As we come to the last few days of the fantastic Deluxe V20 Dark Ages Kickstarter, not only does our Salubri pictured above give thanks, but so do I. First of all, for that same fantastic Deluxe V20 DA Kickstarter, which has vaulted through funding and right into enabling us to create both a V20 DA Tome of Secrets book to further explore parts of the V20 Dark Ages we couldn’t in the main book, but also to assemble a V20 DA clan-based Fiction Anthology and a Quickstart. We experimented with staying very focused on our Stretch Goal rewards for this one and I think these are going to be very fun and useful books that will add to anyone’s appreciation of the setting. We still have some surprises stored up for the last 48 hours! If for some currrrazy reason you still missed this Kickstarter, here’s the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-v20-dark-ages
I’m thankful our good buddy Eager Eddy Webb and his wife Michelle had fun on their LARP Cruise last week and got back to us safe, sound, and with some Mesoamerican ruins explored. These two are such game designers that when things were slow they bought two packs of playing cards – and redesigned how to play War. Game designers gotta design games. While Eddy was gone, he got a couple of messages that he and I talked about today which basically indicated that folks still think he is a CCP employee. Negatory on that. Eddy is a full-time freelance writer and designer in the gaming industry: tabletop RPGs, Live Action, fiction, computer games. He does it all. As part of his freelancing, he also has been hired by CCP to review and interface with the companies that have licenses for the White Wolf properties CCP owns. He is not inside CCP any more than I am, he just has more reasons to communicate with them as part of his contract gig with them. Sorry if our relationship was in any way unclear.
I’m thankful that our Onyx Path crew talked me out of my original title for this week’s blog: “Enough Negativity, Let’s Have a Yes-vember!”
Each week this month I’m going to give some thoughts on a different kind of thanks, and this week it’s thanks for the past. This is kind of a safe sort of thanks, as it’s about things that already happened. Fuzzy nostalgia sort of stuff. In my case, lots of white fuzzy wolf fur.
The great thing about our hobby is that those moments don’t need to have occurred in real life, those moments we can be thankful for might have occurred during a tabletop or live-action session. The lessons and the feelings are just as significant in terms of their impact. So here’s a few from me that are specifically gaming and White Wolf related:
– The first couple of Gen Cons I attended with the guys working on White Wolf Magazine. We started out selling the magazine all day from the WW booth, and gaming all night in our hotel rooms. Each year we partied more and gamed less until that fateful Paranoia game where not one of us could move the story forward but we sure could empty and line up the beer bottles around the entire hotel room walls. Yet because of gaming before then, I am thankful I got to know those guys before the crazy success of Vampire, that I got to sit in on a Warhammer Fantasy game where Ken Cliffe did his hilarious and spot-on Black Adder impersonation, and played Jorune with the Lekers who created it. Both Stew and Steve Wieck were college students, and were so smart and so honest that those handful of conventions set the stage for how I would always think of them.
– Dragon-Con, a couple of years before Vampire hit. My first LARP was an Ars Magica one, played at the con with the combined WW and Lion Rampant crew who were in Georgia. As a House Flambeau representative to a council seeking to judge if Mark Rein Hagen’s character was a traitor, I stomped around accusing just about everybody to foster doubt about his guilt. One player and I wound up nose to nose screaming at each other; he was so mad spittle flew. Afterwards, I went over to him to say thanks, and he told me to fuck off. I am thankful that I learned that night how much people invest emotionally in roleplaying.
– All the playtesting sessions, short or multi-week, for all our games that I joined in on from Vampire: the Masquerade right through to the early WoD MMO. I am thankful that I learned that players make games their own, sometimes very much in a direction the creators never intended. And that is one of the truly magical parts of our hobby.
– Playing Diplomacy with a WW crew in the office in the later 90’s that included Steve Wieck and Rich Dansky and realizing I was lying and cheating my way to winning, and hating how that felt. I’m thankful that for some reason that resonated so strongly with me that it altered how I deal with people and run Onyx Path. I’d rather have small successes and treat people decently, than trade them in for a big win.
