Last week, I looked at the historical precedent for why Gen Con is always a big deal for us at Onyx Path Publishing. This week, let’s look at this year and the different things we’re doing so that both the folks attending, and our larger community who aren’t going, can have fun with us next week.
Onyx Path will be at booth #1103!
We’ve been planning on our booth to be, like last year, a place where our community can come in, let us know what concerns you, and let us answer any questions we can. And part of what we’re pointing out this year is just how big our community is with devotees of the various game lines for the classic World of Darkness, and the new World of Darkness, and Exalted, and Scion, and Trinity, and Scarred Lands, and Cavaliers of Mars, and Pugmire. You can see in the pic above, two of our signs celebrating less than half of the settings we have created something for this last year/will create for next year. Phew!
So, we’ll all have plenty to talk about in the booth. We’re looking forward to it. If you’re a forum member, go ahead and tell us your forum name too. There’s no way to underscore just how much more fun it is to read your posts the rest of the year once there’s a voice and face to go with your forum name. Since this is a booth in the dealer’s hall, we’ll have books for sale, too. Mostly the new core books like W20 and VtR2, but also smaller books like our various fiction anthologies and Ready Made Character sets.
We’ll also have limited amounts of a few of our newest projects for sale such as the PoD versions of the Demon Translation Guide and V20 Dark Ages. They will be debuting in physical form at Gen Con, but we’ll be setting them for sale on DTRPG that same week for everyone who can’t make it to the show (fear not KS backers, your discount V20 DA PoD links go out this week). The best things about getting a copy of a book like V20 Dark Ages, or V20 itself, at the booth, is that you can get them signed, you don’t have to pay the shipping costs (which for big books like these can be quite a bit), and you get them right away.
There will be mini-demos every day of Pugmire as well as Justin Achilli’s casual VtM game The Prince’s Gambit prototype decks for your review. Rose will be able to use the Cavalier’s of Mars Quickstart to walk folks through her game, and will probably let you leave with a physical copy of that QS.
Don’t forget that anyone buying books at the booth in a t-shirt designed by Onyx Path or WW gets a special Impish Ian Watson discount to their purchase!
Besides buying stuff and talking about stuff, how about free stuff? We’re bringing a bunch of swag this year, just to make it more fun at the booth.
Every day, we’ll have a particular game line or lines for which we’ll be giving out collectible buttons, and cards that you can use as Willpower bonuses in your home Chronicles if your fellow players agree. Every day we’ll be handing out Pugmire buttons with cards that have the Code of Man on one side and one of the six revealed characters from the setting on the other. We also have all six of our Pugmire posters and an in-character booklet describing the setting through the eyes of Princess Yosha Pug and Pan Dachshund that we’ll be giving out. And, of course, every day we’ll have our 2015-2016 Onyx Path Brochure for anyone who comes by the booth or to our panels.
Both the Pugmire booklet and the Onyx Path Brochure will be available for free electronic download from DTRPG on Thursday as well so nobody has to miss out just because they can’t get to Indy.
Thursday will be our V20 Dark Ages (and the cWoD 20th Anniversary Editions in general) focused day. We’ll be giving away the V20 DA collectible pin and card and we’ll also have two panels that day that are about Freelancing for the Onyx Path and WoD Storytelling Tips & Tricks, both with Rose and Eddy. So if you want to help us create these amazing projects and would like to talk about that, and/or you’d like to get more out of your WoD Chronicles, we’ve got the panels for you. Rose will also be signing books at 2pm.
Friday will be Beast: the Primordial day, with the collectible button and card give aways, as well as Black Hat Matt McFarland coming to the booth for signings at 5pm (Eddy will be there too). Some super panels today with What’s Up With the Classic WoD? and What’s Up With the New WoD? covering all the newest releases, giving us a chance to answer every single one of your WoD questions, and a few pretty cool announcements not in the brochure.
Saturday is our day for touching on our varied and wonderful settings that aren’t WoD, with an Exalted collectible pin and card, and panels for What’s Up With Trinity, Scion, and Scarred Lands? and Dive Into Pugmire & Cavaliers of Mars both allowing us to talk a lot more about all those lines or any other nonWoD ones you’re curious about. Since we don’t yet have EX3 out to backers, and the Devs won’t be at the con, we’re more than willing to answer what we can about EX3, but expect us to focus a lot more on EX3 next year. At 1pm Neall Raemonn Price and Dave Brookshaw will be signing at the booth.
Sunday we go all out nWoD and focus on all the games besides Beast that are part of the new World of Darkness. No panels on Sunday, and we can probably be talked into additional discounts on this last day of the con, while we are doing another developer signing at 1pm. We currently are leaving it open who will be there, but we’re trying to grab a writer or two as well, so check it out.
Monday we tear down the booth and fly home. No blog that day. Maybe later in the week. Maybe not, we might be in a collective coma.
All four days we will be tweeting and texting during the con, and at night as we rampage through Indy, so you can follow along @TheOnyxPath and #GenCon2015 and #GenCon. Most of those tweets will also hit our Onyx Path Face Book page too. There are a couple of important dinners set up to discuss Onyx Path’s future plans, including the fabled Onyx Path Summit, a couple of award shows we didn’t enter anything for, and at least one night at my favorite martini bar with my best buddy. We’ll have a special series of Gen Con blogs popping up during the con too, and we’ll try and make sure that the links to any podcasts or interviews get sent out for everybody unable to attend.
And this year, we’re trying something else with Dave “The Legend” Martin’s Wrecking Crew demo team also tweeting from their games that they’re running at Gen Con. We have no idea how that’s going to work out but it could be really exciting to get snippets of what is happening in the demo room. It could also be horrifying. We won’t know until they happen. A brief sampling of their games includes Accidents Will Happen for Wraith 20th, Lost Dogs for Pugmire, Hoist the Black Flag! for Changeling: the Lost, The Spanish Tragedy for Vampire: the Requiem 2nd, The Fate in Our Stars for Trinity: Aeon, Once Upon a Time for Beast: the Primordial, No Fate But What We Write Ourselves for Exalted 3rd, Temple of the Wyrm for Dark Ages: Werewolf, and Free Fall for M20. That’s a small taste of the 60+ games that their team are running this year, not to mention all the other games folks are running besides the Wrecking Crew. Definitely something for everybody.
Since a fair number of writers and developers will be at the con, our forum presence will probably be less, but we both hope to pop on when we can from our hotel rooms, as well as be providing enough tid-bits and info through other venues that there should be a lot to discuss!
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And now, the BLURBS!
The Demon Translation Guide Advance PDF is on sale now! The PoD will be available SOON! We take fiendish delight in presenting this devilish guide to transferring your Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent characters from one setting to the other: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/151502/Demon-Translation-Guide
The sixth and final Pugmire poster for now, Spike Mutt, will be available on Wednesday!
The fifth Pugmire poster, Pan Dachshund, is ready now as a free PDF or $.99 physical poster, suitable for framing: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150844/Pan-Dachshund-Pugmire-Poster-5
The fourth Pugmire poster, Jack Rat-Terrier, is on-sale now as a free PDF or $.99 physical poster, suitable for framing: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150944/Jack-RatTerrier-Pugmire-Poster-4
The third Pugmire poster, Sgt. Leo Bulldog, is available NOW as a free PDF or $.99 physical poster, suitable for framing: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150843/Sgt-Leo-Bulldog-Pugmire-Poster-3
The second poster, Princess Yosha Pug, is available now: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/149750/Princess-Yosha-Pug-Pugmire-Poster-2
And the first poster, Sister Picassa Collie, is here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148516/Sister-Picassa-Collie-Pugmire-Poster-1
Start spreading the Code of Man!
