acrobatics)
Awareness: 2
Brains: 2
Presence: 1
Sneaking: 3
Wits: 2

 Traits: Deadly Weapon, Humbug Magic

Friends List: Fafhrd, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face

Since Fafhrd and Mouser are more or less equal as combatants and adventure heroes, I gave them identical Athletics score. I was tempted to shave a point off Fafhrd's Brains to increase another score, but I decided in the end that people assume to their eventual dismay that the northerner is just another a dumb barbarian—and left his Brains at 2. The key differences between the two heroes, then, are Presence and Sneaking. Fafhrd's striking looks and height give him the edge in the former while the Mouser's slight frame and generally furtive nature argue for an increaser in the latter. Both men have the Deadly Weapon trait (which allows them to do physical damage in addition to the Wits damage that is the bread-and-butter of the AiO combat system). Fafhrd's bardic upbringing grants him the Poet trait; Mouser's mystic apprenticeship, the Humbug Magic trait. Each man appears on the other' Friends List, testifying to their status as boon companions. I've put Ningauble and Sheelba on the Friends Lists as well: Fafhrd and the Mouser can spend Oz points to get assistance from their sorcerous patrons, but of course there's always a catch.

The best part about writing up Fafhrd and the Mouser as AiO characters is that Leiber's own rules for Nehwon allow for the heroes to shift dimensions into Oz. I'm not sure if Oz would survive their sojourn there—but then again one could just as easily argue that Oz might put a premature end to the heroes' careers!
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Comments

  1. DanSeptember 27, 2012 at 8:14 PM

    I've never heard of this rpg. The character sheets look pretty intersting. Is it a dice pool game, or something else?

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  2. Rob BarrettSeptember 27, 2012 at 9:30 PM

    You always roll 2d6 against one of your basic skills. You're hoping to get at least one result equal to or lower than the skill value. If both dice succeed, then you have a special success. Example: Fafhrd wants to scale a cliff, a test against Athletics. If he rolls 3 or less on either die, he makes it to the top. If both dice are 3 or less, then maybe he makes it to the top in record time. Characters have one specialty (listed in parentheses behind the skill to which it's attached). When making a test in an area where the specialty is relevant, you can re-roll 1 die, turning a failure into a success or a regular success into a special success. Example: Fafhrd is now trying to bend bars and lift gate, a feat of strength that tests Athletics. If he rolls a 4 and a 5, he can invoke his specialty and re-roll one of the dice, looking for a 3 or less. If he rolls a 2 and a 6, he can re-roll the 6 to try and produce a special success.

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  3. NarmerOctober 16, 2012 at 9:46 AM

    This sounds interesting. I may have to look into it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. NarmerOctober 16, 2012 at 6:45 PM

    Do you think the system would work for S&S?

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  5. Rob BarrettOctober 17, 2012 at 3:28 PM

    Not really--the system is great at generating diversity of character if one is thinking about glass cats, talking rag dolls, children from Kansas, and the like. As the Fafhrd and Mouser write-ups suggest, S&S heroes would come out looking pretty much identical across the board where stats were concerned. They'd all have to blow a trait on Deadly Weapon, for example. So the really differentiating factors for S&S heroes would have to be (a) the basic trait speciality, (b) a secondary trait to augment "Deadly Weapon," and (c) their friends list.

    The bigger issue, though, are the combat rules. "Deadly Weapon" essentially lets you lop limbs and heads off at will because such wounds are only mild inconveniences in Oz. Making the Wits trait serve as HP is also a problem: I really couldn't give Fafhrd and Mouser much staying power in a fight without pumping their Wits scores too high.

    So house ruling would be needed.

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  6. NarmerOctober 18, 2012 at 2:22 AM

    Thanks for the response.

    ReplyDelete

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