Iron Chef for Dungeons?

[Ingus]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228547) thread give me a strange idea. Would anyone except me be interested in a contest of the best dungeon design?

Or this is just another silly idea? (or both? :smalltongue:)

[Gullintanni]

Dungeon design is a lot of work, and the dungeons would be pretty difficult to evaluate. I'm not really sure how that would work.

[Suddo]

It matters what level the higher the level the more time its going to take. If you say do it for an adventuring party level 10, it might be fun. But what ever you do don't make level 20 I could only imagine a constant chain of death traps.

[Gullintanni]

It matters what level the higher the level the more time its going to take. If you say do it for an adventuring party level 10, it might be fun. But what ever you do don't make level 20 I could only imagine a constant chain of death traps.

"How does your dungeon prevent scry and die tactics, burrow speeds, flight etc". Yeah that'd be a mess :smallamused:

[motoko's ghost]

What about adventures?
Dungeons would be difficult unless you added size/level constraints and would take a LOT of time and effort, for both the creators and the judges.
Adventures are probably easier to write up(especially if you only have 2-3 unique monsters that need stat blocks.
Have each entry be in a "theme" of adventure types, actually that might work, anyone interested?:smalltongue:

[Geigan]

Perhaps give a party of a specific level and composition and have the contestants design a dungeon for them? Set a CR or XP budget and give them a theme or set piece that should specifically be included(like a recurring villain, or a swamp dungeon). Rate the dungeons on how well they play to the party's abilities, how challenging the dungeon is for the party, how well it keeps to he budget and how well he set piece/theme is utilized. Perhaps they could even be judged in Pbp games on the forums for a 5th category of how fun they were to play?:smallbiggrin:

[motoko's ghost]

Perhaps give a party of a specific level and composition and have the contestants design a dungeon for them? Set a CR or XP budget and give them a theme or set piece that should specifically be included(like a recurring villain, or a swamp dungeon). Rate the dungeons on how well they play to the party's abilities, how challenging the dungeon is for the party, how well it keeps to he budget and how well he set piece/theme is utilized. Perhaps they could even be judged in Pbp games on the forums for a 5th category of how fun they were to play?:smallbiggrin:

Maybe how well they were written too?(thought-out interesting premise,good backstory,nice description,etc)

[Suddo]

"How does your dungeon prevent scry and die tactics, burrow speeds, flight etc". Yeah that'd be a mess :smallamused:

Well as was brought up in the protect your plane thread Wish just breaks most everything and at level 20 the fee is probably worth whatever McGuffin is on the other side.

[Geigan]

Maybe how well they were written too?(thought-out interesting premise,good backstory,nice description,etc)

How well written and easy to understand it is. Yeah, that sounds like a good production quality category.

[Gullintanni]

Well as was brought up in the protect your plane thread Wish just breaks most everything and at level 20 the fee is probably worth whatever McGuffin is on the other side.

Wish also has the partial/non-fulfillment clause. If your dungeon design managed to cover all the guaranteed uses of Wish, then you can probably assume for the purpose of any such competition that the dungeon is protected by the power of plot and super Wishes are off the table as an option.

But I agree that short adventure paths would probably be easier to run. Categories could include things like:

Ingenuity - For presentations of strange or creative, out of the box ideas linked to the theme.

Thematic Content - For staying true to the theme, similar to the Use of the Special Ingredient category in the current IC.

Technical Content - This would include legality of any builds, CR appropriateness of custom monsters etc. Encompassed in this would be a necessity for the author to describe a CR target for his adventure path.

Versatility and Adaptability - This field would judge how well a given adventure path offered challenges for different classes. For example, are there challenges for the Trap-finding rogue? Locks to be picked? Doors to be kicked in? Undead to turn?

Development - How well developed is the adventure path in terms of fluff? Is there a backstory? Why would your PCs want to run this adventure? Is there an angle to motivate a Fighter? Rogue? Paladin?

[The Succubus]

Well, what you could do is have each person Iron Chef a room of the dungeon with a specific theme in mind (trap/puzzle/monster fight/treasure pit), connect the whole lot together and do a PbP run through. If any PCs successfully make it out alive, consider the project a failure. :smalltongue:

[Suddo]

Well, what you could do is have each person Iron Chef a room of the dungeon with a specific theme in mind (trap/puzzle/monster fight/treasure pit), connect the whole lot together and do a PbP run through. If any PCs successfully make it out alive, consider the project a failure. :smalltongue:

Oh man that would be too cool.
Edit: Except for it being a rocks fall everyone dies. But the combining part is awesome.

A note for "well X breaks this dungeon." Just make a party about tier 3 and say that that is the metric for measurement. So that way the party isn't Erudite, Wizard, Cleric, Druid all with cheese, but rather something like Factotum, Bard, Beguiler, Warblade or something similar.

[Ingus]

Whoah, so it is not only me.
This is reassuring (in a way...) :smallbiggrin:

My original idea was this: give a specific budget, a "creator", a level of "intruders" and a generic hint of the threat that they will pose.
So, to stick with the exampe given, it would probably be "A standard party of 4PCs of 20th level is about to wish in your demiplane. As a 21th level psion, what defenses do you craft? You have all your spells and 100.000 Gp budget".

But, to be honest, the Succubus had a better idea: a room will be easier to design, easier to custom, simple to post.

You, you charmed me into saying I'm wrong!

An adventure contest would be a very interesting task too, so I encourage you to talk about it also (here, please, not spawn threads into the forum).
The big problems I see are: "how far the details?" and "where to find third party playtesters?"

[Ingus]

A note for "well X breaks this dungeon." Just make a party about tier 3 and say that that is the metric for measurement. So that way the party isn't Erudite, Wizard, Cleric, Druid all with cheese, but rather something like Factotum, Bard, Beguiler, Warblade or something similar.

This can be solved in different ways.
1) As a DM contest, you know in advance the PCs
2) Fighter - Thief - Cleric - Wizard party
3) As a designer's contest, you have to figure out a counter against the most obvious combos. The more the PCs builds are complicated/specialized in that particular room to break it, the more your room is good. If your room defeat PunPun, you're God among our poor mortals.
4) Judges are "breakers" and contestants are "builders". And then there is the arbiter of them all, that point out how easy it was to break the room.

[Geigan]

This can be solved in different ways.
1) As a DM contest, you know in advance the PCs
2) Fighter - Thief - Cleric - Wizard party
3) As a designer's contest, you have to figure out a counter against the most obvious combos. The more the PCs builds are complicated/specialized in that particular room to break it, the more your room is good. If your room defeat PunPun, you're God among our poor mortals.
4) Judges are "breakers" and contestants are "builders". And then there is the arbiter of them all, that point out how easy it was to break the room.

I'd personally prefer the DM contest, as it better tests a DM's ability to adapt to their group. If you know the party in advance you can make a dungeon that manages to challenge and be interesting to them specifically, which IMO is more fun to play and test.

On the other hand the designer's contest is probably more accessible and useful to the rest of the community in that what it creates could be easily used by anyone reading the contest.

I object to the standard Fighter - Thief - Cleric - Wizard party. It's off balance to play and test as the cleric and wizard have power disparities between them and the other two classes. Unless you mean them to be played to the standard party WotC expected of players which is both boring to design for and playtest as it's a very narrow paradigm of gameplay.

[Suddo]

This can be solved in different ways.
1) As a DM contest, you know in advance the PCs
2) Fighter - Thief - Cleric - Wizard party
3) As a designer's contest, you have to figure out a counter against the most obvious combos. The more the PCs builds are complicated/specialized in that particular room to break it, the more your room is good. If your room defeat PunPun, you're God among our poor mortals.
4) Judges are "breakers" and contestants are "builders". And then there is the arbiter of them all, that point out how easy it was to break the room.

#4 is the classic DM vs PCs that I dislike. Because in the end the DM can always kill the players. Always.

I'd rather it be something I would put up on the forum once a month and then run it in a group of mine, see how it ran and report back. The dungeon or rooms should often become more puzzle driven rather than anything else. Anyone can kill an adventuring party; It takes skill to make something difficult enough to have a threat of death but easy enough to make all the players not hate you.

ECL6 might be a good place to have this dungeon too. Then again the level will be part of the concept.

Edit: Also as Geigan said above me about #2.

[Sudain]

I like this idea. I'd try to contribute or judge.

[Razanir]

With the debate on what the testing party should be, maybe offer a core version and an "all sourcebooks accepted" version. I'd try this if the party I was planning for was core.

So the contest details would be:
-A level, I heard 6th?
-Two parties, one core, one anything. (Make it a healer, a rogue-type, a fighter of sorts and a wizard)
-A CR limit, where all the encounters can't go over it
-A special theme that has to be used (swamp dungeon, zombies, etc.)

[Ingus]

So... I put in the general idea and now it has legs on its own?
Wonderful!

Not enough time to answer, right now, but I'm still reading :smallwink:

[Zonugal]

I have thought about something like this but as opposed to strictly being dungeons, building actual places.

Like the first competition would be to build a prison under a certain budget.

[Geigan]

With the debate on what the testing party should be, maybe offer a core version and an "all sourcebooks accepted" version. I'd try this if the party I was planning for was core.

So the contest details would be:
-A level, I heard 6th?
-Two parties, one core, one anything. (Make it a healer, a rogue-type, a fighter of sorts and a wizard)
-A CR limit, where all the encounters can't go over it
-A special theme that has to be used (swamp dungeon, zombies, etc.)

I think the level should be determined by the secret ingredient(set piece/theme). For instance, if the big bad of the dungeon was of a certain level or the best CR challenges that a certain setting could provide were in a certain range. This should probably be determined by the event organizers.

The party thing depends on how the event leans on DM challenge vs designer challenge. I think the DM challenge only really needs one party of any composition, so long as it is a set composition. The designer however, needs to get a diverse range of types which would probably serve a core only party and a party of tier 3 range from other books, possibly more.

I think CR limit as well as an XP budget. That way you get dungeons that aren't impossible, but also dungeons that manage a proper length to level them from 1-3 times depending on how long the theoretical party should spend on the dungeon.

Secret ingredients are probably most fun when they're broad, though something based around a specific NPC might be interesting too if the dungeon is theirs.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

With the debate on what the testing party should be, maybe offer a core version and an "all sourcebooks accepted" version. I'd try this if the party I was planning for was core.

So the contest details would be:
-A level, I heard 6th?
-Two parties, one core, one anything. (Make it a healer, a rogue-type, a fighter of sorts and a wizard)
-A CR limit, where all the encounters can't go over it
-A special theme that has to be used (swamp dungeon, zombies, etc.)

For a test party, Core vs non-Core is no measure of power at all. I think it would be more appropriate to limit characters to Tier 3 and lower, and maybe also have a Tier 1 party just to test the dungeon's limits.

Just to point out, a Vampire Kobold Aristocrat 4 is CR 3. A Dragonkin Cleric 7 is CR 6 as per nonassociated class levels and rounding down. He'd have 14HD, +12 BAB, something like Str 22, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 20, Cha 14, around AC 35, etc. My point is, the CR system is even easier to exploit than character creation, and is not the best way to judge how challenging an encounter should be for a party of a given level.

[Phaederkiel]

I would certainly offer some help in the project.

[SamBurke]

I'd love to help with this... either as a DM, a creator, or a play tester. Probably the last.

Also, what edition? I prefer PF, personally, but I could do any.

[Fable Wright]

I, too, would be interested in this. Personally, I think it would be best if most of the details were left to the creator of the dungeon; the secret ingredient for one contest could be 'Dragon's Hidden Lair' or 'Mummy's Tomb' or 'Swampy ruins'. The DM picks the level of the adventuring party and then designs the dungeon, possibly in MapTools (At the very least, something standardized). The dungeon would be judged based on:
Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.
Background: How well the dungeon presents plot hooks and meshes a story into the combat.
Difficulty: How difficult the dungeon is to play through; if an encounter seems too strong given terrain/other factors, or puzzles are too difficult/easy to solve, points are lost. If everything remarkably seems balanced, bonus points.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.