– A couple of years ago, we had reached the end “episode” of Eddy Webb’s V20 semi-noir chronicle played over Skype/Roll20. I was playing a Malkavian junkie weasel sort of character, very twitchy and not aggressive. But desperately connected to two other characters as almost parental substitutes, one of whom was a very tough Brujah. In the final fight, the Brujah Maxx was going at it with another vampire (revealed to be Sabbat coming into our city) and it looked like Maxx was going to be taken down. I had every intention of playing the character as I had so far and remaining hidden behind some boxes in this warehouse meeting space we were in. The Sabbat vampire grabbed Maxx and was about to hold her head in one of those flaming trash cans and before I could process why I said it, I told Eddy I was leaping on the Sabbat baddy’s back and driving his upper body into the fire. I’m muttering something like “You’re bad and you burn” over and over again into my headset, and while Eddy rolls damage and soak and all that, the rest of the players are silent. Maxx strong arms my Malk off the burning body and pulls him away. Still nothing from the rest of the players. Then, into the silence, Mike Tinney whispers “Damn that was scary”, and everybody starts talking at once about how my character’s action was so unexpected but so right that it weirded them out. Sometimes we don’t know why we do things in a story, but I’m thankful role-playing has moments like that that work so well when you act on inspiration. Apply that to real life as you will.
I’ve got a million of these, so I’d better stop before this blog gets bigger than the next Song of Ice and Fire novel (or Mage 20). Anybody else have moments in gaming they can look back on with some thanks? I’d love to hear them!
And while we are going down memory row, here are some current projects to give thanks for (I certainly do):
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)
- Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition) – In Open Development
- W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Exalted 3rd Fiction Anthology (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
Second Draft
- Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) – Playtesting
Development
- V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- World of Darkness Dark Eras- Vampire chapter (WoD Dark Eras)
- Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)
- V20 Lore of the Clans (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Fallen World Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Mage: the Awakening)
Editing
- Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition core book (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd Edition, featuring the Idigam Chronicle (Werewolf: the Forsaken)
- Exalted 3rd Edition core book- From Holden: “During the course of editing we realized we forgot to ever mention the way the soul-eaten victims of the Fair Folk become compliant drones often sold back to the Guild as slave labor, so we added a paragraph covering that. Weekly updates become repetitive during this stage: The book is finishing in editing. Art continues to come in thick and fast, being reviewed and revised”. (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Firestorm Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition)
Development (post-editing)
- World of Darkness Dark Eras core book (WoD Dark Eras)
- Idigam Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Werewolf: the Forsaken)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
- White Howlers – Fixed and re-uploaded the interior. Hopefully going on sale this week.
- Book of the Deceived – I have sent the PDF along with Acevedo’s artwork in for CCP approval.
- Book of the Wyrm 20 – Aileen got me the corrected PDF download and PoD files this morning. So, I’m uploading those.
- DAV20 – I got a little bit of tightening up done, but not nearly as much as I had intended. Therefore, this week is pretty much all Dark Ages. Got the main clans’ heraldry in…looks good.
- Anarchs Unbound – So far so good. Deboss looked really cool and the screen is fixed.
- T-Shirts – Holding off on those until I get DA into proofing.
- Art O’ The Changin’ Breeds – Holding off until I get DA in proofing.
- Umbra – Borja got the last of his finals in, so I’m sending those off to Eddy once he’s back in town. Bivins still owes me one final… hoping that one will be done shortly. Apparently CJ is really busy and he’s had to pull some long hours.
- Ready Made Characters: Geist – In first proof. Need to wrap up the cover this week once I have the files. Ended up doing some modifications to the format and design to bring it more into the same aesthetic as the rest of NWoD lines.
- VTR II – Interior corrections are done but I still have to redo the old VTR cover design and get the character sheets updated with the VTRII logo…which also is in process.
