Yellow Bricks: The Puppet State

Yellow Bricks Sourcebook by Lightspress

Book 2 of The Modern Dream of Oz. A system-adaptable, punk-infused modern narrative roleplaying sourcebook inspired by The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum that’s fully compatible with Principia: The Simple Approach in structure and philosophy of play.

Yellow Bricks: The Puppet State gives you a system-adaptable guide to stories about imposed roles, engineered identity, and contested autonomy. It clarifies scene control through concrete pressures, sharpens conflict framing inside industrial pageantry, and supports steady narrative movement as characters test authorship against systems built to script their lives.

This Book Contains

This book is broken into practical elements. Each point names a specific tool or concept and shows how it sharpens scene direction, clarifies motive, or defines the boundaries of tone and situation that shape play.

• Yellow Bricks: The Puppet State Overview: This section explains the book’s core ideas and shows how its themes of authorship, identity, and imposed roles turn into clear scenario structures. It prepares you to translate narrative pressure into reliable scene framing.
• Characters: This section outlines common character types and provides sample traits that model motive, pressure, and consequence. You can use them as inspiration or drop them directly into The Simple Approach.
• Settings: This section shows how Oz expresses tension through ritualized labor, crafted identity, and industrial spectacle. Setting traits help you build districts with clear pressure, visible stakes, and stable narrative movement.
• Factions: This section introduces the groups that control labor, information, and identity in Puppet State. Faction traits help you define influence, secrecy, and operational pressure so each organization shapes story movement.
• Stories: This section provides plot hooks, obstacles, and antagonists that arise from contested autonomy and engineered roles. Story traits help you create scenarios with clear stakes and steady transitions from setup to consequence.
• Genre Tools: This section explains how to reflect Puppet State’s atmosphere through any system. Tools focus on pacing, scene framing, and resource signals that reinforce the tension between constructed identity and chosen action.
• Techniques: This section presents narrative tools that highlight surveillance, embodiment, and ritual control. Techniques help you manage spotlight, transitions, and framing so you can emulate Puppet State with any rules engine.
• Glossary: This section defines key terms for Oz fantasy and social commentary. Clear vocabulary supports consistent interpretation at the table and keeps communication stable during pla
• Bibliography: This section offers selected nonfiction and cultural studies sources that deepen your understanding of identity, craft, and control in Puppet State. It supports richer worldbuilding and clearer thematic focus.

Yellow Bricks: The Puppet State is available through DriveThruRPG in PDF.

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