A Beastly Process [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting

See that guy up there in the Beast: the Primordial art? I know how he feels.

Freeeeee….fallin’…

See, we have a process for making RPG books. If you look below, you can see the stages with one exception, which is the prep work a developer does for their project. That work ends up as an outline (and sometimes a project “bible”) that gets handed to the writers so they can start their first drafts. Usually this process goes from stage to stage in a sequence that we have honed all through the WW years until these Onyx Path years. It is flexible enough to give in places where the creators need a bit more time, for example.

But sometimes a project gets away from the original intentions of the developer and myself. There can be any number of reasons, but a lot of times it happens because the developer and writers and I are too immersed in the creation, neck deep in the thing. Maybe we are hung up on the details while missing the big picture, the overall tone. Maybe we are obsessed with the big picture, and miss places where the game fails in the details.

This is one of the advantages to using the Open Development Process, as well as sending out Backer PDFs and Advance PDFs, as these things help us with making sure the details line up with our intended big picture.

But, as we talked about in our Monday Meeting today, sometimes, rarely, a project does fail to deliver our intended feeling and gameplay. The comments we received on the Beast draft posted with the Deluxe Beast: the Primordial Kickstarter made us realize that this was one of those cases. The text was evocative, but didn’t hang together to describe Beast as we intended.

So we decided to revise the material with an eye towards clarifying our message.

This, to us, is the most important part of what we are doing with Beast. We are using the structure of the process to jump back into the text before it goes any further, like into layout, and before the Kickstarter runs out of time.

We’re not doing this because people had complaints. We’ve had books folks hated parts of before. All of our game lines have folks who enjoy them and folks who can’t stand them. We’re not doing this because we want more Kickstarter money. We funded the Prestige Edition which was the goal.

We’re doing the revision because the book didn’t come across the way we wanted it to. This, to us, is a question of our efforts not combining to present the game we envisioned. And that doesn’t hit the bar we set for ourselves as creators.

Now with the revisions getting started, there are concerns being raised by those folks who liked the first text.

Well, first we’re going to be sure the revised text reads the way we intended originally, and then we’ll see if there are some blending of the versions in very specific areas. The important thing, for us, is to have the revision be our baseline. The thing we meant to do. Then, it’s OK for Matt to work in other ideas or sections of the first text that actually work to enrich our original ideas.

And then we can rejoin the process where we left it. And stop this…

Free…fallin’…

Fast Eddy Webb was not around today, as he was moving to a new house. Yay, Eddy! Without him, we were of course, sad, but we soldiered on and talked process (see above), and some Gen Con stuff. Here are two items: signings at the booth and T-shirt discounts.

For signings, here are the current scheduled signing times and who’ll be there:

Thursday, 2-3pm : Rose Bailey

Rose Bailey Friday, 5-6pm : Matt McFarland and Eddy Webb

Matt McFarland and Eddy Webb Saturday, 1-2pm : Neall Price and Dave Brookshaw

Neall Price and Dave Brookshaw Sunday, 1-2pm : Potluck! Whatever developers are around!

You can, of course, just pop by anytime and chat and get books or whatever signed by whomever of our gang is hanging around the booth, and Mirthful Mike Chaney, Impish Ian Watson and Rollickin’ Rose Bailey will be at the booth most times during the con. (I’ll be in and out, but glad to sign stuff whenever I’m there).

We’ll also be doing a discount on the products at the booth for anyone who is there in a White Wolf or Onyx Path T-shirt. So pop in and pick up a few books you’re missing and show off your keen sense of style.

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And now, the BLURBS!

Fear the dark places: the Beast: the Primordial Kickstarter is headed for the first Stretch Goal towards the creation of a Beast Fiction Anthology – which seems like just the sort of project that will shed some light on the dark places and give folks better understanding of what Beasts are. And why. Many more Stretch Goals to hit as we ooze and scramble through the next two weeks. The original complete text is up there on the KS site, and will be updated for any revisions we might make to the document.

Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition KS backers: M20 PDFs went out to backers, and the response has been amazing! Thanks to all of you for your support and accolades. The Errata Phase is now over – thanks for all your help!

The second Pugmire poster, Princess Yosha Pug, is now available along with the first of the six Pugmire posters on DTRPG.com. Start spreading the Code of Man: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148516/Sister-Picassa-Collie-Pugmire-Poster-1

The Art of Changing Breeds for Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition is on sale in both PDF and physical book PoD versions! Check it out and see how the art for the Fera was commissioned and created.

Waiting on PoD proofs of Dread Names, Red List for V20, so it might not hit DTRPG in time to go on sale Wednesday, but keep an eye open for this collection of the most dangerous Kindred ever called Anathema.

Convention News: Our friends at Gamerati are running a Game Day on July 25th, the Saturday before Gen Con, in Eau Claire, WI. I’m told there is one nWoD session scheduled already, but they would love it if anybody in our community wants to run other WW or Onyx Path games. So check it out if you want to doing some playing and give them a yell if you want to do some Storytelling: http://gamerati.com/gamedays/

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And now, new project status updates!: