Onyx Path’s 2014 Top 10 List (Part 2) [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting, News

To continue from last week, here are the final five items on our Onyx Path 2014 Top Ten List:

5) Work started on Pugmire and got revved up on Cavaliers of Mars. This is both exciting and very necessary, as Onyx Path was created with the idea that we would push in three waves: revitalize the White Wolf games via our license from CCP, re-imagine the Scion, Trinity Continuum, and Scarred Lands games that we own the rights to, and partner up with creators to publish their ideas. Up until this year, almost all of our efforts went towards the first two waves, with Rose trying to find the time to work on Cavaliers of Mars. Traction is now happening on the third wave and that means fun new game worlds for you folks, new kinds of creative decisions to be made for us, and an overall expansion of what Onyx Path is considered capable of in the RPG marketplace. Very good things, and to touch briefly on a concern I heard on the infrawebs: every time I’ve been involved in creating something new it has paid off big time in my thinking towards ongoing projects. Creativity is not a bucket with a finite amount you can use up. In fact, the more you take from that well, the more you have still to draw. These sorts of new projects refresh our thinking on what we can do with game lines we’ve worked on for, ahem, over 20 years.

4) We personally shipped out the W20 Heavy Metal Editions and received a Gutenberg Award for them. Both of these things were both personally and professionally satisfying, as I had wanted to create a book with a slashed through metal cover since Werewolf: the Apocalypse 1st Edition, and wanted to prove that our books could be shipped out well and with due speediness. Huge kudos to our printer in Canada and especially our reps there, Mike “IKFAS” McClaren and Stewart “Master” Sargent, who both helped me figure out how to manufacture the crazy thing the way I envisioned it, and also walked it through all the processes necessary make it- and then received a printing industry award for their efforts. And since White Wolf and I have won a fair number of these Gutenberg printing awards in the past, it was kind of an affirmation that Onyx Path was going to be all about continuing to break into new processes in order to make cool, beautiful books, too. As for shipping them out, well I guess I had something to prove after the debacle that happened with the European shipping of the regular Deluxe W20s, and with just myself and our new Office Manager, Logical LisaT, discovering the hell that is shipping, we made it happen with a satisfying amount of organization and follow-up.

3) Gen Con 2014. First year we had our own booth and all the logistics, shipping, and organizational nightmares that go with it. We actually started in January 2014 strategizing, and it really was a team effort of the whole Onyx Path crew, culminating in that first moment the doors opened and folks started coming over to talk about their characters. We had more demo games, thanks to the legendary Dave Martin and his Wrecking Crew, than we’ve had in years, and our panels were packed. It was rare that the booth was not packed as well, as our community found us and stopped by to chat. Which was our main purpose for the booth this year: a place we could all get together, the booth staff, Onyx freelancers, and our fan community, and just talk. If some sales happened, and they did, that was icing on the cake!

2) We got our Kickstarters working. Since we started doing Kickstarter campaigns for our traditionally printed deluxe or prestige books in 2012, they’ve been verrry, verry good to us. But there were a lot of learning curves. We went through four fulfillment shippers that ran the gamut of awesome to tragic until we found our current (Demon and Anarchs Unbound) crew this year, and they’ve been great. I’ve broken free of the probably foolishly self-imposed restraints on our Kickstarter estimated delivery dates, and just pushed those dates out past anything I hope we can hit, and backers have been a lot less anguished. The Prestige Edition Demon: the Descent might be the most amazingly beautiful cover for an amazing book, and the Kickstarter campaign was phenomenally fun as well. Certainly, the way we were able to deliver reward after reward was one of our best series of KS projects ever. The Deluxe V20 Anarchs Unbound not only looks fantastic because Mirthful Mike and I took the time to get just the right feeling we wanted with the cover, but it also released within the delivery estimates! I promised you all that we’d learn from each KS, and we certainly have.

1) We expanded our community outreach. This would be my personal #1, which is why I put it here even though the other numbers are a bit amorphous, because it means that there are more of you reading this every week. And more of you liking us on Facebook. And more Followers on Twitter. Well, you get the point. Our Onyx Path developers went nuts this year embracing the Open Dev Process with sooo many blogs. It’s great: we get immediate critical feedback, and those of you who post get to make a difference in the thinking that goes into one of our projects (and those of you who read but don’t post get a sneak preview, which is cool too). We expanded our Print on Demand physical book offerings and included the Beta Retailer Program to give stores a discount and a chance to get our PoD books. The market has changed in the 20+ years I’ve been involved, but we still want to get our books into your Friendly Local Game Stores. More demos at cons, as mentioned above, and more cons we attended last year. And one of my favorite things, that you might have used to get this very blog, is our Onyx Path Mailing List. Wow, has that been great to directly deliver to subscribers our Monday Meeting blog, Wednesday sales info, and Friday Open Dev Roundup, not to mention Kickstarter news and extra special sales coupons and discounts! We have just had such a great reaction from our community- thanks to all of you! And really, my point here, is thanks to all of you for a year in which we could proudly point to ten top things. We just could not have done that without you!

So that’s the year that was. Coming up in January, I’ll let you know what we’re looking forward to 2015.

Speaking of which: we have a new sale starting at DTRPG on January 5th and running to the 12th. It’s their New Year, New Game sale, and we’ll be contributing Scion: Hero, Scion Companion, and the Seeds of Tomorrow adventure to their $15 PDF Starter Bundle. Everything you need to get started with Scion, so you can get a taste of the game inexpensively before we deliver the 2nd Edition next year.

Finally, as we are mid-way through the holidays, we are also down to one week for the Deluxe Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter. It is going great, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, please do! It’s not easy being dead, especially in Wraith, and they need all the support you can give.

Talk to you all next year!

(Love saying that every year, it never gets old).

And now the last Updates of 2014…

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

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

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

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

Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)

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

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

M20 Anthology (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary 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)

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

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

Second Draft

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)

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

Editing

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

Sothis Ascends (Mummy: the Curse)

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

Development (post-editing)

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

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

Exalted 3rd Edition core book- From Holden: “Sorry about huge delay in sending this in– needed to do a final once-over of all the parts I’m sending because I don’t want to mess with them again unless it’s making cuts for space, and today is the first time I’ve been out of bed since last Sunday night. Winter flu kicked in with a vengeance this year. Rest to follow very shortly, along with any outstanding art feedback.” (Exalted 3rd Edition)

this year. Rest to follow very shortly, along with any outstanding art feedback.” (Exalted 3rd Edition) Fallen World Chronicle Fiction Anthology (Mage: the Awakening)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE