And boy are our arms tired.
Regular blog and updates will return later this week.
Thanks to all of you who came by the booth, and who kept in touch even though you couldn’t make it!
And thanks for buying a round … you know who you are. 🙂
Flying Back From Gen Con…[Monday Meeting Notes]
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19 responses to “Flying Back From Gen Con…[Monday Meeting Notes]”
Wow. I’m surprised we even got this much. 🙂 Sounds like it was a blast. Some day, I will return to Gen Con… some day.
4th Ed. VtM? Seriously need the details on that! My head is going to blow up!
Was great to meet those of you I did! Great Con!
Firstly, I have to say I am impressed with the catalogue. A lot of great work has been done in reviving and consolidating work over from White Wolf. It really looks like this is starting to pay off, with some truly exciting titles ahead.
The main consternation from the Con, however, came with the news about Vampire: The Masquerade 4th Edition. I understand that the V20 edition was actually a White Wolf release, and that it is probably a major revenue stream for The Onyx Path. I also recognise the argument that V20 was deliberately focussed on the past rather than the 21st Century. But it’s still a jarring announcement for many.
I say this as a fan, primarily, of Mage: The Ascension 20th which I backed on Kickstarter as a _definitive_ version of the game. It’s a concern that you may decide to release a new edition in a couple of years which (in my view) devalues the work done on it. Ditto Wraith and Changeling, which have yet to be written even!
To my mind the ‘21st Century’ versions of each game is largely represented through the NWoD games – which are great too, of course. If we keep updating the ‘Classic’ titles….well, they can hardly be called ‘Classic’, eh?
Anyway, anything to clarify your intent would be appreciated.
Couple of years? It’s been 5 years since V20 dude… What is your ‘ideal’ length of time between editions, pray tell?
@RobbtheSlob
The precise amount of time between editions is irrelevant to the point. Some of these ‘Classic’ books (Wraith, Changeling) haven’t even been written yet, and yet they are potentially going to be superseded down the line? It would make me think twice about investing in them if that is the case. If I was still writing each game and it’s supplements, I would also feel quite put out by the point of it all.
Moreover, both Werewolf and Mage were written as 21st Century updates already. How many updates to the 21st Century does each line need?
Now I do get that The Onyx Path needs to make business decisions, and that the practicality of oversized books isn’t always easy for POD especially. But even so, it’s a trend that I think could be damaging if it isn’t handled properly. In the case of Mage, for example, I will tire very quickly with the game if it ends up mired in edition wars -as happened when the Revised edition came out.
Each 20th line after V20 will have to be considered individually as to just what their 4th edition needs to be and we’ll do that when the time is right. Thanks!
I have to agree with you about being hesitant regarding a 4th edition of the Classic World of Darkness. Really for all the points you just mentioned. I respect the rights of a creator to go back and revise and republish, but at some point, there has to be an ending. I felt that the 20th Anniversary Editions were a fitting ending for these lines.
how would a fourth edition of oWoD devalue anything? X20 is “definitive” editions of what had come before. fourth editions would move in a new direction. don’t be a grognard stereotype. what’s there is there. it isn’t going away because the world keeps turning.
I think it might be possible to keep M20 as the definitive version of Mage and have a fourth edition. The trick would be to view the 4th edition as a repackaging of M20 into more bite-sized pieces, with the actual content remaining fully consistent with M20.
That is, instead of demanding a small fortune for a 700ish-page core book, break it into a much smaller core book (say, around the size of MRev) and a few “core supplements” such as a Storyteller’s Companion, a Player’s Guide or three, and a Storyteller’s Handbook.
Done this way, the 20th Anniversary Edition and the 4th Edition would basically be different ways of getting the same content, and supplements that are under development with M20 in mind would remain fully compatible with M4th (and vice versa).
Besides: unless you ignore a published edition somewhere, the 20th anniversary edition is the fourth edition: first, second, Revised, then 20th-Ann.
Beg to differ.
I actually think VtM4th is good news!
I would like very much to see how a game designed with both classic concepts and 21st century vanguard mechanics would look like!
My preferred game is also Mage the Ascension and I would love to see a 4th Edition… (as an enthusiast of Dynamism I think a good game is never truly finished!)
I too hate, hate, HATE Vampire: the Masquerade 4th Edition as I hate all things that have not been yet made nor even really revealed as a thing with any shape or direction or what-have-you. Hate that stuff! You know I hate more than that? Irony. Yeah, irony is the suck!
Oh! More than that? I hate MY OWN irony! Grrr and stuff.
fuck anything that hasn’t been made yet! only things that previously hadn’t been made yet then were are good! stupid things
I laughed. Then cried. Because there are so many people that are truly like this.
It’s like all the people who see Micheal bay movies.
Love to complain about them…but they all line up and see them 🙂
So great to meet you Rich! It was nice to see The Onyx Path front and center. And special thanks to Rose for signing my Demon book. I’ll have to wait for the next con to get Matthew McFarland’s signature. The games from the Wrecking Crew were great, I was lucky enough to sign up for three. Hopefully next Con I’ll be able to get my hardbound copy of EX3 signed 🙂 Thanks so much, my ST said he’d even honor the card for EX3 I picked up at the booth for 3WP!
=w=; i c Hapless found you at gencon.
D=< and he didnt tell me he did this
=) oh well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOfb2MVCPk
as excited as I am about nwod 2, and v:tm 4. maybe stop working on new things until you release some of the stuff we have been waiting for such as EXALTED 3RD EDITION.
While you may think that these projects have anything to do with each other, they share none of any of the same creative teams. So stopping work on anything besides EX3 doesn’t get you EX3 any faster, it just means nobody else gets the games they are waiting for. And because we are set up with different creative freelance teams, it would be stupid for us to follow that path.