If you missed the Kickstarter, but still want to preorder One Room One Shots, then here is your chance. Preorders will be shipped at the same time as fulfilment for the Kickstarter occurs. If we raise enough funds, then more items will be unlocked to preorder!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
We know this update has come a little later than normal, but that's because we just have so much to talk about this month, that we needed a little extra time to get everything together!
First on the docket, we'll be hosting a stall at this years UK Games Expo - the UK's biggest TTRPG convention! With around 50,000+ attendees this year, we're hoping to really get the No Short Rests! name out there and pull in even more backers and investment.
We've already had several content creators and brands contact us for opportunities, so we have all our fingers crossed that we'll have some incredible partnerships to share with you all throughout the year. Next to funding, the most important thing for us right now is presence within the world of TTRPGs and we're excited at the prospects attending this con might bring!
Of course, we haven't stopped working on the books themselves, so if you're in the UK and planning to head over to UKGE, make sure to come by our stall so you can chat with us and see some of what we've been working on!
All-In backers and above will all be invited to participate in the play-test for Tomb of Grief, our level 1 adventure!
We invite you to test this adventure out yourselves, including a snippet of the Expanding the Adventure section. Challenge your parties and let us know your feedback! We want to know your thoughts on the current adventure, from layout design to mechanics and rules clarification, or any changes you might wish to see.
The more of you that play and provide your thoughts, the better both this adventure - and all future adventures - will be!
Backers will receive both an invite to our private Discord play-test channel and a download link for the digital PDF of the adventure. This private channel will allow all play-testers to interact and discuss with each other - and us! - about the adventure, as well as find groups to play with. We'd really like to build our community as much as possible, and this is a fantastic way for backers to not only get an early look at the adventures, but get to know us and each other a little better too.
We have a lot more plans for this play test than just releasing the adventure, so keep your eyes peeled over the coming months for special, play-test focused updates and challenges!
Of course, we haven't forgotten about those of you that aren't part of the play-test, and we'll be providing the results of the feedback to you all via updates as well so that you can still be a part of the overall process and see what's been going on!
To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a Tomb of Grief themed set of t-shirts!
What started off as Alex designing some custom t-shirts and hoodies for himself to wear whilst on set, has somehow turned into a full line of clothing options.
The team (and our mates!) loved his designs so much, they all wanted one, but couldn't quite decide on which they liked best. So, Alex being Alex, he created three different sets, with three colour options, so we're certain you'll find at least one you like!
We know fashion might feel like an odd side-step from D&D books, but additional fun things like this allow us to be creative and explore different design styles without wasting resources. The additional revenue earned from these sales also goes directly back into the books, allowing us to improve the final quality even further.
Originally, we really wanted to provide sweater and hoodie options as well. However, after receiving the sample garments, we were not happy with the level of print quality on the sweaters and hoodies. We refuse to sell anything that doesn't meet the quality standard we strive for, so even though clothing is not what our business is built around, it is still held to the same standard that you can come to expect from us.
Having said that, if these designs prove popular, we will look into other print services to bring you high quality sweater and hoodie variants.
For now, we're partnering with Gelato to provide high quality, on-demand printing and world-wide delivery for these t-shirt designs via our website www.noshortrests.com.
We're also giving all backers 10% off on t-shirt orders made for the next two weeks, so keep an eye out for that discount code in your inbox!
We weren't lying when we said we had a lot to talk about this month, so keep those hooks tentered, because the call to the Deep is just around the corner!
You may remember that during our campaign, we released Adventures Ahoy! a live play recording of Tomb of Grief, starring some of the UK's best TTRPG content creators.
Well, weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen! It's been a while, but No Short Rests! is back and ready to set sail once again with part 2 of Adventures Ahoy! - an actual play of Temple of the Forgotten Depths, our level 5 adventure, whilst cruising along the River Lee.
Starring our very own Art Director, Alex, as Dungeon Master, he is joined by our wonderful selection of guests:
Liz Campbell (Realms of Peril & Glory)
Jess Jewell (Questing Time)
Pan (@stellarencore)
Liv Kennedy (3 Black Halflings)
So, join us at 11am GMT on YouTube, Friday 29th May, for the premiere of Adventures Ahoy! Part 2 - Temple of the Forgotten Depths!
During the campaign for One Room One Shots, we were thrilled to offer a special reward bonus for backers of both our project and Chapelwick. We wanted to share a bit more of what that looks like with you today as we approach the end of our late pledges on June 1st.
Inspired by the incredible setting of Chapelwick, we have written 13 One-Hour Encounters that each provide a unique story within the many districts of the city. These encounters have two parts, a Day version and a Night version, building upon the mechanics of Chapelwick’s main adventure where supernatural elements of the city grow stronger and more dangerous at night.
Day versions of the encounters are generally more forgiving, prioritising role-play or puzzle solving, whereas Night versions provide a more deadly encounter; with more of a focus on combat and survival. Some of these encounters are linked, with a narrative that crosses both Day and Night, while others are simply an alternative based on the time of day players are exploring.
With these 13 (or is it technically 26? Matt may have got a bit carried away here…) encounters, we wanted to provide the sort of side stories that can enhance your players’ journey as they explore the city, diving deeper into the various districts’ lore and the rules that govern them.
Each encounter is set in one of the 13 districts of Chapelwick, so the stories you can experience are incredibly varied. From taking the time out to rest at a questionable spa in Caravinn to finding strange new reading rooms within the Library of Records, or witnessing a new maypole dance in the Revelry Quarter with a very special guest; we are excited to bring our unique, narrative adventure style to the city that crawled from the sea!
That concludes this month's big update... for now.
Just a small update from us for April.
The work continues on The Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern, with Matt working away at ensuring that the adventure is understandable by anyone who read is- and not just himself!
We have also been writing 13 One Hour Encounters for our collaboration with the Chaplewick team at Let's Roll Press. Chaplewick - a soulslike cosmic horror campaign for 5E - is an incredibly unique setting and getting a chance to peek behind the curtains and work with a team across the pond has been a thrilling experience and speaks to the collaborative power of TTRPGs.
These encounters are based on the various areas you will explore when playing through their campaign, utilising some of the mechanics of the setting to create some wonderfully bizarre and creepy encounters. As a collaborative work, we can’t share more on this just yet, but when we have more details we will post a specific update.
This collaboration is for backers who supported both Chaplewick and One Room One Shots, at any pledge reward level.
Lastly, we are very excited to confirm we will have a stand at UKGE this May. We will share a bit more information closer to the date, but this is a chance for us to present our project at the largest tabletop gaming event in the UK (as well as get the chance to play lots of new board games - still buzzing about Arcs last year!) and we can’t wait to attend!
That's all for now, hope everyone is doing well!
Hello everyone! Thought we would do a small update on how we are doing.
At this time, Backerkit is 86% completed - there is no rush to get this filled in, we will remind everyone before we reach fulfilment. Having Backerkit live means we will soon be stopping our late pledges and switching to a pre-order page for non-backers. This will be the fastest way for those who missed the Kickstarter to receive the adventures when they are all done (using our planned retail price for everything).
After our first internal play test, the Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern stretch goal adventure is currently well under way, with Matt working on his second revision and Alex working on various design briefs for the artwork. It is important for us to understand the tone of the adventure not just through the writing, but through play as well before getting the art done as it means we can be super specific with what we want and who we want to work with; ensuring that each adventure has it’s own flavour, but also feels true to the actual gameplay too.
From the initial play-testing, Matt is making changes to how the adventure begins and fleshing out the many NPCs you can meet and save from a shared nightmare within the tavern. Our players also discovered that Matt can't draw to scale, as - according to his assertions that each square on the grid is 5ft - his tavern's tables and chairs were almost 25ft in length... As fun as a tavern for giants would be, it's not quite right for what we want to do with this adventure!
Although, that does sound like another great idea for a future One Room One Shot...
As some of you highlighted in the comments during the campaign, not every player character needs sleep or can be magically put to sleep. With that in mind, we are adjusting to make sure the adventure works for all characters/species and a feature that may have appealed to your players is still handled in an interesting way.
During play-testing we did consult various tomes of knowledge (rulebooks) when discussing how elves and half-elves in particular would interact with a dream world. This made us curious: what do you think? Do you allow your elf characters to sleep or dream, even if they don’t need to? Despite being mechanically immune to charms or sleep, is this a rule you continue to enforce narratively?
Let us know your thoughts!
Our friends over at Ink Blade Publishing recently shared some top tips from various TTRPG creators and we felt very privileged to be asked to contribute our thoughts. It’s a great little insight into how different creators work, so do check it out!
That's all from us for now!
Hello everyone!
Apologies that this has taken a while, unfortunately, the team at No Short Rests! have been living up to our namesake recently and have been having a bit of a 'mare this past month...
From fishing out boats from the depths of the river Lee to late-night hospital visits with poorly babes, it's taken us a bit longer than we would have liked to get both BackerKit and the surveys up and ready.
Fear not adventurers, however, as time waits for no man and we've finally cobbled together enough to get BackerKit online!
BackerKit should soon be rolling out your pledge surveys where you'll be able to fill in all of those details needed for us to make sure your orders are all in perfect order and that everyone receives all of their special gifts and unlocks. Please make sure to fill these out as accurately as possible - in particular if you are a VIP or Chapelwick backer - so that we can cross-reference account/email details.
Beyond that, once the surveys are in and BackerKit is fully live, pre-orders will become publicly available. This will allow any friends or family that may have missed out on the campaign to pre-order any of the books or add-ons that were unlocked via Kickstarter's funding. Current backers will also be able to upgrade their pledges and add any additional items they may have had their eyes on too.
This marks the first major milestone of the project beyond actual funding and we can't thank you enough for your patience. You'll be glad to know that things aren't all doom and gloom over here, and that we have already begun work on developing the books further. Alex has been playing around with updating and refining the look of the layout as well as compiling and reaching out to new and current artists for more beautiful artwork.
Matt has been feverishly writing up even more adventure content, adding some more updates to our current adventures like Tomb of Grief and Temple of the Forgotten Depths as well as laying out the epic story and themes of our VIP Mythic One Hour Encounter. For all of our backers, you'll be pleased to hear he's also ready with our stretch goal adventure, Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern and accompanying One Hour Encounter, The Barrow Smith to begin an internal, first round play test of both!
We haven't yet decided on what cadence of updates from us you will receive, but we are very excited to be able to share things as and when we are able to. It's going to be a fine balance for us as between full time work and the project itself, we don't want to end up diverting attention away from actual development of the books or feeling compelled to send out non-updates just for the sake of it. We want to make sure our updates always feel necessary or informative, so we will let you know of course what we figure out!
In the meantime, take care and much love from the No Short Rests! team.