Your Best Game Ever!

Take a Look at Your Best Game Ever!
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 02:40:44 AM

Here it is!

Your Best Game Ever has finished the production process. As of this writing, thousands of copies are on trucks right now, headed for our warehouses. The photos you see here are of the first-off-the-presses copies that were FedExed to us from the printer. We couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out, and we think you’ll be pretty thrilled, too!

We expect to have the full run of Your Best Game Ever within a week or so, and we intend to begin the fulfillment process just as soon as we have them. It won’t be long before the book is in your hands!

Next up: Notebooks!

The Player Notebook and GM Notebook are still in the production process—in fact, they’re in bindery right now, which is just about the last step. They should ship to our warehouses within a week or two. We were hoping to fulfill them at the same time as Your Best Game Ever, but the different bindery process altered their schedule a bit. We’ll see. If they don’t make it in time to ship with Your Best Game Ever, they’ll only follow by a week or two.

By the Way. . . 

Your Best Game Ever will be available to the general public in very late July. If you know gamers who would benefit from Your Best Game Ever, please remind them that preorders are open now. In fact, there’s a great deal on a bundle that includes Your Best Game Ever and the two notebooks. And preorder customers also get their copies a bit early (they ship shortly after we fulfill to you). Please spread the word—because every gamer deserves to unlock the secrets of their best games.

Need Anything Else from MCG?

Because now’s the time!

Every physical product on the MCG Shop, excluding preorders, is on sale now—and you even get free shipping on domestic US orders! This is a great time to check out Numenera, The Strange, the Cypher System, Invisible Sun, our awesome family RPG No Thank You, Evil!, and everything else we make. All on sale, but the sale ends very soon!

Your Best Game Ever Is on Press—and Boy It Looks Great!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, May 31, 2019 at 03:14:13 AM

Are you looking forward to Your Best Game Ever? Well, we are too! This is always a really exciting part of a book’s journey to completion: it’s on press, and we’re only weeks away from seeing it in final form!

We sent files to the printer a week or so ago. All the proofs are approved, and the book is in production. If everything stays on schedule we’ll see the first-off copies in mid-June, with the full shipment hitting our warehouses soon after. Fulfillment will begin in early-to-mid July.

But wait, that’s not all: the Player Notebook and GM Notebook are only a week or so behind that schedule. In fact, if all goes well, we’ll be shipping them to backers at the same time. Here’s a sneak peek at the GM Notebook—but note that it’s hard to show off this item’s high-end feel, and cool features (like a pocket in the cover for handouts or similar items) in images like this.

The Cypher System Rulebook 

We’ve been working hard on the Cypher System Rulebook as well. The manuscript is edited, and the book is now in layout. Its press date isn’t far down the road. Want a tiny glimpse into what the new Cypher System Rulebook has in store? Read on. . . .

Cypher System at Origins (plus Numenera and Invisible Sun)

The official Cypher System adventure at Origins, Castaway, was built using the new CSR. (More accurately, the pregenerated characters were built with the new rulebook. The rules haven’t changed in ways that would affect the adventure itself.) You won’t find many surprises, just tweaks that make the rules even more streamlined than before, but you’ll see revised character abilities, the new character sheets, the introduction of player intrusions, and more.

Castaway is a hard-charging science-fiction adventure in which the PCs find themselves stranded on a mysterious (and very hostile) planet without weapons, gear, or even their own memories. If you like the Ancillary Justice series of novels, the universe of Leviathan Wakes, or the TV show Lost, you’ll see their influences—and you’ll really enjoy this adventure!

If you’re going to Origins, sign up for Castaway. And don’t forget to vote in the Origins Awards. Both Numenera and Invisible Sun are nominees in the Best RPG category. Voting takes place at booth 1166 in the exhibit hall.

Your Best Game Ever Videos

Join Monte and other members of the MCG team on a deeper dive into some of the key sections from Your Best Game Ever. The Your Best Game Ever video series also lets you discuss your experiences, tips, and questions with the broader community in the Twitch and YouTube comments.

The first two videos in this 12-part series are from our "trial run" last year. The first video, "Don't Randomize Fun," was rebroadcast on Twitch last Tuesday as the premiere of the series. Next Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. EDT (5:00 p.m. PDT), tune in for a rebroadcast of "Finding the Group That's Right for You." Come join us in chat, or watch the video and Twitch chat later on. The week after that, we'll air the first of 10 brand-new videos with topics like worldbuilding, being a great player, character creation, adventure design, and more.

Your Best Game Ever Should Arrive a Bit Early!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 12:54:21 AM

We’re in the exciting final few weeks before Your Best Game Ever goes off to press. Initial layout is complete and the book is now being tweaked before heading into the proofing process. Press time is scheduled, and we’ll be sending files off to the printer in less than a month. It’s always a really cool point in the process when you see all the parts—the Word documents, illustrations, layout designs, and so on—come together and let you see what the finished product is going to look like.

To share that with you, here’s a quick peek at a couple of page spreads. Layout isn’t final, and these pages aren’t proofed, so there may be some minor changes to the end product, but isn’t it great to see it all coming together?

We’re sending the unformatted manuscript to early-access backers this week (they’ve already received the manuscript for the revised Cypher System Rulebook), so if that includes you, look for an email in the days to come. We’re also going to post a few excerpts from Your Best Game Ever to the Monte Cook Games website in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

Your Best Game Ever was originally promised for September, but if everything remains on our current schedule we’ll have it to you in July. Believe it or not, July isn’t very far down the road, so last week we opened up preorders to the public on the MCG Shop. If you know someone who missed the Kickstarter but who loves RPGs, be sure to let them know that they can reserve their copy now. Preorder customers get the book ahead of street date (although after Kickstarter backers, of course), and there’s a nice little bundle deal if they also preorder the GM Notebook and Player Notebook, which will release in July with Your Best Game Ever.

One last thing: Geek & Sundry had a look at Your Best Game Ever last week, with MCG’s Darcy Ross. If you didn’t catch it, here it is!

YBGE and CSR Progress—and More
about 5 years ago – Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 02:02:34 AM

Here’s a little news about Your Best Game Ever, the Cypher System Rulebook, and some of our other titles in the works.

I reported about a month ago that principal writing on Your Best Game Ever was complete. Since then, we’ve received all of the consulting experts’ essays, and their feedback on the manuscript. That feedback is being rolled into the text now, and then it’s off to editing. Layout won’t be far behind—we should be able to show you some sample page spreads in a forthcoming update.

Cypher System Rulebook work is also coming along nicely. The design work is complete, and now it’s in Monte’s hands for development. If early access is one of your rewards, it won’t be long until we’re calling on you to dive into the new CSR. (and not long after that that you’ll be getting a sneak peek at Your Best Game Ever, too!).

And speaking of the Cypher System, we’re now hard at work on the first two genre books you helped fund. Bruce is well into The Stars Are Fire, and Sean has just started into Stay Alive! It’s still early days on these books, but it’s cool to be digging into these genres, and to see the next couple of books from this campaign start to come to life.

Science-Fantasy in your 5E Game

On a tangentially related note, we have an exciting new project in the works. Arcana of the Ancients brings the science-fantasy joy of Numenera to your 5E game. From the earliest days of RPGs, starting with Empire of the Petal Throne and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, adventurers into the realm of RPGs saw the amazing promise that mysterious and weird science-fantasy elements could add to their campaigns.

Well, nobody knows science-fantasy like Monte Cook Games, so we’re harnessing that knowledge to bring the genre to 5E. Arcana of the Ancients will be filled with creatures, devices, character abilities, technologies, tips, advice, and adventure—and all the weirdness and mystery of the best science-fantasy.

Arcana of the Ancients is in Kickstarter now, where it’s already funded and hitting some exciting stretch goals. Check it out!

Principle Writing Is Wrapped Up on YBGE and CSR Revisions Have Begun!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 01:05:52 AM

Today we hit a cool milestone for Your Best Game Ever: Monte let the team know that, last night, he typed the final words into the manuscript. In the title for this update, I said the “principle” writing is complete—that’s because we still have a number of contributions coming in from the consulting experts and the MCG staff. Some of these essays are already in-hand, and others are on the way, but we expect to have all of them by the end of the month.

The complete first-draft manuscript has been passed on to all of the consulting experts, and in addition to the usual editing process, we’ll be taking their feedback into account. So although this is a huge (and very cool!) milestone, there’s still a bit of work to be done before the content is complete. That said, everything is exactly on track and moving forward according to schedule.

In the meantime, we’re also moving forward on some of the other items you funded through this campaign. In particular, the revision of the Cypher System Rulebook is progressing very nicely. The design team has come up with some pretty cool new approaches to type abilities, cyphers (subtle and manifest), and other game elements. We think you’ll be impressed by how some of these new approaches improve the game, without changing the underlying rules system. We’re also implementing a pretty major overhaul of the book’s organization to make it much easier for GMs and players to customize virtually every aspect of the system for their games.

And finally, we’ve also been giving a lot of thought to the GM Notebook and Player Notebook. These items aren’t as writing-intensive as Your Best Game Ever and the Cypher System Rulebook, of course, but if they’re done right, we think they have the potential to dramatically improve your game experience, regardless of the game system you prefer. So we’re looking at a lot of different ideas and layouts to, well, do it right!

We hope to post a couple of excerpts from the manuscript in the weeks to come, as articles on the MCG website, so keep an eye out!