"...And So It Begins."
- Adam Donovan
- Nov 30, 2018
- 4 min read
A couple of days ago on the Tuesday 27th blog, we announced the arrival of the new series of books for Roguelike Games entitled the Rapscallion Journals: smaller, compact products that don't dent the wallet and provide additional resources to your favourite table-top RPGs.
In tonight's blog we'll be taking a quick look at the first of these which will also be the first Roguelike Games product available for purchase to the public:
As our first product, Plot Whole is a collection of compact, ready to use plot-hooks / adventures that a DM can simply pick up and use, with minimal preparatory work but enough information to run the scenario with confidence. In all 10 adventures / plot-hooks are included in the book, covering various themes and play-styles. Each adventure can be used as a stand-alone, one-off game for when the DM needs something on the fly, or can be used as a springboard to a larger adventure.
While we don't want to give everything away, here's the answer to some common questions about Plot Whole:
WHO IS PLOT WHOLE FOR?
Plot Whole is a resource tool aimed primarily at Dungeon Masters. The intent behind the book is to give DM's summarised, quick-to-run adventures for their players. The adventures themselves are condensed to between 1 and 3 pages each, giving any DM who picks it up only light reading to prepare the game ahead of time. The book doesn't contain anything specifically for players, so our target audience are Dungeon Masters but there is nothing stopping a player picking it as a present for their DM, but if that's the case - NO PEEKING!
WHICH SYSTEM IS PLOT WHOLE DESIGNED FOR?
Plot Whole is the first in a series of books in the Rapscallion Journals series, and for this first title we are presenting it for use with the world's most popular role-playing game: Dungeons & Dragons 5e. While future publications may introduce new material for 5e and other systems, Plot Whole makes use of the core material presented in The Player's Handbook, The Dungeon Masters Guide and The Monster Manual, meaning that if you possess these books, you already have the background resources needed to run in tandem with the product.
YOU MENTIONED 10 ADVENTURES - HOW ARE THEY ORGANISED?
The ten adventures included in Plot Whole are varied, but also designed to fit the needs of the Dungeon Master.
Need a one-off game of generic vanilla D&D material for beginner players? There's an adventure for that.
Need a Halloween special? There's an adventure for that.
Looking for a game set in a specific area of Faerun? There's an adventure for that.
Looking for a springboard game to kick-start your home-brew campaign? You guessed it: There's an adventure for that.
The adventures included in Plot Whole cover the Tier 1 level ranges. If this term is unfamiliar to you, it simply means approximately levels 1-4 in D&D 5e.
That said, the majority of adventures in Plot Whole are designed for level 1 characters, though each do have suggestions on upgrading the challenges for level 2, 3 or 4 characters.
WHERE AND WHEN CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE PLOT WHOLE? HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
Plot Whole is being written right now, and if all goes according to plan it will be hitting the play-test stage soon. From there it is a case of getting it edited and polished, ready for production. The 'when' is still a little hard to pin down, but rest assured it will be as quickly as possible while still ensuring high quality levels are met. The 'where' part of the question is a lot easier to answer: this first book for the Rapscallion Journals (encoded as RLG001) will be available on DrivethruRPG on our storefront page. Plot Whole will be available in pdf format. At present there are no plans for a print edition, though as mentioned in the previous blog there may be print collections at some point in the future. As for the cost, we're currently looking at a pricing model that we feel is both fair to you as customers, but also representative of our time and effort on the project. We want the Rapscallion Journals to be cheap enough to pick up on a whim without worry of financial impact and making them in pdf format goes a long way to keeping the costs low. The book will likely be between fifteen and twenty pages long (not including covers and non-content material), and we estimate the price to be somewhere in the ball-park of £8 / $10 (though this is a conservative estimate - we will update as we know more).
NO KICKSTARTER FOR PLOT WHOLE?
While Kickstarter is an excellent platform for projects that require significant financial investment on the part of the creator, we didn't feel it was something we needed for the Rapscallion Journals. Our flagship Campaign Setting, Moralinth, will be arriving on Kickstarter, but that is a much larger, time-intensive and resource-hungry project. Coming in at over 400 pages for the Cypher Version alone, it is not something we feel would work outside of a Kickstarter Campaign. The Rapscallion Journals - and by extension Plot Whole - are much smaller, more accessible projects that cost less to make, less to produce and ultimately less to buy. DrivethruRPG seems the perfect place to launch such a title, though we do have a non-exclusive contract with them, so Rapscallion Journals projects could appear with other publishers later down the line.
So just a short blog today, but I think you'll agree - a fairly fun one! We will continue to give updates on the book as it progresses, as well as any future ideas. Until then, Happy Gaming!
- Adam
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