As usual, our blog title has multiple meanings – in this case it’s not too convoluted, as I’m talking about the voting we’re doing on chapters for the They Came From the RPG Anthology! Kickstarter, and the virtual is all about the Onyx Path Virtual Convention!
Which is going live in less than two weeks!
Part of the fun with the They Came From the RPG Anthology is that we have a complete game already in there – in fact, there are five chapters each covering a genre-themed setting as well as two rules sets for your enjoyment. That’s five complete games, basically!
(activate TV ad mode) BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! (deactivate TV ad mode)
We always love when a crowd-funding campaign is more than just a pre-order site, and this Kickstarter is a great example of that! Every week, we’re putting three other settings up to be voted on by the backers, and the winner is the next chapter added.
So for our sixth chapter/setting last week’s voting winner is:
They Came from the Billiard Room with the Candlestick! (The Mystery Genre – Benoit Blanc, Agatha Christie, Clue, etc. with thrilling new Archetypes such as the Butler and the Colonel and a mystery plot device system!)
This week, the next three possibilities to be voted on are:
- They Came from the Steel Dragon Fighting Tournament! (Fighting Games and Martial Arts movies- Tekken, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, Virtua Fighter, Enter the Dragon, etc. with Archetypes including the Black Belt, the Street Fighter, and the Pugilist, and expanded Tropes and Stunts to allow you to customize your fighters with special moves)
- They Came from Beneath Capes and Cowls! (Superhero Genre – Four Color Heroes with a splash of camp, with Archetypes including the Mystery, the Savior, the Mutant, and the Mecha and, Quips designed to emulate Batman, Spider-Man and Superman of the 1960s)
- They Came from Neo Tokyo! (1990s Anime Genre – Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, lots of shouting protagonists, etc. with a system for mech battles and Archetypes including the Android, the Street Racer, and the Neo Ninja!)
To put it simply, as a backer you’ll get to help decide just what this book contains in a very substantive way!
Check out some of our other options for finding out more about the content in this book by looking at the entries further down on this blog in the Blurbs!. If you just want to listen to a great podcast, both last week’s chat with some of the creators/writers, and this week’s deep dive into all sorts of genre options that can be used for playing They Came From!, are both on the Onyx Pathcast!
Onyx Path Virtual Convention!
The 4th OP Virtual Con is gonna be here in just under two weeks!
Wahoo!
Our Panel and Actual Play Schedules are down below in the Conventions section, if you want to check out our set programming – there’ll be lots of games for you to sit in on too!
There’s a larger than 0 percent chance that you’ll be able to hear about a bunch of new projects, panels and APs that’ll show you how Storypath Ultra works as a system, not to mention our new game with The Bodhana Group called Branch Riders. They’re also our chosen charity for the con, so it’s a great chance to play and contribute to a super cause at the same time!
As we’ve done every year, we’re running all sorts of sales during the con, too! Sales for the con run the gamut of PDF offerings, physical products, and virtual online gaming content:
OPP Con/Anniversary Bundle deals on DTRPG:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/featured.php?promotion_id=OPP_Con_23
OPP Con/Anniversary Sale on books, dice, and screens at IPR:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/
OPP Con/Anniversary Bundle at Roll20:
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1716/onyx-path-publishing
Speaking of sales, and great causes, we are participating in a fundraiser this week for Big Bad Con. We’ve offered up the Scion: Origins PDF as part of a bundle deal. These bundles will be on DriveThruRPG for one week.
Big Bad Con is a tabletop and live action gaming convention focused on
giving space to gamers from marginalized backgrounds.
This is the link to the featured page:
https://bit.ly/BigBadDoubleBundle for the bundle deals.
Here is the Backerkit (launching tomorrow):
https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/79ab90a4-9eed-4b37-a417-01692df6f57c/landing
But while we’re looking forward to our vewry own OP Virtual Con, done as only the crazed crew at Onyx Path can do it, there was a whole ‘nother convention that ran over last weekend that our crew over there had a blast attending: UK Games Expo!
