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.

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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...

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[TheSword]

I hope the winner is a poster here! Fingers crossed for everyone who entered.

I prefer to DM from the shadows but I wish you all the best of luck.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So if we can't or shouldn't share our specific entries, let's talk about the challenge in general.

I went for 2nd tier, deadly because it offered the most versatility in effects and damage for me. At the lower tier it felt like the PCs would be pretty boxed in as far as countermeasure options went. At higher tiers it almost seemed pointless since PCs have so many avenues open to them.

I went with second tier as well, with effects that start as dangerous and scaled up to deadly. I wanted them to be mechanical, rather than magical. As much as I love magical stuff, I feel it's overused in D&D and sometimes a crutch.

I included a trick along with my trap, because traps feel very old school and the trips/tracks dynamic was prominent back in the day. (See the pool room in In Search of the Unknown.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, I started on Thursday night with a "Steam Mephit Baths" trap that I'd halfway worked up for another manuscript I've been hacking away at. Then I realized that (a) it was not tied to current D&D lore, and (b) I might want to use that for my own project (which has a couple fun complex traps).

Steam mephit baths sounds like a great idea. Boiling player characters to death isn't done very often, but is really evocative and, eventually, quite scary.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, unused idea: a necro-alchemical machine that pumped out more and more powerful undead every round until disabled. I decided it relied too much on fighting monsters to be a good example of the form, but I will definitely use it in another project.

Endless monster generators are great. I love anything with a ticking clock element, because my adventurers kicking back and not feeling like they need to take care of a problem really saps a game of a lot of energy, IMO. (My trap actually has the ability for player characters to do that, though, if they figure out a key component of a trap can be ignored if they take the right steps. I view that as a reward for good play, though.)

 

[Quickleaf]

Steam mephit baths sounds like a great idea. Boiling player characters to death isn't done very often, but is really evocative and, eventually, quite scary.

Sounds like you're speaking from experience.

Yeah, I also have a Wall of 99 Flameskulls that's pretty gonzo. Both that and the Steam Mephit Baths ask/answer a similar question: "when do monsters become more like traps?"

While XGtE's complex trap rules are a bit mechanistic and rigidly defined, they're actually just codifying a type of scene that – at least speaking personally – I feel like I improvised a lot of during back in my AD&D days and some of my more inspired sessions in recent years.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Nice! I went all out with a level 11-16 deadly threat. That was a little crazy, but I liked how it encouraged me to be right at the edge of my DM comfort zone (which stops at about 13th/14th level).

I couldn't decide on what difficulty to make my trap, as it seemed like it could be fun for any level, so I included a little table at the end to show how the trap can be adjusted for different level tiers.

I have no idea if that helps or hurt my chances, but I really liked it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I couldn't decide on what difficulty to make my trap, as it seemed like it could be fun for any level, so I included a little table at the end to show how the trap can be adjusted for different level tiers.

I have no idea if that helps or hurt my chances, but I really liked it.

That's one thing I like about the trap rules in 5E: They gave us explicit knobs to turn to easily scale things up or down.

 

[Reynard]

I went with second tier as well, with effects that start as dangerous and scaled up to deadly. I wanted them to be mechanical, rather than magical. As much as I love magical stuff, I feel it's overused in D&D and sometimes a crutch.

I included a trick along with my trap, because traps feel very old school and the trips/tracks dynamic was prominent back in the day. (See the pool room in In Search of the Unknown.)

Mine was a mix of mechanical and magical elements because I wanted to include the option for some PCs to just punch some stuff until it stopped working along with the skills or spells countermeasures.

Mine only escalated a little and practicality won't escalate at all because some trap elements can be "turned off" in the process.

It is still deadly, though and I feel bad for anyone encountering it at the lower end of tier 2.

Did anyone else include a "DM Guidance" call out? My trap suggested a particular mitigating spell and I wanted to call special attention to how it interacted with the trap.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I didn't do a call out, but I explicitly mentioned that a given spell would undo a setback possibly encountered during play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So I started without any preconceptions, rolling on the complex trap tables in Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, and then once the specific setting site from Mordenkainen's popped into my head, I was off designing my own thing. Glad that I worked it from the ground up – I don't think I'd have come up with the trap I did without going through the whole process with a fresh start.

My inspirational material were videos on traps from Matt Colville, Dael Kingsmill and the Questing Beast. None of them gave practical advice I used, but I used their overall philosophy in my design, which is also largely baked into WotC's complex trap rules as-is.

I also kept Dael's "us vs. them" idea in mind, in that my trap is intended to keep thieves out (or dead), but the space is still usable for the trapmaker. (As opposed to, say, an Egyptian tomb where fake side tunnels cave in and are forever after sealed off.)