Can you believe that this silly picture that Impish Ian, living up to his name, posted early Sunday as just a timely funny pic has generated over 4,000 retweets, over 1,000 favorites, and added around a hundred new followers to our Onyx Path Twitter account? We were stunned. We should stop all this unnecessary nonsense with publishing games and get right into more stabbed salad dressings! French for Bastille Day! Green Goddess for the First Day of Spring! The possibilities are endless!
Eddy and I talked about his continuing experiences freelancing into the computer game biz. It seems far more uncertain than tabletop RPGs, in terms of how quickly a project can fall apart. Maybe that’s just my perspective but tabletop games generally do get made once work has begun; certainly it’s more the rule than not. We also talked about the first sketch I’m working on for some characters in Pugmire to provide to the illustrators who will use my pieces as reference. Lot’s of good decisions there as to what our “uplifted dogs” are going to look like: five-fingered, clawed hands with fur that are shaped and furred to go with their breeds, for example. Going to make some changes before sending out, but Jack Terrier the Ratter is looking pretty darned roguish.
Three of our Onyx group were missing today, but we soldiered on. I particularly wanted all of us to be aware of some of the issues surrounded the use of Native American cultures in Monte Cook’s Bruce R. Cordell’s The Strange tabletop RPG that has had some negative buzz attached to it. You can Google the details, but suffice it to say that some folks felt that the stereotypes depicted were damaging to actual Native American culture. Having mentioned last week that some folks were concerned about how we’ll be adding the local Native American culture to the Hunter Dark Era in nWoD Dark Eras, and since we will be publishing Scion and the Trinity Continuum, both of which touch on real world cultures, societies, and belief systems, I just wanted out team to be aware that some of the concerns we’ve been discussing for quite a while are impacting another game line in our industry. Our Hunter Dark Era Devs are in fact reaching out to Native American experts in those tribes that were in the Salem area and which would have potentially interacted with the situation described in that chapter. Which is something they started during the Dark Eras Kickstarter, but seems timely now.
One thing I do think is important is that we all try and keep in mind that editorially neither version of the World of Darkness is actually our real world. They are fictional constructs designed to facilitate great gaming and stories. Since the beginning, we expected our community to at least nod at that, even if everyone then went on to pretty much play as if everything was happening for reals. “Our world, but darker” was the mantra we worked off of in order to justify the awful conditions we described and illustrated in the books. Strangely, in a lot of ways, the real world caught up to our imaginations, unfortunately or fortunately depending on the issue and your perspective on it.
From there we looked at how some of these sorts of issues have been handled by other publishers. Again, not going into details here, but we _think_ that our policy of first responses to the issues raised by all of you on our forums or in FB comments, etc, where we try to explain our thinking and process, works well for Onyx Path. I have found that approach helps turn an angry rant into a conversation, and I hope it demonstrates how we really do care about our fan community. It doesn’t always change minds, but a lot of times folks are just misinformed or don’t see the reasons behind the decisions we make and that leads to them drawing the wrong conclusions. It was Fast Eddy Webb who pointed out that we seem to have a pretty standard pattern of response even though we haven’t intentionally set this down anywhere, which maybe he realized because for many years he was the one who kept communication alive between WW/CCP and our community.
1) We explain our thinking and process. If that conversation doesn’t take us to a better place, we move to:
2) We explain again, this time focusing on specific issues the person might have. If this doesn’t help create an understanding, we go to:
3) We basically default to agreeing to disagree, and suggest that there really isn’t much more to say on either side. And should that fail, then sometimes, and more rarely than we could, but more often than we’d like:
4) We bring down the ban hammer. I hate doing this, but there’s a point where some folks become toxic to the entire forum or FB page. Sometimes because they can’t control themselves, sometimes because they genuinely prefer to accuse and insult us or our creative teams. In those cases, all they are doing is pissing in the water we all drink and they need to leave.
