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As is usual right before a Kickstarter campaign, most of our talk is making sure all the parts are working together, and our KS team (me, Rollickin’ Rose, Mirthful Mike, and Impish Ian) as well as the developer(s) are all set to cover our respective responsibilities. Some of those are dictated by the way KS processes work, like I have to be the one to change KS text or Stretch Goals on the KS page, but both Rose and I can answer KS comments and Updates.
As you can tell from the proposed book cover design above, we are now very excitedly getting ready for the Beast: the Primordial Prestige Edition KS. Black Hat Matt McFarland has lent his experience in developing new games to this brand new addition to our nWoD roster of game-lines. In some ways, it could be conceptualized as how we add the Creature From the Black Lagoon, or the Wendigo cannibalism spirit, or even Godzilla to the New World of Darkness, but the Black Hatted One has done a lot more with it than that. There are multiple layers throughout the book that touch on loss, raw power, hunger, the drive to protect your own, and the fate of the outsider. If that piques your interest, check it out on the KS page on Tuesday June 2nd.
Eddy and I talked earlier about his time at MoMo Con in Atlanta where he had a run in with a lout harassing a security officer at the con, and then we heard that there had been further harassment aimed at one or more cosplay enthusiasts who then had trouble with security. So Eddy, who thought the con had grown nicely, is looking to see how the MoMo team respond and evolve to meet the needs of 2015. As it was, they seemed to be trying to adapt and grow the con, so now would be the time to enforce a safer environment. Eddy and I continued into looking at how we can further work with some app designers, and on our Secret Project. We also chatted about what we need for the Pugmire setting brochure for Gen Con (I promise that is the only mention of GCon this week in this part of the blog) and I’ll need to work with Mirthful Mike to get a concept artist working on a cityscape for the town of Pugmire itself.
To return to the “meet the needs of 2015” concept, I think we see a bit of the necessary questioning of just what that means in some of the conversations happening with the backer PDF for Mage 20th. Like all of the 20th Anniversary books so far, Mage 20th was created to celebrate the huge legacy of the original run of Mage books. All editions: which for Mage is a particularly necessary but tough task. To do that, we really aim at bringing together the elements of the games that came before that people have loved and been inspired by. This is the “love letter to the fans” approach that I talk about in the descriptions of the Anniversary core books all the time.
With that approach though, as we learned pretty much starting from the time Vampire 20th was published, we also are stuck with some things we’d not necessarily include if these were new games. Some rules issues, some setting issues. Put it this way: in 1992-1994, we did not have Wikipedia or anything except the barest beginnings of the ubiquitous internet we have now. Research required poring through books. Being able to know how Vampire was actually being played in Germany, and not just how we heard it was received, required a transatlantic plane trip. So, our modern world enables our creators to write more accurately, and they have fewer excuses for factual errors. But some of those are now sacred cows of the gamelines because our community has worked around them for so long that altering that text would change the feel of the game.
With V20, we made very few changes and all of them had to be justified extensively inside our group of creators. In fact, many arguments ensued over what could and should be “fixed”. With W20, we continued to hold to that but already we could tell through our Open Dev Process and Kickstarter comments that many of our audience wanted us to upgrade the setting to the current year and fix rules issues. So we did more in the W20 core, but still not that much as we intended to expand further into those areas in the supplements. With Mage 20th we adjusted even further, both as an answer to settling the Edition Wars if we could, and as a way to show how this amazing setting about growth and change could be resonant right now.
Sidebars, “future fates”, pulling elements that have existed through the editions but giving them a new focus and importance like the Nephandi; developer Satyr Phil Brucato used all these options and more to both speak to the existing Mage community of all they loved in the past editions, to speak of the concerns and ideals of the present, and to speak of the future for that community and newcomers as well. I think he did an amazing job juggling and blending all that while still never letting us lose sight of the core wonder of Mage.
So, we’ll continue to look at how to evolve our game lines, our ways of delivering those games to you, and just what sort of new games, rules, and settings, make sense to our creators and you, our community now.
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And now, the BLURBS!
Fear the dark places: the Beast: the Primordial Kickstarter will go live at 2pm Eastern US time tomorrow, Tuesday the 2nd of June!
Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition KS backers: M20 PDFs went out to backers, and the response has been amazing! Thanks to all of you for your support and accolades. And also thanks to all of you intrepid eagle-eyed backers sending us notes on possible errors using the “Contact Me” button next to my picture on the M20 KS page. Your comments are great and very appreciated. We’ll be letting the eratta threads go for most of this week, so get in your notes soon!
The next Pugmire poster, Princess Yosha Pug, will be available this week, and you can still get the first of the six Pugmire posters on DTRPG.com, and start spreading the Code of Man: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148516/Sister-Picassa-Collie-Pugmire-Poster-1
The Art of Changing Breeds for Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition will be going on sale in both PDF and physical book PoD versions on Wednesday! Check it out and see how the art for the Fera was commissioned and created.
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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)
- M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Pugmire Gen Con Materials (Be a Good Dog.)
- CtL anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)
- The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Dark Eras Expansions (nWod Dark Eras)
- VtM Lore of the Clans Expansions (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Pugmire Early Access
- Dark Eras Companion (nWod Dark Eras)
- C20 core (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)
- WtF The Pack (Werewolf: the Forasken 2nd Edition)
- VtM Lore of the Bloodlines (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)
- Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)- In Open Development
- nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)- In Open Development
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
Second Draft
- Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
- Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent) (Some drafts turn out to still be out)
- Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
Development
- Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created)
- “Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- nWoD 2e core (New World of Darkness)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
Editing
- M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)
Development (post-editing)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
In Art Direction
- M20 How Do You Do That – Just waiting on Acevedo’s artwork and I think that’ll do it.
- Dreams of Avarice – Artnotes out to artist.
- NWoD 2 – Starting to see sketches.
In Layout
- Gen Con Stuff – Brochure is roughed in but I am going to need additional text for some sections. Checking local sources for the Pugmire shirt and should finally have time to get the surgical shirt dealt with. Big horizontal banner should also be going to press this week as well. Looking for a couple of other vendors for the vert before I get going with it.
- Beast – Working on some graphics for the KS (SG and rewards graphics… nothing that will delay things).
- Werewolf Novel – Mike Lee one I think. Gonna lay that out one day this week so we can get it rolling along.
In Proofing
- M20 – Errata time.
- Red List – 2nd proof.
- M20 Screen – Proofing with Phil.
- Ex 3 Anthology – Awaiting updated text file
- Art of Changing Breeds – PoD should be available this week.
Special
- Dark Eras – Holding pattern.
- VDA20 – Indexing.
- Beast Within Revised Layout – Awaiting approval, then I’ll update the PDF and add PoD and Epub.
- Wraith 20 – Awaiting art notes for the book. All the logos from Cobb are in.
- V20 Lore of the Clans – Holding pattern for appendices. KS shirt on sale to backers this week.
- Exalted 3rd Edition – RT here: I’m reviewing the layout for the Intro chapter all the way through to Chapter 8. If they are basically OK for me, I’ll be sending them to the devs for their thoughts.
Other Stuff
REASON TO DRINK: Take a drink every time I forget to write the Reason To Drink bit because it’s at the very end of the blog.
Coincidentally, my birthday is the 8th, next Monday.
All I want is some good news for Exalted!
As we keep building the layout files, the news is pretty much all good. Now great news might take a little longer than next week, but we are getting there.
C20! So exciting! 😀
Just the start, but yes- great to see!
Yep, and it’s going to be fun watching it progress on here as the year rolls along!
Very much digging the royal purple for Beast. Can’t wait to throw some money at it tomorrow!
Same here. I was unsure about the logo itself when I saw it, but the full book render looks crazy awesome to me.
See you there!
Wait, Beast is “A Storytelling Game of Something Something Horror”?
… Not gonna lie, a part of me hopes the final version of the cover stays that way.
I suggested “The Game of Blah Blah Blah,” but I was overruled.
I suggested “Storytelling Game of RARRAARARHGHG” but Rich didn’t buy it.
Not gonna – as you’ll see with the KS graphics, but as you can tell from our two developer responses, you can’t let these guys alone for a minute with important tagline decisions!
Beast is finally going to Kickstarter. My Hunger grows.
Today you can start chomping!
“Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development” — Does that mean we’re going to see more material? Google Documents-style?
We’ve seen a few bits and pieces already in the Open Dev blogs.
Further Open Dev stuff is up to Dapper Dave Brookshaw and whether he sees a value at this stage in more feedback.
I will most likely put the remaining Order writeups up, ad the Open Dev threads haven’t run out of material yet, so they’ll carry on for a while yet.
Is it me, or is W20 Book of the Wyrm not there? I think it was about to ship, no?
It has shipped. My tracking number says my copy will arrive Thursday.
Are you US or outside the US?
Pooka Knight: Many Thanks
Richt: Outside US, but, please, nevermind me. I just got my email today. It’s on its way. And I couldn’t be happier about it! 😀
Thanks for checking, however. Shows you care and that means a lot.
Oh, are there going to be Pugmire shirts at GenCon we can get?
Maybeeee….
Classic World of Darkness 4th edition…just saying 🙂
It’s a thing to consider-
I’m liking that royal purple color for Beast. Excellent choice!
Thanks!
First of all, i want to thank RichT and the OP crew for their fabulous work this last 3 years, truly they’ve injected WW games with fantastic and great ideas, giving the lines exciting courses.
Exalted 3e!! soooo thrilled… I have a question: Is there any project or idea for the Narrator screen?, personally i always need some tables here and there for my adventures.
A physical Storyteller Screen is part of the Kickstarter rewards, and we will probably make that available as a PDF somewhere along the line. DTRPG can’t do PoD Screens though, so we won’t be offering a regular physical version at this time.
When does the schedule get updated in accordance with project changes? I realize staff are constantly engaged in projects that have varying degrees of intricacy, and given the commitment to “loose” scheduling, it just isn’t practical to add all the changes as they occur. Still, I’m interested in knowing what determines when you add something like the Book of Oblivion or The Pack to the schedule, and when you update ongoing work states.
