The Whatchamacallit with the Blurbs and Blasts. [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting

That’s Mr. Rich “Deadguy” Dansky modelling his long out of print Wraith T-Shirt. You can see how giddy he is that the Deluxe Wraith Twentieth Anniversary Edition was funded last week in 69 minutes and we are over 300% funded right now and non-corporeally drifting past its Stretch Goals. So that’s really good news. To be frank, we really didn’t know how the Deluxe Wraith 20 KS was going to go over; Wraith has very dedicated fans but it was always the smallest community for any of the original Big Five cWoD games. Both Onyx Path and RichD are so very gratified that so many folks came out and pledged so quickly (you can see it in his jubilant expression). That’s why we chose to plan to limit the initial size and content of Wraith 20 and then be loose enough to add lots more material if the KS took off, but if the KS failed we’d still be able to publish a more constrained PDF/PoD edition. With this kind of response, there’s a lot more we’ll be adding to the book! There’s almost a month left, so check it out if you haven’t already, and tell your friends.

This week’s title was something I said to Impish Ian Watson in regards to our Onyx Path Mailing List. The Impish One is very precise in his speech, and therefore mocked my fumbling around for the right terminology. But in the same way as when I started Onyx, or how we dove headfirst into our first Kickstarter, I’d rather get the idea across at once than lose my point finding just the right words. Of course, art director Mirthful Mike Chaney then revealed that he has a “flamdangle” and he doesn’t even know what it does, although one might find it at the local T.G.I. Flamdangle’s.

Good talk today with Eager Eddy Webb about his progress writing Pugmire. An odd tangent to the conversation, though, and pretty unfortunate, was Eddy mentioning some of the, well, nasty responses he got over on Reddit to his thoughts about the game. Apparently, some folks over there think that they should be deciding how Eddy spends his time as a freelance creator and they are irate that he is wasting it working on Pugmire instead of a real game like V20. So, lots of stuff wrong with that thinking, but the one simple fact is that Eddy doesn’t get to add projects to the V20 schedule willy-nilly just because he is a developer- there are a finite set of projects he can, and does, work on. As a freelancer, he’d better damn well have a bunch of different kinds of projects he is working on, that’s just good freelancer sense. The other comment I really laughed at was that the only reason Eddy and I were working on Pugmire is because he and I are friends. Well, DUH! One of my goals in creating Onyx Path was that I would decide who I worked with, and yes, I’d rather work with the people I like. That I tend to like creative, interesting, smart, nerdy folks just means I’m more likely to like folks who can create cool worlds and games. Works out well.

Thanks to everyone who excitedly wrote me about the extra copies of Deluxe W20 and Deluxe Changing Breeds and their respective Screens, the first packages went out today. If you didn’t hear from us yet, we’ll get to you even if we have to tell you we’re out of something you wanted. Just one other note, I know a few of you had to back out when you saw the prices, so just to be clear: this isn’t a discount sale. These are some extras I was able to offer folks because so many asked and they are priced as if they were real books in the same way we would any other non-Kickstarted book. That’s one of the reasons getting them during KSs is such a good deal. But, and this is big, they are still nowhere near as costly as the minimum of $300 I’ve seen for Deluxes on EBay.

Finally, our Onyx Path team meeting was mostly spent reviewing the progress we made last week going through the book pitches from developers and writers. Lots of cool ideas there, some of which I’ll share another time once we lock in our plans. Along those lines, I’d love to hear from you in the comments here as to what kind of projects you’d like us to do, so long as you understand I have to tell you that any ideas posted here become the property of Onyx Path. This is for our protection in case we publish a project near to your idea and someone decides we ripped them off and sues. Can’t have that, and sorry I even need to put that there when we’d all rather just have fun talking about our ideas. Realities of publishing, though.

Somewhat less real, but getting realer all the time, our current projects:

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (Projects in bold have changed listings)

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

Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of Secrets (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)

Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition) – In Open Development

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)

Redlines

Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development

W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Second Draft

Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) – Playtesting

Exalted 3rd Fiction Anthology (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

World of Darkness Dark Eras- Vampire chapter (WoD Dark Eras)

Fallen World Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Mage: the Awakening)

M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Editing

Firestorm Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition)

V20 Lore of the Clans (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)

Development (post-editing)

World of Darkness Dark Eras core book (WoD Dark Eras)

Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition core book (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd Edition, featuring the Idigam Chronicle (Werewolf: the Forsaken)

Exalted 3rd Edition core book– From Holden: “Lea finished. The book is out of editing and back in my hands. I’m going through, reviewing Lea’s edits and implementing them into the master draft. This process is finished for the Introduction and Chapter One, am on Chapter Two right now. Holy shit. Three years. This beast is finally about to be out of our hands at last.” (Exalted 3rd Edition)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE