By way of an explanation why our Monday Meeting was today, and so the Notes are today too. Although I had half a mind to do them yesterday and just pretend that I’d talked with him because I did have a couple of notes to share independent of the usual topics drawn from the Monday Meeting.
First, we released the God-Machine Chronicle last week and the response has been phenomenal! We’re all really glad that the book has struck such a strong note with not just our nWoD fans, but I’ve heard a lot of comments from other folks that they’re looking into it, too. Certainly, being able to read the free GMC Rules PDF has provided a painless way to check out the systems tweaks and let folks decide for themselves if they want to get the complete God-Machine Chronicle book itself. I wrote a little blog post on the Onyx Path website about the rationale for creating the Chronicles, what we hope to accomplish, and how awesome our amazing creators are: https://theonyxpath.com/so-whats-a-chronicle-book-anyway/
Next, I submitted the Exalted 3rd Edition Kickstarter to KS on Sunday, so now we’re waiting to hear back from them on when we can go live. As we have with the last KSs we’ve done, we’ll give 24 hours notice to let everyone get ready to check out the fun limited number of backers Reward Tiers. This is liable to be a really wild ride of a KS, so keep your eyes open for added Stretch Goals and Rewards- I’m both already excited and exhausted just thinking about the next month.
Finally, while this info will only interest those of you going to Gen Con in August, I want to confirm that not only will Onyx Path be there, but that I’m going as an Industry Guest of Honor again this year. Which is pretty darn cool. So not only will we have panels just for Onyx Path (“What’s Up With WW/OP?”, “Onyx Path Q&A”, “New World of Darkness”, and “Classic World of Darkness”), but I’ll be sitting in on GoH panels as well. Anybody who was there last year knows that that means, scheduling being what it is, that I’ll probably be running willy-nilly from panel to panel. But all for a good cause of meeting attendees. Fortunately, we’ll have Onyx Path reps at the DriveThruRPG booth even when the panels are going on, so you should always have an Onyx person to talk to. (Although, why aren’t you at my panel?) Closer to Gen Con, we’ll have actual times and locations.
On to the Meeting: a chance reference to how my youngest son is playing his Goblin Prince (hint: peeing is funny) in our family D&D game led to a discussion on “disruptive characters” and whether there is a social contract when playing with a group, or even a huge group like at a LARP event, to not play the character in a way that wrecks the fun of the others playing. In other words: yes, your character could do that as they’re written, but please don’t. The fact is, like so many group activities, there’s a fine line between amazing role-playing and ass-hattery, and the players who can pull off a disruptive character and make it work have to be really inspired. Just pointing to your sheet and saying “Sez here” isn’t likely to make it happen. And there’s also the context of the group. We’ve probably all sat down with our regular gaming crew and had the “new guy/gal” completely miss the tone of how the group has been playing.
This led to talking about how game industry creators pretty much all start as gaming fans and then follow a kind of natural path from “Our group likes this”, to “Who am I making this game for?” in their thinking. Note how the first is a statement that leaves no room for dialogue, while the other is a question that invites attempts to answer it. Some creators make the journey pretty fast- whether from natural inclination, or being forced into a working process, or because their personal designs actually do strike a chord with a wider audience- and others continue to create based on their own groups’ enjoyment. Interestingly, at different times in a game creator’s career, they can be at different points on that spectrum. And there isn’t a right way to make cool games: for every beautifully focused, thematically connected gem of a game, there’s another fantasy heartbreaker. Then, to balance out popular games that allow a lot of play experiences and players to approach from a lot of angles, you also have games that were clearly “designed by committee”. So this whole discussion we had served to remind me of one of the things I’m trying to do with Onyx Path: find a place on our release schedule for the smaller focused projects, often with a single creator, and the bigger ones like folks are used to from White Wolf. (Right now, we’re mostly compelled to push for the WW projects until they gather their own momentum).
And speak of them and here they are:
– God-Machine Chronicle (nWoD) As noted above, the God-Machine Chronicle and the free GMC Rules Update are live on DTRPG and doing really well. Check them out if you’ve missed them so far, by clicking on the links.
– Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.
– Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.
– Mummy the Curse – The single volume PDF and color PoD versions, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer. We have gathered a double handful of online questions for CA Suleiman that he’ll be answering and we’ll post this week.
