I'm toying with the idea of putting together a game based on the wizard of oz. has anybody ever seen anything like that? there are plenty of references for me to work with. there are maps of oz all over the net and almost all the oz books are available for free on gutenberg.org. it would be easy enough to pick four races for the four lands of oz, halflings for munchkins, gnomes or dwarves for quadlings, humans for winkies, etc, or something like that. i could use stats for the warforged for mechanical men like the tin man and tick tock. the thing i'm having the hardest time deciding is what angle to take. i haven't decided if i want to lean more toward the pure whimsy of the original stories or the more gritty realistic version presented in the novel wicked. i could go really far and make something inspired by todd mcfarlane's messed up toys. i don't think i want to go that far. i think i'll probably go somewhere between the original stories and the novel wicked.

the first idea i had was to do a one shot or short arc game where the players would play pre-generated characters. some human child form earth ends up in oz which is now ruled by a wicked witch. the kid brings some statues to life using the powder of life. the statues are the pcs. the idea of the game is to get the kid home and maybe depose the witch if possible. something like that.

i started doing a little research on it and looked at these books i haven't seen since i was a kid and thought maybe i could do a whole campaign. i should probably see if my group is interested before i do much more work. i'm not sure the novelty of an oz based game would last as long as the campaign.