D&D General The ENWorld Dungeon Master Challenge 2021 Invitational

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's true. Due to some sort of clerical error -- that's all it can be, let's be honest -- you were not one of the 10 folks chosen as a finalist by WotC for their Dungeon Master Challenge.

Let's see what you've got anyway.

Starting on Friday, July 23, the 10 finalists will be given challenges by WotC and a short turnaround time to get something done for the public to see.

Let's take a crack at those challenges here, for fun, to level up our DMing skills and to put a bunch of good content on ENWorld for members to use.

Let's not vote on what the finalists do here (there will probably be another thread for that, knowing ENWorld) and restrain ourselves from dissing the finalists for not being us. (Save that stuff for muttering to your pet offline.)

Anyone else interested? I had fun making my trap and look forward to seeing what's to come.

EDIT: For those who are interested in such things, here's official WotC D&D style guidelines.

 

[Quickleaf]

"You have my quill."

 

[ersatzphil]

Have they said that the writing prompts will be public? I had assumed they would be, but it occurs to me that I don't think I actually read that anywhere.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Have they said that the writing prompts will be public? I had assumed they would be, but it occurs to me that I don't think I actually read that anywhere.

They haven't, you're right. But worst case scenario, we'll see each week's competition when we see what the finalists came up with. So at worst, we'll be a little delayed in making our own entries.

 

[Quickleaf]

D&D Celebration 2021 has a new video for Week 1. They are announcing the weekly challenge on Thursdays. They're doing an elimination every week, until Week 7 when they have three finalists.

They provided a "Feywild inspired creative brief from which they'll be designing their submissions."

Week 1's challenge (2:09 mark in video) is to design "a unique Feywild adventure setting" in 72 hours. That's all they're revealing to the public, so we'll have to make some assumptions about word count... Maybe say 1,000 words, just like the initial complex trap challenge? Maybe say by the morning of Monday the 26th to give everyone a little extra cushion of time? I'll defer to @Whizbang Dustyboots about specifics.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, it seems like 1,000 has to be what they're going for at this stage, because otherwise, that's a very big ask.

And heeeeeeey, this lends a little credence to the idea that there's a Feywild book coming, because we know there's a Domains of Delight document being created and it wouldn't be a surprise if they showed it to these folks first.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'd say the best examples of adventure settings in 5e that are in the 1,000 word ballpark are the locations from Chapter 1, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, such as the Drowned Forest (which is ~1,025 words)....

 

[Urriak Uruk]

D&D Celebration 2021 has a new video for Week 1. They are announcing the weekly challenge on Thursdays. They're doing an elimination every week, until Week 7 when they have three finalists.

They provided a "Feywild inspired creative brief from which they'll be designing their submissions."

Week 1's challenge (2:09 mark in video) is to design "a unique Feywild adventure setting" in 72 hours. That's all they're revealing to the public, so we'll have to make some assumptions about word count... Maybe say 1,000 words, just like the initial complex trap challenge? Maybe say by the morning of Monday the 26th to give everyone a little extra cushion of time? I'll defer to @Whizbang Dustyboots about specifics.

Dangit, why couldn't this have been the first submission? Complex traps are boring, settings are fun!

All I could whip up was a maze filled with chomping fireballs (yeah it was Pacman, sue me!), but I would have far preferred making a Domain of Delight!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Friday is the 23rd.

 

[Burnside]

It's really interesting how the WotC contest continues to be a design challenge as opposed to a DM challenge. The mass public round pretty much had to be that way, but I really thought that starting with the elimination rounds we'd see more dungeon mastering and less designing.

While many great DMs are also great designers, they are distinct things and you don't necessarily have to be great at one to be great at the other.