One of Us was Sick, the Other: Tired.

Monday Eddy was sick, so we didn’t have our meeting. Tuesday, he was OK, so we did meet over lunch, but then I, overwhelmed by a wave of post-Exalted 3rd Kickstarter whoop-ass, just lagged out. I’m pretty sure the after effects are over, but boy, a month of that crazy Kickstarter really just drained me. But here we are, things are cool now. So here now the news.

We covered a few pieces of art and projects in for approvals at CCP, and there are a couple of the business heads-ups that just kind of get tossed back and forth. Did you see what so-and-so was up to, etc. Since our good friend Adam Jury was down in ATL and visited with Eddy, I got the benefit of hearing about some of their conversations about Kickstarter and the very different experiences Adam has had with his KSs vs, say, the Ex3 KS. Always good to hear some of Adam’s thoughts and I hope to get a chance to personally compare notes at Gen-Con. One thing I thought was interesting was how one KS creator pretty instantly grasps that there isn’t one right way to set up or run a KS, and that we’re still in a state where lots and lots of experimentation is still possible. (This despite some internet pundits who seem sure there is one true way to KS heaven).

Right now, for example with just our own KSs, I’m looking at structuring the Deluxe W20 Changing Breeds Kickstarter along the lines of the Deluxe Hunters Hunted 2 KS, as it seems like there’s strong evidence what backers are looking for with KSs that aren’t “line-starters”. For core books like W20, EX3, or Mummy: the Curse, we have less things we can do to the book itself, but a great chance with the Stretch Goals to add projects that extend the sorts of projects for the line that we can do. Fiction, of course, but I’d never have green-lit the W20 Cookbook, for example, as it’s not what I think the majority of W20 fans would like to see on the official line roll out even though its clearly a fun project. But for the non-Core books, we have received really clear evidence that the backers really want Stretch Goals that let them add to and improve the specific book they’re pledging for.

Its great that KSs let us be so much more responsive to the interests of our fans.

And that’s just us.

When I look at other folks’ KSs, I see a really wide range of usage of the KS basic model, which I think is really healthy. All of us set up an overt KS “Funding Goal to Do X”, but then there’s the strategic goal that I hope all KS creators have past “lotsa bucks”. Because that’s really selling the KS model short. For example, I see the FATE KS seemingly (I say seemingly because I haven’t grilled these guys on this) set up to use KS’s social networks to spread the word about FATE– and there they go with 10,000 backers. Awesome! It seemed to me that Monte was using Numenera‘s KS to roll out an entire two years worth of game line so that he could have that amount of time to enjoy working on the projects without the worry of using one product to pay for the next, and to have the bills paid during that time. Dunno whether I’m right or it worked exactly, as I’m not privvy to that info, but it sure looked like a win from over here. Also awesome!

For EX3, we really wanted the coolest Deluxe we could make, we wanted to add things like fiction or a comic book as I pointed out above, and we wanted to provide a platform that could bring together current or lapsed Exalted fans and show them a whole range of teasers and spoilers in a coherent manner that worked with the Devs comfort level at providing peeks at the new book. Coming in as the #1 funded tabletop RPG KS was just an insane example of how the fans truly love this game. Which we hope we showed that we feel as well.

We also love giving you Updates:

–  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) is in layout. We’re waiting on a single chapter’s worth of formatting fixes.

– Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) This is smashing into Rose’s work on Demon and so we re-prioritized her to push the Demon text to editing and for art notes. Still waiting on some final drafts.

– Mummy the Curse – Book and  Screen are at press.

– Exalted 3rd Edition:  The EX3 Kickstarter is over and was more successful than we could have imagined! The Devs are back to work on the book and I’m creating Reward and Stretch Goal lists so that we can prioritize what needs doing during this two-week period where pledges are being validated by Amazon Payments. 

– V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  Preparing files for press- getting a revised quote on the cover treatment from the printer this week. Justin’s working on redlines for the Anthology writers- all but two of the final drafts are in.

– V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: At press. Mike Lee went back and revised a fair number of chapter in the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel prior to submitting to Bill for dev review.  The Storyteller Screen files are at press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is  waiting for PoD approval and should be available from DTRPG in a week or so. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is ready for editing- which might take a while since our regular copy editors might not be as up on translating UK measurements to US ones. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/06/03/white-howler-gifts-and-a-recipe/

–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. Getting art notes out to a ton of classic Mage artists.

– W20 Changing Breeds  Stew finished his KS Video voice-over and Ian created a video to go with it. Still working on getting the KS ready for Kickstarter review and approval. Will have up to date info next Monday or earlier, and as before, we’ll give 24 hour notice before it goes live.

– W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but two more pieces need to come in.

– Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is into editing and art notes are on their way to us.

– Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) in layout.

– Conventionbook: Void Engineers (cMtA) is in editing.

– W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

– V20 Rites of the Blood: is being written and is in Open Dev on the blogs: http://whitewolfblogs.com/v20/

– Under the Darkening Sky (classic Dark Ages): Being outlined and teased by developer David Hill.

– Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet. He almost caught me but I started talking about genre emulation and got away. I might read his outline this week. Gonna get more feedback on the outline, but looks good. Ian now starting a Trinity Continuum Core Book outline.

– Scion: Talked to Joe Carriker about the project and broke his back with its awesomeness. When he gets up, we’ll talk about Scion: Origin. Gonna get Joe to share a call with Ian and compare Scion and Trinity notes- EX3 KS interrupted this, gonna try again.

– 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 readied for editing and Rose is trying to get art notes together. The subtitle has been agreed upon and check out Matt McFarland at Origins for info on that. We’re looking to create a Demon Quickstart to roll out before the game itself as we’re not sure the finished book will hit Gen-Con- but the Quickstart can. If we go with that strategy, we’ll delay the Demon Translation Guide in order to work on the QS.

– 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 this Saturday, June 15! Go to the stores, ask for the booklet!

 

Reason for Drinking: Deluxe Exalted 3rd Edition Kickstarter campaign is over and surpassed all of our expectations in every way.