Dread Names, Red List for V20 is now on sale! This collection of the most dangerous Kindred ever called Anathema is available in both PDF and hardcover PoD versions: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150381/V20-Dread-Names-Red-List
W20 fans can howl for the first new Werewolf the Apocalypse novel in decades! The Poison Tree novel by Mike Lee (long-time White Wolf writer and developer, and internationally famous Warhammer author) now available in PDF, ePub, and PoD versions! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150855/W20-The-Poison-Tree
The Avarice Chronicle: the Collected Edition (combining the adventures from the three Mummy: the Curse supplements) is now available in PDF and PoD versions at DriveThruRPG.com: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/151566/The-Avarice-Chronicle–Collected-Edition
Convention News: Our friends at Gamerati are running a Game Day on July 25th, this Saturday before Gen Con, in Eau Claire, WI. I’m told there is one nWoD session scheduled already, but they would love it if anybody in our community wants to run other WW or Onyx Path games. So check it out if you want to doing some playing and give them a yell if you want to do some Storytelling: http://gamerati.com/gamedays/
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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)
- Dark Eras Expansions (nWod Dark Eras)
- Pugmire Early Access
- Dark Eras Companion (nWod Dark Eras)
- WtF The Pack (Werewolf: the Forasken 2nd Edition)
- VtM Lore of the Bloodlines (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- WtA Kinfolk (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition
- V20 Ready Made Characters (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
Redlines
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)
- Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)- In Open Development
Second Draft
- Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
- W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)- In Open Development
- The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd 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)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad (Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)
Editing
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- nWoD 2e core (New World of Darkness)
- Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)
- VtM Lore of the Clans Expansions (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
Development (post-editing)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
In Art Direction
- Dreams of Avarice – AD’d.
- NWoD 2 – Trying to get the last four halfs in.
- V20 Ghouls – AD’d.
- Tal Me Rah – Fulls contracted. Putting together notes for half page illos and contacting potential artists.
- W20 Shattered Dreams – Emailing artists and putting together the art buy itself.
- V20 Lore of the Clans – Contracting out the art for the appendices.
- Pentex Employee Indoctrination Manual – Have to read through the notes and then decide on proper artists.
- Demon STG – Trabbold is going to handle the fulls. Sorting the art buy… hunting for artists.
In Layout
- Beast – Working on the book plate this week.
- M20 How Do You Do That – In progress.
In Proofing
- M20 – Inputting more errata from Phil…
- M20 Screen – Still proofing with Phil.
- Ex 3 Anthology – Awaiting updated text file.
At Press (on Drivethru… or whatever)
- Demon Translation Guide – PoD proof coming in.
- VDA20 – Backer PoD links going to be sent out.
Special
- Dark Eras – Holding pattern.
- Wraith 20 – Yep… waiting on artnotes.
- Exalted 3rd Edition – RT here: 6th Layout Proof PDFs being worked on by Maria, sending her backer names for the credits and sending Dev notated character sheet for design.
Other Stuff
REASON TO DRINK: A week to Gen Con, nerves are snapping…
Aww, I won’t be there for cWoD day. But I will come over and stand awkwardly at the booth like the uncomfortable introvert I am!
Nah, say hi and chat! Most of us don’t bite. And if you ask nice, someone might let you fire Neall! So there’s that. 🙂
Jim’s right, we’re pretty much all introverts, so we can say hi together.
Yeah! Just, yanno, quietly and without much fanfare.
Am I behind the curb or did you just unveil the skull icon for Beast? Sneaky thing, you.
Not just Beast. If you look closely at that nWoD button…
Like, explicitly that button, or around it?
New nWoD logo. =)
Thanks to Mirthful Mike- yup!
The button.
That’s a metaphor I have not heard before…but yes. 🙂
I am irrationally giddy for a con I’m not even attending. Need those sweet WoD announcements.
Though, gotta say, not really feeling the Beast skull. I was expecting something like changeling, a skull within jaws or shadowed by a bestial visage. This one kinda reminds me of the Guyver, in the most kamen rider kind of way.
/Overly Specific Nitpick
Beast. Skull. Not just a single beasty type but something that reflects transformative fear.
The Ex3 PDF is going to be finished right in the middle of GenCon just because that’s the most inconvenient time for it to be done, isn’t it?
That is how I anticipate it- yes. 😉
I wish I could be there. I would totally be all over those demo games!
Maybe someday.
I’ve been wondering about this for a while now: is the nWoD 2e core book something that would definitely get a deluxe edition kickstarter, or is it something you’d have to see about fitting in the schedule?
I skipped getting the add-on in the Beast KS presuming it would be, but wonder about it.
It won’t have a Kickstarter. We’ll release it like a normal, non-KS book. Hope that helps!
I really hope that Rose and Eddy’s seminars get audio for those of us who can’t attend this year. They sound really neat, and I know you’ve gotten audio for What’s New With the World of Darkness in the past.
That is the plan.
Hoping something new for Requiem pops up! Meanwhile, Pugmire and Beast have me plenty excited. (I’ll be running a bit of the former)
Rose just recently was able to get a couple of Requiem 2nd books back on track and rolling along, so you’ll see some nice movement there soon.
I’m still looking forward to getting my deluxe Vampire: the Dark Ages book but…
May I say what I can see of the POD looks beautiful!
That discount voucher won’t be sitting in my inbox very long.
Thanks! 🙂
The Dead Gamers Society is happy to be working with Dave “The Legend” Martin and The Wreaking Crew in bringing Onyx Path games to Gen Con. 6 of our Storytellers will be on hand bring you 26 of the 60+ games under The Wreaking Crew banner. It’s going to be great time.
The Dead Gamers Society: The So Cal World of Darkness Meetup is a World of Darkness RPG club based in the Los Angeles area. We organize and run open invite World of Darkness games throughout the region and our mission is to organize a local network of World of Darkness gamers and fans.
We’re very happy to be at Gen Con this year and we’ve worked very hard to make sure the games we’re running at Gen Con are of high quality.
-Louis Garcia,
DGS Organizer
http://www.meetup.com/dead-gamers-society
https://www.facebook.com/deadgamerssoc
https://twitter.com/DeadGamersSoc
We are absolutely thrilled that you are, and folks, the games Louis is personally running span the gamut of our current efforts really well with a Cavaliers of Mars game, A Beast game, both Scion and Trinity: Aeon games, and Scarred Lands as well. Very much appreciate you providing our players those choices!
nWoD2 logo is all kinds of neat. I didn’t think it’d be changing between editions, but I’m glad it did. Very nicely done.
And Beast logo is really really cool too. During Kickstarter, I’d often wonder what you could do to a skull to represent Beast and couldn’t really picture it at all. Good thing I’m not a designer, eh?
We realized that having an nWoD2 logo helps differentiate which books are written with the new rules in mind, and anything that helps settle a bit of the confusion as we fully move to 2nd Editions is a good thing.
That sounds like a good idea, yeah. I hope the number of books with that logo will quickly get high 🙂
Looks like I will be stopping by Saturday!
See you then!
Awesome! Love to see you there!
With EX3 being…. where its at, should we expect Add-On PDFs with the Core PDF, or will those be getting sent separately? I know you guys didn’t want to do it WELL before the book was done, but for some reason I was under the impression it would be before completion? Is it too soon to tell?
That would be my preference, but if the Add-ons are too time consuming, ie: if including them means that it will delay some backers from getting their PDF, then I’ll look at the Add-ons after we get every backer their PDF ASAP.
Thanks! I don’t know where I got the idea the Add-Ons were before the Core PDF. I do appreciate getting the Core book ASAP though, I know you guys are just as excited to see it done as we are to… well, see it.
…I probably could’ve thought about where that was going before I got there. Saved us all some inadvertent word-play.
I won’t be getting into GenCon until Friday night, but I can’t wait to see everyone @ the OPP booth. I’ve got time and $ to share with you all ;).
Very cool, looking forward to it!
