[Actual Play] My Adventures in Oz

This week, having successfully (by some definition) resolved the situation in Spaghetti-ville, our heroes continue on their way to the Emerald City.

As they are traveling through the forest, they are attacked by ninjas. Yes, ninjas in Oz. I decided that since one of the characters was anime-inspired, there would be ninja. I'm still working on the precise backstory behind how this all makes sense.

Only Schlongdoily was able to detect the ninjas as they approached stealthily. He tried to greet them heartily, but this got a very unfriendly response. Shurikens flew out, hitting Corbin and Anime. Corbin then proceeded to call them out.

The ninjas revealed themselves, 2 wielding katanas (because katanas are awesome) and 2 armed with shuriken.  Corbin convinced the shuriken ninjas to put them away as being unsportsmanlike. Corbin in convincing like that.

The unarmed ninja proceeded to be cut to pieces by Anime and his sword. The katana wielding ninjas kept trying to cut Corbin, but he was lucky enough to avoid them and canny enough to convince them to surrender.

In the interrogation that followed (remember that Oz follows something of a Monty Python model of injury, so everyone survived), the ninjas reveal that they are after Anime's magical talking sword, which was stolen from their Secret Ancient Temple (TM). They were then tricked into revealing the direction of their temple, which is where the party will go next week.

We had everyone together this week, so we had some fun.

The party traced their way to the Ancient Ninja Temple (TM) by holding the torso of one of the dismembered Kawasaki clan ninjas and spinning around. The direction he faces when he attempts ritual suicide is the direction of the temple. The fact that he's already a dismembered torso trying to commit seppukku makes this highly weird, but I suppose it works.

They finally arrive at a small village with an immense layered pagoda in the center of town. Ninjas is variously colored pajamas are leaping around the town, while the villagers go about their business oblivious to the shenanigans going on around them. When one of the characters tried to ask a villager about the temple, he claimed not to see it, even when the building was pointed out to him.

Arriving at the main gate to the temple, they pulled a bell-rope to signal their arrival. The door was answered by a ninja butler. He was wearing white ninja pajamas with a black jacket with tails. When presented with the torso of the Kawasaki ninja, his response was "His wife will be so disappointed." I hadn't meant it like that, but the entire party guffawed at that one.

The butler escorted them into the presence of Master Card and Master Lock, masters of the Foot and Hand clans, respectively. They explain that the magical talking sword wielded by Anime is needed to resolve the feud between the two ninja clans.

Many centuries ago (as it always in in these tales), the Hand and the Foot were one clan, the famous Mitsubishi clan. Then Master Card devised the deadly Ninja-toe technique and began to gather followers from within the clan. Master Lock then arose, with his deadly Ninja thumb technique. Both fought for dominance within the clan, until finally the clan split in two.

Then, the sword was forged. It was prophesied that whoever wields the sword will unify the two clans once more. So every year, the two ninja clans hold a tournament: The dreaded Yakuza-palooza. The winner of this tournament then attempts to wield the sword and unify the clans. But every year, the sword refuses its wielder.

Until this year when the sword was discovered stolen shortly before the tournament. Efforts to track it down finally resulted in the ninja ambush from the previous session.

The ninja masters agree to let him keep the sword if he can defeat the current champion of the Yakuza-palooza. In order to ensure victory, Schlongdoily, with a great amount of luck, manages to take the place of the competing ninja.

The contest involved leaping from one elevated platform to another while trying to prevent the other ninja from doing the same. Falling from the platforms would result in a tumble into one of several cursed pools (a Ranma 1/2 joke). Schlongdoily actually wound up falling into one of the pools very quickly. It is unknown what curse he sustained, as his primary worry is that he is now a lump of sandy mud.

Anime almost lost the contest when the sword intervened. As he was tumbling into a cursed pool, he takes out the sword and mounts it like a surfboard. It then uses it's magic to carry him to the finish line of the race.

Everyone is suitably impressed that the sword has chosen him. The sword then proceeds to explain that by allowing itself to be stolen, it has indeed unified the two clans as they worked together to pursue the thief. Master Card and Master Lock both agree to end their feud and declare a restored Mitsubishi clan.

Now the next ninja feud can take place. According to ancient ninja tradition, only one ninja clan war may take place at any given time. Why else do you think that all ninja feuds begin "centuries ago"? (And also to keep Corbin from trying to extend or initiate another conflict.)

Next Week: Emerald City

We had the whole group together this time, so we had some fun. No new players this week, maybe next week.

I don't know what was going on, but everyone seemed to have their dirty minds in high gear. It was mostly in the table chatter, but it was pervasive.

After Will (the Anime character) won the Yakuza-palooza, he was able to add the newly restored Mitsubishi clan to his Friends List. That makes him the first player to add a friend in play. It'll be interesting to see how that works out.

Mr. B then used a simple spell to transmute the water permeating Schlongdoily into steam, restoring him to his normal, sandy self. I still haven't decided what I want to curse him with.

Shortly after taking their leave of Ninja-town, they find themselves on the Yellow Brick Road. Before long, they arrive at the gates of the Emerald City. They are greeted by a small clerk who gladly opens the gate for them. He then goes on to explain the Love Magnet which hangs over the gate. This was the first point that vulgarity started to seep in, with the players commenting on how much everyone in the Emerald City loves each other, in that "wink wink nudge nudge" kind of way.

The clerk gladly gave them directions to the palace, since Corbin was an ambassador. All the other players decided that their characters were therefore ambassadors of some sort or other.

At the palace, they were met by Jellia Jamb, though they didn't know who she was, either in-character or out of character. And of course, with her personality, she plays with it, telling them "Well, if you don't know who I am, I'm certainly not going to tell you." I mention as I'm describing her that she looks to be about 15 years old. This is where we got a little more inappropriate commentary.

When they ask her to take them to Princess Ozma, she complies, but instructs them to address her "properly" as "Your Royal Fluffheadedness". The players are aware that this girl is having fun at their expense, but decide to go along with it because it seems to fit the tone of the setting.

When they do manage to greet Ozma, she instantly knows who set them up. She also knows about the war in Spaghetti-ville and how Corbin worked to extend it. Corbin defends his actions as only he can. Ozma offers to show him the current progress of the war. She leads the party into her private sitting room where she has hung the Magic Picture. There was some ooh-ing as they were led into Ozma's "private chambers", but the Magic Picture made a more interesting scene.

The horses were winning. One of the spells cast by Mr B. in that first session was to summon horses for the Munchkin armies to ride into glorious battle. One of Corbin's ideas. Unfortunately, horses are not native to Oz so the Munchkins had no real idea of what to do with them. The horses knew exactly what to do with strange people who are trying to ride them: give them a good swift kick.

Corbin then proclaimed how he had managed to unify the two villages against a common foe for the good of all.

More fun in the Emerald City next session.

Sorry I haven't been posting in a while. Last week, a family emergency prevented me from getting the group together to play. We managed to play some this session, but not very much. There was actually some frustration with how the game was going.

Once the characters arrived in the Emerald City, I was experimenting with a RPG technique called "sandboxing", in which the players create the driving force of the game and I, as GM, simply react to what they do. Unfortunately, I don't think it suits the way I GM. I'll be working on a more structured plot for next week's session. Hope to have more for you then.

Try as I might, this wound up being our last session of Adventures in Oz.

After spending a good deal of time coming up with escape plans, they finally decided to wait until most of the Nomes were out invading other parts of Oz.

Almost as soon as they were out the door of the house they were being held in, Helen begins yelling that the prisoners were escaping. Of course, since the party is being guided by Schlongdoily in his Nome disguise, she merely succeeds in getting the Nomes to capture her as the rest of the party goes about its business.

They track down the Saw-Horse, who is being held in a pen with a cow named Georgia. The Red Wagon was being held in a barn nearby.

Inside the barn, there is not only the wagon, but a small group of Nomes folding paper. The higher reaches of the barn are populated by flying paper cranes much like a large swarm of bees. (This is what happened to the live paper that the Nomes stole on its way to Miss Cuttenclip)

The heroes then begin setting the scene for their dramatic breakout. The Saw-Horse is hitched to the Red Wagon, which Will caused to look black and chromed with his illusion powers. Corbin mounted the Saw-Horse and had Mr. B pull down a support beam from the barn to use as a lance. As soon as the beam was pulled loose, the back of the barn began to collapse, which ensured that when Corbin burst through the door with his lance, it would be particularly dramatic.

Suddenly the barn door burst open, with the Saw-Horse rearing up, his gold-plated hooves glinting in the sunlight. Mr. B threw up a backlight to emphasize the drama of the moment, as a billow of dust and debris from the collapsing barn forced out the hive of paper cranes.

It was truly a Crowning Moment of Awesome. The consensus was that the moment would have to have been rendered as a full-color photo in Glinda's Book of Records, guaranteed to get her attention. Also, freeing the paper cranes meant that they could not be used to harrass Glinda's swan-drawn chariot out of the sky.

As much as I wanted to continue the campaign, I was forced to admit: There was no way I could top that. Any attempt to follow that up with anything would just feel kind of lame.

If I get the chance to do a follow up campaign, I will definitely post the Actual Play reports here for your enjoyment.

If anyone else is playing Adventures in Oz, or doing any other kind of Ozzy RP, feel free to post your reports here, too! We'd all love to see them.