- Dark Eras and Second Editions – As the artists are wrapping up DA, Umbra, and various other projects I’d like to get them onto these before the holidays. Most artists won’t take on that many pieces during the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays and all three of those titles are big books that will require quite a bit of art.
- WtF 2 – Full on AD mode for this one. Shooting to have it AD’d by Friday (depends on artists emailing me back and such).
- Scarred Lands – Cover is in the works. Got him a big pile of reference materials going. Also starting up on the [REDACTED] version of Spiragos.
- Idigam Chronicle Anthology – Errata thread up on the forums for this as the advance PDF is on sale now.
- EX3- RichT here, once again tagging onto Mirthful Mike’s report, to say that art director Maria Cabardo has assigned all the regular half-page art and I am looking at sketches and sending them on to the Devs, and Maria is now finishing assigning the fulls and the very special section. Sketches and more sketches and color comps.
REASON TO DRINK: That was Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!
“Book of the Deceived – I have sent the PDF along with Acevedo’s artwork in for CCP approval.”
Aaaaaah, so close. It must be the book I’m the most hyped about right now (well, the Storyteller’s Book for DtD and the corebook of EX3 are just close behind but I just love MtC’s setting so much). Can’t wait for the release <3
Oh so soon now. At least the advance PDF is ready.
So, to my points besides the updates, with Mummy being so awesome for you do you have any moments playing it that really shine out?
Can’t wait for VtR2 to finish with the edits from Chronicle Book to full fledged 2nd Edition so I can finally order it in hardback!
It is getting there, for sure. Were you a first edition VtR fan?
book of the deceived aahhhh
Coming…
And have you had any play experiences with Mummy that you can share? Anything that just nailed how great Mummy is for you?
There’s nothing quite like finding out your old meret-mate has become a Shuankhsen since the last time you were awake :p
“There’s soooomething different about you…”
As one of the M20 backers, I am both happy to see it is still in editing, and a little nervous..because..WOW that has to be some big book. Where does editing fall in relation to layout with Onyx Path? (I ask because I know some companies edit before layout, edit while doing layout, or edit after layout.)
It is indeed a big ol tome of magickal joy. Our editing is solely about proofreading and correcting the text. Then that edited text goes to layout and if the editor and developer did their jobs perfectly, any layout corrections will only be layout oriented. Which, of course, doesn’t happen because nobody is perfect, so we have multiple proofing passes in stages through layout and then the advance PDF stage where we get the eyes of the public to catch what we missed. All those proofing changes and tweaks are made under the direction of the developer, the graphic designer, and myself.
To the blog topic, what was the most amazing thing to happen to you because of Mage? Could be in a game or real life.
Finally the week of Deceived’s release. Oh how I have waited for this.
Nice to see Vampire SE moving along a little as well. Just the cover and back-book character sheets. Hopefully see this get out to POD before the end of he year.
M20 should (if the estimate from the backer e-mail is still accurate) be out of editing in the next 2 weeks right? Also I seem to remember Rich/Mike Chaney mentioning that the majority (like 90% at least) of art for M20 is already sorted. So once its out of editing the layout phase should (big should there) be relatively streamlined.
Any further information on the Mummy the Curse Fiction Anthology? Idigam kinda jumped to release from pretty far back. So I was wondering if we are likely to see a similar thing with the Mummy Anthology. As it would be awesome to have that come out before the end of the year.
Me too. Me too. Yes, yes. Could be, that’s up to CAS.
Lay it on me Hawthorn- what’s an awesome gaming moment that you’ve had?
My two favorite WoD RPG moments as a player are as fallows:-
1) The end of a year and half long Mage the Awakening game. Featuring a lot of character death (more then half the player group bit the dust). My character (a Moros Adamantine Arrow) died, but took out an entire Seers of the Throne base doing so (well, him and his Perfected Adept mentor, who also died). It all game down to a final round dice roll. Never been so tense in a game on second followed by so overjoyed the next. Best character death ever.
2) The middle of a three year long Masquerade game. Character had to flee the city for…reasons (he was Lasombra Antitribu in a Camarilla game, fill in the blanks). He ended up on a remote Greek Island with his Sire (a 900ish elder) and a Tzimisce he’s helped escape the Sabbat earlier in the same campaign. Lots of misadventures on the island, feeding off drunk fishermen (and the hilarious results) and really touching character moments ensued for the 6 months of single sessions my ST ran for me for the character.
As an ST I’ve had lest distinct experiences but felt my players really enjoyed some moments from my game:-
1) In a Hunter the Vigil game (which at the time had every NWoD game line involved in its plot up to Geist) I ran the group basically made up their own local Compact.
This was after two of them (a scientist and a field agent) had defected from Cherion and taken a response team they used to work with them when the “local” branch of the Corporation got shut down (as a result of player actions). The former ended up as a Sin-Eater (suicide was involved) the later as a Werewolf (due to the amount of Werewolf bits implanted in him kinda…growing together). A Hedge Magician who had some outstanding debts to some Inferno demons. A independent ghoul being groomed for embrace into VII.
Add to that some NPC’s from the Knights of Saint George (a heretic “soft” faction that had gone into hiding), Ascended Ones (the survivors of a purge against them by Vampires), a young Obrimos Mage (suffering from Stockholm syndrome regarding the PC former Cherion Scientist) and a woman possessed by a Quashimal. It was a wacky game.
2) In the Mummy/Changeling game I ran their was a pretty evocative scene in flashback between one of the PC’s and the Heretic. The former having just realized that his attempts to avoid all the “Orders of the Judges” seemed to be doing just as much harm as good to those around him. Oh and that in a previous Descent he had helped edit and distribute a version of “The Dreams of Avarice”.
In general as an ST I have fond memories of PC’s interactions with plot threads. As a player I have found memories of particular scenes that took place during a campaign arch.
How you divide the kinds of memories makes total sense. As a ST you provide a framework and the collaboration with the players within or despite it makes for the fun- at least to me as a ST or DM.
AHHHH DECEIVED!! So close, so close, so close!
Yessss it is.
Felipe- what was the greatest thing that ever happened to you playing in the WoD? Either version.
That was a good game. I’m generally pleased with how that game played out.
The V20 DA KS has turned out really good. Can’t wait to see how it finishes up.
And then on to Wraith20! That’s the project I’ve been most excited for since WoD20 started.
Me too! For Wraith, when did you get started with it? What makes Wr20 your most anticipated project?
I was first eposed to Wraith 10 or so years ago in college, so the line had already ended. But I immediately fell in love with the setting and special mechanics. I didn’t get to actually play it until just a few years ago, but in the time between it was the first cWoD game line that I completed the whole collection. Now I’ve run it at conventions and written my own modules, and I’m really looking forward to the new edition.
Alright, come on Idigam Chronicles.
It’s a comin’. Did you play first edition? And have you picked up the Idigam Fiction Anthology. (I hear it’s really good).
ERM, about the werewolf 2nd edition art note. What does AD mode mean?
AD = Art Direction
For thankful moments in my time gaming, I bow to –
1) The day in 1991 I had the wisdom to buy VtM at Another World, Silver Lane in Leicester, UK, leading to a love affair that brings me here today and over 400 books on the shelf next door.
2) The moment I met Gavin Bennett, author of DA Werewolf and Chaining the Beast, etc, who eventually gifted me his entire WoD collection when he left Berlin.
3) To Thomas Ligotti, author of The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, for the moment when I finally comprehended where Lovecraft was coming from and realised that actual, honest to darkness HORROR could actually be created in players around a tabletop, it was just a matter of understanding what horror is *really* all about.