– Exalted 3rd Edition: KS submitted for approval to Kickstarter. Keep an eye out for us announcing when it goes live- we’ll give 24hrs notice. There will be lots of Updates via the KS that reveal pieces of what will be in EX3, so keep an eye out for those too. The Map artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map- have printer samples that might be really map-tastic.
– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: PDF will be going out to KS backers this week. Justin’s writers have a deadline for their first drafts of the HH2 Anthology of 5/10.
– V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.
– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: Corrections are with the printer. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but waiting on new proofs. Mike Lee is almost done the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel. The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers. The Skinner just needs the Skindancer glyph and its ready for Dev proofing of the layout. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/
–Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. Talking to more artists this week.
– W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.
– W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.
– Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.
– Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is in editing and art direction.
– Mage Translation Guide is in Approvals with CCP.
– W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/
– Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet.
– Scion: Looking forward to talking to Joe Carriker about the project this week.
– Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.
– Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15.
Reason for Drinking: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That hit the spot.
I’m glad that GMC has been well received. 🙂 I’m certainly a big fan of the changes, and hopeful that we can get the Chronicle book treatment to as many lines as possible. Prodding my friends to pick it up too… we can make Platinum yet!
Also glad to hear the Exalted KS is finally going forward… I’ll be waiting the moment the clock strikes to pounce on that one. 🙂
Thanks, Sean- spread the word! 🙂
I want a Mage Chronicle so bad, even if it probably wouldn’t be out until 2015 at the earliest.
I don’t suppose we can get a general ballpark estimate for the most expensive digital-only pledge tier on the Exalted Kickstarter? I’ve got some budgeting to do.
Digital-only? If you just want to kit yourself out like a (digital) boss, roughly $95. If you want to go the Unconquered Santa route and get PDFs for your friends, $150. I believe there are ways to combine elements of different pledge tiers, though, so you could get copies for your friends AND kit yourself out? Rich would know more about that than I do.
Note that everything I’ve just said is potentially subject to change before the thing goes up.
Unconquered Santa sounds really cool, but the Elf Exalted are kind of lamesauce.
Thanks. Kitting out and going Unconquered Santa would actually be under budget for me right now, so I’ll wait and see how things turn out. I don’t like getting physical rewards from Kickstarter campaigns, but I really want to support the stretch goals.
I thought I was going to splurge on Shadow of the Eternals when it was teased last weak, but it’s looking more and more like a dud, sadly. More money for you guys, I guess.
Perhaps you can pledge for the PDF, but up the pledge to have your (character?) name, or likeness used as a character in an upcoming book? 😉 That’ll run you around the $300 mark… usually, if it’s offered with the KickStarter. Of course, you might get “stuck” with a physical copy anyways. But, then, you can always use it to prop up your laptop if you want, I suppose.
I’m sorry, what? The *PDF* is $95? Who exactly are you expecting to have that much money to spend on a game in this day and age of financial do-dar?
This makes me quite sad, as I certainly won’t be able to put this core book next to my 1st and 2nd ed cores.
You couldn’t put a PDF next to your other corebooks anyway!
No, the PDF is way less than that. That’s the PDF + every single other digital goodie on offer (there are quite a few).
What are you saying? My tablet looks very nice next to my book collection. 🙂
Phew, thank goodness for that. 🙂
Looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.
I had a interesting tweet exchange with Justin Achilli and (among other things) he told me the scheduled Bloody Diaries of the Clans (V20) “integrates mysteries into something cultural for the Kindred. Like a handbook to being a clan member.”
That’s a great idea, and it deserves more than a hundred pages (how about a ten pages per clan count?). Anyway, the exchange’s main point was that we (fans) feel V20 books need more lore. Like I said (it was my final tweet to Justin this afternoon):
“Lore creates atmosphere and adds to Masquerade’s mystique.”
Unless something’s changed, it was scheduled for more than 100 pages.
Yeah, according to the schedule:
“240 pages.”
HELL YEAH!
Really looking forward to the Mage Translation Guide. The Translation books have been cool little gems.
Super excited for the Exalted KS. I’m going to spend all of the money gained from selling off a few pack fresh Force of Wills on it! How much would a kitted out physical and digital run? I want the pdfs but I looooove books.
Also, Yossarian, are you the Yoss from Thorrbo’s stream?
A “full kit-out” digital + physical starts at $185 but there are some very swank levels above that, depending on your interests… also, there are extra stretch tiers to unlock (though don’t be afraid to kick in early– if a reward opens up later on, you can always just add it to your existing pledge).
