So how does this Open Development angle work, anyhow?
Keep an eye on the blogs and forums to get the best sense of when a new dev doc becomes available. We’re eventually going to place a widget somewhere to aggregate them, but we’ll roll that out as Web Cell completes it. Development is an ongoing process, so we want to make sure we’re getting our information out as soon as it becomes available, to give you the most time to monkeywrench it and us to incorporate feedback.
The documents that we make available are pre-layout manuscript drafts. We’ll be posting the raw text of the book for you to fold, spindle, and mutilate in whatever playtests you choose to run. Keep notes from what you see in action. We want your feedback!
As to giving feedback, we’re watching three primary communication avenues.
- First, Twitter. Not a real good place for lengthy discussion, but a great place to redirect to a lengthy discussion, or to make a quick point like “Malkavians don’t have Animalism, so Sweet Backflip of the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger doesn’t work as written.” Please provide a link to any relevant references and add the #v20 hashtag so we can keep apprised.
- Second, forums. We’ve got our eyes on a lot of different forums out there, so feel free to discuss topics with each other at length in whatever forum catches your fancy. If it doesn’t exist already (remember the different cadences of Web Cell and WoD dev), we’ll soon have a forum specifically set aside for Vampire 20th discussions either or and at the White Wolf website and at here at vampirethemasquerade.com.
- Third, via e-mail. We have an e-mail address set up at vampire20@white-wolf.com where you can send feedback. While we certainly can’t promise correspondence or replies to stuff sent to that address (we’re already receiving tons of response), please note that it is being watched, and by all of the dev team. We ask that you don’t send attachments, since we’re mostly working with .doc and .docx formats, and they’re easily infected with hostile macros or downright viruses. Not that we think you’d send us anything nasty; we just can’t take the risk.
It’s that simple. Play the draft rules, send us the feedback. We may ping you for some additional clarity, or your comment may be one of a thousand that says, “X needs a tweak”; we may release additional iterations of drafts that incorporate the feedback so you can see it right away, or we may make a change that doesn’t warrant a re-release of a dev doc just yet. But know that our whole reason for doing this is to get your feedback. We’re listening.