Cinco de Mayo! Been so busy we almost missed this, which is quite different than the old White Wolf days when it was almost mandatory to head out early and start the feasting (drinking). At their best, there was the feeling of the hot Atlanta sun beating down on your head while sipping margaritas on a restaurant’s patio. At worst, finding a missing friend because his car was up on the sidewalk outside the WW offices. As usual, I do not know how no one ever died during our festivities.
No Eddy on this 5th of May- his recent evolution to freelance writer and full-time job seeker left him with a deadline to hit and he needed the time we would have met to nail down a couple thousand words. We could skip our meeting because our CCP approvals are going swimmingly, and there wasn’t anything Eddy and I needed to review. As has been the case since Onyx Path was founded in January of 2012, I did have the second meeting of the day with the folks that really keep Onyx rolling, and since this is our one formal meeting of the week, it took several hours. The info I post below in the Updates comes from that longer meeting each week, as do our various items that happen in the week. During the Onyx meeting we don’t just compare notes on where projects are in their schedules but mostly we look at big picture items.
For example, this week we ran through a list of possible items we might have available to hand out at the booth at this year’s Gen Con: the 2014-2015 Schedule Brochure, of course, but also some smaller things like temporary tattoos, mechanical pencils, lanyards, canvas bags for gamer loot, that sort of stuff that we can put symbols and website info on. Not all of the ones I list here will definitely be at the con, but we want to have some sort of fun things there. On top of select PoD books that we’ll be bringing for folks to buy, of course. It’s our first year of doing this ourselves, and we’re all pretty jazzed to find out what things we can do to make it fun for everybody.
We also reviewed a tentative redesign for the Onyx website, discussed how important it is to prep and educate new writers, editors, and developers, on our particular processes- and how important it is for all of our creative contributors to feel that they can speak up if they have concerns. It’s weird, to me, but some new freelancers kind of get tongue-tied in talking with the long time contributors, so we want to be sure that the same transparency and dialogue we push for having with our community of fans also applies with our creative crews. I say it seems weird, because I know we’re all knuckle-heads making this stuff up as we go along, and always have been. 🙂
And Speaking of the Stuff We Make Up:
– Mummy the Curse – Cursed Necropolis DC- KS backer PDF out last week. Compiling and inputting errata before making the on-sale PDF and PoD versions.
– Book of the Deceived (MtC): Redlines.
– Exalted 3rd Edition: From Holden: Lore Charms are now finished, and we are hard at work on the final Ability in the Solar Charm set: Craft. Collating more Antagonists material this week and continuing Evocations work. Chapter Three (Character Creation) now stands fully complete, with the Kickstarter-backed example-of-character-creation integrated. A fresh (and hopefully final) round of Martial Arts style drafts have arrived, with changes made based on playtest observations, and are being reviewed and approved.
Getting Survey prepared to send to backers.
Zub’s EX3 Comic: getting both the PDF and PoD versions ready to go up on DTRPG for sale. Both EX3 novels are being worked on, and I have a synopsis from Matt Forbeck to review. Starting to get one of the EX3 Music Suites to a finished state, the Dragon Blooded theme but our composer got caught in a time crunch with another project which is why we haven’t gotten much done lately.
– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: US missing packages started going out last week, International missing packages have started as well. In daily communication with the European shipper as contact info is amassed. Need confirmation that they have started shipping to Europe.
– V20 Anarchs Unbound : Getting comments back on the backer PDF before we create final PDF, and PoD and Deluxe print files. One thing to point out to non-backers: the PDF also included an ePub version specifically designed to work on tablets and mobile devices- which is the first time we have tried to do this with a tabletop RPG book. There are very specific changes to how we do design of the books in order to create an ePub version, and we’re very interested in the response.
– V20 Rites of the Blood: is ready for layout, but layout is not yet ready for it, waiting on one artist for finals.
– V20 Dark Ages: Scribes are scribing 2nd Drafts. David Hill has delivered some art notes.
– V20: Ghouls: In redlines.
– V20 Red List: In final draft stage.
– The Making of the Art of Children of the Revolution: Out to backers who pledged for it. Creating PoD files to go with PDF for sale on DTRPG.
– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: US missing packages started going out last week, International missing packages have started as well. In daily communication with the European shipper as contact info is amassed. Need confirmation that they have started shipping to Europe. The Heavy Metal Deluxe W20 is done and has started shipping with more expected out this week. Mike Lee has a new batch of chapters of the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel for Bill to review. The White Howlers Tribe Book is in dev review. W20 Wyld West is in for developer review of proof.
– W20 Changing Breeds PDF and PoD versions are on sale at DTRPG! The Deluxes are being finished at press. The Changing Breeds Fiction Anthology needs a logo but is almost finished in layout
– W20 Book of the Wyrm is in layout. This will be the next Kickstarter project in a week or two if everything times out as expected. We think this book should appeal to W20 and W20 Changing Breeds fans alike. Getting this KS together, bit of a delay with the stuff happening mentioned above which just cut into prep time- but the KS video is almost done.
– W20: The Umbra: In second drafts.
– Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition- had a great talk with Satyr Phil and the Onyx Path gang and we were able to schedule the next books after M20– but finishing that developmentally is still the primary job for Phil and Bill. The Character Pack book and the “How Do You DO That?” book look like the first two next projects up.
– Mage 20 Quickstart: Printed and shipped for Free RPG Day.
– Trinity Continuum: System Doc being assembled by Joe Carriker.
– Scion: Both Scion and the TC above are now moving into active mode for 2014. Contracts and art notes out for the Scion: Origins cover.
– Demon: The Descent: Demon is now available in PDF/PoD/PDF&PoD combo versions. The Demon: Ready Made Characters PDF link has been sent to backers- getting ready to set the PDF and PoD versions for sale on DTRPG. Demon Seed Collection is in redlines. DtD Seattle is in second drafts. Heirs to Hell is in layout and art direction. Demon Translation Guide is being written. The Demon Fiction Anthology + Interfaces is in first drafts.
– DtD Players Guide: Flowers Of Hell: Layout proof to the Dev.
– Hunter: Mortal Remains: The PDF version is selling like hotcakes (scary hotcakes) on DTRPG and we have a forum thread for comments. http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/hunter-the-vigil/122566-mortal-remains-errata-thread
– nWoD: Dark Eras: Second drafts are almost all in.
– WtF: The Idigam Chronicle: All but two first drafts are in- others are in redlines. Stew Wilson is doing a remarkably regular Friday blog that focuses on specific topics for the book- lots of good discussion happening right now: https://theonyxpath.com/category/projects/werewolftheforsaken/
– GtSE: Geist Ready Made Characters: In redlines.
– Also: nWoD Skull and Scion Pantheon shirts now on the RedBubble T-shirt site and soon to be joined by a Mage 20th logo shirt, and some special extras Mage shirts next week.
Reason to Drink: 5/5.
Not really a fan o ePub, but I’m collecting all V20 .pdf books, and can’t wait for AU. About the design changes, do they affect the pdf, or are they exclusive to the ePud?
The ePub version requires a very different, somewhat simplified, design compared to the PDF design which we then use for PoD or traditionally printed versions. We think that it’s worth experimenting on providing this format that is more appropriate for hand held devices for folks who are doing a lot of their game reading on them.
Hey Rich! Glad to hear things are going swimmingly! Just wanted to say I’m really looking forward to the epubs. Got my ereader just for my gaming pdfs and I gotta say it’s terrible when the pdfs start acting up on it. Keep walking that path!
Most ereaders should be able to handle PDFs, depending on the software too. But PDFs are not designed for them, which is one reason we’re working up ePubs, which are specifically for ereaders after all.
“- DtD Players Guide: Flowers Of Hell: Layout proof to the Dev.”
So close…this is going to be awesome. Couple of weeks maybe?
For the PDF- let’s hope so…
I am excited to see what your ePub tablet friendly books will be like! For someone hat uses their ipad for most of their gaming books, i love that idea!
Well, right now there is just this one as we see how it works, and how folks respond.
What if you put out a survey for responses on what folks thought of the AU ePub?
That way the responses could be returned to you in a unified way?
Maybe through a Google form, or something?
Backer surveys going out for Ex3? This early? I thought you waited closer to printing time to avoid having a whole list of people’s contact/address/etc. details changing for the shipping of the books.
It is now possible to change your address at a later date, it was implemented this year.
As Christian said, with the relatively recent change in the Surveys, I’m working on getting our Surveys out earlier.
Hope the epub experiment goes well. I currently happily read pdfs on my Nexus 7 tablet, but I would be willing to kick in a little more (or rebuy certain old books I already have in pdf) if I could get more easily readable access to epubs of critical books, like core books, on my phone.
I think they’ll be really useful for a section of our fans. We’d have to get incredibly positive feedback on ePubs from everybody in order to look at redoing old books- that’s pretty much a total relayout. But let’s see how these first steps go-
I’ve got my fingers crossed that the Trinity/Scion system doc will deliver something good. Still looking forward to Exalted, Dark Eras and more Demon.
Just out of curiosity, do you plan on sending the Ex3 add-on PDFs before the corebook PDF is ready? It seems like it’d be less trouble than bundling everything together.
First the Survey, then we’ll see. Remember that Add-on fulfillment is me sitting down, pulling the info from the Surveys, making sure backers correctly filled out the Survey and included the right amount in their pledge, and then individually emailing their links. One by one. It is hugely time intensive.
Well, Kickstarter got around to doing something about addresses eventually, so it’s just a matter of time before they do build add-ons into the system, right?
That’d be great, but right now it doesn’t exist, so…
Reiterating the questions about Book of the Wyrm and W20 that got me banned from the forums before they were answered, as well as my response to that ban.
W:tA has always had a tendency towards the Writer on Board trope, with the writer declaring something he or she doesn’t like is a tool of the Wyrm. The most infamous example would be an expy of James Randi as a member of a child molesting Wyrm cult in RaNY. This was due to Randi’s skepticism about repressed memory hysteria in the 90’s, which turned out to be correct. W20 has a parody of FOX News as a subsidiary of Pentex, the RED Network. It doesn’t have any story hooks, being an Author Filibuster about how those who disagree with him are evil. The specific grudge seems to be that they said a couple of negative things about the defunct Occupy movement, as opposed to the lovefest from the rest of the channels. (Does OPP think they have no fans who watch FOX, or just that it’s okay to insult them?) So will these cases be in BotW? Will there be current bugbears like Monsanto, the Tea Party, the Koch brothers, or a fomori version of Brendan Eich? Is anyone who voted against Obama Wyrm-tainted?
The first reason given for the ban was “Made backhanded personal attack at Rich Thomas”. The only mention of Rich Thomas in my post was in connection with King Distilleries, a Pentex subsidiary that legally sells alcohol with no Wyrm-taint. I made the comment that if that was the standard, them Rich Thomas’s “Reasons to Drink” would make him a Wyrm agent. That’s a reductio ad absurdum to show how silly the neo-Prohibitionism is, not a personal attack. It seems even sillier with this week’s post about Cinco de Mayo festivities.
The other one was “accused Onyx Path of supporting anti-vaxxers”. I asked that because Magadon is specifically stated to produce vaccines (and inoculations) that are all laced with Wyrm taint that produce in a small number of cases radical side effects and even fomori. (Pentex can taint medicine but not booze, apparently.) So in the WoD, the anti-vaxxers are right. W20 obviously supports anti-frackers, so it’s legitimate to ask if the same is true here. If Onyx Path really didn’t consider the unfortunate implications of Magadon, they should be glad someone pointed it out before BotW was finalized.
All in all, there was nothing that violated OP’s terms of service and merited a warning, let alone a ban.
It is too bad you didn’t get to see any of the replies to your post, because I had stated that someone of the equivalent of Andrew Wakefield would actually be on Magadon’s Payroll and not the other way around. And why is that?
That is because Andrew Wakefield was being given money by a lawyer to prove that the MMR Vaccine caused harm. If they could prove it, they would get tons of money in a lawsuit from the result.
So he falsified claims and preformed unnecessary invasive medical procedures on children with autism. He did this on children without their consent, thus violating medical ethics. He has been barred from practicing medicine in the U.K. and that is why he fled to the U.S.
I would not be surprised that Magadon works in this way: Get one of their own to say that another product that they don’t own causes harm, use it as an excuse to preform tests that violate the patients in the name of proving something like the MMR vaccine is tainted, get money from the lawsuit, destroy the untainted vaccine and people behind it, and then get to put their actual tainted product on the market.
Two, Magadon is also behind some the “quack medicine” products as well. As they stand to profit from scarring their own customers who are anti-vaxxers into buying things that don’t work or happen to be against the FDA.