Holden! Stop telling everybody everything! ;P
Basically the safest bet is to just dump your entire savings account in. It’s the only way to be sure.
😀
Control your subordinates, Rich.
(Sorry, still in G-M mode.)
*looks to Holden, then to his KickStarter records* … dump in your whole savings? Yeah.. been there already… now to build up more to dump into the next ones. 😉
It’s interesting to me that I started coming to this blog, back when Eddy was writing it, for the product updates more than anything else. But recently, say the last two or three months, I’ve been looking forward to it as much to just reading Rich’s short essay for the week and interacting with him and some of the other readers via these comments.
I’m very excited to know that Onyx will have people at GenCon and I’ll definitally book space for all of the panels that I’ll be able to. Unfortunately I have several games to run at the Con so I might not be able to come to all of them.
Well, thank you very much. I very much appreciate it. I’m never sure if our odd conversations are interesting to people or not.
What are you running at GenCon?
I’m going to be running a pair of games for ArcDream publishing: Call of Cthulhu using the Deltra Green setting (modern American conspiracy with cosmic horror) and Better Angels (a superhero game were you play four-color style villains), which is going to be released shortly (they did a Kickstarter awhile back).
I considered running some World of Darkness games. The main reason why I haven’t yet (this will be my fourth year at GenCon) is because I couldn’t find any indiciation of White Wolf or Onyx Path having premier status as far as game placement so my stuff would likely end up in the hall or a general room, not in a specific area for WoD style games. With ArcDream they organize enough games to have their own section.
Also, I’ve never submitted my own games before, I’ve always gone through a company. I find the idea of submitting my own games to be a little intimidating.
Oooh, cant wait for that Ex3 Kickstarter. I wonder what rice the unique reward tiers are going to start at. If I can afford it, I want to go for one of those as well as a santa tier to give back to the awesome community thats helped me out in the past. If not, I’ll be content to get a physical copy and a few pdfs to give out.
Don’t you tell them, Holden! 😉
Pretty soon, you should have a pretty good range of possible rewards to choose from-
… I couldn’t find a Skindancer glyph when I was looking for one a few weeks ago. Is this a new glyph, or did I miss it along the way?
… do you somewhere still have your original line-drawings of the glyphs you’ve developed from the beginning? I’ve noticed that some (Shadow Lords, for instance) have some awkwardness to them (weird squiggles, or odd ends to lines) that probably came from some early vector-tracing software early on.
Very old and we think mis-labeled. Can’t comment on ray tracing, I did them all freehand and gave them to designers to scan.
Well, I can’t wait to see it. It’s the only one I think I’m missing… at least for that sort of glyph.
Holden mentionned a possible cloth map as a kickstarter reward… What should I expect to have to put in the kickstarter to get it? Please please please tell me how much I need to put on the side for that.
I see lots of cool updates on lots of cool products, many of which I will likely be buying, but there is one thing I don’t understand. Why isn’t this just called the Trinity update? At the end of the day isn’t that what really matters?
Also shouldn’t that update read “we’ve dropped everything else because we know how awesome this setting is and how much everyone has missed it”.
Insert a joke about taint here.
HH2 PDF!!!!! Yes!!!
I’m surprised that’s gone uncommented. I’m looking forward to getting the PDF. It’s got a ton of potential.
I’m saddened to say that (due to a family wedding on Gen Con Saturday, and being in the wedding party), if I CAN go to Gen Con, it’ll only be Thursday. *sigh* I’ve been attending each Gen Con since 1996, and if I can at least show up for ONE year, I won’t have broken the streak (18 consecutive Gen Cons!) I look forward to seeing, or hearing about the new promotional activities of The Onyx Path and White Wolf this year too.
Then again, maybe Rich will be happy because I won’t be asking him questions at every panel this year either. 😉 #W20 #Mage20 … #Wraith20 ?
To anyone who hasn’t recently visited the WW Exalted forum; the 24-hour heads-up for the Kickstarter has gone out! Exalted Third Edition goes up on Kickstarter at noon on Thursday, May 9, 2013! Save some of the limited stuff for me, I won’t be home from work until six.
Out of budgeting curiosity, which projects are still planned for Kickstarter after Exalted? I assume Demon is going up on KS. Any others?
I feel like I’m the only person to ever ask this, but …
Will the KS rewards that include ‘your name in the credits as …’ also include an option to NOT have your name in the credits?