D&D General Win The Title of D&D's Best DM

WotC is running a competition called the Dungeon Master Challenge. Similar to Paizo's old RPG Superstar contest, it features various design rounds which whittle down the contenders until only one remains.

Dungeons & Dragons | Official Home of the World's Greatest Roleplaying Game

The official source for the latest news and information on Dungeons & Dragons, including Unearthed Arcana and Dragon Talk.

dndcelebration.com

The winner gets a trophy and some D&D products worth just over $2K.

Note: your entry becomes the property of WotC, which can use it in any way it wishes, even if you don't win. They don't even have to credit you for it. Be sure to consider this when deciding whether to enter.

• The first design challenge for a 1,000-word entry is Thursday June 17th, and contestants have three days to submit their entries. This round is open to everybody who qualifies (18+, in one of a list of countries).
• 10 contestants will then proceed to the next round in July, which is an elimination stage with various weekly 1,000-word design challenges.
• Three of those will go on to the final challenge in September, which involved being a DM on a livestream, judged by a panel.

What's a Freelance RPG Writer Worth?

Freelance writers (as opposed to those on salary) tend to be paid per word. The rate varies from publisher to publisher, and on how experienced the writer is. Ed Greenwood, for example, can command a much higher rate than a new writer can. Obviously only you, the freelancer, can decide...

www.enworld.org

 

[Morrus]

Paizo did the exact same thing with RPG Superstar

It's not that they'll steal someone's idea. It's that in six months or six years they'll coincidentally do the same thing as a pitched idea and don't want to be sued

It's why many publishers and authors won't even look at unsolicited pitches

I heard you the first time.

 

[an_idol_mind]

My rl example of why the basic liability protection is there is that, circa 1999, I submitted a race of humanoids bonded with dragon eggs called the dragonborn for one of WotC's magazines. It got rejected, but a few years later dragonborn popped up in an official book.

Was it the same race? No, but if you squint you could see similarities. Did someone at WotC use my idea? No...I doubt anybody involved in that book had even seen my rejected article.

But if there wasn't the degree of legal protection in place, I still could have raised a hullabaloo. Despite the fact that the races were really only tangentially similar, despite the fact that the name dragonborn is not unique enough for me to claim that I originated it, and despite the fact that humanoids with ties to dragons is easy to come up with in parallel design.

Don't submit something for this contest that you might want to publish yourself in another format. But don't make the mistake of thinking that it's some nefarious plan for WotC to steal ideas from the community, either.

 

[Oofta]

For all the people thinking WOTC is going to steal their ideas ... with all due respect I think that's highly unlikely.

Let's face it, most of what we DMs come up with is not particularly unique or special. There are only so many ideas out there that are going to fit the D&D niche, I'm sure most of them have been tossed around at one time or another throughout the years by the people employed to develop product.

That's not to belittle or minimize the work that DMs around the world do. I like to think my own gaming sessions are unique and special. Now and then they I like to think they actually are. For my group. But coming up with new and unique ideas that are going to resonate with a significant portion of the broader public? Call me a skeptic but that is going to be incredibly rare.

During my years of D&D we've played some really cool stories. I've come up with hundreds of unique personalities and caricatures, some of which hit that magic spot of being truly memorable. Some of the monsters were really, truly awesome. But being a realist? I know that there's nothing new under the sun and just like that guy that makes everyone laughs at parties doesn't almost never makes it as a professional comedian, most of our ideas just aren't that special.

Edit: also - what @an_idol_mind said.

 

[Morrus]

For all the people thinking WOTC is going to steal their ideas ... with all due respect I think that's highly unlikely.

That’s not the point. I can come up with an idea every 30 seconds. Every 15 after a couple of drinks. Nobody is claiming that their ideas are so precious. Ideas are, indeed, a dime a dozen.

It’s the general principle of if you choose to use the work, as they’ve indicated they reserve the right to, then you should pay for it. If don’t use it, fine.

As Paizo’s Erik Mona said at the above link — “If we use it, we pay for it. Period.”

Just takes a single line in the agreement.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

..except that contestants are NOT going to get noticed. One of them will. Maybe a handful of the "almost won" types who might get some side offer from WotC for something....maybe.

