diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index c0f7693..b6d3025 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ storage.json
 .cache/
 .benchmarks/
 __pycache__
+.venv
 
 # Documentation stuff
 docs/api/
diff --git a/disco/bot/bot.py b/disco/bot/bot.py
index 93962d1..0679381 100644
--- a/disco/bot/bot.py
+++ b/disco/bot/bot.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from holster.threadlocal import ThreadLocal
 from gevent.pywsgi import WSGIServer
 
 from disco.types.guild import GuildMember
-from disco.bot.plugin import Plugin
+from disco.bot.plugin import find_loadable_plugins
 from disco.bot.command import CommandEvent, CommandLevels
 from disco.bot.storage import Storage
 from disco.util.config import Config
@@ -499,12 +499,10 @@ class Bot(LoggingClass):
         mod = importlib.import_module(path)
         loaded = False
 
-        for entry in map(lambda i: getattr(mod, i), dir(mod)):
-            if inspect.isclass(entry) and issubclass(entry, Plugin) and not entry == Plugin:
-                if getattr(entry, '_shallow', False) and Plugin in entry.__bases__:
-                    continue
-                loaded = True
-                self.add_plugin(entry, config)
+        plugins = find_loadable_plugins(mod)
+        for plugin in plugins:
+            loaded = True
+            self.add_plugin(plugin, config)
 
         if not loaded:
             raise Exception('Could not find any plugins to load within module {}'.format(path))
diff --git a/disco/bot/plugin.py b/disco/bot/plugin.py
index a5e589e..a19f773 100644
--- a/disco/bot/plugin.py
+++ b/disco/bot/plugin.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ import types
 import gevent
 import inspect
 import weakref
+import warnings
 import functools
 
 from gevent.event import AsyncResult
@@ -12,6 +13,56 @@ from disco.util.logging import LoggingClass
 from disco.bot.command import Command, CommandError
 
 
+# Contains a list of classes which will be excluded when auto discovering plugins
+#  to load. This allows anyone to create subclasses of Plugin that act as a base
+#  plugin class within their project/bot.
+_plugin_base_classes = set()
+
+
+def register_plugin_base_class(cls):
+    """
+    This function registers the given class under an internal registry of plugin
+    base classes. This will cause the class passed to behave exactly like the
+    builtin `Plugin` class.
+
+    This is particularly useful if you wish to subclass `Plugin` to create a new
+    base class that other plugins in your project inherit from, but do not want
+    the automatic plugin loading to consider the class for loading.
+    """
+    if not inspect.isclass(cls):
+        raise TypeError('cls must be a class')
+
+    _plugin_base_classes.add(cls)
+    return cls
+
+
+def find_loadable_plugins(mod):
+    """
+    Generator which produces a list of loadable plugins given a Python module. This
+    function will exclude any plugins which are registered as a plugin base class
+    via the `register_plugin_base_class` function.
+    """
+    module_attributes = (getattr(mod, attr) for attr in dir(mod))
+    for modattr in module_attributes:
+        if not inspect.isclass(modattr):
+            continue
+
+        if not issubclass(modattr, Plugin):
+            continue
+
+        if modattr in _plugin_base_classes:
+            continue
+
+        if getattr(modattr, '_shallow', False) and Plugin in modattr.__bases__:
+            warnings.warn(
+                'Setting _shallow to avoid plugin loading has been deprecated, see `register_plugin_base_class`',
+                DeprecationWarning,
+            )
+            continue
+
+        yield modattr
+
+
 class BasePluginDeco(object):
     Prio = Priority
 
@@ -151,6 +202,7 @@ class PluginDeco(BasePluginDeco):
     parser = BasePluginDeco
 
 
+@register_plugin_base_class
 class Plugin(LoggingClass, PluginDeco):
     """
     A plugin is a set of listeners/commands which can be loaded/unloaded by a bot.
diff --git a/tests/bot/plugin.py b/tests/bot/plugin.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1ff34a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/bot/plugin.py
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+import pytest
+from disco.bot.plugin import Plugin, register_plugin_base_class, find_loadable_plugins
+
+
+def _test_module(**kwargs):
+    class MyTestModule(object):
+        pass
+
+    m = MyTestModule()
+
+    for k, v in kwargs.items():
+        setattr(m, k, v)
+
+    return m
+
+
+def test_shallow_attribute_deprecated():
+    class MyPluginBaseClass(Plugin):
+        _shallow = True
+
+    class RegularPlugin(Plugin):
+        pass
+
+    with pytest.warns(DeprecationWarning):
+        plugins = list(find_loadable_plugins(_test_module(
+            MyPluginBaseClass=MyPluginBaseClass,
+            RegularPlugin=RegularPlugin,
+        )))
+
+    assert plugins == [RegularPlugin]
+
+
+def test_register_plugin_base_class():
+    class MyPluginBaseClass(Plugin):
+        pass
+
+    class RegularPlugin(MyPluginBaseClass):
+        pass
+
+    register_plugin_base_class(MyPluginBaseClass)
+
+    plugins = list(find_loadable_plugins(_test_module(
+        MyPluginBaseClass=MyPluginBaseClass,
+        RegularPlugin=RegularPlugin,
+    )))
+
+    assert plugins == [RegularPlugin]