Rich updates this list every Monday. I update the Current Projects page every Wednesday, after the week’s releases have gone out (because I don’t want to update twice a week).
I think being willing to make changes and updates to the system and setting for the 20th anniversary editions is a big positive step. I know I especially want to see some new thoughts and mechanical tidying on Demon the Fallen once it finally rolls round to anniversary time.
We have a few years before that and lots can change, including just how much we update or redefine our settings. It’ll be pretty interesting when and if we do get to Demon 20 though!
My 5 cents: 1000% percent behind the update on setting/systems and I am massively digging W20 for it. Some things were obtuse and in need tweaking/clarifications in the past. Which is true of just about any endeavor ever. So, I mean no offense to past creators of Werewolf who may read this, you guys ROCK and you made a game I’ve been storytelling for 14 years and I STILL enjoy tremendously far and above any other hobbies I have ever had. Just ask anyone whose ever met me.
Of course, things that were “wrong” but became part of what the game is at its core I find to be equivalent to an artistic change. Today, you know it’s not accurate and chose to leave it as is for the game’s benefit. It’s entirely different from not fixing what needs fixing. So, keep on rocking. You’re doing good on all accounts if you ask me.
Will we see any teasers for WtF 2 ed: The Pack in the future? Im really looking forward to this one.
That’s pretty much up to Stylin’ Stew Wilson, but I think so.
My hope is that in the revisions being made for C20 that Changelings can be made more powerful in the real world. I ran a mixed campaign years ago and in the real world their powers are virtually useless.
So Mage 2nd Edition has moved into Developement. Excellent.
I was so excited that I went back to count the time it took Werewolf 2nd Edition to make the journey from Developement to PDF and I was surprised by what I discovered. Werewolf was in art direction for like 20 weeks. I completely forgot about that.
Anyway, using Werewolf 2nd as a guide I’d put it at between 18 and 24 weeks until Mage 2nd Edition is ready for PDF release. Obviously if it doesn’t have the same art problems that Werewolf did then it might be shorter. This time line would put Mage 2nd somewhere around November with the PoD being available in January.
Whenever it comes out, I’ll have a group of players eager to play. So excited!
Bear in mind this is the second book I’ve Developed, which could make it slower. On the other hand, I’m not in charge of All The Books like Stew is, so could be faster. Exciting, huh?
Exciting indeed. I fully expect to be completely wrong on the timeline. Hopefully I’m way off and it’s sooner. That said don’t want it before it’s done; books are harder to patch than video games.
Any more detail about VDA20, how far done indexing is done?
Any updates or news on the Tome of secrets?
now that you made the kickstarter are you going to make the subforum for Beast?
From the Beast Kickstarter:
“No More Heroes: The Beast PDF as well as a PDF of Hunter: the Vigil (1st or 2nd Edition depending on which is current at the time these rewards are sent).”
Did I miss the announcement of Hunter getting a 2nd edition?
We have not made any announcements on that topic.
I would take that to mean that with Changeling 2e being actively worked on, its not completely beyond the realm of possibility of a Vigil 2e being readied but its pretty far fetched. Three second editions actively being worked on (that we know of) is quite a bit already I’m sure.
so im sorta new to the kickstarter thing so i thought id just ask here.
if a backer wanted to do the $50 reward tier but they also wanted to add all of the nwod core books in addition to it as add ons what would they need to do? total would be $200, so do i put in 200 and then later youll email me asking what i wanted to add on?
going through the “how does this work” section, is this even possible?
=) thx for quick reply in advance
Here are our listed instructions:
You can Add-on the PDFs listed below to any Reward Tier pledge that already includes a PDF by clicking on your Reward Tier to the right, and then when you get to the pledge page that confirms your pledge amount, manually changing the amount of your pledge from the base Reward amount to that Reward amount plus the amount of each Add-on that you want as listed below :
So, you pledge the $50 Reward Tier and that automatically is how much you pledge as shown by KS. Then you change that amount on your KS pledge page manually adding the extra $150 for the Add-ons you want so the total pledge you write in and is shown is $200. Then, after the KS is over and some months later when we send you your Backer Survey, there will be a section on the Survey to check off which PDFs you added the money in for (besides your initial Reward Tier rewards, which are automatic).
Hope that helps and welcome to the wacky world of Kickstarter backing!
^w^; thank god theres 2 paychecks in a month. but oh well =3.
hopefully my second delve into the world of darkness will be as good as the first =) (VTM: Bloodlines, 3 days ago.)
Re: M20 – It’s the Magiest of Mage editions.
It’s virtues are celebrated and it’s sins are so deliciously reveled in. I’m not sure which specific issues you were alluding too but your premise is correct – this book couldn’t have possibly pleased everyone.
It did hammer home why [i]Awakening[/i] was designed the way it was however. With Arete rolls, 6 spheres, TN’s and PBD starting [i]Ascension[/i] Mages are phenomonly terrible at actually doing magic (unless powerbuilt).
=D congrats on hitting ur 60k goal last night!
=3 it happened around 1:30am cst.