I really hope I can get one of those cards; be a great game prop to use for my chronicles. Like, the MVP from each chronicle gets the card for the next one.
Really looking forward to meeting people at GenCon.
That’s a cool use- see you there!
Wish I could go. I’ve yet to do Gencon and I need to cross it off my bucket list. I’m going to try and get my friends to grab me those buttons and cards.
Will you guys have any audio podcast of your panels like you did last year?
Also everyone should grab a copy of Dread Names: Red List. It’s an awesome book and we get more Ken Meyers Jr. artwork.
We certainly intend to have audio of the panels available again this year. Thanks for the Dread Names, Red List boost!
Any chance backers will get our copies of Exalted at or before Gen Con?
Definitely no physical copies, as we’re still working on the PDF. As for the PDF, I’m not going to estimate now any more than I have at the other stages after learning my lesson early on with this project. It is safe to say that we’re in the final stages of getting the PDF ready for backers.
The realm and the Dragon blooded book went from first draft to second draft without a trip to red lines in the middle (at least as far as we’ve seen in the Monday notes). Were they just fast or is something else up?
Rose will only put a project into the next phase when all of it is in that phase, so any given project may sit while the rest of the project catches up, and then BOOM! that last one gets caught up and the whole thing leaps forward.
Reading this, I kinda wish I was going this year. Maybe I’ll try for next year, after Exalted has dropped.
We know a lot of our community doesn’t make it to Gen Con, for lots of reasons, which is why we try and make sure we’re providing a window into what goes on there via this site and our social media. Hopefully, that’ll give folks a taste of the fun and valuable info on what’s coming, at around the same time as the Gen Con crowd.
Waaaait. Dark Ages Werewolf? Is this a playtest for W20 Dark Ages Werewolf by chance?
We have no control over the games that fans choose to run.
Speaking of DA:Werewolf. Why is there no POD version? I went to Drivethru to buy PODs of corebooks in Dark Ages line and Werewolf is only PDF.
Thanks for making such great games.
The same reason or reasons as any other book not yet having a PoD version: bad files, lost files, or us or DTRPG just not having gotten to that book yet. We are working our way through, though.
just saw the most recent update on kickstarter. id post there but i cant so ill just post my thoughts here:
those pages are looking sweet, even if people say it reminds them of the l5r books this doesnt mean maria has been slouching. my compliments on a job well done and i cant wait to see the final project. despite the negativity of a few posters i can, at least to some extent begin to appreciate the level of loving care she put into those few pages. to some “putting together a book” is as simple as slapping the text in a predefined font and size and put pictures next to it, but due to my family being 4 generations of graphic artists i can say that this really isnt the case, to make it look pleasing to the eye, and more importantly readable, requires so much more work, from setting up kerning, to font color or even a simple watermark in the background all of that takes time and skill to pull off right.
=) maria keep up the great work. loved MTG’s art design for years, and i know your doing your best to make sure exalted 3rd is at its finest as well. so despite what some may say keep your head held high and do what you do best. because at the end of the day exalted will look as epic as it can be =)
also o.o; does maria still work at mtg as well as OP or did she leave it to come devote her attention to EX3. too lazy to google it x) and ive been wondering for a while now. if she still does work over there then im surprised shes been able to work on this as much as she seems to. o.o; especially due to 3~4 new blocks have been released since the start of this project.
in all cases =) keep up the great work maria =D
Sounds like you have a pretty accurate idea of the amount of both work and skill that goes into a project like EX3’s layout. Thanks for the kind words and I’ll pass them on to Maria. She hasn’t been involved with MtG for years, and is currently a freelance designer and filmmaker. We were very lucky to get her on EX3.
^_^ as i said my family has been in the business for years so you kinda pick up on these kind of things. i generally respect any creative person who works on a major project. especially in the gaming industry =3. personally ^_^ my dream is to make an mmo at some point. something i recognize will take a LOT of time and effort. but you know what =) itll be worth it.