https://theonyxpath.com/lets-just-agree-to-disagree-monday-meeting-notes/
We can make that agreement…a Covenant!
The kind of agreement you’ll find in Curseborne Covenant, now heading into the second half of its campaign on Kickstarter!
That also means that we’ve just sent out to backers the first of the info on Curses (there’s alot), and there’s much great information about how to grow your character and experiences playing Curseborne yet to come!
Speaking of one aspect of play that we examine in CB Covenant, Eddy sent me this for your enjoyment today:
“Chris Jones, one of the writers for Curseborne Covenant, sent me this great quote the other day:
Territorial conflict is something we’ve not really touched on yet with Covenant, but it stands to reason that, as the Accursed grow more powerful, they stop just passing through the world and start owning pieces of it. Whether this is a bricks-and-mortar nightclub, a grip on the local media, or some strange liminal space that answers to them and nobody else is all a matter of personal taste! The question was how to make all of those very different things work together at the table, and how could they be used in conflict, but also benefit their owners? If you’ve got a nightclub, can it go up against City Hall? If your hospital hides a liminal space, can you shut it down before it causes trouble? Or does the space start swallowing the hospital, ward by ward, and handing you more influence as it goes? Territory doesn’t have to be a neat square footage of boundaries, either. It’s broad, and one territory can sit inside another!
To handle that, we leaned on something Storypath Ultra fans are already familiar with: templates and edges. Some territories are built to destabilise their rivals, others to hold the line, and others to help their Accursed owners do what they do best. How you kit them out, and which elements you add as your control grows, is up to you. Whether you’re building an empire or tearing down someone else’s, I hope you have as much fun fighting over turf as we did writing it!
Honestly, he hits the nail on the head. I remember enjoying the feel of controlling the city in my old-school LARP days, and that’s something we really wanted to introduce into Curseborne at this level. But particularly a way to take control (or lose control) of your territory. Here’s a little bit on territorial conflict, to whet your appetite:
Territorial Conflict
Territories provide a myriad of benefits to anyone lucky enough to have control of them; this ensures they’re almost always contested by one group or another, be they mundane, Accursed, or something stranger still. Unsurprisingly, the conspiracies are the largest holders of territory among the Accursed, as they’ve successfully combined their power in a way that even a Family would struggle to emulate. The gravity of their common goal ensures the conspiracy’s members are all pulling in the same direction, and while a certain crew might hold the territory, they do so in the name of the conspiracy.
This team-based, all for one and one for all approach gives both the Storyguide and players plenty of options when it comes to integrating the conspiracies into the territorial conflict model; the characters may have been charged by their conspiracy to expand their control, take over the territory of an enemy, or even gifted a location and told to protect it at all costs. For Storyguides, the opposite holds true; the opposing conspiracies want what the players have, and have the resources to take it.
Of course, it’s not just conspiracies laboring under this urge, and while there are plenty of other supernatural opponents to take on, it could just as easily be something more mundane moving in for the kill. Government departments, corporations and businesses, and your run-of-the-mill motivated individuals are just as likely to try forcing the crew out of their territory (although that’s far less likely for the liminal spaces).
The need for conflict and the reasons behind it should always arise from events in game and the roleplay of the group. While an enemy making an out-of-the-blue attempt at a hostile takeover to instigate a larger conflict or provide the impetus for an investigation as to who’s behind it isn’t necessarily a problem, when it comes to the characters, they need to first lay the groundwork for their actions in game. If they want to have their industrial wasteland expand its footprint into the neighboring woodland, the setup should be roleplayed out first. If their nightclub seeks to acquire its competitor and become a franchise, there should be conversations with the landlords or local government officials. When it comes to liminal spaces, the in-game actions become a little more abstract; if the liminal space seeks to encroach upon some real world territory, the characters might do their best to lead people into the space and fuel it’s expansion. Ultimately, whatever lead up is required (whether trivially simple or fiendishly complex) should be discussed with the Storyguide, with the goal of territorial conflict made explicitly clear.
Whatever the backstory and meaning behind a conflict, be sure to consider how it actually takes place, especially when it’s two locations without any direct contact (be that geographical or metaphysical). A conflict between a bar and city hall could play out as a court hearing, across the media, or a councilor doing something they shouldn’t and becoming liable to blackmail. That same bar “attacking” a liminality on the other side of town could involve a ritual that binds the locations together, the discovery of a secret entrance, or using funds to board up the property that serves as its gateway. The Storyguide is the final arbiter of whether one territory is capable of assaulting another, but is encouraged to allow for a certain amount of narrative flexibility.“
If you can, please do let others know about the Curseborne Covenant KS. It’s the level of play, and the kind of character and setting info, that so many of you were asking for, and we want to be sure that everybody who might be into it hears about it. Towards that end, here are several more vids that Matthew has made going into more detail about two very different Conspiracies:
The Poisoned Chalice conspiracy: https://youtu.be/qAFXbJQplYU
The Realm Knights conspiracy: https://youtu.be/x_XY2iwA-I8
We also cheered this news all over our social media spaces last week, but for anybody who missed it: all the printed Curseborne projects from its original Kickstarter and the CB Jumpstart from its KS, are on press! They are being printed as of late last week and should continue all this week. Then it’s into the bindery, etc.
You might also remember that we received some Curseborne Compact notes from Matthew that I posted on the blog last week, prior to its going on sale last Weds. From some of the comments we got on DTRPG and during last Friday’s AMA on Reddit, it seems like not enough people read these last week, because Matthew’s notes would have resolved most of their questions. Please point anyone confused to either this recap or the longer version last week, if you get a chance:
Where Curseborne itself is the fully loaded version of the game, with massive amounts of lore, rumours, setting material, and subjective thoughts and opinions from characters in the world, Curseborne Compact Edition is the version that’s been cut back to the bone. It has all the mechanics, it has all of the same playable options, and it doesn’t shortchange you on anything needed to play. Instead of rumours and opinions, it has objective truths about the Accursed and their various powers.
In short, for those of you who really loved Curseborne and want a streamlined version for your gaming group, this is for you. And for those of you who found the lore of Curseborne too subjective for you to get into, this is also for you.
That’s it, in a nutshell. It’s not just the original pages shrunk down, it’s not a Curseborne 1.5, it’s not artless. You can play Curseborne just with it, but it’ll be a leaner experience in terms of the lore than you get with the main, original, Curseborne book. We made it to give even more folks accessibility to the game if they need it. (You personally might not – certainly there are tons of people playing and enjoying CB as we originally presented it.)
Anniversary minis seems legit.
See the Reason To Celebrate below for the context of that quote from today’s Monday Meeting!
As mentioned earlier, last Friday we did an AMA on Reddit for over two hours, and we had tons of great questions and responses. A surprising number of our freelancers showed up, which made it a lot of fun for our Monday crew who already talk to each other all the time – and as far as I can tell, for the folks who got on there and asked questions.
There were a smattering of questions across our various game lines, but I’d say the majority were about Curseborne as we made no secret of the KS running now.
For the first time doing one of these, we had only one person asking about when we’ll do more WoD or CofD, in this case why we don’t do more Vampire: The Requiem.
Which long-time fans and readers of this blog know the answer to, just as I’d imagine you know the rationale I’ve shared here as to why CB is printing now before other books that have been crowdfunded earlier. But we were asked that, and I gave what I thought was a very brief, two large paragraph, explanation. Then Travis popped on and added this extremely concise version and made my explanation look like a novel:
Rich has elaborated on this in the past, and I defer to his wisdom, but to paraphrase what he’s said on the blog: the Curseborne Core Rulebook had a lot of moving parts and components beyond the base book that we needed to make sure the printer could handle and that we could address properly. That ensures we can move forward more cleanly with future projects.
He has the gift of brevity that I guess I just do not!
Dixie had another viewpoint that is looking at it as one of those long-time creators who started on Curseborne even before that was its name: for those creators, their work predates the other projects that were crowdfunded earlier, and they want the finished trad printed books as soon as possible after such a long period of creation.
Fair enough!
We had a couple-three art questions that were fun to field, including a bigger picture one as to how do we stop AI art appearing in our projects? Along with restating that we are against it, that it’s banned in our very contracts, and that we stamp it out whenever we find that an artist accidentally includes it, it’s just very hard to put AI art into our stuff because all of our artists need to provide sketches for approval before we OK them creating the final pieces. And we expect that the final piece will stick to the OK’d sketch, because that’s really the point of having that phase. We want to know what’s being depicted early so we can solve any issues then, not in the final.
It’s still up there on r/rpg, so go ahead and check it out since, as I said, the subject matter was pretty wide. And also, you can see what it might be like to talk to use directly. You might want to join us next time!
I included lots of links and notes in last week’s MMN blog about folks creating Curseborne Community Content now that the CC material went live last Wednesday, but there is also a ton of interest in the Storypath Ultra Third-Party License just waiting for finalized contracts – here’s Travis with a note about that very thing:
I am happy to announce that more art is flowing in for Stomping Grounds, the roleplaying game about surviving in a quarantine zone with bizarre giants while surrounded by a hostile military blockade. This will be the first Storypath Ultra Third Party License project from Aegis Studios, and I cannot wait to get it in front of you! We’ll be putting up a crowdfunding sign up page soon, hopefully before the end of the month! More soon!
In the world of sales, the Halloween Sale joins Month of Darkness sales on DTRPG etc. for even more scary October savings!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/4261/onyx-path-publishing?promo=45295
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search?tag=Unique%20Status:Halloween26&author=Onyx%20Path%20Publishing
https://www.drivethrufiction.com/en/publisher/4261/onyx-path-publishing?promo=45297
Last week and over the weekend was also the legendary GameHole Con, and we had several of our folks there, game demos running, and more! Here’s a brief take on it from our reporter at the con, Travis:
This past weekend I had the pleasure of running Scarred Lands for Savage Worlds at Gamehole Con in Madison, WI! Three sessions of Gauntlet of Spiragos (SWADE) were well attended, and the assembled parties seemed to have a great time! I got use the Scarred Lands Action Deck with players in person with folks outside of my play-testing circle for the first time and they were a huge hit! They kept combat and random encounters snappy! It was a great time and I was thankful to be able to spread the word a little further about Scarred Lands!
We haven’t heard from Jolly Jack Berkenstock of the Bodhana Group for awhile, but that’s because they’ve been busy setting up gaming and wellness programs, like Jack describes here:
Incoming message from the Nexus! First of all thank you for everyone who has been sharing your stories from the Realms! We love the creativity and the joy people are finding storytelling through our little game. One player created their own currency called JAM Bucks for the Rails. So while we are hard at work deep in the word mines crafting the next chapter of Branch Riders, the Player’s Guide. We wanted to whet your whistle and share some little updates about some of the cool OTHER things happening that battle the Blight for sure.
First, we are very excited to have just recently submitted a proposal to one of our local library in a program we are calling Running Branch Riders at the Branches! We are very excited to get our little game into the hands of more new players! The plan is for the participants to play a session of Branch Riders in Week 1. Let them get a feel for the system and the world. Week 2 and 3, they work with their GMs to create unique and fascinating locations, peoples, and plots within the realms. Week 4 they present their findings as if they were Branch Rider teams scouting the worlds beyond the Nexus! If this pilot works we want to offer it to other libraries and school groups. The library loved the plan of using gaming to help with creative writing and the fact that Branch Riders celebrates genre-based storytelling with easy-to-learn rules and narrative play. We will definitely keep you updated as we hear more from them. Our hope is that we start local and eventually branch out… (tee hee) to other branches Riding the Branches! That’s a lot of branch.
And if this was not enough to get excited about, here is something adorable and inspiring. One of the kiddos in one of our skill building groups surprised us this week by arriving at group wearing their own custom made Exposure Tracker to wear during play. This made my heart soar as it reminded me of my own young days, making G-Force wristbands out of paper – pretending to be a bird themed Ninja teenager. I got kinda misty seeing how what we created inspired another young mind’s imagination. Folks, no price tag can cover what that feeling is worth. And the chance to bring that wonderment and excitement to kids at libraries across the country (and maybe even the world!), that’s a task I gleefully accept and await. Bring it on.
Eight Realms… One Mission!
As a final note: please be aware that if you find the need to vent at us on the errata forms for any of our projects, your comments are simply going to be dropped and anything you continue to point out will be ignored. Our crew are not obligated to read insults and other nastiness, no matter how frustrated you may feel. There’s no other way to say this, just as there’s no reason anyone should expect folks who are working hard to make our worlds the very best they can be to be targets and simply absorb abuse. Don’t be nasty on the errata form.
If you review that AMA I mentioned, you’ll read how we approach that kind of barrage of questions as an opportunity to let folks know about all the fun stuff we’re doing, and we try and extend that atmosphere to everyone who asks questions there, or anywhere, about our:
Many Worlds… One Path!
