D&D (2024) Our book just launched on D&D Beyond - AMA

[Roll & Play Press]

Hey, it's Kay here, co-owner of Roll & Play Press. Our book One-Shot Wonders just launched on D&D Beyond We've taken three of the chapters from the book and released them as collections of 10 adventures with 10 battle maps. Here's the D&D beyond page with all three: D&D Beyond

Some of you folks at EN World were some of our earliest supporters from when we launched Roll & Play Press 5 years ago (I'm looking at you Whizbang Dustyboots) and Morrus was the first person to ever interview us. So, I thought - why not jump on here and do an Ask Me Anything. I'll hang around on the thread for a while, don't leave me out here on my own!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

1. What do you consider a 1-shot adventure? How long to expect the game play to be?
2. What levels does this cover?
3. Does it include the monsters / npcs or do you need the MM or books to fill out the stat blocks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

1) The first thing I knew you from was from your Fantasy Game Master's Toolkit, which I backed on Kickstarter. Since then, you've published a player's toolkit, toolkits for science fiction, a digital toolkit for fantasy Christmas adventures and, in your email, regular new single page of toolkits.

Any plans to collect those digital-only tables in a future product, either in an expanded Fantasy Game Master's Toolkit, or a sequel?

2) The tone in most of your works is generally upbeat and positive, even in some of the darker adventures in One-Shot Wonders. (The undead attacking the inn just want a disturbed corpse to be put back, not anything more sinister.) But you've got a project coming up with 3 Black Halflings, City of the Black Rose, with a much darker tone it seems. Does this mark a change/expansion of your tone going forward, or is this mostly just about working with 3 Black Halflings?

In any case, excited to see three chapters of One-Shot Wonders on DDB. I think DDB-using DMs are going to find it as useful as I've found the hardcover.

 

[Roll & Play Press]

1. What do you consider a 1-shot adventure? How long to expect the game play to be?
2. What levels does this cover?
3. Does it include the monsters / npcs or do you need the MM or books to fill out the stat blocks.

1. The adventures are all designed to last a single 2-3 hour session. A lot of people run these adventures at clubs and cons where they've got to be pretty strict on time.
2. They're Levels 1-8, and at the end of each adventure there are suggestions for monster swaps you can make to level it up or down.
3. Yes all the monsters and NPCs are linked in D&D Beyond. They're all monsters that are available in the free 2024 rules, so you don't need to have the MM to access them.

 

[Dire Bare]

I backed your One Shot Wonders Kickstarter at the digital pledge for about $30 for the PDF. What prompted the decision to offer only a part of the product, separated into 3 different DDB products?

Having OSW in the DDB Compendium would be nice, but $30 total for only a third of the adventures in the original product?

Is there any value-added beyond simply having the adventures in the DDB Compendium?

 

[Roll & Play Press]

1) The first thing I knew you from was from your Fantasy Game Master's Toolkit, which I backed on Kickstarter. Since then, you've published a player's toolkit, toolkits for science fiction, a digital toolkit for fantasy Christmas adventures and, in your email, regular new single page of toolkits.

Any plans to collect those digital-only tables in a future product, either in an expanded Fantasy Game Master's Toolkit, or a sequel?

2) The tone in most of your works is generally upbeat and positive, even in some of the darker adventures in One-Shot Wonders. (The undead attacking the inn just want a disturbed corpse to be put back, not anything more sinister.) But you've got a project coming up with 3 Black Halflings, City of the Black Rose, with a much darker tone it seems. Does this mark a change/expansion of your tone going forward, or is this mostly just about working with 3 Black Halflings?

In any case, excited to see three chapters of One-Shot Wonders on DDB. I think DDB-using DMs are going to find it as useful as I've found the hardcover.

Great to see you!

1) An expansion of the Fantasy Toolkit is always on the list of things we want to do, but other books and ideas keep skipping the queue! Even after 5 years, we still sell hundreds of copies of that book every month. I'd love to see it get a refresh. Hopefully in the next couple of years.

2) It's funny because Sam (co-founder / author) loves writing horror, but we've generally not leant into that. I think part of the reason is that most of what have out now was being worked on during the pandemic. With reality being pretty bleak, we naturally kept things a bit lighter. Stuff that we have on the horizon has a bit more of a hard edge, but we'll still always have that fun streak. City of the Black rose is probably the darkest you'll see us go.

 

[Roll & Play Press]

I backed your One Shot Wonders Kickstarter at the digital pledge for about $30 for the PDF. What prompted the decision to offer only a part of the product, separated into 3 different DDB products?

Having OSW in the DDB Compendium would be nice, but $30 total for only a third of the adventures in the original product?

Is there any value-added beyond simply having the adventures in the DDB Compendium?

Firstly, thank you so much for being a Kickstarter backer, that early support really means the world!

Onto your question of why we launched smaller sets on D&D Beyond: We wanted to make something high-quality at a really accessible price. There aren't a ton of options at the $10 or lower on DDB, so we wanted to fill that gap with something that people could get a lot of value out of. Because of the way OSW is split into chapters for different environments, we could split it up in a way that worked well and made a great standalone product. It's also because we know we're not the most well-known publisher in the D&D space. We have a growing community, and people are definitely getting more familiar with us, but we wanted to make it really easy for people who have never heard of us to try out our stuff.

In terms of added value from D&D beyond, having all the stats for monsters, NPCs, magic items and spells linked directly to the rules is a big bonus for GMs. Every adventure also comes with the matching battle map, that connects directly to the D&D Beyond Maps VTT. So, if you don't already own the Map Library (which has all 100 maps that go with the adventures in One-Shot Wonders), this is a great way to get a smaller set of the maps from that.

 

[Roll & Play Press]

Thanks for the questions folks. I'm in the UK and it's pretty late at night, so time for me to sign off. I'll keep an eye on this thread tomorrow and the next few days, so if you've got any more questions - go ahead and drop them in there.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Hey, it's Kay here, co-owner of Roll & Play Press. Our book One-Shot Wonders just launched on D&D Beyond We've taken three of the chapters from the book and released them as collections of 10 adventures with 10 battle maps. Here's the D&D beyond page with all three: D&D Beyond

Some of you folks at EN World were some of our earliest supporters from when we launched Roll & Play Press 5 years ago (I'm looking at you Whizbang Dustyboots) and Morrus was the first person to ever interview us. So, I thought - why not jump on here and do an Ask Me Anything. I'll hang around on the thread for a while, don't leave me out here on my own!

What was the percentage cut between you and WOTC? If you can't say, was it because you're under an NDA not to disclose the amount?

Did you go to them or did they go to you?

 

[Waller]

Congrats!

Questions…

1) Do you get invited to all the fancy industry insider parties now!

2) What’s your most successful product to date?

3) Do you see yourselves making a core game one day?

4) What RPGs do you play (other than D&D)?

5) Is there a product somebody has made which you wish you had made?

6) Is Kickstarter getting better or worse?