We have rules on our social media, and those rules are in place to insure that folks can express their opinions in an environment that encourages discussion, not bile and insults. You know, the “Don’t Be a Dick” sort of rules. That thinking is applied for the benefit of all the folks in our community: gamers and creators and Onyx Path crew and newbies popping in to see what all this Murdered Caesar Salad Dressing hoopla is all about.
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And now, the BLURBS!
Wow! Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd Edition‘s Advance PDF went on sale at DTRPG a week ago last Weds. and rocketed to Platinum last week!
Thanks so much to all of you who waited more or less patiently for this, and for those of you who have already picked up the PDF and sent us errata on the forums. You can join in the commenting here: http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/werewolf-the-forsaken/427917-forsaken-2e-errata-thread until this coming Weds. the 18th.
Above is a mock-up of what the PoD physical book versions will look like once we get to them after assembling the errata and adding in the missing sheets and index. We held back on the index so that any changes we might have needed to make to the book wouldn’t cause us to have to redo the index. That is a task that you don’t want to do twice.
The Deluxe V20 Lore of the Clans Kickstarter is being put together right now and we hope to have it ready to go live next week. Tuesday the 24th if we can get all these “Achievement” incentive ideas together.
New T-Shirts at our RedBubble site: http://www.redbubble.com/people/theonyxpath New Mage Craft symbols, Hunter shirts, Mummy:the Descent symbols- all kinds of shirts!
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And now, new project status updates!:
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (Projects in bold have changed listings)
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition) (Going for open development soon.)
- M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development
- Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)
- Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
- nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)
- Pugmire (Be a Good Dog.)
- CtL anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
- WoD nWoD 2e core (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)
- Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)
- Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition) (Preview post last night.)
Second Draft
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Development
- V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) Being playtested.
- Dreams of Avarice (Mummy: the Curse)
- Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)
- “Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)
Editing
- M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
Development (post-editing)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
In Art Direction
- M20 How Do You Do That – Sending out artnotes to artists this week.
- Wraith 20 – Continuing to get new Guild titles in from Cobb.
- April Fools – Art is in.
- Sothis Ascends – Charles is rolling along. Thus far he seems to have a pretty firm grasp on the format and from the samples I’ve seen things are looking good. UPDATE. Saw rough layout this morning. Some rough spots to smooth out, but I think we should be good for proofing very shortly.
- V20 Lore of the Clans – KS graphics are prepped. Working on layout.
- M20 Screen – Awaiting for M20 to be out of proofing before proceeding to layout the back of the screen as it will require Phil to select the specific charts.
- Art of CB – Just need to write up blurbs for the Ratkin and Lost Breeds.
In Proofing
- M20 – Still in first proof and awaiting corrections from Phil. He says he has 80 pages to go and then he’ll start inputting his notes into the PDF.
- WtF 2 – Errata compiling. Should cut off middle of the week then Stew can get notes over and we can get this thing out for indexing.
- VDA20 – Awaiting errata from David.
- VDA 20 Screen – Hopefully, none of the errata will mess with the tables… and thus the screen. Holding off on sending it off to the printer until we get all the errata done.
- BotW 20 – Should be seeing some cover samples by the end of the week.
- Ex 3 Anthology – Out to backers.
- Dark Eras – Holding pattern.
- Exalted 3rd Edition – Waiting for Developer changes to text.
- Fiction – Got all the OPP fiction set up for various store fronts. I’ll start converting older products when time permits.
Other Stuff
- Shirts – Got a bunch of shirts up on Wednesday.
- Backups – Yes… this is major. Spent most of Friday and part of Thursday backing up and archiving q4 2013-q4 2014. Archiving is still ongoing as my DVD burner is slooooooow. However, we now have backups of all all the books on an external HD including in progress backups of the big books that are ongoing. Still a long way off on DVD copies as I said, my burner is slow and I have to burn two copies of ever disk.
REASON TO DRINK: Why, the day itself: Saint Pat’s Day. If you are out there among the amateur drinkers…look out.
Comments
66 responses to “Beware the Ides of St. Patrick’s Day! [Monday Meeting Notes]”
I really appreciate the way the folks at Onyx Path handle fan complaints, requests, and other assorted input. 🙂 It’s one of the many things that keeps me interested in all the awesome stuff ya’ll make.
Also, super glad to hear that M20 is almost done with 1st proofing!
(Btw, I don’t think Mike Mearl’s is associated with “The Strange.”)
Crap! I knew it was Bruce’s baby, dunno why I put Mike in there. Fixed!
I’m not particularly interested in rehashing what’s been said about the Exalted anthology, but I do want to say that Tim Pratt, Wendy Wagner, Haralambi Markov, Damien Angelica Waters and Richard Dansky did an absolutely amazing job with their stories and I really hope they come back to write more for the setting eventually. The NWoD anthologies I read are all reliable in terms of quality, but while they don’t hit any lows, they don’t reach quite as high as those authors did.
Looking forward to getting final confirmation on what’s being added to Dark Eras.
The one anthology that really did a lot for me was the Demon one since after each disturbingly fantastic story was a set of mechanics that were really handy (especially the pact market.)
That was an interesting experiment. The next phase of which is to get that Demon book into a fiction market and see what non-gamers think of that game material that we slid in there.
And sometimes in order to get that kind of quality you have to give them more creative freedom. The amazing writer who also can cleave to the canon of an established game world is a rare beast and seldom captured intact. That being said, I do think that the nWoD anthologies have had some extraordinary work in them as well.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I figured. You can’t win big unless you’re willing to take some risks.
Sardonyx moved to ‘Development’? Great to see more movement 🙂
You said it!
You’re gonna see a lot more movement in your inbox in the next day or so, Rich.
Onyx path…you are so dreamy…
Why, thank you…
Hi Rich, I have been curious, what goes into making a mock up, from the proposed m20 card to the books, as they are nice props 🙂
This is just a Photoshop template. We already know what the cover art is, so in this case I take that art and make individual slices for the front, back, and spine. I plug them into the template, and it gives us the appearance of a 3D book as seen above.
I toyed around with the background using the 1e cover design just to give it some colour and texture rather than leave it plain white.
So there’s nothing physical about it, just digital trickery.
Beyond the book covers being made as Ian describes, we pretty much do the same thing with other products. Sometimes we take a photo of a similar existing product and Photoshop our intended look onto it, sometimes we keep the things flat but as close to the look we want. The amount of reality is usually related to how experienced the intended viewer is to looking at mock-ups.
I was very interested to see what Onyx Path had to say about the negative buzz and petition directed towards The Strange RPG. I have always seen the crew at Onyx Path (and WW) as an extremely empathetic, respectful and understanding company, and you haven’t disappointed me yet. I truly hope that once the dialogues are over, that Monte Cook Games and those people who are offended can make peace and move forward together in mutual respect and understanding.
I’ve never met anybody at MCG who wasn’t great, so I’m willing to think that they were just surprised and caught flat-footed by the concerns expressed. I am sure they will straighten things out.
Sensitivity… Man, that’s one of the hardest things to tout in a public forum. If you say you’re sensitive, then someone’s gonna seek out every instance where you weren’t, but if you don’t claim sensitivity, someone else is gonna call you out for an imagined prejudice. I don’t envy your position here.
Look, I KNOW that we won’t see World of Darkness: Gypsies again, and that’s for the best. However, we’ll all see something that offends or upsets us in a book eventually. Is that a bad thing? No, but it ain’t easy, either. I’m really glad to see the example of Touchstones in Werewolf: the Forsaken 2, even as I’m SURE it rattled someone’s tender sensitivities! Sometimes you just gotta do things like that, right?
I think we can say that we strive to be sensitive, and sometimes we will make it and sometimes, not being of the group in question, we’ll fail. The important thing is to try and be aware that you have blind spots and see what you can do to cover them.
that is very bad ass Ian as all I have seen looks like they could be a movie prop. That is an actual cover with a blank book, but it’s all a digital illusion. Very cool and hope Abberant is coming along nice as I will be looking for that KS too 🙂
For those interested, this is the mockup PSD I used.
