Frog God Games Announces Rappan Athuk (Complete?) for Pathfinder RPG

Steel_Wind · Oct 25, 2011

At the end of September 2011, Bill Webb of Frog God Games (“FGG”) mentioned on Paizo’s Messageboards that he would soon have a significant product announcement.

Tonight on the evening of October 24, 2011, Bill Webb confirmed on the Paizo Message Boards that FGG would release next summer a new expanded version of the mega dungeon Rappan Athuk. The tome is expected to be approximately 1,000 pages in length and like the recently released Tome of Horrors Complete will be bound using library stitching, sewn, glued and assembled in archival format. Webb also says that he is looking into a faux leather cover for the book.

Webb had mused about adding a faux leather cover for Tome of Horrors Complete, but he eventually backed off the idea as it would have reportedly increased the price well north of $100 and there were real concerns that the market had little interest in such an expensive book. I expect that given the remarkable success of the Tome of Horrors Complete, Bill Webb has decided that there is enough interest in such a collector’s edition, after all.

The new version of Rappan Athuk has not yet received a “Complete” moniker to its title and it is not yet clear what the final title of the book is expected to be. The original version of Rappan Athuk together with the expansions provided in Rappan Athuk Reloaded contained 36 levels in a mega-dungeon that earned a reputation for posing a significant challenge to players. Rappan Athuk was one of the early hits of the 3<sup>rd</sup> Edition third party adventure products.

It has been nearly ten years since Webb finished his initial designs for Rappan Athuk and it looks like he has been busy in the meanwhile. Webb promises that the new version of Rappan Athuk will feature over 50 dungeon levels and dozens of wilderness areas, three villages nearby the main dungeon’s locale and the Temple of Tsathogga.

Webb says the “book will be available for pre-order in March or April 2012. Retail price and page count are still to be determined (though it will probably be about $125 and 1000 pages or so). The pre-ordered copies will contain bonus material as a .PDF enhancement that were cut from the final manuscript and will not be available after the pre-order period ends.”

There were a remarkable number of complaints concerning the Tome of Horrors Complete from gamers who said that they were not even aware of the product. A lack of product awareness concerning the very existence of the book was one of the factors which lead to the sale of Tome of Horrors Complete on Paizo’s webstore helping to set Paizo’s one day sales record last month. Accordingly, apart from this product announcement, I will remind people from time to time about the new Rappan Athuk book in the coming months.

Like last time, I expect it probably will not matter and many people will still probably not be aware of the book and will miss the chance to pre-order it – but that’s no reason not to try.

Wraith Form · Oct 25, 2011

:: checks shorts ::

Yup, that was a nerdgasm.

Thanks for the info (and subsequent need to change my boxers), Steel-W.

Mark CMG · Oct 25, 2011

I'll bet they go a little stronger on the initial print run for this one.

Mark Hope · Oct 25, 2011

So. Absurdly. Excited.

Philotomy Jurament · Oct 25, 2011

Even more significantly (to me, anyway), it's being released for Swords & Wizardry, as well. Since Rappan Athuk began its life as a dungeon for TSR D&D, having a version for Swords & Wizardry is kind of like it "coming home."

(A Pathfinder version is cool, although likely to be very similar to the 3e version, which I already have. A Swords & Wizardry version is more what I've wanted to see, all along.)

Samurai · Oct 25, 2011

Ok, I know this is going against the general consensus here, but I think 1000 pages is a bit of overkill. The 3 books for 3.x combined were about 220 pages. That is a very big dungeon, one that'll take take characters and DMs a very long time to finish. I don't know about others, but my group is not very big on endless dungeon crawls and would be tired after just module #1, eager to go do something else, explore another part of the world. If I showed up with a 1000 page monster of a dungeon book, there would be a mutiny, not rejoicing. The response to **thud!** "Hey guys, there's enough here to adventure in for the next 10 years!" would be "Oh HEEELLLL NO!", not "Hell yeah!"

Why not do a more reasonable-sized book, along with a lower price? Heck, even if they DOUBLED the size of the previous modules combined to a whopping 450 pages, that's still be too much, IMO, but a bit less intimidating, and they could charge $50 for it instead of $125, and most groups still wouldn't get to most of it...

Whizbang Dustyboots · Oct 25, 2011

As cool as this news is, the fact that there are three different threads here about this at ENWorld suggests, to me, that the site is way too fragmented nowadays.

DarkSasha · Oct 25, 2011

Thanks Steel_Wind!

Wow! What a nice news announcement!

We at Frog God Games are very pleased to be able to offer this huge and famously dangerous dungeon for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the retro-clone Swords and Wizardry separately.

For Samurai and those who prefer shorter adventures, rest assured we have plenty of those. Some are linked (as in our Splinters of Faith series) some are stand-alone (as in our Saturday Night Specials and One Night Stands series) and nearly all of them are available for both the Pathfinder RPG and the Swords and Wizardry RPG. The singular exception to this is the Slumbering Tsar by Greg A. Vaughan, which is for PFRPG only. Check out our website: www.talesofthefroggod.com.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Oct 25, 2011

Samurai said:
Ok, I know this is going against the general consensus here, but I think 1000 pages is a bit of overkill. The 3 books for 3.x combined were about 220 pages. That is a very big dungeon, one that'll take take characters and DMs a very long time to finish. I don't know about others, but my group is not very big on endless dungeon crawls and would be tired after just module #1, eager to go do something else, explore another part of the world. If I showed up with a 1000 page monster of a dungeon book, there would be a mutiny, not rejoicing. The response to **thud!** "Hey guys, there's enough here to adventure in for the next 10 years!" would be "Oh HEEELLLL NO!", not "Hell yeah!"

Part of the megadungeon philosophy is that you're not GOING to clear the joint, like you would with a standard adventure module. You go in, you get your objective, or get some gold, or get that stupid rogue you hate killed, and then you leave. You might have another foray in, or you might say "rogue dead, mission accomplished, let's move on."

But this is clearly a specialized product for a niche market, no question.

Mythmere1 · Oct 25, 2011

Samurai said:
Ok, I know this is going against the general consensus here, but I think 1000 pages is a bit of overkill. The 3 books for 3.x combined were about 220 pages. That is a very big dungeon, one that'll take take characters and DMs a very long time to finish. I don't know about others, but my group is not very big on endless dungeon crawls and would be tired after just module #1, eager to go do something else, explore another part of the world. If I showed up with a 1000 page monster of a dungeon book, there would be a mutiny, not rejoicing. The response to **thud!** "Hey guys, there's enough here to adventure in for the next 10 years!" would be "Oh HEEELLLL NO!", not "Hell yeah!"

Why not do a more reasonable-sized book, along with a lower price? Heck, even if they DOUBLED the size of the previous modules combined to a whopping 450 pages, that's still be too much, IMO, but a bit less intimidating, and they could charge $50 for it instead of $125, and most groups still wouldn't get to most of it...

The economics of getting value to a book-buyer don't precisely work that way, though, because a big bulk of a book's cost (until you get into very large print runs) are in the fixed costs of the print setup and the binding. Additional pages in that setup/binding are a very low cost. So in order to deliver the most value for the money, the best strategy is to include more material and just rely on the individual gaming group to move in and out in whatever way makes sense for the individual group. By including more material at the small additional marginal cost of the additional pages, there's more manueverability for a gaming group to decide what they do or don't want to do -- just because there's 10 years worth of adventuring doesn't mean you've got to do all of it, but you can pick the best year's worth.

I understand what you're saying, all I'm saying is that there's a parallel calculation going on that's created by the economics of printing, and Frog God is essentially erring on the side of providing more material than less.