4) For every mind splitting moment that I spent playing Mage with my players (chronicle is now going since Mage 1st edition). So many top moments it is agony to pick one, but I will mention the moment when the cabal suddenly realised, through their own deduction of the clues I had drip given them, that one of their own was a Nephandi. The chill of horror amongst them was real.
5) To everyone who made cWoD what it is, but especially to RichT and the Onyx crew for breathing new life into it after it went away. I cant tell you how grateful I feel for that.
6) For the moment I realised it was possible to play these games solo, using various tools (I uses a combo of tools from kits like Mythic, Covetous Poets Adventure Creator, 9Qs, UNE, Marks Adventure Glyphs and Rorys Story Cubes). This really enlivened my free time!
Too many others to mention them all…thank you all sincerely for everything.
Thanks so much for both #5 and your whole post. It is pretty cool when the moment of play turns into actually affecting people. When gamers debate whether RPGs are Art, this transformation from following rules that provide a story into a real world emotional or psychological response is where we should be pointing as an example.
Huh, just how likely is it that Promethean 2e gets done before Mage 2e?
Stranger things have happened. Did I mention how big a book Mage 20th is?
I think he means Awakening, boss.
And… Don’t know! depends how playtesting goes for both games, doesn’t it! I’ve never specified a date because I don’t want to get caught out. If Promethean does come out first, we’ll be right in their heels.
In possibly more encouraging news, there’s a mistake in the statuses; the Awakening fiction anthology isn’t in first drafts, it’s in Development. And very nearly in Editing.
No doubt you are right Dave, now that I reread it. And yet, it is still in the stranger things have happened department.
Excellent news on the fiction front- thanks!
uh just gonna toss this out there because i just realized how much i loved them.
In Exalted 3e will “Masters Hand Envisioned Anew”, “Dual Slaying Posture”, and “The Embrace of Decay” be making a Reappearance? (or something close to them o.o;) ill leave that to you guys to decide if youll say “yes” “no” or “maybe”. =) and ofc i dont mind if they arent in the core. i can deal w/ that.
I will say “maybe”, although it is more because only the Devs know exactly what is in EX3. Also a big book like Mage 20th.
My most thankful gaming moment was the release of the first edition of Werewolf: the Apocalypse because the year before I forced my Storyteller to let me play a Lupine in his Vampire game.
Did that Lupine then get revised into a Garou for the WtA game?
Boy, am I glad this is the question asked in the blog I finally have the time to answer.
My top favorite moment in any game was during a LARP session of Werewolf the Apocalypse. I was the pack leader of a group of lupus. There were so many many simple but incredibly important things that happened just right to give us the feeling of immersion into animal-born characters. Just the way that, without ever saying it or needing to claim it, we had a spot. It was our turf, no contest. It wasn’t terribly important to the homids, but whenever we came around, people would just move away from it. There was even a three stump where I always settled on during the cracking of the bones and the stories and songs part of moots. One quick snarl and the other wolves would dart away.
I was on that spot when I witnessed a great moment of RP. One that displayed how homid and lupus characters think and communicate on a different level. How they often just can’t understand each other.
It was during a cracking of the bone, the homid sept leader was drilling one of my pack members. She was insisting on getting answers and that he admitted to having done something wrong. He was indeed guilty and everyone knew it. The player never said a single word, but his body language said absolutely everything clear as day. To us, he had said all that needed to be said. The case was closed there was no longer any need to discuss it beyond possibly determining the punishment. But the sept leader was not content with silence. She raised her voice in anger “Say something!” she commanded while stepping a bit too close to our spot.
All at once, the lupus characters got up on all fours growling deeply. Just as she was unable to comprehend speech without words, we were unable to comprehend her anger. It was an amazing moment of multiple players perfectly in synch with what they were playing.
I adore playing lupus and/or with lupus. There’s just so much to be said for non-vocal role playing.
Excellent role-playing!
My most thankful gaming moment is meeting my now-wife through the old old old Werewolf: the Apocalypse forums lo these many moons ago.
You know the ones. The ones with no HTML images and a 75 post limit.
Yeah.
I kind of was waiting for somebody to bring up meeting their significant other, because that is usually the single-most mentioned life changing effect I hear when I’m talking to people at cons. Pretty major change to anybody’s life, and so awesome it happened because of Werewolf!
I’m thankful for a certain small gaming store in Novi Sad, Serbia which had on its small RPG shelf a copy of Vampire 2nd Edition in the summer of 1998 (I think…) which started my WoD obsession. I have something of an ADHD, my obsessions don’t tend to last. But this one did.
I’m also thankful for Ex3. Is that going to be the single most worked-on RPG book in the history of RPGs? It’s such an unlikely thing to happen, especially in the RPG industry which is probably outsold by any other gaming category in existence. Thanks to the developers for bringing it about through what I imagine can only be a process of altering reality with the sheer strength of will and passion. And thanks to Onyx Path (which basically means, thanks to Rich, I guess) for jumping into that no doubt extremely daunting project. I can’t wait to see the book.
It was and is perhaps the single most difficult project in all of our efforts to revitalize the White Wolf game-lines. I had wanted to change how we were handling all of publishing when I took over as Creative Director (right around the time Promethean was being worked on), and managed to get nWoD to a new place with Changeling the Lost, and a new game line with Scion, but once I really looked at the issues with Exalted I knew it required more than an adjustment.
So very glad that the creation of Onyx Path gave us the chance to make those more encompassing changes (and that CCP was OK with that). It has been a mythic ordeal through the Wilderness, but being at the stage with EX3 that we are now feels really good.
I’m probably most thankful for Hunter the Reckoning. Despite the fact that I love Hunter the Vigil just as much, if not a tad bit more, it was Hunter that led me into this wonderful hobby. I was around 20 at the time. Watched Blade one too many times. Have always loved the Van Helsing characters as opposed to Dracula. Probably a bit old to be getting to the hobby. But here was this game that I first started playing in college, where I was hunting(and killing) some of my favorite mythological monsters(and some evil humans, as well).
It grew from there. Into an interest in Werewolf the Apocalypse and Vampire the Masquerade, and then into an obsession over the videogames, and then from there, right back into Vigil and the current games that OP produces.
I’ve made a lot of friends over the years thanks to Hunter and various White Wolf games. Sometimes, I’d go many months(even years) without playing a game, but the friends and the motivation to play a game was always there. As of around two years ago, I never had a problem finding a game, and some of my characters that I’ve been using for years have been used(and abused :() once again.
So, I’m thankful for Rich and the rest of the Onyx Path crew for keeping my favorite world bigger and better than ever.
So, was it the fire all over the cover that pulled you into Reckoning? It was, wasn’t it? Everybody loves fire.
🙂
Thank you, and I think you do hit a huge point about those friendships forged around the table. Interestingly, I’ve been hearing more and more about gamers with families and careers getting back together with high-school or college friends at annual retreats to play the RPGs they played back in the day.
Haha, yes! The fire was(and still is) eye-catching!
And yes, it’s kind of strange, but I’ve found that I have more time to play now, with a career that has me working 50 hours a week, then I did when I was in school.
Good thing, I’d say.
A few of my favorite gaming stories that I’m thankful for…
Back in the days of New Bremen I was lucky to virtually meet and RP with some fantastic people, many of whom became good friends. A few of us still get together every year at DragonCon.
In a relatively recent Changeling: The Dreaming game, the grandfather and mentor to one of the PCs became lost to banality. The whole table sat in stunned silence as they realized what happened.
And then there was the Changeling chronicle from about 15 years ago or so that was never finished because everyone involved moved to different states. We still talk about it and how much we want to know how it would have ended when ever we get together.
See my comment above about gaming retreats- maybe doing one to bring together the whole Changeling group to finish that chronicle isn’t so far-fetched.