But the other few hundred or thousands of people who have interesting ideas that get "used" in some other WotC product? Nope. Nothing. They get no mention. They get no "chance to get noticed". All they do is loose the ability to take that cool idea they had and develop it themselves to sell or even give away.

That's the "scummy" part; that WotC doesn't even attempt to 'help' anyone but themselves and the one guy/gal who wins.

Their ideas won't get "used." They're not being published. If WizCo wants to reprint, they WILL pay for the idea
Them owning it now just protects them from lawsuits

As for not helping anyone but themselves... that's what they were doing up until now!!
They cannot help everyone. But after the contest there will be ten people called out and three spotlighted
Which is better than now
You're complaining because WizCo is only helping new ten people potentially break into the industry rather than ten thousand

You're arguing that because they can't help everyone they shouldn't help anyone

As I said... It'd be a simple matter to just put "With inspiration from various other fans: [list of names]". That way the artist/writer/DM could at LEAST point to it on their 'resume' and say "See? That magic item, the Spoon of Special Brewing? Yeah. My idea". They don't own it, they can't use it, but they could point to the WotC book and say "There's my name, in the Inspirations list".

The options are:

• they can do the contest without legal protection and get sued when a designer does a similar idea
• they can do the contest with legal protection and creative people have to give up an idea
• they can skip the contest

The first and last option are undesirable or ho-hum
It's the middle option where the fun exists
If you only have one good idea and don't want to give up, then skip the contest and your life is exactly the same as if they went option 3

It's better than Paizo where the opening round was always the same. So people planned and brainstormed a magic item for a full year before submitting, giving up the best magic item idea they had in twelve months. Because the reveal comes three days before the deadline, everyone is creating fresh

And c'mon, if you have a great idea and haven't published it already, then it doesn't matter if WizCo owns them. They're not doing anything for you right now. What are you waiting for?

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

That’s not the point. I can come up with an idea every 30 seconds. Every 15 after a couple of drinks. Nobody is claiming that their ideas are so precious. Ideas are, indeed, a dime a dozen.

It’s the general principle of if you choose to use the work, as they’ve indicated they reserve the right to, then you should pay for it. If don’t use it, fine.

As Paizo’s Erik Mona said at the above link — “If we use it, we pay for it. Period.”

Just takes a single line in the agreement.

When you did the collections of the best of content from En5sider, how much extra did the authors of that content get paid again?

 

[DEFCON 1]

You people are amusing... WotC probably has the largest swathe of freelancer talent out there to get ideas and product from, all of whom they already pay good money to... and you think they're doing this to get a whole bunch of free crap from us randos out here? That's funny.

Any "good stuff" any of us randos might have is already written up and put onto DMs Guild. And if we haven't done that yet, and instead are submitting it to this contest... that says to me we aren't thinking our stuff is purely meant for financial gain. So what we're doing is exactly what WotC is doing... having a bit of fun within the D&D community. It'll be fun for a lot of us to come up with ideas, work those ideas out, and submit them for the heck of it... and it'll be fun for the folks at WotC to see more of the creativity across the D&D community.

I mean for pete's sake... do cosplayers make their costumes and enter costume contests because they're expecting to get paid for it or they're afraid of other costume people stealing their ideas? Of course not. They do it because it's FUN. And it should be exactly the same thing for anyone who enters this contest.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'm a publisher and freelancer, but I'm going to go for it because it sounds fun.

I'm not worried that they're going to steal my ideas, because I have a bunch of other ideas, and honestly I have more ideas than I have time to write. I'll probably come up with a new idea based on the prompt that has nothing to do with anything else that I'm working on or planning to publish.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm a publisher and freelancer, but I'm going to go for it because it sounds fun.

I'm not worried that they're going to steal my ideas, because I have a bunch of other ideas, and honestly I have more ideas than I have time to write. I'll probably come up with a new idea based on the prompt that has nothing to do with anything else that I'm working on or planning to publish.

My suspicion is that the prompt will require using WotC protected IP, anyways.

 

[Morrus]

When you did the collections of the best of content from En5sider, how much extra did the authors of that content get paid again?

Every last word we used was paid for. What’s with the attitude?