It was 4 days ago and I swear it’s been so intense that I honestly thought it was two weeks ago.

So, then, the Monday Meeting Notes will be short, although check out the Updates below as we have some good stuff in there. Eddy and I talked about the, wait for it….Exalted KS. Also, the changing gaming/gamers view of (the) transgendered folks. (I put in the “the” because I kind of recall that there is some sort of issue with not doing so. But my memory is faulty right now and since I don’t wish to offend, I included it.) Which spread to a whole look at how society is rapidly changing, particularly at the age range that folks first get into tabletop gaming, and inevitably we talked about the Holmesian convention Eddy went to a couple of weeks ago. Also we spent a couple of nano-seconds talking about approvals. Boom! On to the Updates.

These here Updates:

-  God-Machine Chronicle (nWoD) the God-Machine Chronicle and the free GMC Rules Update are live on DTRPG and doing really well. Check them out if you’ve missed them so far, by clicking on the links.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is GOING INTO LAYOUT. Woot!

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.

- Mummy the Curse - Sent the KS edition files to the printer with cover corrections. The Screen is at press as well. We have gathered a double handful of online questions for CA Suleiman that he’ll be answering and we’ll post more this week on the Onyx Path site.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  KS – see above.  There will be lots of Updates via the KS that reveal pieces of what will  be in EX3, so keep an eye out for those too. There’s also the map and new art there.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  PDF went out to KS backers and comments and a small number of missed backer names and correx came in. Justin’s working on redlines for the Anthology writers.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: Corrections are with the printer. The W20 PoD proofs are great- we’re going to go live with this on DTRPG this week maybe even tomorrow. Mike Lee is almost done the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are at press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is ready for CCP approval. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. Talking to more, more artists this week.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is going into editing.

- Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) has about half the art in.

- Mage Translation Guide is OK’d by CCP and we’re looking to get a PoD proof ASAP.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet. He almost caught me but I started talking about genre emulation and got away.

- Scion: Gotta talk to Joe Carriker about the project this week as I missed him last week.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15.

Reason for Drinking: 18 minutes.

I want to be a society vampire, you see.

–F. Scott Fitzgerald

First, news around the non-existent office. The Exalted <Kickstarter> cleared its goal in an amazing 18 minutes, then quadrupled it within twenty-four hours. Huge congratulations to John, Geoff, and Holden, as well as their writers and everyone involved on the art and production side. Our players are amazing and good to us, and I’m sure Rich’ll have more to say about it soon.

(By the way, no one can ever see my links on this blog, so I’ve couched them in < > marks.)

Second, <The God-Machine Chronicle> was released last week and is topping the charts on DriveThruRPG. GMC provides fleshed out stories, game-building advice, and Storyteller characters, all centered around the mythology of the God-Machine. It’s cosmic horror from a distinctly World of Darkness angle. Demon will further expand this mythology, introducing the Machine’s rogue agents.

It also introduces the <revised World of Darkness rules>, which you can check out for free. These rules will be the foundation for future World of Darkness books, particularly if the Chronicle books are successful.

As for Vampire…

The final drafts of Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle are starting to roll in. You can see the ad accompanying this post, furnished by Onyx Path art direction manchine Mike Chaney.

Because of the <unique nature of the chronicle books>, we’ve done this one in three stages rather than the usual two. The first was the discussion and open development phase, the second the rules and antagonists phase, and finally, we’re in the setting phase. Each of these has featured more incremental drafts than usual, allowing us to work more collaboratively. It’s been a monumental undertaking, but I’m thrilled with the book that’s forming from it.

I thought for tonight’s update, I’d give you a bit of a look at the book piece by piece. Note that there’s still room for some significant changes, as I haven’t finished my development pass. Likely there’ll at least be a little restructuring. That in mind, here’s the breakdown.

Fiction is spread throughout the book, and tells the story of Edie and Thao — two “sisters” traveling the southwest as everything possible goes wrong.

Chapter One introduces the tentpoles of our setting, the five clans and .. covenants. Everybody flips to these first anyway, so we’re putting them at the front of the book. A few pages are also devoted to lost clans and broken covenants, vampires whose ashes are scattered across mortal history.

We’re writing this right now. For a lot of reasons, it made sense to do the final character writeups after all of the pieces that support them were in place. I just got the first draft for the broken covenants today; they join the Circle of the Crone and the Lancea et Sanctum on my pile of drafts to work with.

Chapter Two builds our setting, follows the all night society through both their individual Requiems and their grand Danse Macabre. The Cacophony, the underground literature and communication of the Kindred, is detailed. We’re also introducing some new concepts: welcome to conclaves, the loose networks that link domains together, and be sure to watch your step in cloisters, cities entirely off the Kindred grid.

This chapter came in remarkably solid on the first draft, with some unique ideas and a great perspective on what it’s like to be one of the Kindred. It’s being finished along with the clans as I write this.

Chapter Three walks you through character creation, and describes the rules and powers unique to the Damned. This is probably the part of the book we’ve shown you the most of so far, but there are still some really neat bits we haven’t yet unveiled.

Chapter Four is a short presentation of the World of Darkness core rules, with the updates from The God-Machine Chronicle. It’s not a comprehensive rules manual, but it’s everything you need to play Vampire.

Chapter Five describes the book’s big guest stars: the Strix, blood-drinking spirits who corrupt and enslave the Damned. You’ll get the core rules and lore for the Owls, and then 20 fully-fleshed out examples ready to dig their claws into your chronicle.

I didn’t want to do a boilerplate antagonists chapter, with a bunch of passive characters the players have to be steered towards. Each of these characters has a distinct modus operandi that will create conflict from the moment you put them into play in your city.

Meanwhile, the rules give you the same amount of flexibility with the Strix that The God-Machine Chronicle gives you for ghosts and angels. The rules are also generally compatible, so you can mix and match some very unique horrors.

This chapter’s very nearly done, the latest draft being mainly polish and consistency work.

Chapter Six covers the wider setting, with Kindred domains from around the world. You’ll see New Orleans again, walk the streets of the Mission for the first time since the clanbooks, and find out about the city where a society of blood-drinking half-ghosts is recognized as a clan.

This is really exciting to me: 30,000 words of the kind of concrete worldbuilding that we’ve very rarely done in Requiem, all ready for players to paint red. Throughout this chapter, you’ll also catch glimpses of crucibles: turning points in the history of the dead.

Chapter Seven is a short Storytelling toolkit, providing a process to generate the people and places of your chronicle. One of the criticisms that’s been legitimately leveled against Requiem and to a lesser extent Masquerade is that it’s hard to get a game started. So for this book we have strong antagonists in chapter five, a rich setting in chapter six, and finally tools to jumpstart your game in this chapter.

We’re working on the first draft of this chapter right now.

The Appendix provides hooks, advice, and Merits for ghouls and mortals. Vampire fiction is full of mortal allies and lovers, and this section provides resources to not only include them in your game, but make them player characters.

We had a strong first draft for this, full of interesting character concepts and bits that give humans unique roles in a Vampire group. It’s back with the writer to be brushed and combed a bit, and to reflect some late-breaking changes to other parts of the book. Combined with the mortal resources released in The God-Machine Chronicle, you’ll have plenty of material to play that prying detective, tragic junkie, or quirky confidante.

And that’s the book. It’s a bear — we’re looking at a bit over 200,000 words, all told, and I’m very aware of the responsibility of building a “default chronicle” like this one.

So, after the writers are done, where to?

First, I do my polish pass on it. This is me doing a little preliminary editing and making changes so that all of the  pieces fit together. I’ll be picking out pretentious quotes, writing the introduction, and rearranging things so that the whole book’s as smooth and easy to use as I can make it.

I’ll also be doing the art notes. This is a really big book, so there are a lot of art pieces to go into it. I basically send Mike a list of images my puny writer-brain thinks sound cool, and then he works with the artists to turn them into pictures that actually are cool.

Then the book goes off to editing and the editor gets to tear her hair out about how I let the writers start sentences with conjunctions. It comes back, Mike lays it out, and then Mike and Rich and I go through a lot of detail-tweaking to make sure it looks beautiful.

I’m not sure how much of the art and layout process it’ll be practical to share, but I’ll try and give you some insight into it as it happens. I’ll also be previewing more pieces of the book as we move ever forwards towards release. Just gotta keep my eyes on that light.

First, we released the God-Machine Chronicle last week and the response has been phenomenal! We’re all really glad that the book has struck such a strong note with not just our nWoD fans, but I’ve heard a lot of comments from other folks that they’re looking into it, too. Certainly, being able to read the free GMC Rules PDF has provided a painless way to check out the systems tweaks and let folks decide for themselves if they want to get the complete God-Machine Chronicle book itself. I wrote a little blog post on the Onyx Path website about the rationale for creating the Chronicles, what we hope to accomplish, and how awesome our amazing creators are: http://theonyxpath.com/so-whats-a-chronicle-book-anyway/

Next, I submitted the Exalted 3rd Edition Kickstarter to KS on Sunday, so now we’re waiting to hear back from them on when we can go live. As we have with the last KSs we’ve done, we’ll give 24 hours notice to let everyone get ready to check out the fun limited number of backers Reward Tiers. This is liable to be a really wild ride of a KS, so keep your eyes open for added Stretch Goals and Rewards- I’m both already excited and exhausted just thinking about the next month.

Finally, while this info will only interest those of you going to Gen Con in August, I want to confirm that not only will Onyx Path be there, but that I’m going as an Industry Guest of Honor again this year. Which is pretty darn cool. So not only will we have panels just for Onyx Path (“What’s Up With WW/OP?”, “Onyx Path Q&A”, “New World of Darkness”, and “Classic World of Darkness”), but I’ll be sitting in on GoH panels as well. Anybody who was there last year knows that that means, scheduling being what it is, that I’ll probably be running willy-nilly from panel to panel. But all for a good cause of meeting attendees. Fortunately, we’ll have Onyx Path reps at the DriveThruRPG booth even when the panels are going on, so you should always have an Onyx person to talk to. (Although, why aren’t you at my panel?) Closer to Gen Con, we’ll have actual times and locations.

On to the Meeting: a chance reference to how my youngest son is playing his Goblin Prince (hint: peeing is funny) in our family D&D game led to a discussion on “disruptive characters” and whether there is a social contract when playing with a group, or even a huge group like at a LARP event, to not play the character in a way that wrecks the fun of the others playing. In other words: yes, your character could do that as they’re written, but please don’t. The fact is, like so many group activities, there’s a fine line between amazing role-playing and ass-hattery, and the players who can pull off a disruptive character and make it work have to be really inspired. Just pointing to your sheet and saying “Sez here” isn’t likely to make it happen. And there’s also the context of the group. We’ve probably all sat down with our regular gaming crew and had the “new guy/gal” completely miss the tone of how the group has been playing.

This led to talking about how game industry creators pretty much all start as gaming fans and then follow a kind of natural path from “Our group likes this”, to “Who am I making this game for?” in their thinking. Note how the first is a statement that leaves no room for dialogue, while the other is a question that invites attempts to answer it. Some creators make the journey pretty fast- whether from natural inclination, or being forced into a working process, or because their personal designs actually do strike a chord with a wider audience- and others continue to create based on their own groups’ enjoyment. Interestingly, at different times in a game creator’s career, they can be at different points on that spectrum. And there isn’t a right way to make cool games: for every beautifully focused, thematically connected gem of a game, there’s another fantasy heartbreaker. Then, to balance out popular games that allow a lot of play experiences and players to approach from a lot of angles, you also have games that were clearly “designed by committee”. So this whole discussion we had served to remind me of one of the things I’m trying to do with Onyx Path: find a place on our release schedule for the smaller focused projects, often with a single creator, and the bigger ones like folks are used to from White Wolf. (Right now, we’re mostly compelled to push for the WW projects until they gather their own momentum).

And speak of them and here they are:

-  God-Machine Chronicle (nWoD) As noted above, the God-Machine Chronicle and the free GMC Rules Update are live on DTRPG and doing really well. Check them out if you’ve missed them so far, by clicking on the links.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and color PoD versions, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer. We have gathered a double handful of online questions for CA Suleiman that he’ll be answering and we’ll post this week.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  KS submitted for approval to Kickstarter. Keep an eye out for us announcing when it goes live- we’ll give 24hrs notice. There will be lots of Updates via the KS that reveal pieces of what will  be in EX3, so keep an eye out for those too. The Map artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map- have printer samples that might be really map-tastic.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  PDF will be going out to KS backers this week. Justin’s writers have a deadline for their first drafts of the HH2 Anthology of 5/10.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: Corrections are with the printer. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but waiting on new proofs. Mike Lee is almost done the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner just needs the Skindancer glyph and its ready for Dev proofing of the layout. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. Talking to more artists this week.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is in editing and art direction.

- Mage Translation Guide is in Approvals with CCP.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet.

- Scion: Looking forward to talking to Joe Carriker about the project this week.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15.

Reason for Drinking: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That hit the spot.

So here are some very creative projects in progress:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) Reviewed one proof of two- will the second come Tuesday?… I’ll have some thoughts about GMC and Strix/Blood & Smoke Chronicles in a blog on the Onyx Path site (and probably linked elsewhere) that should be at least a little interesting. A teeny bit, maybe.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer. We have gathered a double handful of online questions for CA Suleiman that he’ll be answering and we’ll post this week.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  Ian is working on the KS video- we’re fine-tuning it now. We’ll drop that into the rest of the KS shell and get feedback from our Dev team. From there we’ll submit. The Map artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map- have printer samples that might be really map-tastic.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  Sending Chaney the HH2 backer names and we’ll make up the PDF. Justin’s writers have a deadline for their first drafts of the HH2 Anthology of 5/10.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  Sent the Deluxe W20 files to the printer (both Standard Deluxe and the Heavy Metal Edition). Saw proofs and the few corrections are going back to the printer this week. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but waiting on new proofs. Mike Lee is three quarters-way through the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is in layout and almost all the art is in. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. Talking to more artists this week.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) is onsale now at DTRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/113471/Convention-Book%3A-Progenitors.

- Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is in editing and art direction.

- Mage Translation Guide is in Layout.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet.

- Scion:  Scion: Extras PoD is about ready to go live, and we’ll drop a small price tag on the PDF as well. Monica has some designer notes and extras we’ll be posting on the OP site.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15, and is on its way to the FRPGD warehouse.

Reason for Drinking: We’re up to a quintuple shot, but very close now to when the EX3 KS is ready!

And that point is similar to some other messages I got concerning our Open Development Process and why project X is more or less Open than project Y. And by similar, I mean that in the same way I don’t want fans to try to adopt systems we’re using that don’t work for them, I also don’t want our creative teams trying to force themselves to work to a strictly defined set of Open Dev processes if those processes actually impede their quality of work on their projects. Some developers and writers thrive on the immediate feedback and intellectual bantering that goes on when they post whole swathes of their current project for the fans to see, others want to percolate and iterate their work until they, the creator, is ready to present a polished, finely-crafted work to open consumption. And most fall somewhere in between and are comfortable with different feedback loops at different stages. There’s really not a magic formula for “optimum genius” with this, or all creators and their creations would start to seem the same. And so, in the interest of encouraging as much pre-publication interaction with you great folks as possible, but not forcing it, you’re going to see varying levels of how we define the “Open” part of the Open Dev Process with each project.

And now, the meeting: not much on the Approvals end of things as we’re in a slight lull of project parts needing to go to the Approval Board. Eddy and I talked about the V20 Rites of Blood project he’s developing and how the idea of referencing other books in a text has been changed by the easy availability of the White Wolf backlist on DTRPG. While we agree that telling a reader “look it up, we’re not writing it again” isn’t how we want to go, the accessibility of old WW PDFs and PoDs means that adding a reference can be done specifically to let readers know that there is broader or deeper or just additional info at a place if they choose to access it. As opposed to telling a reader to look it up in a book that’s out of print and expensive to get a hold of. We also went over a definition Eddy found of just what long-term fans want from new editions: “What I liked before, but different”. Maybe, yes/no? Neither of us is sold on that being all there is to it- what do you think?

Here’s some more of that, but different updates:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) Had to reorder proofs after discovering a couple of mechanical errors so we’re again waiting for PoD proof copies. Still trying to get this on sale in April.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  Voice-overs came in mid last week, Ian is working on the KS video. I’m putting in the Reward Tiers all wordified, and the main text and we’ll combine these efforts with a KS preview for the dev team. From there we’ll submit. Sketches are all approved for the map and the artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map- looking at printer samples this week that might be related to the map.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  New sections are in layout and almost all the art is in and in for approval. Justin is reaching out to writers for the HHII Fiction Anthology and has signed Bill Bridges, Rich Dansky, Alan Alexander, Matt McFarland, and more to come.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  Sent the Deluxe W20 files to the printer (both Standard Deluxe and the Heavy Metal Edition). So far, no issues with the printer- hoping to see printer proofs this week. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but waiting on new proofs. Mike Lee is three quarters-way through the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is in layout and almost all the art is in. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. We are very sad that Quinton Hoover, one of the artists we had hoped to work with to provide new art for the book, passed away last week. He was an amazing talent and his work improved every project he was in (check out MtA first edition’s Sons of Ether Tradition Book).

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) is onsale now at DTRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/113471/Convention-Book%3A-Progenitors.

- Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is in editing and art direction.

- Mage Translation Guide is almost done in Editing.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing.

- Scion:  Scion: Extras, has had a huge number of downloads- thanks! We’ll be offering a PoD version next week that we’ll charging for, and will drop a small price tag on the PDF as well next week, since it will have been out free for a month, so get it free now.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15, and is on its way to the FRPGD warehouse.

Reason for Drinking: We’re up to a quadruple shot, but very close now to when the EX3 KS is ready!

Before any of these things happened this afternoon, Eddy and I spoke at lunch, as is our wont. I let him know that not only are we doing the PDF and PoD versions of projects and having traditionally printed versions made via our Kickstarter campaigns, and the ePub versions of our fiction projects like The God Machine Chronicle Anthology, but thanks to Manly Mike Chaney we’re making some serious head-way with other formats that tie into other venues. That’s about all I can say about that now, but we continue to move in that direction as I really want Onyx Path to create tabletop RPGs in the formats people get their entertainment in.

We also talked a lot about a topic near and dear to my heart as Eddy attended and spoke at the 221b Convention over the weekend. It seems that an interest in Sherlock Holmes has really grown with the success of the movies, Moffat’s Sherlock, and Elementary. Now, Eddy and I are fans- we can talk about ACD canon, and the importance of Watson, and all sorts of stuff, but what we generally discuss is the broader picture of how this specific interest informs an overall view of media. In this case, Eddy pointed out that a lot of the growth of interest has been from more and more women becoming fans of Holmes. While incredibly thrilled and not wanting to jinx such a thing, we still wondered at where such interest is coming from. Or to phrase that better: why the upswell in interest now? Is it the modern day settings for the TV shows, or Watson being a woman in Elementary that is more appealing compared to the original stories? In addition, there’s the fact that Eddy was told several times by Holmesian newbies that they got into the character via the TV shows, but started reading the fiction afterwards as they were intrigued by what they learned from their entry material. So much that they’d attend a convention about it, even. This is for us a great trend to examine in terms of whether interest in game worlds would/could have the same patterns.

And from there, more discussion of Eddy’s story for the W20 Fiction Anthology- his Werewolf heist story. Eddy has a tendency towards a Noir sensibility which seems appropriate for WtA, while I maintained that the best heist or caper flicks are actually upbeat. The protagonists can have dark secrets in the past, even painful ones, but the resolution has to show how they win out through tricky planning. So I think Eddy’s offering in that anthology is going to be walking a very fun line and I’m really looking forward to it.

Some updates here:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) Waiting for PoD proof copies.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) is in a crisis right now. Rose was scrambling last week to fill the loss of two of our writers who had to drop out of the project because of very real personal issues, and then was sick all this weekend so I haven’t been updated yet as to whether this will delay the book a month or more.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  I’ve been told that John and Holden are feeling much better and were recording voice-overs for the Kickstarter today. So I expect to get the KS pulled together this week if those VOs work. Sketches are all approved for the map and the artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  New sections are in layout and almost all the art is in and in for approval. Justin is reaching out to writers for the HHII Fiction Anthology and has signed Bill Bridges, Rich Dansky, Alan Alexander, Matt McFarland, and more to come.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  Sent the Deluxe W20 files to the printer (both Standard Deluxe and the Heavy Metal Edition). So far, no issues with the printer. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but we did make a few changes that have to also be set into the PoD files and all new proofs sent out. Mike Lee is three quarters-way through the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is in layout and almost all the art is in. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. I’m looking at very early sketches this week for the fulls, I hear. Phil and I had a huge talk about other artists we’d love to work with on the book.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) waiting for DTRPG PoD proofs.

- Mage Translation Guide is almost done in Editing.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: we had a great call last week that really pinned down the last vague overall Continuum issues, and are looking at the schedule to start setting up writing.

- Scion: some very impassioned creators sharing their ideas at this very early stage.  Scion: Extras, has had a huge number of downloads- thanks! We’ll be offering a PoD version later on that we’ll charging for, and will probably drop a small price tag on the PDF as well, so get it free now.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15, I think, and is at press.

Reason for Drinking: Mmmm, W20 and Mummy files to the printer- now I think I need a triple for when the EX3 KS is ready!

For now though- we’ll actually be prettier when we get back to normal.

A short lunch meeting with Eddy today as he’s neck-deep into project planning on the WoD MMO team, so we had to squeak a meeting in between planning sessions. Having gone through those sessions during my 3 years on the MMO team- I know how intense that is. Seems like there were some bigger issues than normal with the WW website, wikis, and forums, and Eddy tells me the IT guys at CCP are looking into it. And pretty much an hour after he told me that, I was able to get on the forums again. Thanks, CCP! With a bunch of approvals last week: art, God Machine proofs, and the Free RPG Day project all were OK’d, we had a fast review of the other things coming their way, and some old WW contracts and files were found by their office that Eddy’s going to send to me for Onyx‘s archives. While I was writing this, I was listening to an interview with Eddy that goes into the background of how Onyx Path came into being and how we work together now , check it out: http://dorkland.blogspot.com/2013/04/dorkland-roundtable-with-eddy-webb.html

Updates here:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) Approved by CCP. At DriveThruRPG for file review.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is into Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) is in a crisis right now. Two of our writers had to drop out of the project because of very real personal issues, and Rose has been talking to replacement writers all weekend and thinks she has everything lined up, but these new writers are starting at square one for their sections of the book. More news next week, but I expect this will delay the book at least a month.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Cover template for traditionally printed MtC special edition  in hand and soon to press.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  No change here as both John and Holden have been smashed down by nasty chest colds- hard to do voiceovers when you sound like a cartoon. We still have everything ready except for a completed video with voice-overs from the Devs, art, graphics and cool music working together. The Devs are still in the Charms section, and have assembled most of the text we’ll be teasing with Updates throughout the Kickstarter. We’re looking at sketches for the new Exalted map.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  New sections are in layout and almost all the art is in and in for approval. Rather than tacking them on at the end, we’ll be adding a chapter before the Appendix as that just works better for the flow of the book. Justin is reaching out to writers for the HHII Fiction Anthology and has signed Bill Bridges, Rich Dansky, Alan Alexander, Matt McFarland, and more to come.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  Sent the Deluxe W20 files to the printer (both Standard Deluxe and the Heavy Metal Edition). The W20 PoD versions look good right now, and without promising to do so, I think this will go live at DTRPG really soon. Mike Lee is three quarters-way through the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is out of Editing and still in Art Direction. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Phil and I had a huge talk about other artists we’d love to work with on the book.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) is at review at CCP.

- Mage Translation Guide is almost done in Editing.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: we’re talking about the big, big picture stuff that will affect the entire Continuum as opposed to individual games/settings. Big conference call this week.

- Scion: some very impassioned creators sharing their ideas at this very early stage.  Scion: Extras, has had a huge number of downloads- thanks! We’ll be offering a PoD version later on that we’ll charging for, and will probably drop a small price tag on the PDF as well, so get it free now.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15, I think, and is at press.

Reason for Drinking: Ahhhh, W20 files to the printer- now I think I need a double for when the EX3 KS is ready!

Recently, the forums started discussing Humanity, and, since redlines on that section were light, I thought it’d be fun to share the new Humanity rules.

The difference between this and previous dev blogs is that we’re now at a much later stage in the process. Having passed the internal playtesting and first formal draft marks, we’re not making big changes.

One thing you’ll notice is that Humanity is now much more about how well you relate to humans, and less about whether you follow their rules. Humanity loss is triggered by events that push you away from the common human experience… that alienate you from others, or drag you into the nightlight world of the Damned.

<Click here for the Humanity preview.>

Meanwhile, Eddy and I talked only a little bit about CCP approvals since he had mis-programmed his meeting schedule for the Approval Board last week, and so they didn’t actually review anything. These things happen- usually, it’s me who fumbles the electronic reminders, so I can’t get too uptight. We used the extra time to talk about the W20 Anthology story he’s writing, which appears to be a Garou heist story. And it’s that very cool kind of creation where the characters have taken on lives of their own that Eddy, as the creator, is excited to keep working on just to see where they lead. Being Eddy, he has been researching heist films (he shared the theory that Star Wars is a heist film), and how the kinds of characterizations you need for that sort of film or story might run counter to the expected “developing character” story arcs. This led us to the same dilemma WW faced with the signature characters we came up with for the lines years ago: we created them for the game-books as interesting examples of their “splat”, but if they were put into play for novels or other narratives, we really didn’t want to see them develop so much that they were no longer good examples. I fell back to some of the talks we had about the real value of Transmedia experiences- that each venue for your overall world would tweak the basic info of that world to be the best example of that venue. So novels would do what they needed with the characters and stories to make the best novels, a single-player computer game would pull some elements while an MMO would emphasize others, etc.  I used to call it the Doctrine of Appropriateness when applying the same thinking to graphic design and art issues with our WW books, but the core concept of making your creative choices based on  the core of the project still applies. Also, Elementary is growing on Eddy.

Updates here, not announcements- remember last week’s blog?:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) At CCP for their review, see above.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is into Editing.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ll be adding separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Still waiting on a cover template from the printer as they had to go back and redo their quotes due to a mix up on their end; we’ll get those files out to start the creation of the traditionally printed KS version.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  We still have everything ready except for a completed video with voice-overs from the Devs, art, graphics and cool music working together. The Devs are still in the Charms section, and have assembled most of the text we’ll be teasing with Updates throughout the Kickstarter.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  New sections are in layout and we’re getting art for them. Rather than tacking them on at the end, we’ll be adding a chapter before the Appendix as that just works better for the flow of the book. Justin is reaching out to writers for the HHII Fiction Anthology and the KS backers are suggesting a title.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  We’ve submitted the W20 PoD files for approval this week, and I got a new revised W20 Deluxe (both regular and Heavy Metal Edition) quote and are really close to sending the files to press! Mike Lee is three quarters-way through his novel.  The Storyteller Screen files will go off to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is out of Editing and still in Art Direction. The White Howlers Tribe Book is with a writer (the always delightful Jess Hartley) and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has been confirmed for September-ish 2013 and Phil Brucato has started assigning writers and is churning through writing his part. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) one art tweak and into final proof.

- Mage Translation Guide is in Editing.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: we’re talking about the big, big picture stuff that will affect the entire Continuum as opposed to individual games/settings.

- Scion: some very impassioned creators sharing their ideas at this very early stage. And our special file for our Scion fans (something fun but which doesn’t distract any of our creative team from Scion 2) was Scion: Extras, as you all probably guessed.

- Demon: The Frutang: some example of play commentary from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test will be going up on the new Demon blog. We have the blog, now we need Matt to post: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores in June, I think, and is currently being put into layout.

Reason for Drinking: That Mummy drink was good, need more- c”mon W20 to press, and EX3 KS!

Along with the idea that we’re both really, really goal oriented, Eddy mentioned that he finds MMOs hard to consume regularly, as he has gotten into the habit of feeling damn satisfied when finishing a computer/console game and MMOs don’t have the same sense of completion to him. I suggested that was based on internally enjoying games in the same narrative sense that you do a book or movie. For me, MMOs are something I play sporadically and with various goals in mind as I play (see, it all comes together) so for me they are more like ongoing TV shows. And that led really quickly to why Dr Who works for both of us as it has mixed the elements of a serial and a TV show. No really, we talked for a stupidly long time about Dr Who.

Back to work: we talked about a blog post I put up last week on the Onyx Path web site: http://theonyxpath.com/behind-the-monday-meeting-notes/ This topic came out of a bunch of comments we got on last week’s Monday Meeting blog, and raised a lot of great questions and conversations. The gist of the OP blog, and the discussions, was my intention that these Updates below function as weekly snapshots as to where the projects are in the process of creating them and getting them into your hands, but that a fair number of you folks are seeing the Updates as announcements. This sets up an expectation that folks can come here to find out an absolute like “this book is on sale this week”, and while that info might pop up here, that’s really a side effect of the progress we’re watching. And part of why that expectation exists is the way we have to announce projects on a whole lot of different social media venues in order to “hit” all the different ways our fans get their info, and also because of the way I’ve phrased some of these Updates. As for the former, we’re ramping up and consolidating our media outreach and will keep doing that through this year, and as for the latter, I’m going to try and change my language here to avoid focusing on the end result even more than I have tried to do so far.

So with those points in mind (and if you get the chance to follow that link to read the blog post and comments I think you’ll get a better idea of what I’m touching on here):

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) At CCP for their review.

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is into Editing.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs will be on sale shortly. Still waiting on a cover template from the printer as they had to go back and redo their quotes due to a mix up on their end; we’ll get those files out to start the creation of the traditionally printed KS version. CAS sent me his revised Mummy schedule so that we can work it into the larger release schedule.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  We have everything ready except for a completed video with voice-overs from the Devs, art, graphics and cool music working together. The Devs are still in the Charms section, and have assembled most of the text we’ll be teasing with Updates throughout the Kickstarter.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  New sections are in layout and we’re getting art for them. Rather than tacking them on at the end, we’ll be adding a chapter before the Appendix as that just works better for the flow of the book. Justin is reaching out to writers for the HHII Fiction Anthology and the KS backers are suggesting a title.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it. We’ve received photos from some of the Children of the Revolution backers who pledged to be models in AU, but not everyone yet.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  We’re submitting the W20 PoD files for approval this week, and I’m expecting a new revised W20 Deluxe (both regular and Heavy Metal Edition) quote and then we’ll send the files to press! Mike Lee is three quarters-way through his novel.  The Storyteller Screen files will go off to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is in Editing and Art Direction. The White Howlers Tribe Book is with a writer (the always delightful Jess Hartley) and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has been confirmed for September-ish 2013 and Phil Brucato has started assigning writers and is churning through writing his part. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes.

- W20 Changing Breeds is almost out of Editing. Really.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) revised layout and second proof this week.

- Mage Translation Guide is in Editing.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: we’re talking about the big, big picture stuff that will affect the entire Continuum as opposed to individual games/settings.

- Scion: some very impassioned creators sharing their ideas at this very early stage. Early next week we’ve prepared a special file for our Scion fans (something fun but which doesn’t distract any of our creative team from Scion 2).

- Demon: The Frutang: some example of play commentary from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test will be going up on the new Demon blog.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores in June, I think, and is currently being put into editing.

Reason for Drinking: As soon as I get the EX3 Kickstarter submitted, or Mummy: The Curse on sale, or W20 to press, I’m taking a slug for sure .  I really am. This week for sure.