Well guys, it finally happened. The M20 book has been officially released.
Naturally it happened while I was not paying attention, so it may have been out for a while and I just never noticed. (In which case, sorry about that.)
I'm going to buckle down and finish reading the book this week (I'm almost done, for reals) and then I'll be able to start converting us to the new system. Nothing is going to change until after I make specific announcements detailing said changes, so for now don't stress. I would recommend everyone get a copy of the pdf through some means or another, and I do think you should all read at least some parts of it. If for no other reason then to get a sense of the tone and how things are being updated, etc. If you are super committed and want to read the entire thing, awesome. If not, don't worry. I am not going to require everyone to read all 700 pages. I've been taking down notes of all the changes, and when I start rolling them out I will give you guys a summarized list of things you need to be aware of.
I am actually going to be doing this in three stages.
1: Metaplot updates. This is the easiest thing to implement, so I'm going to start there. The M20 book, unlike previous core books, doesn't have a set metaplot. Instead it offers a whole bunch of potential options. So in the interest of making sure we are all on the same page as far as what the state of our system is, I'm going to write up a metaplot section to add to the Setting info. Some of the decisions have already been made for me, since until now we were already playing with the standard Revised metaplot (so I couldn't, for instance, decide the fall of Doissetep didn't happen.) As for everything else, what I tried to do while making my decisions was to find a balance that would work best in the kind of game we're playing here. Sometimes that means leaving things ambiguous and/or middle of the road so that STs will have options to play with. Other times it means dialing back certain aspects of the game that don't work well in an online sandbox (as opposed to a more standard TT campaign.) I will talk more about that when I actually start implementing things, but I do want to reassure everyone that your characters aren't going to wake up one morning and suddenly find that they're living in a totally different reality. You can choose to pay attention to metaplot things, or mostly ignore them, as you (and your character) see fit based on interest and involvement.
2: Everything except magick. Game mechanics, character creation stuff, etc. At this point I am going to have a poll to talk about some of the new character traits and whether we want to implement them as they're presented in the book or not. I have my own opinions, but I want to get a consensus before I decide anything. As for everything else, I'll post a list of all the rules changes, and I will be updating the judgment calls and the wiki guides to reflect the new system.
3: Update the Spheres and magick guidelines. Since magick is kind of its own whole thing in this game, I'd like to wait to focus on everything related to casting once we've got everything else settled and stable. So this will be the last step in converting the system over.
In the meantime, if anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to drop me a message.
Naturally it happened while I was not paying attention, so it may have been out for a while and I just never noticed. (In which case, sorry about that.)
I'm going to buckle down and finish reading the book this week (I'm almost done, for reals) and then I'll be able to start converting us to the new system. Nothing is going to change until after I make specific announcements detailing said changes, so for now don't stress. I would recommend everyone get a copy of the pdf through some means or another, and I do think you should all read at least some parts of it. If for no other reason then to get a sense of the tone and how things are being updated, etc. If you are super committed and want to read the entire thing, awesome. If not, don't worry. I am not going to require everyone to read all 700 pages. I've been taking down notes of all the changes, and when I start rolling them out I will give you guys a summarized list of things you need to be aware of.
I am actually going to be doing this in three stages.
1: Metaplot updates. This is the easiest thing to implement, so I'm going to start there. The M20 book, unlike previous core books, doesn't have a set metaplot. Instead it offers a whole bunch of potential options. So in the interest of making sure we are all on the same page as far as what the state of our system is, I'm going to write up a metaplot section to add to the Setting info. Some of the decisions have already been made for me, since until now we were already playing with the standard Revised metaplot (so I couldn't, for instance, decide the fall of Doissetep didn't happen.) As for everything else, what I tried to do while making my decisions was to find a balance that would work best in the kind of game we're playing here. Sometimes that means leaving things ambiguous and/or middle of the road so that STs will have options to play with. Other times it means dialing back certain aspects of the game that don't work well in an online sandbox (as opposed to a more standard TT campaign.) I will talk more about that when I actually start implementing things, but I do want to reassure everyone that your characters aren't going to wake up one morning and suddenly find that they're living in a totally different reality. You can choose to pay attention to metaplot things, or mostly ignore them, as you (and your character) see fit based on interest and involvement.
2: Everything except magick. Game mechanics, character creation stuff, etc. At this point I am going to have a poll to talk about some of the new character traits and whether we want to implement them as they're presented in the book or not. I have my own opinions, but I want to get a consensus before I decide anything. As for everything else, I'll post a list of all the rules changes, and I will be updating the judgment calls and the wiki guides to reflect the new system.
3: Update the Spheres and magick guidelines. Since magick is kind of its own whole thing in this game, I'd like to wait to focus on everything related to casting once we've got everything else settled and stable. So this will be the last step in converting the system over.
In the meantime, if anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to drop me a message.