Question: What exactly IS Dungeonesque?
Answer: Dungeonesque is a concise version of 5e using a retro layout (white pages, clean design) and styled after 70s and 80s boxed set games. There will be a Red Box (8.5x11", two booklet) version and a White Box (5.5x8.5", three booklet) version of the core rules, along with a physical box for the White Box edition. This project is for the Red Box version.
Question: What is the advantage of using the Dungeonesque booklets vs. the current hardback books from WOTC?
Answer: There's a few things we're striving for:
Usability: In my day job I have been a human-centered-design expert for many years. Table-top ergonomics are a big focus for me. I want the content to be easy to scan, easy to understand, and easy to thumb through to find the content you want. To that end, we'll experiment with tricks like putting key tables and an index on the back cover.
Hackability: These books have black-and-white interiors. And they're inexpensive. Write in the margins. Print a custom version of the PDF that has some additional charts and tables you've made for your campaign and add then to the back. Slap a cool custom book cover that gets designed in a cover design contest that we'll soon kick-off. Then get the final product spiral-bound at a local printer. Hack these booklets, and use them like you want!
Providing an inexpensive, high-production-value tool for new players: One of the things I've loved about Savage Worlds is their inexpensive $10 rulebook. We want to allow that same, low-cost freedom. Have a new player to the game? You can have a stack of low-cost Dungeonesque Player's Guides you can hand out like candy. You can print them through DriveThruRPG, or print them at home. We'll have special low-ink covers that will look great even if you're printing at home and getting Kinko's to spiral bind the books.
Mixing booklets and traditional hardback handbooks at the same table: One of our top goals is to make the Dungeonesque Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide interoperable with the other 5e core books already published. For my part, I'll use Wizard's DMG for certain activities when I prepare for a game, but the Dungeonesque Gamemaster's Guide will be my go-to tool for use during the game. My players will use a mix of traditional hardback PHBs with one or two having a Dungeonesque Player's Guide. It all works together.
Question: Why not just print out the WOTC 5e Basic Rules?
Answer: The 5e Basic Rules published by WOTC are great and certainly are useful for printing. They clock in at 115 pages, have no cover, and no interior art. Dungeonesque will provide a streamlined alternative set of rules that run around 40 pages, have interior art, and a beautiful cover (and in fact, we'll make sure you have multiple, beautiful cover options). Both products cover the same set of rules.
Question: What is the difference between the Dungeonesque rules and the full set of rules in the SRD at http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/systems-reference-document-srd?
Answer: The exact contents are written in pencil, not pen, and the final contents may flex a bit as we experiment with copy and art layouts. But the current plan is this:
For the Player's Guide:
We have reduced scope to just a few races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, etc.), and four classes (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Thief).
We've reduced the level support to 1-15 instead of 1-20. Those higher levels add lots of complexity in terms of word count, spell descriptions, etc.
We take a very old-school approach in terms of conciseness. A lot of content has been completely rewritten from the SRD, so even though it explains the same rule, we do it with fewer words. In many cases, the content is 1/8 the size of the SRD description of the same set of rules.
For the Gamemaster's Guide:
We'll have many of the expected tools, but we'll have a bigger focus on 'tools you need during the game' to support on-the-fly adventuring. The Bestiary will be concise, expressing stat blocks with 1/8 the text but conveying the same information (and, arguably more, since we'll add a 'tactics' section for spellcasters for example).
We're not changing any rules or in any way making this incompatible with the standard 5e rules, we're just having a very concise expression of those rules and adding some really cool tools and gaming aids.
The vast majority of the text is complete. All that remains is some small additions to the GM's Guide, the choose-your-own-adventure text, and layout. We think we can deliver this project without problems.
However, as with any manufacturing process, things can go wrong. We have identified that delays in layout and delays in printer setup could happen. So we have allowed additional time in our schedule as a buffer to enable us to avoid such delay issues. If all goes as planned we may even be able to deliver the project a little sooner.
We understand the printing process as our founder has published several fiction and nonfiction books before and has worked with multiple printers. With projects like this there is nearly always something that costs more, so it makes business sense to have contingencies for this. We have built this into our costs.
Conventional crowdsourcing risks of fulfillment and printing are virtually nonexistent since we are using OneBookshelf's DriveThruRPG front end for printing and shipping on an at-cost basis for print-level backers. In the unlikely case that DriveThruRPG goes out of business, we have sufficient financial reserves to refund print backers the difference in pledge levels.
No matter what problems occur we will always keep our backers and supporters informed of any issues that arise so you will be aware of the situation and how we will be handling it.