In fact, here they are to give you their thoughts! First up, Captain Matthew Dawkins:
What a fantastic convention. This is my first time back at Expo since before the pandemic, and it was wonderful to see lots of familiar faces and many more new ones. I think the majority of the players we had in our many RPG sessions (I ran They Came From) were largely new to us. In one case, a player was utterly bewildered by what They Came From was, having only played dungeon crawls before, but by the end of the session was in love with it. This was the story of the con for me: so many people new to our games who went away happy and really interested in playing them again.
It was fun to visit our friends at companies like Handiwork Games, Fria Ligan, and Nightfall Games and get their read on the industry as it presently stands! It was likewise great to see physical copies of our books on sale at Leisure Games and have so many attendees at the panel I co-ran with Cat Evans (Onyx Path, Ex Stasis Games, and many more) and Stephanie Williamson (CobblePath Games) show an interest in our many games, including Beyond the Grave! and our various 20th anniversary games and Chronicles of Darkness games.
As always, the best thing about conventions are the people, and it was a joy to work, dine, and game with Eddy, Chris, Michele, and Claire.
Normally I’d say “I look forward to the next one!” being unsure of which con comes next, but that one would be Onyx Path Con in two weeks! See you all there.
And what would any set of recollections be like without the always-energized Michele Masala:
My time at the UK Expo with the Onyx Path crew was great. It was my first time ever there, so I wasn’t prepared for the convention’s sheer size! Not only I met & had fun with Matthew again, but this was also the occasion for me to meet Eddy and several other Onyx Path freelancers (and friends!) like Cat, Chris, and Claire.
I also had the pleasure to run plenty of games: Beneath Sea, Beyond the Grave, TC: Anima in the shape of the Jumpstart scenario I wrote, and Cyclops’s Cave. All games were a success, with people praising things and checking out the ongoing They Came From KS because they had just that much fun.
All things considered, this international mission I embarked on for Onyx Path sure turned out to be a great experience.
Relative newcomer – at least to running games at a con – Chris Jones, sent me this note:
This wasn’t just my first year running RPGs at gaming show, but my first time at a show, period! But even without the benefit of experience, I wasn’t nervous about how my players would react to the games I had on offer — what I had planned was perfect for a live audience, and I was excited to sit around a table with players for once.
Or more, because overall I ran four games – roughly sixteen hours worth of RPG goodness, for sixteen new players — with all but two of them having no prior knowledge of the games I was running. It speaks to the strength of the games that so many people took a chance on us based on our descriptions.
I was running They Came From… a mix of Beneath the Sea, and Camp Murder Lake, and to say they went well was an understatement. Despite some initial confusion on occasion (We’re here for Call of Cthulu“), once we got going, everyone got into the (inevitably raucous) swing of it. Crap people were attacked, little Jimmy Winkles consistently failed to survive, many an Oink was shouted across the room as our werepigs got to dinner time, Quips were used with furious abandon, and a lot of laughs came from the Onyx Path room – by the end, my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling so much.
All in all, it was a damn good time, and one I look forward to doing again.
Finally, relative newcomer to England, Eddy Webb, exhaustedly mumbled these thoughts:
I had a really good time at UK Games Expo. It was my first major convention since the pandemic, and my first UK convention as both a citizen and a pro (although not my first time at UK Games Expo). I ran Realms of Pugmire and Trinity Continuum: Anima for four lovely groups of people (and also Matthew Dawkins), and everyone had a good time. It really built up my confidence and reignited my fire for running games in person. I still love running games online, but there’s a different-but-equal thrill in running games for people in person. And I met a lot of new people and made a few new friends. I really look forward to next year!
One fun aside that Matthew shared during our Monday Meeting was that he actually had a hard time hearing some of what was going on in Eddie’s game that he sat in on. Players at several tables around them were all having too much fun; laughing and all that jocularity. He had to take it though after he discovered they were all playing They Came From! games!
Y’know, it really is so rewarding to hear from our team – tired but triumphant – about all of our games that they introduced new players to. The odds are that if you’re reading this MMN blog, you know a fair bit about us already – but there are still tons of new players coming into our hobby all of the time that we’d certainly like to give a chance to check out all of our:
MANY WORLDS, ONE PATH!
BLURBS!
KICKSTARTER/CROWDFUNDING!
The KS for They Came From? is rockin’ to the goal!!!
You can help get us over the top and start bringing in even more chapters by going here and pledging! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/they-came-from-the-rpg-anthology-tabletop-roleplaying-
Onyx Path Media!
This week:
Eddy, Dixie, and Danielle talk about some possible genre options for They Came from the RPG Anthology!
As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
Onyx Path Media now has its own blog on Tuesdays! We’ll continue posting our highlight of the week here, but Tuesday will be the day to visit if you want to catch up on actual plays, interviews, deep dives, and other assorted Onyx Path media!
Please check out our attached media schedule for the videos on our Twitch channel this week! In particular, keep those eyes open for our Storypath Showcase, where we give an excellent profile of our various Storypath games and how to play them!
MEDIA HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Over on Red Moon Roleplaying, Matthew Dawkins has been running Murder Served Hot! a They Came From actual play using They Came from the Mean Streets!, from They Came From the RPG Anthology! as inspiration! Give is a listen and give RMR a subscription: https://youtu.be/yqSdR7ChTJE
The Onyx Path News discusses recent and upcoming releases! You can find it on our YouTube channel (click the bell to be informed when we go live!) but if you missed the last episode, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bdVxnYO390
Virtual Tabletop!
OPP Con/Anniversary Bundle at Roll20!:
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1716/onyx-path-publishing
NEW!
They Came From Beneath the Sea! on Roll20 VTT!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/22308/they-came-from-beneath-the-sea
Here are some more shots from the They Came From Beneath the Sea! Compendium!
And there’s also the Scion Jumpstart, all ready for Roll20 VTT fun!
More news and links when we have them!
The Scion: Origin and Scion Hero Compendiums are now available on Roll20!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1716/onyx-path-publishing
Scion is just the start! They Came From Beneath the Sea! and other
Onyx Path RPGs are in development for Roll20 virtual tabletop!
The first of our official Scion sheets designed for Foundry VTT are
now available!
Direct Link: https://foundryvtt.co
Looking for more virtual tabletop resources? We have a selection of
Tokens, Encounters, and more available now at DriveThruRPG!
Get ’em here: https://bit.ly/3SnrNJ7
Our Sales Partners!
We’re working with Studio2 to provide our traditionally printed books out into your local game stores. Game stores can order via their usual distributors, and can also contact Studio2 directly. And individuals can check out our projects via the links below!
Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books, dice, and screens? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
Special Onyx Path deals at IPR:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/
OPP Con/Anniversary Sale on Books, Dice, and Screens at IPR:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/
As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles in PDF and PoD versions at DriveThruRPG.com!
OPP Con/Anniversary Bundle Deals on DTRPG:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/featured.php?promotion_id=OPP_Con_23
Amazon and Barnes & Noble!
You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).
Check out Melody Through the Mirrorshade Lens and Facets of Truth , as well as Trinity Continuum: Terat and The Hollow Courts on Kindle in the Kindle store!
On Sale This Week!
From the heart of the Garou Nation: grief and joy, peace and battle, spirits and kin – and RAGE! Five chapters of in-character accounts, reports, songs, and tales, with storyhooks in every chapter! And an additional chapter dedicated to the Werewolf: The Apocalaypse 20th Anniversary Edition metaplot!
PDF and physical book PoD versions available this Weds on DTRPG!
Conventions!
As we are slowly returning to attending conventions in person after the current COVID-19 outbreak, keep an eye out here for more physical and virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with!
Onyx Path Virtual Convention (June 16th – 18th) We’ll be focusing
primarily on Storypath, Exalted, and Pugmire, but any OPP game works! As well as tons of panels, games, and other events, we’ll have slots opens for folks to run games, so start making your plans now!
Origins Game Fair (June 21st – 25th) is coming up quickly. We’re going
to do the same setup as we did at this last PAXU: we’ll be hanging in our section of the Studio 2 booth.
Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing at Start.Playing is the last Friday of the month: June 30th! Come play some They Came From! in celebration of the current They Came From…? KS! (But any of our game lines are welcome all day long!)
Please spread the word about GMing games as much as
possible. Details on how list a game are at the bottom of the page in
the FAQ:
https://startplaying.games/event/game-night-onyx-path
And now, the new project status updates!
Our full list of projects will be available monthly on our blog! Check out May’s full list report here: https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-may-2023/
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY
Here are the projects that moved to the next stage of production:
Redlines
Tasty Bit – They Came from CLASSIFIED!: Hotel Lobby
- Eddy: The first draft was undercover for a bit, but now its cover is blown and lies revealed for redlines.
Final Draft
Scion – Titans Rising (was Titanomachy 2)
- Matthew: The Titans are rising! I was chatting to Cat about this book over the UK Games Expo, and it sounds like there are some really imaginative drafts in for this one. I can’t wait to see the finished article.
Manuscript Approval
TC: Aether – TC: Aether Player’s Guide
- Eddy: Our TC: Aether Player’s Guide is ready for review! Initial comments are positive, so hopefully this should spin over to editing soon.
Post-Editing Development
TC: Aether – The Aethernaut Collection
- Eddy: Also, the Aethernauts have returned from the editing dimension! Now these public domain heroes are off to the developer for review.
Exalted – Scoundrelsong novella
- Danielle: The book is back from the editor, and I’m excited to dig into it and revisit this lovely story before it goes off to layout.
ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!
In Art Direction
- They Came From ? – KS is going!
- Ex3 Exigents – As art finishes come in for 8 directions, this is the next Exalted project.
- Ex3 Eight Directions – Getting there… slowly but surely.
- TCF Cyclops Cave/Classified – Sending out notes for Classified.
- M20 Victorian Jumpstart – Fulls and half for adventure are in… splats in progress
- SCION Titans Rising – Reviewing finals… homestretch.
- TC Aegis – Finals… got some really cool ones from HIVE.
- TC Player’s Guide – Figuring out art buy.
- TC Adventure Addendum – Reviewing sketches.
In Layout
- TC Anima – Back on it this week… and I’m not messing with anything else unless it is a full on emergency.
- Legacies of Earth – In progress with Dixie.
- TC Assassins VTT Adventure – Still working on it… had to back burner until i get Anima into proofing as this thing has a lot of moving parts.
- Ex Essence Screen
- Ex Essence Charm Cards
Proofing
- HTV Tending the Flame
- Ex3 Crucible of Legends
Indexing
At Press
- Exalted Essence – PoD Files uploaded.
- TC: Adventure! – Trad printing files prepping. Awaiting specs from Printer.
- TC Adventure Storyguide Screen and Booklet – Quoting with Printers.
- W20 Howls of Apocalypse – Backer PDF going out to Backers.
- Ex3 Surface Truths – PoD proof on the way.
- TC Stampede of Justice (Adventure JS) – PoD proof on the way.
- MtAw Tome of the Pentacle – Advance PDF errata input.
- W20 Apocalyptic Record – Apocalyptic Record – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Weds on DTRPG!
Today’s Reason to Celebrate!
A nice anniversary today as both Scion Origin and Scion Hero turn four (whew, that seems like yesterday)!
Comments
16 responses to “Virtual VOTE! [Monday Meeting Notes]”
Ooo, any chance we’ll be seeing the final PDF for essence this week?
Final PDFs should go up after we’ve reviewed the PoD proofs and shortly before they go on sale.
what ever happened to the other Deviant book? both of the secondary projects had made it to art, but we’ve only seen the one release
The Clades Companion? It’s right there in Art Notes Prep on May’s monthly roundup.
Hey, a heads up for your VTT products. Your official Storypath (Scion) sheet for Roll20 is broken for Origin, and it deletes Birthrights. It’s basically unusable, because you can’t record your info. Attempts to reach the sheet designer to fix it have gone unanswered. But if you guys are trying to get into the VTT space, it would work better if you had a sheet that actually worked.
Thanks for the heads up- we’ll check with the Roll20 designers!
I’m told a fix is already in progress, and that, if you can, try and report problems in the Roll20 forums. I guess they have folks looking there? Thanks!
With W5 looming on the horizon, is there any chance at all for some kind of a “Lore of the Tribes” supplement or does the W20 line conclude with the Apocalyptic Record and its stretchgoals?
As of right now, we have not been approved by Paradox for anything but the Stretch Goal projects we’re working on that came out of the Apoc Record crowdfunding campaign.
What a bummer 🙁
Did you pitch anything you are allowed to talk about? 😀
Whether we did or not, I wouldn’t talk about them. All that does is tell our community that they could have had something specific, and now they can’t. That’s not much fun, I think, and I try and avoid doing that.
Completely unrelated to this post. The contagion chronicle. Is it more of a set of plot hooks or does it actually contain enough story for an ST to do very little actual prep work?
After the mechanical heft at the start of the book, every chapter is given over to a different setting with a lot of individual (and occasionally interconnected) plot hooks. Each major story beat in the Contagion Chronicle does have a link to another, so the chapters are loosely linked.
Question about two game lines I’m not terribly familiar with – what is the difference between the “They Came From…” and “Trinity Continuum” gamelines?
The Anthology KS is obviously expanding TCF into new genres. With Trinity also a multi-genre game, we’re already starting to see some overlap (e.g. space opera, superheroes), with even more overlap likely as the gamelines expand. And they both seem to use the same system.
How do you decide which genre or settings are appropriate – or not appropriate – to include in the Trinity Continuum, or as a They Came From… setting? And if I’m interested in a specific genre that appears in both gamelines, how should I decide which game is best for me?
Interested to hear your thoughts about this!
Excellent line of questions!
I’d say that we’re looking at several differences between They Came From! and the Trinity Continuum. While rules-wise they are working with the same base system, how they use that system and what added rules have been connected to the base system is all about what play experiences we want those rules to enable. For TCF, the systems are all about interjecting player ideas into the story with Quips, Cinematics, etc., in a very gamer-aware way. For TC, the characters exist in the setting, they are living their lives and their knowledge of the “rules-physics” of their world is not rules based, but how they perceive the world. We just had some discussions on our Discords about whether TC: Aether Squire characters could choose to open dimensional gates as characters or if they “luckily” find them – our thinking was the latter.
Setting(s)-wise, TC explores different settings connected as a continuum of dimensions through Earth’s history, and lets you create characters that are based on the kinds of characters you’d find in popular media of that time (or talking about that time in the case of the future stuff). In TCF, you create characters that are archetypal (and stereotypical) as part of the media we are emulating and spoofing. So, in the upcoming Trinity Continuum: Aegis, you are playing Bronze Age heroes in the TC version of the historical and mythic late Bronze Age – but in They Came From the Cyclopes’ Cave! you are playing character types found in sword and sorcery fantasy TV and movies. The Hercules movies and TV show that are kinda set in a Bronze Age are an inspiration, and nobody ever accused them of worrying about getting the details of the time period right!
So maybe we can say that TCF is interested in giving players a way to emulate the media of a particular genre – especially if they can lovingly poke at the foibles of that media, and the TC is about playing in the era with the media that talks about that genre as helpful examples.
Now, for me, these are certainly some of the qualifiers I look at to decide on which genre goes with each gameline, and it is often a thin line we’re trying not to blur between them. So I’m with you on wondering, and do it each time we look at adding a new era for the Continuum or kind of media for They Came From. Fortunately, I don’t have to make those calls in a vacuum, and I receive fantastic input from Ian, in the case of TC, and Matthew, in the case of TCF!, and sometimes both as we hammer out just where a line gets drawn. There have been quite a few ideas for both games that we put aside because we couldn’t draw that line. Thanks!
Interesting! Thank you for your very thorough answer!