Rejected Dungeon Submissions

[Tuzenbach]

I sent one in about half an elf (not to be confused with a half-elf) falling in love with a large heap of Trapazoid Dragon dung.






Oh wait, no I didn't!

 

[Baramay]

I have not sent a submission to Dungeon but I intend to very soon. I am a fan of Greyhawk so I have Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, which the team at Paizo helped write.(Hope that helps) in the LGG there are tons of ideas on where to take your campaign without telling you everything. Looking back to From the Ashes I found more open storylines. This was done with the Istivin series and I thought that was fantastic. I would imagine Eberron and Forgotten Realms have similar places just waiting to be expanded upon

 

[Trellian]

How about rejected submissions being posted on a website? I would believe many DMs would be interested in them, even though they *perhaps* isn't as good as the published ones.

 

[Erik Mona]

I sent in a Side Quest about the PC's being accused of being bandits. One of them looks eerily like a major bandit in the area. This was many years ago, when the magazine was only a year or two old. I have since found out this is a very common submission.

And it's also a primary hook in the Warhammer "Enemy Within" campaign.

"You look just like Kastor Lieberung!"

We still get too many proposals with this hook, alas.

--Erik

 

[diaglo]

And it's also a primary hook in the Warhammer "Enemy Within" campaign.

"You look just like Kastor Lieberung!"

We still get too many proposals with this hook, alas.

--Erik

that was said to Count de Money..... "and you look like the piss boy"

 

[Erik Mona]

Last one was about a rich noble that invites the characters to his estate... only TO HUNT THEM DOWN IN THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME OF ALL!

This is also a very common proposal. I'd bet we see it three our four times a year.

Not that yours wouldn't have been great, of course.

--Erik

 

[Presto2112]

Who has submitted adventures to Dungeon magazine that have been REJECTED, and what were they about?

I saw the thread about the list of plots NOT to use and I wonder what other plots there are out there that have been rejected.

I have an adventure submission ready to be playtested. Once that's done, the adventure tweaked in the weak spots, and the submission proposal sent and rejected, I'll let you know.

 

[Erik Mona]

that was said to Count de Money.....

De Mo-NAY.

--Erik

 

[Joshua Randall]

What's funny is that Dungeon publishes plenty of adventures using supposedly no-no plots, such as:

* murder mystery -- not one, but two such adventures in the last couple of mags: the one set in Sharn, and "Shut In"
* PCs hired as mercenaries -- although this hook is supposedly off limits, I'd estimate that 75% of all adventures use it as one of the default ways to involve the PCs
* crazed wizard wreaks havok -- this was the entire plot of the recent "Shards of Eberron" adventure arc; it's also arguably the plot behind the "Age of Worms"

Dungeon also seems to have a thing for adventures that rely on modifying the rules in some fundamental way that is supposedly off-limits for adventure submissions. For example, the adventure

Spoiler

in which a dwarf has developed a serum to make herself and others into formians

required the introduction of a new magic item and a new template (!) -- the latter being especially non-standard in my opinion.

I think what this shows is that good adventures get published, regardless of their plot or the number or rules changes they require. Bad adventures get rejected, regardless of how closely they adhere to the guidelines.

 

[Erik Mona]

I think what this shows is that good adventures get published, regardless of their plot or the number or rules changes they require. Bad adventures get rejected, regardless of how closely they adhere to the guidelines.

What it really shows is that if the adventure is good enough, it can overcome something that might cause a lesser adventure to get rejected automatically. The guidelines are very important to follow in terms of style and the submission process, and the "avoid these plots" suggestions are really just warnings.

If you think your idea is good enough to overcome our advice against certain plots, that's fine, but don't be surprised if we don't agree. You can't say we didn't give fair warning.

--Erik