For the first time ever, Fast Eddy Webb and I had our Monday Lunch Meeting at my house. So that was different; although it didn’t look very different than this photo from one of our convention panels except we both had sushi in front of us today. With Eddy hanging out here at “Shadow Oaks” for a few days, we’ve had a chance to discuss lots of projects. From Pugmire, to Lore of the Bloodlines, to other V20 and secret projects, to how we can advance how we deliver our games to you wonderful folks! It’s been a good visit. Today at lunch we talked about what Eddy will be able to have ready for Gen Con in terms of Pugmire – which led into a very Gen Con focused meeting with the whole Onyx Path crew.
Things have kicked into high gear with our discussions, and we are now hard people making hard decisions. We need to feature our newest projects, and we need to connect and reconnect with our White Wolf community. Now we know which projects we can expect to have at the con, and which we’ll be teasing and giving tasty samples of. Other members of our creative teams are confirming or denying their presence there, and we’re working out panel and signing times at the booth with them. Why, you may ask, is all this activity happening now? Because of when Gen Con itself releases information, and announces the events. With what we learned last year (our first running our own booth) we made plans, but now we have the hard info to make things happen. For instance, and if this info is something we already talked about, just figure I’m doing this for the benefit of anybody who missed those posts and not that I’m addled and confused from living the tabletop RPG high-life, here is where are booth is:
And here’s a close-up view:
So if you are at Gen Con, please do come by. Myself and the rest of the booth crew would love to say hi to all of you folks who read and write into the comments of this blog each week. It’d be great to put faces to (online) names.
Folks ask me why it seems like we do a lot of planning for Gen Con in a fair number of our Monday meetings. Well, some of it is tradition. With WW and then in later years, we’ve always exhibited at Gen Con. The reasons remain the same: it’s the heart of our specific hobby. We as creators have a chance to talk face to face to some of you who we talk to online, which is fantastic, but we also have a rare chance to talk with all those many gamers out there who we have not yet brought with us on the Path. There’s no more concentrated collection of tabletop gamers, and we need that creatively, and to spread the word about our business existing. My feeling is that Onyx Path benefits in so many ways from attending, so it’s our first target for cons. If we can get it right, we can take those lessons to other cons- which we intend to do next year.
Like the last few years, I’ll be an Industry Insider special guest, and I’ll be on three panels speaking about broader topics (Kickstarters, Art Directing Different Properties, and Gender Representation in RPG Art) than I usually do during our Onyx Path panels. I’d love to see any of you who can find the time there to sit in, as we tend to prefer audience participation. More info on those panels and the Onyx Path ones next time. Again, I do these panels because I think it’s really important to talk to different audiences and to be speaking with a different group of game creators than I normally get a chance to.
But, what we discussed today was the Events Registration that is now happening on the Gen Con website and how we sure have a lot this year. Over 100 separate tabletop games are available for you to sit in on during the con! Now that’s not us at Onyx directly running these, it’s our old pal Dave “The Legend” Martin and his Wrecking Crew team, as well as individual creators like Matt McFarland, and regular gamers who put together some fantastic games based on our game-lines. Which is pretty cool.
There is a game running for just about every Onyx Path or WW game setting (I hear there’s even a Street Fighter RPG one!) But it can get confusing as all these different folks describe their games in different ways and might call a Beast game a game for “Beast 2nd Edition”, even though we know we’re still working on the first edition, because it is using the new nWoD 2nd rules. Try and get past those confusing parts and sign up to have fun: https://www.gencon.com/events/find
I also want to be sure to mention that it’s OK to go to events even though they are listed as full. A lot of times the participants can’t all make it and you still have a chance to get in on the game or panel.
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And now, the BLURBS!
Fear the dark places: the Beast: the Primordial Kickstarter is coming soon…
Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition KS backers: keep an eye out for your M20 PDF coming your way this week!
Get the first of 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
Sothis Ascends for Mummy: the Curse will be on sale in both PDF and physical book PoD versions this Wednesday! We mean it this time!
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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)
- Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad
- Dark Eras Expansions (nWod Dark Eras)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 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)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd 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)
- Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- nWoD 2e core (New World of Darkness)
Editing
- M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 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 – Bulk of the art is in. Acevedo needs more time since I had to get him to do those last minute additions to the M20 core and Jeffe’ should have his in this week. Got Trabbolds fulls and halfs, Lawrence’s halfs, and Gaydos’s halfs in.
- Dreams of Avarice – Artnotes sent. Started pulling some elements to incorporate in.
- Beast – Bulk of the finals should be in or coming in. Kickstarter design prep.
- Red List – KMJ working on art. I think he’s gotten five or six done… all looking good.
- NWoD 2 – Sent out the notes on Tuesday to most of the artists. Have to recontract a couple, but not a problem. Creating new nWoD2 umbrella logo.
In Layout
- Gen Con Stuff – Back on that stuff this week.
In Proofing
- M20 – Got CCP approval… so fixing some formatting stuff Eddy spotted and tweaking some PDF stuff. Backers should keep an eye on their inboxes!
- Red List – In proofing.
- M20 Screen – Proofing with Phil.
- Ex 3 Anthology – Awaiting updated text file
- BotW 20 – At shipper, starting to compile shipping addresses for Deluxe shipping.
- Art of Changing Breeds – Dunzo. Out to backers of CB, PoD proofing this week.
- Sothis Ascends – On sale 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.
- Exalted 3rd Edition – RT here: Maria has a third of the chapter backgrounds laid into their chapters. When those are all put in with the art into the text that’s already in, we can run a proof for the devs that let’s them see just what the feeling of the book is chapter by chapter. From there they can check for text and layout errors.
Other Stuff
REASON TO DRINK: Had a very nice vacation with the family and nothing burned down here at Onyx Path.
YES ! YES ! YES ! about M20. 🙂 YAY !
I ask fearing disappointment… But am I to understand that EX 3 is possibly at a point, where all that remains is typo hunting and minor lay-out corrections?
It’s not “minor layout corrections.” It’s “layout.” Corrections would come after layout is complete.
Is the first third of the backgrounds being laid in a recent development since last week, or has it taken a little longer? Any movement is good but it’s hard to know just how good if you are unsure when the start point was, does that makes sense?
Maria has been coming up with ideas for the background for months, now she is creating the ones she wants to have in there and putting them in. So, yes. 🙂
Too bad I can’t make it this year. It would be nice to go. I hope everyone on the team, and in the fanbase, has fun with it!
On the other hand, good news for me! I hope ‘soon’ for Beast Kickstarter means this week or next week.
It won’t be this week unless every single thing falls into place perfectly. So, not this week…:)
Well, at least now I’m not holding out false hope for it coming for us this week. Hopefully we still get it this month like you’ve been saying was the aim, though!
Werewolf the Forsaken: the Pack, isn’t on the schedule anymore?
Not on the updates I get from the Rose this week.
It’s still in first draft. Writers are writing.
we have:
First Draft
WoD nWoD 2e core (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)
and:
Development
nWoD 2e core (New World of Darkness)
Are this 2 different books or are the god machine shenanigans starting to affect the time stream
The first was an error-
Could you clarify the difference between “WoD nWoD 2e core (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)”, under first drafts, and “nWoD 2e core (New World of Darkness)”, under development? I’m not sure whether one is a typo, or whether the first is actually for cWoD, although that doesn’t really have a core.
The first mention was a holdover from an earlier text- fixed now.
Thanks!
All kinds of awesome news this week … and even better – I managed to get into one of the Beast The Primordial games at GenCon (as well as a Geist session on Saturday).
Congrats! They’re going to be fun- come by the booth if you get a chance and let us know how they ran.
When you say Exalted has a third of the chapter backgrounds set in, does that mean that different chapters have different backgrounds and that a third of the chapters are done, or that there are many different images in the background and that a third of them have been layered in?
Each chapter has a different bg and overall design feel.
Argh! Going to make me use a sickday at work to read M20! Need more forewarning! Oh well, boss will have to suck it up. Note to self, buy lots of extra purple ink for the printer!
That is going to be soooo expensive! Have fun!
I find this extremely exciting and would like to know more.
Getting closer every day.
So much to look forward to. The process for laying out EX3 sounds interesting. Can’t wait to see the finished product.
Me too!
Any idea if we will see some Open Development on the NWOD 2e core? I’m really looking forward to the possibility of more thoroughly explained 2e rules.
Not to my knowledge, most of the new stuff was pretty well reviewed as the God Machine Chronicle.
And … the Ascension community explodes.
Hopefully, in a good way. 🙂
Ecstatic to be getting my M20 core, very much saddened that it beat EX3 to song 2 the light of day.
Different projects with different needs, processes, and goals.
yeah, I know. But with a year headstrong and barely any word beyond “layout” it’s really disheartening
Cheer up- we’re getting closer and closer.
🙂
Thanks for the expanded Exalted update. What does putting the chapter backgrounds into the chapters entail?
Not really a question that can be answered as a process. Each chapter is different: each background is sketched, rendered, and colored, but the aesthetic calls are different based on the imagery and subject matter.
So, she’s also creating the backgrounds herself? Ok, that makes more sense. It seemed like things were taking too long for just importing the pictures into the book, but if she’s creating them herself, I understand the delays now. Ok.
I admit, I’m hoping you guys will have good news as regards Ex3 at or before Gen Con.
Replying to both your comments at once here: the entire formatting of what the pages look like is being redesigned, as I’ve stressed before, so now you are really seeing the difference in the amount of work and time it takes to create a book’s design from scratch. Maria is working to make every page and page spread interesting to look at, which is what book design is all about, and she is doing that while deciding on what visuals work with each chapter. Even our most formatted books are approached as far more than “just importing the pictures”, and she has a much more complicated design task with this new edition. Thanks!
I wish I could go to GenCon and shake the hands of all of the fine folks at Onyx Path, because I’ve always adored the games you guys make.
If you don’t mind me asking though, I have no idea what any of the development blerbs mean. Can anybody give me an explanation as to what each term means, like Developing or Red Line? I know that sounds silly, but I’m usually lost whenever I read the blerbs.
I talked about those phases April 20th: https://theonyxpath.com/how-we-do-what-we-do-monday-meeting-notes/ Hope that helps!
The big + this week: M20 pdf, Ascension has almost returned upon us! This is awesome news, thank you all!
The big – : not living in the US and tragically lacking a jetpack. This is annually crushing.
You’re welcome, and maybe someday we’ll see you in person! But until then, it’s nice to chat here-
Great news re Ex3. Does that mean that the art and text is all in and its “just” the chapter backgrounds to go layout-wise? (before proofing and associated alterations).
Not as such because it’s not a linear process. Maria is designing and re-designing as she pulls the whole thing together visually. The text is finished being written, but where it lays in a chapter is still being tweaked. The art buy is done, until we need more or different pieces because of how the pages need to look.
Now we enter that awful period of purgatory when every time I see an email come through on my phone I’m going to get that brief period of excitement, followed by crushing disappointment when its spam… Here’s hoping that I, and the rest of the backers, are released from this sooner rather than later. Genuinely though, great to see that all your hard work is nearly at an end and that the PDF is so close to being ready. Can’t wait to get my digital paws on it.
Soooo….cloooose. Hang in there!
I notice the words “secret projects” was used to describe something. Could you please give us a cryptic clue on what it is?
That was the cryptic clue for this week.
I’d be willing to bet it’s an RPG book. Probably!
No comment.
Far-off question here, would it be possible to outline how the rest of the development of the Sardonyx system will go?
1) Current status of Sardonyx System development (what’s going on, what’s needed, etc)
2) Current status/plans for Trinity
3) Current status/outline/plans for Scion (and any possibility of a KS)
As simply as I can relate this: we need more insider feedback, then we’ll be revealing the system as per Neall’s comfort level to everybody in an Open Dev sort of format. These two things may overlap. Both Trinity Continuum and Scion are planned to release their first two core books (Trinity Continuum and Trinity Continuum: Aeon in the one case, and Scion: Origins and Scion: Hero in the other) to start, with additional books that build on those first two, and then their third core books (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant and Scion: Demigod)will come out anywhere from 9 months to 18 months later. We’re looking at Kickstarters for all of the lines in one way or another.
We’re looking at Kickstarters for all of the lines in one way or another.
In the words of a great American philosopher, “We’re there, dude.”
Look for you there! 🙂
Does this mean that eventually we’ll see Trinity: Adventure and/or a different game leveraging a pulp-era setting? One of my favorites.
The original Scion releases were initially small (5?) and grew due to response. Will the Sardoynx version follow this path or be more open-ended?
Very happy about where these things are going!
Yes, we’ve been saying from the get-go in 2012 that we’re planning on releasing new editions of all three Trinity games. Adventure! was featured on our Trinity Continuum poster last year, and if you click the TC link at the top of the page, you’ll see an Adventure! header.
Hi Chris- Once we get this new system ready for human consumption, then we’ll be thrilled to explore just where we’re going with the Trinity Continuum and Scion. The base number of books for both is four. A new starting out kind of book: Trinity Continuum and Scion: Origins, and then we’ll be reimagining the main three books of each line: Aeon, Aberrant, and Adventure! and Hero, Demigod, and God. But we have lots and lots of plans for both game lines. We call it Trinity Continuum for a very vital reason, and Scion has so much room to grow as a line it’s not even funny. Good times and good games ahead!
Neall’s comfort level for these types of things is pretty high.
Hi. I recall a catalogue that has Scion coming out this year. Is that still the plan?
Thanks.
We’re spending most of our time making sure we have a new system, listed as the “Sardonyx” system until we possibly change the name, that scales upwards so that the Demigod and God games don’t break down mechanically. Once we are sure this new system is what we want, we’ll be pushing hard to get both Scion: Origins and Scion: Hero out as soon as possible. We’ll also very likely have a Kickstarter for Scion as well. Thanks!
Once you’ve got a list of everyone that’s going to be there, I’d love to see it.
Good to hear, we’ll be saying a lot more once the system starts going public.
Mage20 this week! Good gosh, my left arm spasmed when I saw that; I nearly did a reflexive fist pump in my office. Excellent news.
I look forward to seeing the gentlemen and ladies of Onyx Path at GenCon. Picking up the cateloge will be fun and I hope to stock up on some of the books I’ve missed over the last year.
Yep- stop on by and chat- thanks!
Two questions, one for Ex3 and one for Sardonyx:
1. Is there any information yet on the Ex3 cover? What it will look like, is the art for it done yet, etc. (I’m guessing the interior art is already all done for Ex3…?).
2. Will the Sardonyx open beta have information and rules on “powers” (whatever they may be called)?
Thanks! 🙂
1- Not yet, no. I want Maria to get the interior completely designed and feeling right before we tackle that. She does have tons of ideas though…
2- The base abilities sort of stuff, and you should be able to kind of guess where specific game powers and such will hook into the base system by how it is set up. The core gameline books will contain the specific rules that include the powers relevant to that game.
Hope that helps!
Thanks! I’m really looking forward to both Ex3 and the Sardonyx games. 🙂
Hi, really excited to see everything going on here. I hadn’t done much with the World of Darkness for a while but its so nice to see the game flowering once again after a couple slow years. Can’t wait to see more of Beast and for Mage 2.0 to come out.
One thing I was curious on, will GM screens, Dice and other secondary material come out again in the future? I had so many Mage, Vampire, Werewolf and the like dice, but over time they were left at friends, pilfered by accident and the like. I’d love to replace them, but people hock them on ebay and amazon at 80$+ a bag nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my post and for making such a wonderful world to game in 🙂
Glad you returned! We offer printed screens during our Kickstarters, and have the t-shirt store on RedBubble, but still haven’t found a way to do dice that makes sense with our business set-up. We’re still ooking and open to discussion with dice makers, but nothing yet. Thanks!
So excited to play EX3, Demon, & Mage at Gen Con this year. First time back in 13 years. Will EX3 be part of any of the current OP panels? So excited!!!
Those of us at Gen Con will be glad to talk about EX3 at the con- best panel would be the Scion, etc panel, I think. But since the devs won’t be there this year, we didn’t think an official “Come ask us all about Exalted!” panel made sense. Make sure and stop by and say hi!
Will do, totally makes sense, looking forward to stopping by the booth. I signed up for that panel (also very excited for the new edition of Scion). Thanks so much to you and the OP team for all the awesome games! The core role-playing group I play with just finished a 6 year campaign of Exalted, best role-playing experience ever. Can’t wait for July!!!
Excellent- see you there!
Got the M20 pdf! It fills my heart with love and joy! Thanks Onyx and everyone else involved!
You are very welcome! Thanks for your support!
Congratulations to Phil, Mike, Rich and all of the other writers, artists and contributors involved responsible for getting the backer PDF of M20 out today. It’s great to see this massive undertaking reach its (first stage of) completion. I’m not a backer and I was never into Mage before, but I’ll be checking this out since V20 and W20 were so beautiful. Until then, I think I’ll start reading the previous editions to get ready…
Sounds good- and thanks!
How soon can we expect Mage20 to be sold in PDF for non-backers ?
We’ll need to incorporate errata, add an Index, get the PoD files created and approved, so a couple of months I think.
Will Pugmire be getting a kickstarter?
Very much our intention, but no date for it has been assigned.
A quick question. Will Geist The Sin Eaters and Hunter the Vigil also be getting second editions?
We’ll be revealing next year’s projects at/during Gen Con at the end of July, so stay tuned for that. Thanks!
It says in the update that Art of th CB is already available to the backers of CB, but I didn’t receive any message, for what reward tier was it available?
Felipe- I’m guessing not a Reward Tier you pledged for. But if you did pledge to that Reward Tier and didn’t get the link, contact me via KS and we’ll get you set up.
Forgive my ignorance of the process, but with the PDF to backers out this week, where does that ballpark when the rest of us will be able to buy the PDF?
Depends on how long it takes to compile and input any errata and get an Index put in, then get the PoD files ready. Base guess, a couple of months. Just a guess, not a promise.