This week’s objective: I am going to start putting together the pledge manager, the survey, and late pledges this week so we can move forward with the administrative side of things. We are planning on distributing the early review drafts as attachments to a backers-only update, so we don’t actually need the surveys at this time.

Progress: Since the last update, our main focus has been progress on the draft itself, so we can start sending pieces of it out for you all to review and comment on. Normally I would do a lot more self-editing on a draft before sending it out, but in this project where rules-accuracy is crucial, I think that getting early “catches” of mistakes is the higher priority. I have finished the monster section and the whole character creation section, and these will probably be the first two sections we distribute for review. You will probably see the first test (of getting a piece of the draft to you) some time this week.

Thanks for backing this project! I am working full time on it (about 50 hours per week), and progress is good so far. I’ve incorporated the comments from North Texas readers, nailed down the language on spacing/distance, ordered more art this week from Del Teigeler, and ordered some top-down illustrations from Brett Barkley for diagrams of the spacing/distance text. I'm going to start on the illusionist, druid, and magic-user spells next (Cleric spells are finished but still rough).
Matt

Re: Mythmere Games
This update is just to let everyone know that we are back from North Texas RPG Con and present again on social media to answer questions. We are still in the phase where BackerKit is collecting funds, so we don't have the full internal dashboard of information yet. While we were at North Texas, we put out two binders containing a printout of the current state of the OSRIC 3 draft, and let people write comments into it. That draft was still very preliminary, but we did receive some great catches and suggestions.
I am still just chugging forward on the basics in the draft. Right now, that's monsters. I am breaking out each special ability of a monster from the descriptive text, because each special ability gets its own free-standing line (or paragraph) as a special ability. This will make it MUCH easier to find the special ability when using the book as a reference during play, but it means lots of cutting and pasting of sentence fragments and turning them into complete sentences under the correct special ability header.
At the moment, the "special ability headers" are these (if the monster doesn't have an ability in the category, the header doesn't appear). (1) If the monster has an ability relating to surprise or initiative, a header called "Surprise and Initiative." (2) "Immunities and Resistance." This is usually at the top, since only a few monsters have a surprise-affecting ability. It's for magic resistance, for monsters hit only by magic weapons, and other such abilities (including special vulnerabilities). It's also where an undead creature's turning category is listed. (3) "Special Features." A catch all, including spell-like abilities and describing dual-AC creatures like the bullette's vulnerable spot and the achaierai's height (which requires long weapons to hit). (4) "Special Attacks." This one is at the end to make it the easiest to find. It's for the obvious types of things like breath weapons.
So we are basically in a holding pattern for a couple of weeks, while BackerKit collects payments and I continue with the basic re-formatting of information. (I was going to write "relatively mindless re-formatting" rather than "basic re-formatting," but the monsters keep throwing difficult questions at me, so it's actually not). When we are far enough along to send a draft (or most likely a specific part of the book) out for general review and comment, we will let everyone know. We will have to test out the best way to get drafts to people -- it appears that we can attach a document to an update, and make it visible to backers only, so that's one possibility without sending out a mass delivery of .docs via DTRPG. If attaching it works properly, then those who want to see interim drafts can click on the attachment.
Matt

Suzy and I will be arriving and checking in at North Texas RPG Con when the campaign finishes up this evening. So we are sending this update in advance, to say THANK YOU and to apologize if we miss any questions while we're on the road. We will be on social media while we're at the convention, but time is always very tight on a convention schedule.
If you are going to be at North Texas, please look us up!
How we Handle Updates
Here is how we usually handle updates going forward - there are basically two groups of backers, some of whom like to receive frequent, detailed updates, and another group that hates getting frequent updates. We mention in the title of an update whether it's a "Major" update (printing or shipping schedules, pdf releases and things like this) or a "Minor" update which you can ignore if you're not following the project closely (such as, "we are working on the monster section"). This way, if you don't like multiple updates, you at least know that you can delete the "Minor" ones without reading them.
Thank you again so much for backing this project!
Matt and Suzy

Matt will be on a live interview with the Wandering DMs this Sunday at 1PM Eastern, Noon Central to talk about OSRIC 3 and answer questions!
Here is the link to the show: https://youtube.com/live/v7ks0ygBKmk?feature=share
Hope to see you all there!

BIG NEWS: We have heard from many players that they’d like to have a portrait-oriented version of the rulebooks as an offset-printed, sewn binding hardcover. We have conferred with the printer, and are now adding new pledge levels to include portrait-oriented rulebooks with letter-sized pages.