Then they employ corrupted fictional celebrities to their cause. After all, Jenny McCarthy has gone on record that she has no problem bringing back Polio to prove the point of how horrible Autism is.
Also, if you paid attention to all the “We need to cure autism!” nonsense going around, it eerily sounds just like DNA or just as easily, that Magadon needs to cure all Kinfolk and Garou.
“the RED Network. It doesn’t have any story hooks”
It’s the W20 corebook. All the W:tA corebooks have been like that, list the Pentex companies and give a very brief description of what they do. Something like that would be vastly expanded upon in the W20 Book of the Wyrm, as well as given plothooks to it.
I’m aware of Wakefield’s financial conflicts of interest, but as you say, he got his money from trial lawyers who were planning on suing the vaccine makers. The patent for the vaccine that he submitted was in his name, so he would have gotten the profits from it. Even the most enlightened corporation doesn’t do this for employees. Wakefield’s supporters claim he’s being smeared by “Big Pharma” (which Magadon is supposed to epitomize) to stop those lawsuits and squash a competitor. The aforementioned Jenny McCarthy would gladly claim Magadon is a metaphor for vaccine makers and thimerosal. The “Evil corporations must die!” theme would support her.
Even if Wakefield’s vaccine had been approved, the effects would have been under a microscope and people turning into fomori would have been detected. Also, from Popular Mechanics, “The antivaccine movement doesn’t stop at measles. Parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated for MMR also refuse vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough”, also meningitis. Magadon’s own products would be affected. Pediatrician Paul Offit has developed a vaccine for rotavirus without pharmaceutical money that has saved thousands of children, but he gets hate mail calling him an industry shill.
As for plot hooks, Magadon itself gets fomori and First Teams. What are Garou going to do at the RED Network, kill an expy of Bill O’Reilly?
I don’t see why you expect a game that’s almost entirely about protecting the environment to cheer on the conservative movement in America. The game is literally about the world coming to an end because of pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change. The Wyrm would need to be stupider than a 1-year-old not to co-opt and recruit the people who promote environmental destruction and climate denial.
Werewolf is also a work of fiction. It is not real. Much of it is written in-character. It deliberately takes every aspect of our world and twists it into something vastly worse than anything that could plausibly be real. Not just conservatives. Notice that most humans are so apathetic they don’t actually care the world is ending, most science is an evil tool of the Weaver, and most pro-environment characters are eco-terrorist monsters who tear each other and random bystanders to shreds, and that a large proportion of them want to genocide humanity (probably more than half considering the Ratkin outnumber the other Breeds).
Darn it, I was trying to cancel that and put it on the forums instead.
And you were reinstated. Mostly because I really didn’t feel attacked and let the mods know. They, bless their hearts, try and keep an eye out for blatant attacks on me.
Which doesn’t alter the reason your post was questioned to begin with. Whether you meant to or not, the overall tone came across like you were looking to stir up a fight. “Does Onyx Path think they have no fans, etc…” Well, Onyx doesn’t think anything, it’s the name of our company.
So when you phrase it like that it’s like you are making a huge assumptive attack on every creative person working on our projects, or specifically me as Onyx’s only employee and owner. We have creators all over the political spectrum, just like our community, and I think we are stronger for it. I don’t want us censoring the posts here or on the forums for political content, and we won’t be censoring the work of our creative teams based on their politics either.
I’m still banned.
I was using Onyx Path as a shorthand for the freelancer who wrote the section itself and whoever approved it. If you use words like “Just as children
listen to the helpful advice of their imaginary friends on cartoon shows (that just happen to sell profitable plastic toys), grown-ups are also looking for guidance.” to refer to a RL audience and say they “rant and rave” (pot, meet kettle), the question does come up. Making “The RED Network” a subsidiary of Pentex means the writer is saying that those who disagree with him politically are evil, going to the level of propaganda. It doesn’t make sense in the context of the game, since werewolves fighting to save Gaia shouldn’t care about a cable channel that can’t divert the MSM from covering anything.
Please check again with the administrators/mods. Before I posted I was assured your ban had been rescinded.
Were there ever pics posted of final W20 HME? Could not afford a HME myself but am very curious to see the final version!
There were pics posted in some Backer Updates a while ago. I don’t think anything here.
