The Return From Nashville (By Night)

Monday Meeting

The three of us representing Onyx Path, Eddy, Matt McElroy, and myself, all got in yesterday night, so we had a chance to give the rest of the Onyx team our impressions at the meeting today. The biggest thing for us at any of the “By Night” conventions is being able to talk with a group of World of Darkness fans who are there for the Live Action events and community and who aren’t really informed about Onyx‘s projects. We’re representing for the tabletop part of WoD, and there to rightfully demonstrate how the White Wolf legacy is being continued alongside our blood cousins at By Night Studios.

And speaking of BNS, another huge positive is the chance to have face to face time with their talented folks. By Night’s work process of essentially keeping a very tight team focused on one book at a time with laser focused communication with a very specific part of the World of Darkness fan-base is a perfect (and really excellent) example of the “creative teams” I talk about Onyx having for each of our projects/game lines. Which is not to say that anything we at Onyx Path are doing or have done is connected with the way BNS does their projects, just that they are a very effective creative team and we like them a lot. In a lot of ways I’m envious of their focus on one major project at a time, although Onyx‘s strategy of reinvigorating all of the WW tabletop lines together was truly the only way to make sure that our much more scattered tabletop fan-base all got the message that we were bringing their favorite games back. As it is, even with us rolling out 20th Anniversary cWoD lines, putting out 2nd Editions of nWoD, and the 3rd Edition of Exalted, I still get questions as to why we hate whatever game line is not mentioned in the brochure or in the weekly updates.

Nashville By Night was also great for checking in with our Wrecking Crew tabletop demo team friends led by Dave Martin, who is just a legend. While those of us from Onyx Path are doing panels and talking with folks, the Wrecking Crew are playing tabletop Onyx Path games with fans from 9 or 10 in the morning until after midnight every day. They are tireless in their devotion to getting folks playing, and a lot of fun at the table. This year, I was determined to sit in on a game, and did so in what started out as a Vampire: The Requiem game where we were trapped into entering Arcadia and were enslaved by Wm. Shakespeare and forced to perform Romeo and Juliet for eternity. Or until we figured out how to lead the actors in a prison break and get back through the Hedge. Where we discovered that our sojourn had transformed us into Changelings based on our actions in “Verona”. This is the sort of thing that is just right for a convention game – maybe less fun if you had spent months of play creating your vampire. But I had a blast, as it seemed did the players around the table. Which is the most important thing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Onyx Path teams were doing this:

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)

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

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

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

Idigam Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Werewolf: the Forsaken)

Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening)

Fallen World Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Mage: the Awakening)

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

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

Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)

Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)

Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

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

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

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

Redlines blog

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

Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)

Exalted 3rd Fiction Anthology (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

Development

Exalted 3rd Edition core book- the whole damn book is in editing or back from editing, with the exception of one piece of fiction that just wasn’t doing what we wanted, so we re-commissioned it. (Exalted 3rd Edition)

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

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

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

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

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

Editing

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

Development (post-editing)

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

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE