The First Delightful Dungeon Competition

I want to see more delightful dungeons and I want you to create them!

Submit one or more dungeons (or dungeon-like adventuring locations) conforming to the restrictions of the competition before August 26th 2024. A $20 amazon gift card prize is given to the best dungeon as judged by me according to the judgement criteria. A $10 amazon gift card prize is given to the most popular dungeon as voted by the non-disqualified competitors after the final date of submission. 

Criteria for qualification

  • Text, maps etc. packaged into a single PDF of no more than 2 pages
  • If printed the details of the text, maps, etc. should be legible (min ~8pt)
  • The dungeon should include at least one of the following themes: hidden treasure, traitors, sentinels
  • The heavy lifting is done by you, don't ask the DM to randomize treasure, come up with hooks, names etc.
  • The dungeon is compatible with an old school system like ACKS, AD&D, B/X, LotFP etc.
Criteria for judgement
  • Respect the time, intelligence, and taste of the DM reading your dungeon. Write clearly, draw clearly, don't explain the obvious. Use color and imagination befitting your vision.
  • Offer a good challenge and proportional reward to the players. Reward bravery and cleverness with shortcuts, treasure, information etc. Punish cowardice and stupidity with the loss of life, resources, opportunity etc. 

Examples of what I'm looking for
2-pages should allow you to write a medium sized dungeon with a sparse key (like a quadrant of Michael Curtis' excellent Stonehell) or a small (2 rooms!) lair with an expanded key (like Heikki Hallamaa's excellent The Diamond of Hishep-Ratep).


Submit your dungeon as a PDF to olleskogren [at symbol] gmail.com. The qualified entries will with the permission of each author be published as a free compilation.




Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 25, 2024 at 7:38 PM

    2 pages including maps is very constrained for me but perhaps I can make it work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 25, 2024 at 10:35 PM

    Who are you and why do you want my dungeon?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CommodoreJune 25, 2024 at 11:54 PM

      This man is Olle Skogen, winner of No Artpunk II, killer of vast piles of players.

      Delete
    2. Olle SkogrenJune 26, 2024 at 7:41 PM

      I want your dungeon so that I can run it for my players!

      I never won any No Artpunk but my module (The Temple of Hypnos) for the first is well regarded. The one I wrote for No Artpunk II got stuck in playtesting but is basically complete except for post-playtest adjustments https://mega.nz/folder/5HklhRQJ#aZaebI1eZMMsCAshomZBaQ

      Delete
  3. YeOldeJeffeJuly 1, 2024 at 7:26 PM

    does a table for randomly generating houris in the vein of Judges Guild count as making the DM do heavy lifting if it's purely bonus content?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Olle SkogrenJuly 2, 2024 at 12:07 AM

      Yes, detail the houris you want to see or describe them as a group.

      Delete
  4. ThePhoenixTomeAugust 8, 2024 at 5:41 PM

    I just finished typing up my entry for this. It'll be my first published dungeon so I don't really expect to win, but it was a fun challenge so thanks for the incentive. Playtest session on Monday, then it'll be submitted shortly after.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Announcing the Winners!

Image
 The winner is... The Chamber of Frost & Flame by J. Blasso-Gieseke This dungeon is stupid  and delightful . It hits the judgement criteria the hardest of all the entries. The whimsical puzzle-like setup isn't my usual taste in adventures, but I couldn't help being charmed by it. It is a distillation of fantasy adventure; explore, act, suffer the consequences. A $20 gift card has been sent to Mr. Blasso's e-mail.  This was not an easy choice given the overall high quality of the entries. I shifted the responsbility of further judgement onto the competitors themselves, this time asking them to choose only their favorite adventure. The responses I got showed many struggled with picking a single favorite, and the final tally was close.  The most popular dungeon as voted by the competitors is... Cloud-Giant's Cairn by Giant Goose A narrow but well deserved win! It was the only entry to get 2 votes, proof of the even field. This is a delightful and mature  dun...
Read more

Contest Entry: Widow's Keep (by Zed)

Image
This is an open ended module that can be many things over the same campaign; a place of refuge, the taget of a heist, or the doom of the player characters! The theming is Hammer Horror; vampire, werewolves, ghouls, and the eponymous big titty(?) goth widow. The keep itself is a 24 room affair, it comes with a 7 hex region to slot into your sandbox. Place it in the way of the player characters and see how it goes, or pester them with rumors of the wealthy and beautiful widow and see if their greed or lust incite action! The author recommends it to 3rd to 5th level characters. Download it here! Does it qualify? Yes.  The PDF is 2 pages, easy to read and parse, there are sentinels, hidden treasure, and traitors, the heavy lifting is done by the author (though some treasure is generic "jewelry", made up for most of the monstrous servants of the lady being named and characterized). There is a threadbare treasure map offering 12,000gp(!) 2d6 days away. Why did I disqualify Study of...
Read more