PAX Onyxpathica [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting, News

I could certainly use some pax right now. Lots of stuff going on and ugh… still feeling kind of yucky, but trying to force whatever this is to get it over with by PAX Unplugged starting this Wednesday (for us). Lots of vitamins and NyQuil! Whoooo!

But even if I’m a walking mess at the con, we’re going to have a great crew there in Booth #650, and doing demos. If you are going, here’s a map for our booth:

And it’s possibly the fever, but watching James Bell do most of the heavy lifting and pulling things together for the Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter has been kind of strange. Very, very glad to both have someone to take all that over from me and to have him doing it so well and adding some cool elements I never thought of to the mix. But odd to see someone else do what I’ve done for, what?, five years now?

I’m like a ghost over here watching it come together. Whoooooo, James, whoooooo!

Very much looking forward to all your reactions tomorrow at 12 noon EST, Tuesday the 14th, when this Changeling: The Lost 2nd Kickstarter goes live! Here’s a clue: for every thing, there is a ______.

Hey! If you are playing “Santa Paws” this year, may we suggest you pick up some copies of Pugmire for your pack of kiddies? Ask your Friendly Local Game Store to order it now so you get it by the holidays, or go direct and order from Studio2 or Indy Press Revolution (contact info below in the BLURBS! section).

It’s the perfect game to get your family and friends involved in our wacky hobby!

So this is the long form essay. Feel free to hit THE BLURBS! section below!

A few weeks ago, or a few months – the NyQuil, y’know – I posted about our developer focused creative teams and how we are both driven by the teams and have been evolving how those work. Developers are the project leads and for many years we followed the WW-style of having developers that were responsible for the entire game line. They would be “show runners” or “head writers” in other creative industries. Today, I’d like to go back through the dim mists of time to when I first started Onyx Path, and kind of show how our present system got to where we are.

We really have to go back in time a bit further, to the scary and shadowy CCP days. (Don’t worry, they are just memories now, and can’t hurt you).

There were only a few of us still working on tabletop RPGs, and I was more of a cheerleader and advocate than actively working on products, and our freelance pool of developers and writers had shrunk dramatically as the release schedule was reduced to a trickle compared to the three products a week pace of years gone past. Then came our work on what was supposed to be a one-off anniversary RPG book: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition.

Eddy Webb and I had convinced the bosses to let us run a “Transmedia” department for CCP based on the success of V20, and we actually had a tabletop RPG release schedule and everything, as well as some projects we were working on for the EVE teams. Because of how we were budgeted, we were actually the only part of the US office making money, as everybody else was part of the spending on the late, lamented, WoD MMO.

So naturally, the Transmedia Group became just a happy memory in the midst of mass-layoffs.

But before I jumped ship in the face of those layoffs to start-up Onyx Path, we had begun to work with a variety of freelance writer and developers again. It was these folks I needed to continue working with for the projects now being created by Onyx Path. Some were experienced from the WW days, some had only developed a couple of books. Eddy had to step back because CCP wanted his full attention on the MMO, so we scrambled to cover the projects we thought he’d develop, and Justin Achilli stepped up for our new V20 books.

In addition, because of our long relationships, I was able to bring Ethan Skemp in on W20, Phil Satyr Brucato in on M20, and Rich Dansky in on Wraith20. The classic developers on their classic lines, was my thinking.

Ethan had to duck out though as he landed a new gig in a different computer game company, and Stew Wilson stepped up. He was the first of the new developers who were actually fans of the old developers for WoD. This sort of “second generation” of developers was already a thing with Exalted 3rd, and CofD (or nWoD as it was known then) with Rose Bailey and others developing, and it seemed both natural and cool that we had this sort of legacy of creators working together.

My expectation was that the newbies would learn from the experienced devs the ins and out of our processes, which were almost identical to those used at old WW, which worked well for us to a large extent, but I was wrong. The diffused nature of our virtual office was, and is, such that institutional knowledge doesn’t get passed on at all in the way I was used to from the WW days. Once we realized this, Rose began to help out our devs, and eventually her position was solidified into that of Development Producer – a term we stole from the computer game biz for a person that helps enable creators to succeed with their projects.

With Rose in place to help, we were able to better respond when our “elder” developers began to step back or away for various reasons. New developers were brought in, but now we had the experience and the leeway to select our devs with an idea for how they might be able to fit into the way we do things and who are more in tune with our company ethos. We were also able to draw from a much wider and varied pool than the folks I knew at the beginning of Onyx Path, and that variety of input, backgrounds, and experiences makes for richer projects.

We’re not perfect, and we’ve brought on developers that we needed to stop hiring for projects for a variety of reasons. We do try and offer assistance before that decision to stop working with them is made, but there are just some situations we can’t salvage.

So you see, the entire history of project creation at Onyx Path is one of evolution.

Together with ideas from our developers and writers, we expanded and redefined our developer and writer payment rates and schedules early this year, and are experimenting with “floating” experienced developers who can assist the other devs in a hands-on way. Generally, we’re finding that the lone developer in the ivory tower with their cadre of writers may not be the best set-up for creating tabletop RPGs these days.

For some projects, a vision developer and a production developer may be a valid method of dividing the essential duties, for others perhaps a triad of a spearheading logistics developer and two devs freed up to focus on the writers, or maybe a systems dev and a setting dev, and sometimes having one developer is just the right set-up. We’re now at the point of being able to look at a project and try and provide a creative solution to creating it, rather than being stuck with looking for the one solution from a decade, or more, ago that will work for every problem now.

Ultimately, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky to work with some absolutely amazing folks and we want our internal processes and project set-ups to enable them to shine, so we keep evolving them in ways we hope will make that happen. We’re not at the destination, we’re still on the journey. Still on the path.

Many Worlds. One Path.

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Right now, Tuesday the 14th at noon EST is looking good! If things get weird, we’ll fall back to Thursday the 16th. See you there!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January – since it makes no sense to start a KS mid-December!

ON SALE NOW:

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

This morning there were already multiple tweaks applied in the Update that were brought about by feedback from our community! Thanks, folks!

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on 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). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

(Kindle, Nook) Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

Appearing on Wednesday on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition!

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221160/Pugmire-Card-Set-One-Trick-Condition-and-Initiative-Cards

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/214130/Thousand-Years-of-Night

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up.

Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.

There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210042/The-Huntsmen-Chronicle-Anthology

For over 20 years, the artists of Mage: The Ascension have conjured spirits and constructed hypertech that can transform reality on a whim.

Within this retrospective, those artists and images depict the ever-changing face of magick. From the debut edition to the twenty-first century, this book explores the people behind the pictures, the process of putting such books together, the story behind Mage’s Tarot iconography, and more.

Featuring the artwork of Echo Chernik, Joshua Gabriel Timbrook, Michael Gaydos, Mark Jackson, Leif Jones, Michael Kaluta, Steve Prescott, Alex Sheikman, Christopher Shy…and many, many more.

The Art of Mage: 20 Years and More has manifested on DTRPG in PDF and physical book PoD versions! Here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/220431/M20-The-Art-of-Mage-20-Years-and-More

A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193014/Scarred-Lands-Players-Guide-Pathfinder

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/197803/Scarred-Lands-Players-Guide-OGL-5e

Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between! This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide. Champions of Gods and Titans The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game. Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside! Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more. Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202523/The-Wise–the-Wicked-2nd-Edition-Pathfinder

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/204371/The-Wise–the-Wicked-2nd-Edition-5e-OGL

From out of the Dreaming, the C20 Jumpstart: Yours To Keep PDF and PoD are now live on DTRPG.com: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/217594/Yours-to-Keep-A-Changeling-The-Dreaming-20th-Anniversary-Edition-Jumpstart

There is magic hiding everywhere. You just need to know where to look.

You are a changeling, a faerie soul hiding in a mortal body, fighting the chill of Nightmares and the oppressive weight of Banality with the pure creative power of Glamour. You have lived many lives, but the story of this one? It outshines them all.

In this hidden world, knights in steel and leather clash sword to sword outside the homecoming dance, dragons fly between skyscrapers, and fantastic castles rise from suburban lawns. A world of magic, intrigue, and adventure, and now that your fae side has awakened, it’s your world too.

“Yours to Keep” includes a rules and setting overview, as well as pre-generated characters and a complete introductory scenario for Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition. It’s perfect for jumpstarting a new Changeling chronicle!

CONVENTIONS!

This month, the Onyx Path crew including Rich, Matt, Lisa, Neall, Dixie, and Meghan will be at Booth #650 at the first ever PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, November 17-19. http://unplugged.paxsite.com/

In December, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www. dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show! http:// midwintergamingconvention.com

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

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

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

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

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

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

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

(Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition) Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

WW Manuscript Approval:

Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – Art meeting this Tuesday for sure!



Art meeting this Tuesday for sure! Ex3 Monthly Stuff



Scion Origins



Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2 – Graphics done- KS ready.

Graphics done- KS ready. Trinity Continuum – Splats for core book with Mr Jones, sending multi-cover single piece of artwork to illustrator.

Splats for core book with Mr Jones, sending multi-cover single piece of artwork to illustrator. Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content

Pugmire Artisan Cards

Book of Freeholds

DtD Enemy Action – Going to Josh

Proofing

Wraith 20 – Second layout proof being worked on by designer.

Second layout proof being worked on by designer. Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Second proof.

– Second proof. VtR Half Damned – Second proof.

– Second proof. W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Shipped to shipper. Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – With US customs. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.



– With US customs. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG. Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover proofs.



Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover proofs. V20DA Jumpstart – PoD proofs ordered.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

– Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer. M20 Cookbook – Layout waiting for errata.

Layout waiting for errata. CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology – Layout waiting for errata.

Layout waiting for errata. V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary – Finishing Backer PDF errata gathering.

– Finishing Backer PDF errata gathering. C20 Ready Made Characters – Out to backers.

– Out to backers. Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale Weds on DTRPG.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Over the weekend in the US we had the Veterans’ Day holiday. Thank you all for your service.