Putting the Fun into Funding

Monday Meeting, News

The Demon: The Descent Kickstarter to create a prestige edition of the book exploded out of the gate and was funded in 3.5 hours! Congrats to Black Hat Matt McFarland and Rose Bailey now that their evil baby is going to be all fancied up. The project already has more than 1000 backers and has passed three stretch Goals already: a silk bookmark for the edition, an 80 page Seattle Sourcebook PDF, and the first in what we hope are a series of “Demon Seeds” ala the stories in GMC that provide players with scenarios in settings around the world that they can use in their games.

I have a little room here to go into this, as Eddy is house-sitting today sans WiFi so we didn’t meet, so let’s talk about Kickstarter. In past weeks, I’ve explained a lot about how KS is a great addition to our Onyx Path Publishing business model, so I won’t go into that today. We always say that we’re learning from each and experimenting with each KS- so here’s some of the changes we’re trying:

1- Estimating the delivery date on these has been like trying to sign Jello. If it wasn’t a slow down internally with sections getting redone or taking a lot longer to produce, it was the printer going through their own conniptions and learning curves. W20 has been just over a year in the process of getting to the shipper. Mummy also took something like 9 months, and Hunters Hunted 2 has gone 7 months past estimated date. I thought we were a lot closer to the ballpark with Exalted 3rd, and then we made some quality control decisions, and had some team illnesses, and we slid past the extended estimate. W20: Changing Breeds is a lot closer to the even more extended estimate and the PDF did get out to backers as estimated, but the intense amount of extra material added to the book pushed us further than we wanted even with Stew Wilson and team kicking butt to incorporate all the changes. How close to delivering the Deluxe version to the estimate is a guess right now- closer than ever before, I’ll say that. So for Demon, I really pushed our estimate further out than I could reasonably expect us to need. No more reasonableness! Internally, we delayed the KS until the book was in final layout stages so that we would have the best chance to be able to deliver the PDF (which needs to exist before both the PoD and traditionally print files are made) very close to the end of the KS campaign (a lot closer than the KS estimate). And we’re limiting the Stretch Goal internal additions to the book to, uh, none. We’ll see if that changes the interest level of backers to push for more and more Stretch Goals.

2- One of the reasons we have to dance around putting together and running KSs through the year is that they are set up by Kickstarter to only be run by the Project Creator, which has had to be me every damn time. And I say that not because I’m pissed off about being able to have these awesome explosions of KS fun every couple of months, but because I’ve become the bottleneck for us doing a KS campaign or not. Kickstarters are exhausting. There’s literally no way to describe the sheer marathon-race quality of running one. Must make it…to the…finish! Musn’t…black…out! And for an introvert like myself, the sheer “always on” exposure combined with the, shall we say, aggressive postings of complaint, really wiped me out psychologically and emotionally as well and it has taken weeks to stop twitching at every email notification. What I’m saying is- it’s rough to do them over and over. So, with Demon‘s KS, we’ve figured out a way that Rose can take more of the guiding hand, even though I still set the whole thing up, and I can pop in and help and answer a share of the questions and concerns, but not carry all the weight.

3- With a fair number of our classic WoD 20th Anniversary Edition projects, you can make a pretty good guess at the content of the book, and the KS info really just has to tease that more to legitimately provide enough info for backers to get excited about pledging. But with new games like Demon: The Descent, some folks really need to get a strong idea of just what the game is about before they dive in and pledge. Which leads us to linking the whole unedited text for everyone to feel free to download and read through. We think that the number of people impressed by the material and who’ll pledge for the Prestige Edition will more than make up for the folks who are turned off, or who are fine with just the text and start playing. It’s a risk, this is the biggest, most important book- a whole new game line’s core book- that we’ve ever done this with. But, I’m pretty sure folks will appreciate what we’re trying to do with this, and will pledge accordingly. And if not, we’ll learn from that too.

Hopefully, these lessons learned and our resulting evolution in how we do KSs will make the whole KS experience something that everybody will have even more fun with- we have even further tweaks and changes to what we can accomplish with them in the year to come!

But Before That, These:

– Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Deep in Layout. Here’s a visual teaser though: http://theonyxpath.com/mirthful-mikes-old-time-art-blog-blood-smoke/

– Mummy the Curse – The MtC Ready Made Characters Pack PDF has been sent out to backers- we’re gathering comments on the PDF- like all Onyx Path backer rewards from Stretch Goals, this will later be available in PDF and PoD formats on DTRPG. Cursed Necropolis DC is being finished up by the writers.

– Exalted 3rd Edition: While John hunkers down to rewrite the Charms chapter he is also changing some of the ways he’s been doing these to enable more to get finished, the rest of the team is working on a couple of EX3 chapters that continue to be finalized for Editing: Resistance is down and the Devs are ready to do some playtests with some groups they have gotten to know these past couple of years. And then after that fine-tuning they’d like to go with a wider group of external playtesters. Both EX3 novels as well as Zub’s EX3 Comic are in progress, Zub’s script is done and cover elements are up for review, and the EX3 Music Suites are being scoped out- the music team is thinking of putting up their own video diaries documenting the creation of the EX3 Suites. Links when I have them.

– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: Trucking to the three different shippers it is going out to backers from with W20. HH2 Fiction Anthology text is in editing-might be done there at the end of the week.

– V20 Anarchs Unbound is in layout and we are still putting the pieces together for its KS, but that’s been delayed until after the Demon KS (see above).

– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: On trucks off to the three different shippers handling getting the books to backers. The Heavy Metal Deluxe W20 prototype was approved and they are slowly assembling and binding the books by hand. Mike Lee is submitting chapters of the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel to Bill for dev review. Bill has the W20 Anthology stories in layout. Jess Hartley has submitted the White Howlers Tribe Book to Stew Wilson for development notes, and the W20 Cookbook is in layout.

– Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil is wrapping up the last sections of the book. Reviewing full pages in b&w first from Mike Kaluta. Check out our continuing M20 art blog by Mirthful Mike Chaney: http://theonyxpath.com/mirthful-mikes-art-blog-mage-20th-anniversary-preview-3/

– W20 Changing Breeds Backer PDF changes being input this week as Stew compiled them and annotated the PDF over the weekend. Go, Stew! The Changing Breeds Fiction Anthology is being contracted by developer Jess Hartley.

– W20 Rage Across the World: In layout. The PDF will go to Deluxe W20 backers first as an appreciative gift for their patience, and then up on DTRPG.

– Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) the PDF is live on DTRPG. The PoD proofs are still on their way to me…maybe this week.

– Conventionbook: Void Engineers (cMtA) has been revised based on the fan submitted errata. In approval for PoD version.

– W20 Book of the Wyrm is being art directed and is layout. Three names: Spencer, Ellis, Rebner.

– V20 Rites of the Blood: is in editing, art finals rolling in.

– Under the Darkening Sky (classic Dark Ages): In editing. Art coming in.

– Trinity Continuum: We now have a whopping big Aeon outline and a Trinity Continuum Core Book outline and writers are writing. Systems discussions with the Scion devs have been loud and impassioned. There is now a spirit of cooperation and common ground moving towards system ideas being hammered out. John Snead, Aeon developer and writer has already started sending material to Ian for review.

– Scion: Coming back around on the system discussions this week.

– Demon: The Descent: Submitted to CCP for approval as well as getting the files to an indexing expert. Demon Quickstart PDF is free on DTRPG and the PoD version is Now LIVE. The Demon: the Descent Kickstarter campaign has done great! (See above)!

– Hunter: Mortal Remains: Two chapters are in editing already and we have a new title.

– Book of the Deceived (MtC): First drafts are coming in to CAS, who is red-lining away. Red-lining is the stage where the developer makes notes in the writer’s text for changes (called red lining because a red pen was used originally to mark up the paper manuscripts).

– nWoD: Dark Eras: Writers are writing.

– V20 Dark Ages: Scribes are scribing. Check out the discussion on the WW Forums and these very blogs. Talking to a pretty famous artist about this project- only talking yet, though.

– DtD Players Guide: Flowers Of Hell?: Being written in a stretch limo as it slowly prowls the streets of Moscow.

– V20: Ghouls: Mind map created at LA by Night being transformed into a full-fledged project outline.

Reason to Drink: Another fully funded Kickstarter project with Demon: The Descent!