Best Dungeon Contest at Wizards.com

[TarionzCousin]

The top five winners of WotC's "Best Dungeon Contest" are up.

Link.

Chris Perkins has a couple paragraphs about his home game/destroying dungeons. Then there are six brief overviews of the winners with links to their maps.

Which did you vote for and why?

What is your "best" dungeon and why?

 

[Aberzanzorax]

First, I'd add that it's VERY IMPORTANT to click on the titles to view the dungeon maps. At first I thought it was just blurbs (and the maps themeselves varied in quality a great deal).

While some dungeons had nice hooks and/or backgrounds (I liked the idea of the Sleeping Dragon, The Blighted Maiden, and the Blighted Dragon Carcass) their maps, and by extension, the actual play that would result in them, left something to be desired, in my mind. Two others were a bit generic for me in terms of backstory (Fortress of Despair and Kaladish).

So I went with Tomb of the Brothers: http://wizards.com/dnd/images/DMXP_060_Map_Tomb%20of%20the%20elemental%20chaos.jpg.

I like the wild stylings, the backstory, and the map itself. It feels gygaxian with the impression of clear deadliness but with a mad logic to it.


Don't get me wrong, though....all entries had something fun to offer. I just criticize/critique them to explain how I narrowed down the field.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I voted for the Tomb of the Brothers too. The map was well done and I appreciated the extra effort the author made to briefly describe each room. The history and purpose of the dungeon wasn't extra special but I loved the blurb about the Brothers. I'm about to play in a two PC D&D game and I would be on board for using a similar naming convention for our group. Maybe because there are just two of us we'll call ourselves the Legion of Something Something.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I voted for the Tomb of Brothers, too. It seemed the most Gygaxian dungeon to me.

 

[the Jester]

How can you not vote for bungee jumping kobolds inside a dead dragon's carcass??

I am so totally stealing that idea for the next time I have a low-level group to run.

 

[Stormonu]

The tomb of brothers was too mazey for my likes. I don't like describing corridors that twist just to fill up graph paper - if there's a maze I like more meat to it (like the Minotaur Maze in Keep on the Borderlands).

I chose the Fortress of Despair as I liked its design. The dead dragon in the one room intrigues me as well.

I would have gone with the Maidens of the Blighted Steppes - it had the best story, but the rooms seemed a bit too...formulaic.

 

[Jhaelen]

I would have gone with the Maidens of the Blighted Steppes - it had the best story, but the rooms seemed a bit too...formulaic.

that was my choice - because of the story.

I wasn't particularly excited about any of the entries - but that's probably because I dislike Gygaxian dungeons in general and 'Tomb of Horrors' in particular...

Heck, I don't even care much about the very existence of 'dungeons'!

In my game, what comes closest are caves that serve as lairs or hiding places. The rest isn't actually dungeons, it's temples, castles, etc. and about half of the encounters happen in the wilderness anyway.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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