At lunch, there were two things I wanted to talk with Eddy about that occurred this weekend; one event inside the other. The larger encompassing one was a convention I attended on Saturday in Lancaster, PA. I drove over there and after dodging a couple of barn raisings, an angry dude in an ill-fitting black suit with an ice-cream cone, and sideswiping a lot of horses and their attendant buggies, found my way into the Save Against Fear convention. The convention, which started as an extended charity game-night, now has several rooms of tabletop RPG gaming, a couple of panels, and snacks and hot meals, with all profits going to help support The Bodhana Group, a nonprofit organization that supports children and adolescents impacted by sexual trauma through treatment, training and consultation services.
This in itself would be a great charity event, but there is an added level of interest for me; The Bodhana Group are mostly all gamers and believe that tabletop RPGs can be used as therapeutic tools in their counseling. It should come as no surprise to long-time readers of this blog that what they are trying to do is very much in line with my thoughts on RPGs having the potential to be more than games. I’ve shared with them, as well as their wacky blog-casting cohorts on Grown As Gamers, some of the stories I’ve heard over the years from our community that touch on the cathartic and healing nature of this hobby of ours. Sometimes, there are things in life you can’t deal with yourself – they are too big, or too painful – that being able to assume and play through a character in an RPG allows you to face.
While I was there, I sat in on a panel of game designers for a Q&A session. One of the questions was about how difficult it was to get your games to market. Since the rest of the folks on the panel were at various stages of getting their projects out there, there was sort of a “oh, this wouldn’t apply to you, Mr Big Time Onyx Path/White Wolf guy” aimed at me from the table. But I pointed out that Onyx has sort of a reverse issue to deal with: we have over 20 years of expectations built into our community, and trying to do anything new can actually be pretty tough. I offered a case-in-point from our Gen Con panel this year when I announced Pugmire and saw several long time WW fans just shut down with looks of appalled disinterest as they sat there.
But that point was actually almost lost, and this is what I wanted to share with Eddy, because of the shouts of interest and glee from the audience (and from one of the moderators!) as I further described the concepts behind the setting. Shout-outs, seriously. This echoes the same woots we got at Gen Con, so it’s pretty interesting that Pugmire generates such enthusiasm.
Our later Onyx Path crew meeting was largely concerned about how we are putting up our blogs and whether they are hitting way too fast for folks to register that they are up – particularly the Open Development ones. A lot of good ideas were passed around, and the first thing we’re going to try is sticking to a regular schedule of Monday being for this blog, Weds we’re going to try and make the day we release new PDFs and/or PoDs on DTRPG and so we’ll be announcing those on a Weds blog, and on Friday we’ll put up an “Open Development Round-up” blog that will gather up the last week’s Open Dev topics to reinforce the blogs that came out, and so you can all check them out over the weekend.
And that’s more times than I ever wanted to say blog in a single paragraph.
Here blog blog blog Updates blog blog:
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
- Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created)
- Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)
- W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Idigam Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Werewolf: the Forsaken)
- Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening)
- Fallen World Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Mage: the Awakening)
- 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)
- Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)
- Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
- Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
- V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Redlines blog
- V20 Lore of the Clans (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)
- Exalted 3rd Fiction Anthology (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Second Draft
Development
- Exalted 3rd Edition core book- Ongoing art notes and final tuning on Charms as the book nears completion. After the operation, John is feeling better and more energized than he has for months and months. (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Firestorm Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition)
- V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd Edition, featuring the Idigam Chronicle (Werewolf: the Forsaken)
- World of Darkness Dark Eras- Vampire chapter (WoD Dark Eras)
Editing
- Book of the Deceived (Mummy: the Curse)
- Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition core book (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Geist Ready Made Characters (Geist: The Sin-Eaters)
- W20 White Howlers (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)
Development (post-editing)
- World of Darkness Dark Eras core book (WoD Dark Eras)
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE
- White Howlers – Text should be in. Going to start layout and get that knocked out.
- Book of the Deceived – I have art notes divided up and sent out to most of the artists.
- DtD Seattle – Got fixes Friday afternoon. PDF is updated, working on the PoD.
- DtD Demonseed collection – Got fixes Friday afternoon. Inputting those this week and exporting PoD.
- DtD Interface – Got fixes Friday afternoon. Inputting those this week and exporting PoD.
- Book of the Wyrm 20 – New text is with Aileen along with the board headshots.
- DAV20 – Sketches are rolling in. Managed to get the first 200+ pages roughed in. Intend to have the whole thing roughed in by the end of next week (mainly depends on how long White Howlers takes).
- Anarchs Unblogged – Deluxe at press. Gonna futz around with some sticker business this week.
- T-Shirts – Going on sale tonight http://www.redbubble.com/people/theonyxpath:
- this year’s Onyx Path t-shirt.
- Exalted 3rd Edition character shirts: Volfer, Diamond, Shen, Perfect Soul.
- Scion: Extras cover art t-shirt.
- Vampire: The Requiem t-shirts:
Blood and Smoke cover, Blood and Smoke art, New Wave Requiem cover, Nomads cover, Ventrue art. - Werewolf: The Apocalypse Pentex subsidiaries t-shirts:
Avalon, Black Dog, Endron, Endron art, King Breweries, Magadon, Magadon art, Tellus. - Werewolf: The Apocalypse Changing Breeds symbols t-shirts:
Rokea, Nuwisha, Ratkin, Naga, Mokole, Kitsune, Gurahl, Corax, Bastet, Ananasi, Ajaba. - Werewolf: The Apocalypse Lost Tribes symbols t-shirts:
Bunyip, Croatan, White Howlers. - Werewolf: The Apocalypse badness symbols t-shirts:
Apocalypse, Banes, Black Spiral Dancers, Fomori.
- Art O’ The Changin’ Breeds – Made it to the Nagah section. Forgot Bridges didn’t do sketches for his stuff.
- Umbra – Seen sketches for most of the halfs. Have Tucker’s, Cobb’s, Trabbold’s in. All finals for halfs are due this week
- VTR II – Prepping a pdf so Rose can find all the references to the B&S title and swap it out for the new title.
- EX3- Not Mike, but Mel Uran has her package of art notes, backer characters and other reference, and contracts, and talking to art director Maria Cabardo about the rest Tuesday.
REASON TO DRINK: Nashville. By night. This week.
A few thoughts:
1. Pugmire surprised me quite a bit, but it definitely evokes a lot of good memories of reading Redwall books as a kid. Definitely curious about Dog civilization and its interpretations of the rules of Man.
2. Is there any chance we could get some spoilers about Book of the Deceived or Sothis Ascends?
3. Need to come up with a conspiracy that can explain the blank(?) bullet point after EX3’s art notes. Perhaps it’s written in High Speech that we Sleepers cannot even comprehend? Hmm, it comes after EX3, so perhaps Half Life 3: the RPG has finally been confirmed!
This is not a place I would expect a Half-Life 3 confirmed comment.
Good to hear John is feeling better, finally.
Dan: Gaben’s reach is vast. *eerie theremin sound effects*
Wake up, Dr. Chejop.
1- Glad to hear it. It really is shaping up well, Eddy and I were just talking about getting the tone right. 2- If C.A. provides some, we’ll post them. 3- At this point, the dot has generated enough fun that I’m not going to spoil that my confirming or denying anything.
You got my interest in pugmire and the information about how gaming can be used as therapy.
Cool. Thanks!
My thoughts on this Monday Meeting:
1. Excellent update this week.
2. RedBubble is going to leave me broke.
3. Pugmire sounds awesome.
Haven’t looked into Pugmire any, but I have to agree on the other two.
Did you also notice the stickers that are available too? (I just noticed!)
OPP and Scion stickers! XD
(Alas, no other merch other than Tshirts for the CCP-owned stuff yet.)
1- Thanks! 2- I was amazed at how many cool shirt designs Mike and Ian had put up this week. 3- It’s shaping up that way!
White Wolf’s history of games (and games that they published) spans so many different genres that I think those who might be mystified by Pugmire might not truly understand just what all has come from the bowels of White Wolf, and thus Onyx Path’s own related history.
I like both the surface-level ideas of Pugmire (sci-fi-fantasy-futuristic-throwback-geneticly-modified-animals) as well as the conceptual undertones and philosophies in the setting and as a game as well.
The Red Bubble shirts have given me a conundrum… the American Apparel shirts are… not my style (I don’t like thin-material, and they’re a size smaller than they say they are, in my opinion.) However, dude… Pentex shirt? Glass Walker Shirt? Bastet Shirt? Other shirts?! You’re TOYING with me, man. 😉
(Seriously, though, I get that Red Bubble is the best option for you guys, I just wish they carried other brands/styles/sizes of shirt… but that’s not your problem, it’s mine. 🙂 )
I’m still sad that the W20 BotW’s art book will only get out to 6 folks. 🙁 Oh, well.
“Art of the Changing Breeds”? I know that W20 had the stretch goal, and that W20 Book of the Wyrm KS had the $200 “Arcane Collector” tier, but… I can’t seem to find any mention of the W20CB art book anywhere… did I miss something, or is this a surprise project?
How’s the Dark Ages KS at the moment?
We’re pulling it together. Still need some pricing info from our printer though.
1) Awesome to see RPGs making such a positive impact!
2) This is the first I’ve heard of Pugmire. Sounds like it has an interesting concept behind it?
3) Are the Idigam and Fallen World Chronicles going to get Kickstarters?
4) Any word on if and when Dev Blogs for the Firestorm and Huntsmen Chronicles will be up and running? What about Beast?
For #3, I don’t think any of the 2E’s are getting Kickstarters. I know GMC and Vampire didn’t at least. I think the only Kickstarters that the NWOD is getting are for either new lines (Mummy/Demon/Beast/etc) or for whatever big thing they do that year in place of a new line (Dark Eras).
1- It’s good to see. 2- Check out the little concept pitch under Our Worlds from the top pulldown menu on the main Onyx Path page. 3- Not currently planned, no. 4- All going to be up to the Devs involved.
Just ordered a Magadon shirt. I’ll likely order the Onyx Path shirt and the awesome VtR Nomads shirt next week. Loving the shirts with great art on them.
And Rich, I know I say this almost every other week, but I just want to throw it out there again: If you can get Mirthful Mike to get some Hunter the Reckoning shirts with the Glenn Fabry art, some Hunter the Vigil shirts with cover art(Mortal Remains!), or even the cover art to Hunters Hunted/Hunters Hunted 2, I would greatly appreciate it.
And buy them all. 🙂
All in good time- it’s not like Mirthful Mike doesn’t loooove some Hunter.
Hell yeah! Great to hear!
Wasn’t aware Mike liked Hunter. I remember tweeting out a few pics of some Hunter tattoos I have.
It’s true. Reckoning was my favorite WoD line to do art for back in the day (okay…Reckoning and Werewolf) and Vigil has been my baby since the beginning.
Glad to hear you had a good time at the convention, and about games as therapy. Although, next time you’re that close to my house, you should let me know (if you’ve time for a drink, anyway!). 🙂
It was really a surgical strike of a visit, unfortunately. Like this whole month, every weekend has multiple things going on, and I had to get back for Sat evening family obligations. Would have loved to have stayed and played their six party raid on the Dracolich, and to have hung out a bit with you, Jim. But I was: outta there!
Ha! Fair enough. Glad you had a good time at least!
Cool to see Geist Ready Made Characters in editing. The Ready Made Characters are one of the most useful things you guys have done.
I’d be nice to see Ready Made Character sets for the Classic WOD games.
What??? HOW DID I MISS THIS? D: I LIVE in Lancaster County! XD
Pugmire was the most exciting thing that happened to me at Gencon.
I’m so glad to know that John is feeling better!
This is the first I’ve heard of Pugmire and Art of the Changing-Breeds. What is this art book?
There’s a link to a Pugmire description on the front page in the Our Worlds pulldown at the top of the page, and the CB Art Book is a Kickstarter reward that highlights the making of the W20 CB illustrations.