Darkness, Now with More Eras [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting

Well, here I am writing in another snow mini-event. Seems like a pattern is emerging. I’m on to you, Jack Frost!

Usually, I title these Monday Meeting Notes with a wee bit of wordplay and a heapin’ helpin’ of stupid punnery. But today, it’s actually pretty accurate. We started the nWoD Dark Eras Prestige Edition Kickstarter last Thursday, and last Friday we were funded (thanks, backers!). Which means that there is a chapter containing an historical time period for each of our nWoD gamelines in the basic book.

The “basic book”, you say? Yep, because now that we’re funded we’ve started asking folks to vote on which Dark Era we should add to the book next after passing the next Stretch Goal amount. We already passed a Stretch Goal where an Era for Changeling: the Lost in Germany during the time of the Brothers Grimm was added. And right now we’re looking at either a chapter of Neolithic Mage, Wild West Geist, or Werewolf Vikings to be added next. Because these are Stretch Goal extras, they are all added value to the beautiful book itself. (The proposed cover design is my picture this week). Having backers be part of choosing the next Dark Eras was our plan all along for this Kickstarter campaign, and we hope you can check it out and join in on deciding what goes into this book.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/world-of-darkness-dark-eras-prestige-edition

If you want to talk to us about Dark Eras, we’re going to be holding a Twitter Chat session with the Dark Eras developers and writers (well, as many of them who can) on Weds, February 4th starting at 8pm EST US and running at least an hour, maybe more if we’re getting the questions to keep going. You can either follow the #DarkEras hashtag or stay up to date through the Onyx Path Twitter account at @theonyxpath. Go ahead and ask us anything about the book! And if you can’t make it, please go ahead and write up your questions in the comments here and we’ll get them added to the mix during the chat.

Monday meeting was mostly about more ways to spread the word about this Kickstarter, like interviews and reviews and such, and our usual look at the lists you see below every week. Eddy talked a bit about his Pugmire playtest group and how he is organizing that, and a bit about job interviews and how they can really vary from company to company. Having done my fair share of interviewing as interviewer during both my WW and CCP days, I’m always interested in how this is done. Was it a Human Resources person, and/or a manager? Did you sit with the different teams you would be working with? Did they use the Interview Questions playbook and metrics, or was it a free-for-all and gut-level? Was there a written test? After the interview, did they take you out to a meal, to a bar? Idle curiosity really, but I do find it indicative of a company ethos in how they look for new employees.

And here are our current gang of projects, although a fair number of our writers are pretty new:

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)

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

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

Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent) Extension to writers was given.

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)

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

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)

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

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

“Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)

Second Draft

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

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

Development

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

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

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

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

Editing

Development (post-editing)

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

Exalted 3rd Fiction Anthology (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE