Hey, everyone!

We figured we'd give you all an update and explain the lack of sneak previews and lack of release information for Danse Macabre. As you've probably expected, it's related to the ongoing negotiations amongst OneBookShelf, Hasbro, and CCP. Because the respective licenses have not yet been signed, we are under advisement to not publicly post the Danse Macabre material. This means no sneak previews and no .pdf release until we're given the green light by the parties involved.

In order to get us to the point where we can get the green light, we are working with Hasbro and CCP to ensure that the work we're doing meets their standards with respect to how their intellectual property is portrayed and represented. By our own standards, we could have released the set back in December, but we respect the wishes and standards of Hasbro, CCP, and OneBookShelf and we're happy to work with them to iron everything out. It's a slow process, but we're encouraged to know that all parties involved are engaged in the process and are willing to work with us.

Outside of representation of intellectual property, there are the ongoing business negotiations. We in the Design Team have no involvement in them, but we've been told to expect an update around the end of March. Our preference is to be able to do sneak previews and to release the set as a .pdf prior to the cards physically being in print, but for now those things are on hold.

We in the Design Team have no information at this time on the status of Print On Demand reprints, as that's outside of our duties.

Given all of that, we have some extra time so we're putting a dozen or so of the Danse Macabre cards through another playtest round, as well as a few storyline cards. We also started work on a second expansion about a month ago. Based on the player feedback in the survey that our Marketing Team conducted, we're going with Group 6 Independents for the next set. The plan is to have it be about the same size as Danse Macabre, with about the same number of crypt and library cards (15 library, 20 crypt, give or take). Playtesting will begin in March, and we're looking to get artwork started in April.

We'll post an update on the progress of the Independent set in a few weeks!

- the V:EKN Design Team

With respect to transparancy and openness in the design process, we've maintained a policy of keeping a barrier between the playtesters and the Design Team members. We don't want to interfere with the playtesters or bias the playtest process, nor do we want the playtesters to interfere with the designers or bias design. Part of the reason for the policy is simply to leave each other alone so we can do our respective jobs. We've also found that maintaining playtester anonymity encourages unfiltered, honest opinions and feedback. We have definitely been able to tell that in the playtest notes. Sometimes the comments are harsh, but we appreciate those comments and don't take them personally as they're honest, insightful, and helpful.

We decided to take a poll of the playtesters to see if they wanted direct contact with the designers and if they wanted the designers to participate in dialog in the playtest forum. Interestingly, opinions were very mixed. Some wanted that direct contact and participation. Some wanted the designers to have read-only access to the playtest forum. Some wanted no contact and no visibility into the playtest forum at all. Without a strong indication in the direction of more access to or participation in the playtest forum, we opted to maintain the policy of separation and anonymity.

Heh...and then at Origins we had a meeting with myself, Hugh the Playtest Coordinator, and the North American playtesters in attendance. It was pretty much a big chat and Q&A session, where various issues were discussed, including questions and issues about the playtest process, design and direction of the set, abstract design issues, and so on. One of the discussions that sticks in my head was about city titles, and to what extent contestable titles are desirable and to what extent uncontestable titles are acceptable. Opinions ranged surprisingly widely. Some felt that contestable city titles are a key element of the game and that only contestable titles should be used. Some questioned the value that contestable titles add to the game, feeling that they just result in randomly turning someone's deck off.

From the Design Team's perspective, it's a conflict between canon and metagame. Since the first Sabbat expansion, there's been a theme in V:TES of having pairs of contestable titles. However, the World of Darkness canon doesn't match that symmetry. The Sabbat are relatively few in number compared to the Camarilla in the World of Darkness, but in V:TES the numbers are roughly equivalent. There very typically isn't a matching Archbishop from the canon to go with every Prince. Over the course of the development of V:TES, the canon-sourced Sabbat titles that match Camarilla cities have nearly all been used up. The other remaining canon-sourced Archbishops would be uncontestable. Once all of the canon-sourced matching titles are used, there are three options. First is using the canon-sourced uncontestable titles. Second is finding appropriate un-titled, canon-sourced vampires to whom you could stretch the canon a bit and assign contesting titles to them. Third is creating brand-new vampires with contesting titles. In the end, the Design Team has chosen to use all three options, sticking to contestable titles where possible as the primary option, and using the other options sparingly.

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

Over the course of this project, I've noticed a handful of ways in which card text length can get to be too much. At the start of a card's design, you can have a whizzbang awesome idea that overreaches.

Sometimes it's a card that you think should be stronger than normal, established costs (blood costs, capacity/title/discipline restrictions), so you add on restrictions to bring the card in line.

Alternately, you don't want it to have one effect that is outside the normal accepted bounds, so you try to give it multiple normal effects and then the card is doing too much. Sometimes you want to represent the canon faithfully, and get caught up adding in more of the source material than is necessary.

Cards can also be overdesigned, where you add in restrictions to cover unforseen problems, or try too hard to fit the card into a niche. While true generally, but in that last case in particular, there are times when you find yourself talking about a card too much or trying too hard to make it work. You can take a break from it and come back to it a day, a week, a month later when you get a burst of inspiration, but often it's the case that if you're talking for too long about a card, it probably wasn't going to work in the first place and it's best to walk away from it.

I think all of us in the Design Team have fallen into those traps at one point or another, and it's good to be reminded that sometimes less is more. The playtesters have been doing a great job of reminding us.

Mark Rosewater of Wizards of the Coast has a rather famous article on the subject from several years ago, and they're good words to design by:

www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr68

In other news, Round Four of playtesting ends today, and we'll have the final playtest report from our Playtest Coordinator, Hugh Angseesing, soon afterwards. We'll spend some time making final tuning, tweaks, and decisions, as well as giving it a thorough proofread and text templating check. This will be happening as the remaining artwork is completed and submitted. Once that's done, we'll get started with the sneak previews!

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

We're more than a bit overdue with a progress for you all, so here's the latest update:

The fourth and final round of playtest is presently underway! Many thanks to our playtesters, whose testing, deck lists, game reports, and feedback have enabled us to get the cards near to a publishable state. The final cuts have been made, and this last round is mainly about power tuning and tightening up the card text templating. All cards have artists commissioned for them, and the artists are working away on them. We have a bunch of finished pieces already, and we're thrilled with the level of quality. As the artwork nears completion, we'll be better able to make announcements about the release date and the sneak preview schedule.

The set itself is named Danse Macabre. It consists of 36 cards - 14 library cards and 22 crypt cards. It's focussed on the main Sabbat clans, and the crypt cards are all in Group 5. The library cards focus on helping the weaker Sabbat clans: Brujah antitribu, Gangrel antitribu, and Nosferatu antitribu. Other library cards include (but are not exclusive to) Sabbat-specific political actions and cards for the Black Hand.

Amazingly, we didn't see anyone post a spoiler of the artwork for the set by Heather Kreiter which she had on display at Origins, so here it is, plus one from another artist:

We have a couple more diary entries typed up and ready to publish, but posting them all at once would make this entry rather long, so we'll post them over the next few days. Stay tuned!


- The VEKN Design Team