It looks like you guys have thought a lot about depictions of different cultures in the books and that’s always a good thing. Depicting a culture you don’t belong to, especially one that currently and historically has been subject to a lot of oppression and misrepresentation, is always a big challenge because you CAN’T know everything.
At the same time, even though the WoDs aren’t the real world, it’s still so important to be careful and to call out explicitly where things differ from the our world.
If the Art of the Changing-Breeds has new artwork in it, I hope it’s a heck of a lot better than the art CB20 got.
You really felt that last line was necessary?
I have liked all of the artwork, I really love the 20th anniversary blending of Best of and new artwork. Also Rich, how does one change the little box next to your name ?
Glad that blending works for you. Well, I needed Ian to show me and it involved getting a different “put your icon everywhere” program involved. No idea why it has to be like that.
You’ll have to sign up at http://gravatar.com.
They make it super easy, and you can keep a pretty nice single ‘web persona’ with that avatar… Just so’s ya’ know.
Will the “Sardonyx” System Rules be a published product, or will it be a strictly internal document for use in developing Trinity and Scion?
Excellent question. Right now, we are going to be so pumped to get it working in Scion and the Trinity Continuum that I doubt we’ll be pushing to use it a different way. But since I hear that some of the writing crew have actually liked it so much that they’ve been using it for other games already, it might have some viability as a stand-alone rules system.
So is the system far enough along that my scion of Bacchus can host jello wrestling orgies?
Re: Scion of Bacchus
Weirdly, one of my internal playtest characters was Bare-Knuckle Boxing Hera, meant to test how a God character with no combat skills stacked up against a highly-competent mortal.
So you’re saying there is hope for this character yet.
Ah, M20, how I thought you were almost done last week…
Frankly, I think we’ll (by which I mean Kickstarter backers) be lucky to see it in March.
Phil could easily take another week or two to sort out the 80 pages and input his notes. Lets be honest after all, he’s likely got a tone to input into the pdf.
Then Mike has to implement all that stuff into a new draft. Then that has to be confirmed by Phil and CCP. Then it gets out to Kickstarter backers.
I at least take solace that Sothis Ascends is moving along quickly at the moment.
I also have this vain hope that is sure to be dashed that Kickstarter backers will see the final version of V20DA by the end of this week. I think its way more likely to be the end of next week, but I can hope.
Hopefully the Easter bunny brings the M20 backer pdf
Pretty much the steps although depending on the nature of Phil’s corrections, there’s no reason to assume one more set of proofs. Our standard is two rounds, but that’s not locked in stone and some big books need more.
Yeah…BTW..I wonder if they are going to give the WoD version stats, since, given how big a book it is, it would be funny if they gave stats for it as an improvised weapon! 😉
We’ll let folks figure that out on their own, but a chart of the various core book sizes and their relative value as weapons might be funny.
In regards to the new Onyx Path layout, how come you’ve got the news signup in the top-right of the page followed by a lot of blank space below it? About a fourth of the page is wasted and articles are crammed slightly left of center in a way which makes them annoying to read.
Sorry the new layout doesn’t work for you, but I think it is less about cramming and more about a larger font/font type for better readability.
The right-hand sidebar also contains some social media buttons and OPP ad banners which some ad-block software might be filtering out. Please consider adding us to your whitelist; we don’t use the banners for third parties. Pinky swear.
I like that you are reaching out before going ahead with Hunter Dark eras.
It is commendable.
Cultural respect and mutual understanding is the way to go.
Thanks, it’s a ongoing process.
The way I look at it with M20 is that it will be a once-in-a-lifetime item, and most RPG of it’s size would take a couple of years to complete rather than one. I’m appreciating that it’s managed to keep to it’s timetable, more or less to this date. and although it is clearly going to be delayed a little, a few months add on means little to me. I just want it done right – which I’m sure is Phil Brucato’s view too – it’s his magnum opus, and ultimately his final word on Mage: The Ascension.
I am a bit anxious about the sheer size of the proposed book though – 700 pages – and really hope the physical thing will actually hold together! I was basically slapped down for requesting a slipcase add-on during the kickstarter, but wouldn’t the option of having a two-volume set worked better for this size? I do note that the basic 350pp size used in the recent 2nd edition nWoD titles is, for me, the ideal size for a core game book. I’m no expert…..just asking.
I’ve been assured by the printer that their binding techniques will hold. We’ll have to see if the size is daunting for folks trying to read or play with it, though.
Hi !
There is one question on my mind that I have not yet received an answer to:
Why are the basic rules (attributes, skills, rolls, etc.) now included in every second Ed. book ?
For me it was a great relief of the nWoD not having to buy the same text dozens of times with every rulebook for the oWoD.
And now you take this great achievement back – why ?
To be honest I feel kind of cheated because I have to buy text that I already own (quite often actually). The books could contain more new content – or be thinner and cost less …
I would be honored if somebody could tell me the reasons for this decision.
Your devoted fan
Ferdinand.
There are many reasons that we chose to move to the “single core book containing the all the rules to get started in the line” model, but they pretty much all boil down to focus. We have heard from a great many fans, of both the paper and the PDF camps, that having to use two books or having two files to search through is a real drag on their ability to play. We also think that the previous method put a false focus on the nWoD brand with the individual game lines second that many people found confusing and offputting.
We want folks to be able to pick up the PoD or PDF of a core and be able to feel like they truly got all the info to play, and then, perhaps even more importantly, to actually start playing ASAP.
So, _focus_ of presentation, of information, of reference, are all much stronger the single core book way, in our opinions. The base rules book method has exactly the advantages you mention, and for some lines that method makes sense still, like for the Trinity Continuum, but for what we are trying to do with the nWoD 2nd Editions, the single books make better sense.
Thank you for your answer.
I can understand the motivation behind this decision better now – even though I am still not 100% happy with it.
Please at least make sure that the rules do not differ between the books (like establishing new skills like in the oWoD)
But none the less thank you for you thorough answer – my fandom stands reassured.
Regards
Ferdinand
Question about the development process.
From the look of the list above, it seems like Promethean 2.0 may come out before Mage 2.0. Is that right?
Just curious. 🙂 Thanks for all you do!
It could, but we’ll have to see how things shake out.
I had to shift focus away from Promethean over to Beast, because we want Beast out for GenCon. So depending on where Dave is in the process, you might still get Mage before Promethean.
I’m kinda heartbroken to hear that, Matt… Just ‘coz I’m mad chuffed to see Promethean 2 come out. On the other hand, I’m glad YOU are working on Beast. So yeah, I’m conflicted. It’s not a new condition. o_O
V20 Lore of the Clans Kickstarter! I’m so ready for this.
Sooo, I hear backers will receive a real life genuine Vozhd as one of the super Deluxe Stretch (pun intended) Goals.
I can only imagine how beautiful this book is going to look in my hands.
Getting there, did you see the teaser video?
Yes, and it was beautiful. Great teaser.
Mage20 Core Book. Too close to Caul…
Soooo bad.
Man I am ready for Trinity. Got my Rex cosplay sketched out.
Glad to hear it!
Any news on new edition of Scarred Lands?
When we have some, you’ll see it here, don’t worry.
I see that the Base rule set is in development but where does the rest of Scion 2nd sit?
In Liiiimmmmbbbboooo.
🙂
Once we are sure that the System works the way we want, the gang will start figuring out how Scion, and the Trinity Continuum, will utilize it.
Hi,
when will there some news for Scarred Lands? I hope it will get some 5 th Edition love.
While there are a lot of Pathfinder fans I think a more rules lite approach would fit the Scarred Lands Setting better.
It’s not about love, it’s when will Hasbro release a 5th Edition OGL? I’m all up for that system for Scarred Lands, but I don’t feel right using a system without the owners’ OK.
Thanks for the answer!