Do you know when the next sale for new Technocracy Convention Books PDFs will be on DriveThruRPG? Last year, there was a sale in July.
I’m going to have to buy the Convention Books I’ve missed, it’s going to be a long wait for MAGE 20th Anniversary Edition Core Rule Book.
I do not, we don’t plan the various sales all that far in advance in order to remain fluid in what we offer.
It’s too bad you didn’t get in on Mage 20th… there was a FANTASTIC deal on the Convention book PDFs. Even if you just pledged $1, and added-on all of the new (and Iteration-X) Convention book PDFs for just $35 more.
The way I see it, Trinity was perfect the way it was. The system was probably the best version ever released by White Wolf, optimizing the old without throwing out the baby with the bathwater like nWoD. The metaplot was awesome, the setting inspiring, the NPCs interesting, and the whole concept pretty damn cool.
So what exactly is the plan for new Trinity? Is it a compilation with some bug fixes (TELEKINESIS!)? Or is it a plan by long time fans to finally get their fanfiction in print?
Glad you liked it- so did I. Like any iteration of the Storyteller System, it breaks down at higher power levels. Since we have to be able to run characters from man on the street types, pulp heroes, Psions, and Aberrants with huge power ranges, it needs a system that can handle those ranges.
We’ll release more details on setting after we get past reviewing the new system, but since Trinity was the first chance I had to actually create a new world during the WW years, with a visual bible and everything, I’m pretty sure I’m not just a “long time fan”. Although I am that too.
Rich, do you think CCP would ever consider selling the White Wolf brand? And please don’t take that as a complaint on my part about how they have handled the property. The CCP era of White Wolf has been, by and large, excellent. I just mean that, at this point, what is their interest in it? I understand that, in a sense, it is “free money” for them since they are no longer employing anyone who actually works on the property (with the exception of Eddy in a part time capacity). But I can’t imagine that they are making THAT much money from it as compared to their other properties (mainly EVE). Plus the whole CCP approval process seems a bit silly to me at this point. Sure, they own the property, so that gives them the right. And by all accounts the folks over there are fans of everything White Wolf. But, at this point, you have someone who has been working on White Wolf products from pretty much the beginning of its existence (you) going to a bunch of fans and asking their permission to print a product. Not to mention all of the writers who are White Wolf veterans as well. Just seems like an unnecessary step.
I’m sure they’ll consider just about anything, but what they’re likely to do is anyone’s guess. Dunno if you consider the time Onyx Path has been handling the WW IPs to be part of the “CCP Era”, but you’ve got some sub-eras in there from the merger until now that are all varying degrees of letting WW guys do what they do best combined with varying amounts of financial support from CCP. Right now, all they need do is let Onyx and ByNightStudios, etc do what we do and collect their royalties while the company refocuses on the EVE brand. This is a good deal for them, and what they’ve indicated so far as the direction they’d like us to keep going.
The approvals have also varied in intensity depending on what concerns were uppermost in their collective. Think of it this way, they are and have been strongly about maintaining the highest quality for any products coming out that CCP owns, and the approvals are a necessary price we pay to confirm that both CCP and Onyx Path are still equally committed to that quality.
5 XP for using the term “knuckle-heads” in your post.
Getting even more excited daily by the thought if the new Exalted book in my hands!!! Chomping at the bit to see this new set take flight and hope like all heck to see my beloved Alchs again!! Maybe a bit sooner this time?
As well as looking forward to the new release of Scion, love the idea but the first system seemed a bit rushed and not well polished. Could not find I for for how to deal with computers in there for the life of me!
And yay Fornthebreturn of the Trinity U!!!! Woot!!! I’m thinking of it’s being developed closely with the Scion system that the Aberrants at least should max out again to near god like levels! Have a game still
Going on to this day of some Q8 guys. It’s a lot of fun. After ya realize you can vaporize a continent trying to prove ya got the biggest sick in the place is a bit moot and you move on to fun creative uses for your powers and get into heavy scifi territory!! Terraform Mars, build planets, meet the intergalactic neighbors and join the galactic population! It is a full blown hoot! Plus there are all those parallel realities to explore!
Thank you guys a billion!!!
Question: is there a mailing list to let us know when kick starters are put up?
Thanks! Ian is looking at mailing list add-ons for the site- we’ll keep you posted.