A Laborious Day of Laboring

Monday Meeting

That’s right, we’re working today while most of the USA has off. So you know, we have had a sequence of meetings on Monday for the past couple of years; almost as long as Onyx Path has been around. We start with the traditional Monday lunch meeting that in one form or another I’ve been doing since coming to WW in ’92, but in this case Eddy and I have been having a Monday lunch meeting for quite a while. Then I added a meeting with our Onyx Path gang, after we actually got…an Onyx Path gang. Mirthful Mike, Rollickin’ Rose, Ian “Dr.” Watson, Lovely Lisa, a couple of folks who join in once in a while, and now Eddy is sitting in too. Pretty full attendance on a national holiday, so you know our merry band both love what they do, and are workaholics!

In our earlier meeting, Eddy and I talked about the difficult struggle our classic World of Darkness developers and writers have when looking to update a classic Tribe, or Clan, or what have you, from what might be a questionable depiction in the earlier books without stripping away the part of that group that people really relate to and have enjoyed for years. Eddy’s recent posts on the independent clans demonstrate that the initial writing still requires a lot of fan feedback and the writing team working to find the core cool elements that make sense even if there are other aspects that no longer do. See what I mean here: http://theonyxpath.com/category/projects/vtm20/

We also talked a bit about DragonCon, which took place in Atlanta this weekend, and which was once sort of White Wolf‘s “home con”. A bunch of our friends were there, a bunch were at PAX out on the West Coast, and so we’ve seen a lot of things posted about all the fun they are having and the cool stuff that’s going on. For us, we agreed, we’re still recovering our equilibrium from Gen Con, so not hitting a con this weekend made more sense. And for those of you who missed Gen Con, both the Onyx Path 2014-2015 brochure and the Scarred Lands adventure “Gauntlet of Spiragos” that we sneak-peeked at Gen Con are still free on DTRPG, and we are working to get the V20, Scion, and Trinity posters up there too, as well as the Onyx Path t-shirt up on our Redbubble store.

Speaking of the brochure, and just for fun, I thought I’d explain a few of our thoughts on some of the listed highlights of this coming year and why we picked them:

The 20th Anniversary celebration editions: Mage20 is already a thing that we’re in editing on and the art is almost all in. The KS was fantastic and gave us lots of books to work on in the year ahead. Will Wraith20 be a crazy thing too? It was never as popular, after all, and never got a Revised edition. Interestingly enough, I think it might actually be something many folks in our community have only heard of and are curious about, and Rich Dansky is really in effect creating a 3rd edition. And the community that love Wraith, reaaaallly love Wraith. So, it’s a bit of a gamble, but with Rich at the helm, I think it will be worth the trip. And as that starts being written, we step forward just past the brochure and add Changeling the Dreaming 20th to next Fall. Wr20 and C20 are two very different game lines, but share the need for a 3rd edition, so we’re looking at how Rich handles things with Wr20. No definite developer or group of devs yet,but I have had a passel of folks express interest. It should be no surprise, but these x20 Editions are key to our efforts to bring the classic World of Darkness back to our longest running group of fans.

Exalted Third Edition: Is this going to be the year we get the line started? God, I hope so. We’re so close on getting all the text to editing, and the devs are already working on the next books and have set the stage for more, handled with more speed because so much of the groundwork was lain with the main book. So our roll-out of books in the brochure follows our expected release order as we’ve been talking about for over a year now. EX3 is the start of what we intend to be the rejuvenation of the final third section of the WW game lines.

New World of Darkness 2nd Editions: For the books currently being worked on and the Promethean and Changeling the Lost second editions, not much is different with our thinking than if they had just been the listed Chronicle books. The success of Blood & Smoke: the Strix Chronicle already indicated the direction we would go in making them single volume books that were essentially 2nd Editions, but not in name. And now in name as well. Doing two second editions a year is a big deal, but I truly think it is so important to revise these game lines in view of years of play and lessons learned, as well as to include the default Chronicles so folks new to the lines can get started right in and learn as they play.

Beast: The Primordial: While 2014 was slated for a multi-line book for new World of Darkness with the Dark Eras project, we needed a new new game line for 2015 to keep us fresh. We felt like we’d gone as far in a “sci-fi” direction with Demon: The Descent as we could comfortably go without losing the focus of what nWoD is thematically, despite some cool ideas that were pitched, but too far into the fantastic would put us into the same loss of tone situation. The remaining “classic” monsters were also getting a bit thin, with Creature of the Black Lagoon or Mr Hyde or Invisible Man ideas floating around, but not sticking. Beast’s pitch brings a lot of those ideas together, and looks at the dark underpinnings of those stories and says: “Play that!”

Classic World of Darkness books: Werewolf20 has been doing well, and so we looked at a book that reimagines a WtA classic with W20 Umbra; a book that would appeal to both Werewolf fans as well as our surprisingly numerous Changing Breeds fans by detailing several wars between them in W20 Shattered Dreams; and then tighten the focus on a book that would enrich all werewolf players with W20 Changing Ways. Mage20 is still running on the strength of the Kickstarter rewards, but we still wanted to surprise fans with M20 Victorian Mage, since that wasn’t part of the Kickstarter. Sometimes, you need a fun surprise to shake up expectations. Finally, but by no means the least, I wanted to get some strong and interesting books out for Vampire20. I feel like we had a weaker start to the V20 line because so many of those books had been planned out and approved before we even split from CCP. With V20 Ghouls and V20 Lore of the Clans, we have the chance to really expand on the material we first presented in V20, but with fewer constraints stemming from it being our first x20 book. With V20 The Black Hand, we are kind of taking a risk, but we think a good one, because while Dirty Secrets was a polarizing book back in the WW days, it had some fantastic elements that helped define the Vampire experience. And then with V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary, we have a chance to really dive deep into the events both from Masquerade and into the whole V20 time period. Still not strictly a “metaplot” book, but one that could be used that way, and just dripping with story ideas for any Chronicle.

New World of Darkness books: You’d think that just doing Beast, and revving up the 2nd Editions would be enough, but our ongoing nWoD gamelines still require a few books a year or folks worry. Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition gets a book on Elders with A Thousand Years of Night, and a book on the Half Damned to kind of extend the edges of our current vampire experience, and we slide in Hurt Locker to deepen the combat options presented in World of Darkness 2nd Edition (GMC). We’re looking very hard at just what should come next after a new edition, which wasn’t how the nWoD schedule was expected to roll out as we wrote up the brochure, so we may still tweak the releases to further support the needs of 2nd Editions.

Scion and Trinity: We were only able to get some teaser ads into the brochure, because of the difficulties pinning down the new dice pool system for these two gamelines. Yet they are very important to us as Onyx Path‘s wholly owned worlds. The things we could do with them is something that gets our crew giggling, so once we get past settling on the system, we’ll be playing around a lot with them.

Scarred Lands: Another awesome classic WW setting, that we are working with Nocturnal Media on. Because this is a d20 fantasy setting at heart, there are so many places we can take this game-design, system, and audience-wise that we can’t do with the CCP-licensed WW settings.

Pugmire and Cavaliers of Mars: Being able to explore totally new games is something we really want to do, but the demands of cWod, nWoD and Ex3, are vast and all-consuming. Yet progress continues on these very different projects, which like Scarred Lands, we hope will be interesting to very different folks than who traditionally followed WW, but which will also be tried out by our long-time audience as well.

Hey – look up there on the right! Yes, we have a mailing list for Onyx Path News and Announcements! We will email you this blog every week, plus alerts for upcoming and running Kickstarters, PDF and PoD releases, and other news and announcements. Sign up and start getting those little email gifts of knowledge and love!

And finally, hey – look down here below these very words! The Updates:

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

PtC Firestorm Chronicle

BtP Beast Core

WtA BotW Employee Indoctrination Handbook

WtF Idigam Anthology

MtAw 2e

MtAw Fallen World Anthology

MtAs How do you DO that?

MtAs Book of Secrets

MtC Rio

VtR Secrets of the Covenants

Wraith20

Redlines

VtM Lore of the Clans

MtC Sothis Ascends

VtM Red List

Second Draft

PtC Firestorm Anthology

WtA Book of the Wyrm Stretch Goals for Added Content In the Book

V20 Ghouls

WtF 2e

Development

WoD Dark Eras Vampire

Ex3 core- Antagonists chapter has been finalized. Compiling the second half of art notes, and doing what should be the final edits to the Charms chapter based on internal playtesting.

Editing

MtC Book of the Deceived

M20 Core

WoD Dark Eras

W20 White Howlers (except for comic)

Development (post-editing)

Dark Ages

WtA Umbra

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE

White Howlers – Need to ping Bridges again to see how the comic is coming along.

– Need to ping Bridges again to see how the comic is coming along. Book of the Deceived – Sam’s fulls are in and approved. I have the art notes and art buy worked out, just need to find the right artists for it.

– Sam’s fulls are in and approved. I have the art notes and art buy worked out, just need to find the right artists for it. DtD Seattle – Errata from Dev?

– Errata from Dev? DtD Demonseed collection – Interior done, just needs cover and logo and then proofing.

– Interior done, just needs cover and logo and then proofing. DtD Interface – Errata from Dev?

– Errata from Dev? Book of the Wyrm 20 – Cathy’s portraits are in and approved. Stew is preparing the new text docs. He has a ton of edits, so he’s supplying new layout docs. Need to talk to Acevedo about the corporate stock art stuff for the strip down the side of the cover.

– Cathy’s portraits are in and approved. Stew is preparing the new text docs. He has a ton of edits, so he’s supplying new layout docs. Need to talk to Acevedo about the corporate stock art stuff for the strip down the side of the cover. DAV20 – Art Directed. Now we wait until a month from now for art to start rolling in. In the mean time, I’m going to be starting on page designs. Have a really cool idea in mind for the cover. It is really, really, really cool. Starting Kickstarter page and video.

– Art Directed. Now we wait until a month from now for art to start rolling in. In the mean time, I’m going to be starting on page designs. Have a really cool idea in mind for the cover. It is really, really, really cool. Starting Kickstarter page and video. Anarchs Unbound – Still tweaking cover but otherwise at press. Rethinking some of the cover stickers regarding their size. Screen is ready to go whenever.

– Still tweaking cover but otherwise at press. Rethinking some of the cover stickers regarding their size. Screen is ready to go whenever. T-Shirts – Going to resend around the fera, lost tribes, and wyrm thing shirts. If we can get those okayed, we can get those up before the end of the month.

– Going to resend around the fera, lost tribes, and wyrm thing shirts. If we can get those okayed, we can get those up before the end of the month. Umbra – AD’d. Sending fulls to Borja. I think this type of thing would suit his style. Sketches rolling in slowly.

– AD’d. Sending fulls to Borja. I think this type of thing would suit his style. Sketches rolling in slowly. Art O’ The Changin’ Breeds – Planning to start on this and get it rolling. I have some really cool ideas on simplifying the process and making something a little more deluxerish. Yes, that’s a word now.

– Planning to start on this and get it rolling. I have some really cool ideas on simplifying the process and making something a little more deluxerish. Yes, that’s a word now. VTR II – Prepping a pdf so Rose can find all the references to the B&S title and swap it out for the new title.

– Prepping a pdf so Rose can find all the references to the B&S title and swap it out for the new title. EX3- Not Mike, but the first 91 pieces are reviewed, reference material is getting assembled, and we’re looking at how many Mel Uran might want to do.

REASON TO DRINK: I labored, I drank.