D&D Setting, Indy Rules Contest August 9, 2009
Posted by boymonster in design.Tags: contest
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I was listening the Open Design Podcast’s interview with John Wick about “what is your game about?” and it got me thinking about the various D&D campaign settings. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t play Dragonlance or Birthright or Planescape with D&D and have a good time. They were written for D&D, after all. But, I think that if you took a hard look at those settings and figured out what they were really about, it would be different than what D&D is about.
So, I’m proposing a design contest. Choose a D&D world (any TSR or Wizards of the Coast setting), and write up a proof of concept for an RPG that would truly get to the heart of what that setting is about. If the world is not about going up in levels, fighting lots of monsters, and getting treasure (which is certainly a lot of fun), then don’t include that stuff.
You have until September 30 to write this up and send it in to me at boymonster AT gmail DOT com. I’ll post the entries and maybe even have a small panel of judges, or something. What’s the prize? I’ll have to figure that out. I have a really nice copy of Towers of High Sorcery for 3.5 D&D. Those are super rare on eBay! We’ll see.
If I were intimately familiar with any D&D settings, I definitely would join in, as it seems like a great idea. Since I’m not… good luck to everyone who enters!
Cam, here’s a question for you. What exactly does a “proof of concept” entail? Could I see an example of one?
What that means is, don’t bother designing an entire RPG and writing it. Do an outline with some description what the game would do to capture the flavor of the setting, some mechanics discussion, maybe a character sheet or something. Because the D&D settings are all copyright of WotC, you should make certain not to tread on that. It’s OK to reference things, I’d say.
In other words, I want to see how you’d go about designing a game that supports the setting more tightly than standard d20/D&D/4E would.
Proof of concept, then, sounds like a one or two pager. Yeah; I could do that.
I’ve decided against my better judgment that I will enter despite my lack of knowledge about any campaign setting… So when you see my Forgotten Realms entry, don’t be surprised if it isn’t too great.
Cool, Aaron! You’ve still got time. Two weeks, and anything I get submitted gets judged.
Okay, I’m done already. Yeah…
Sent it in.
So? Who won? What were the entries?
Hi Ben! Actually, I got roughly… one entry? So Aaron wins!
You’d think I would be posting here more often, but Margaret Weis Productions has been keeping me insanely busy.