And then the most unique, balanced yet challenging dungeon that involves the whole crew gets graded the highest. Judging based off of the traditional Thief, Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, (Bard) party, possibly with another category for adaptability to other party makeups.

[SamBurke]

My thought is: we run three parties.

1. The most standard party we can come up with. This is the party that play tested for WotC: Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, vanilla of vanilla.

2. The most optimized party we can run. These are people who crank out 10 spells at level 1 (not hard, actually...), and keep up the insanity all the way up.

3. The most balanced party we can find. This is four or so tier threes. I'd personally prefer playing in this one, but that's my play style.

[Razanir]

My thought is: we run three parties.

1. The most standard party we can come up with. This is the party that play tested for WotC: Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, vanilla of vanilla.

2. The most optimized party we can run. These are people who crank out 10 spells at level 1 (not hard, actually...), and keep up the insanity all the way up.

3. The most balanced party we can find. This is four or so tier threes. I'd personally prefer playing in this one, but that's my play style.

That would work. My point was just that not everyone will have a lot of sourcebooks (I only have core, Savage Species and Complete Adventurer) so we should have a couple teams you can plan for depending on what books you have

[Phaederkiel]

I´d think every judge just runs a party of friends through, no matter what they bring to the table. You are much more likely to see real game problems than with normed groups, i think.

[The Gilded Duke]

I think there should be at least some warning of what there is to face. Maybe the chairman could post ahead of time a hint list something like:

4 Man Level 5:
T 1 Caster
T 3 Caster
T 5 Melee
T 3 Skill

With then the actual character sheets not revealed until judging has begun.

[motoko's ghost]

Count me in for judging, assuming it happens:smallredface:

[Draz74]

In case anyone's curious (or looking for inspiration), I'd like to point out that a successful dungeon-design contest called "One Page Dungeon" has been going on for the past few years.

Also, I motion that if this project gets off the ground, it should be called "Iron Kitchen."

[SamBurke]

Agreed on the name... I like.

[Othesemo]

I'd be willing to contribute or playtest on this. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Also, I second the 'Iron Kitchen' motion.

[Duskranger]

Okay, if this comes from the ground I like to be the guy that enters this as a designer, or if the ingredient doesn't strike me as nice as a Judge.

I do think that every judge needs to run a party in his own preferred setting. As in play what you feel like is the best.

For example the player creation rules (or actually dungeon crash test dummies):
No more than 1 T1 caster.
No more than slightly optimized.
32 PB
first HD full, rest average
Mountain Hammer gets same restrictions as Devoted Spirit strikes (can only attack foes)

My party would exist out of:
Druid, Crusader, SwordSage, Bard (or a BardBlade)

Anyway, I would say, let's open the Kitchen and see what happens :)

[Tvtyrant]

Would we be using hexes or squares? I prefer hexes myself for not having to deal with poor diagonal mechanics, but its up to the community.

[Duskranger]

Would we be using hexes or squares? I prefer hexes myself for not having to deal with poor diagonal mechanics, but its up to the community.

I prefer squares, easier that way to make a 4 by 6 room :smallbiggrin:.

But without nonsense, squares are easier.

[Phaederkiel]

Mountain Hammer gets same restrictions as Devoted Spirit strikes (can only attack foes)



are you sure this is needed? one should be able to make a dungeon with a contingency against such things...

because, you know, there is a whole bundle of spells i do not like, because they can seriosly cramp a dungeon (for example: divine guidance, or even knock. find secret doors. Find traps. etc). Wanna ban them all?

[Duskranger]

are you sure this is needed? one should be able to make a dungeon with a contingency against such things...

because, you know, there is a whole bundle of spells i do not like, because they can seriosly cramp a dungeon (for example: divine guidance, or even knock. find secret doors. Find traps. etc). Wanna ban them all?

If something can crush your complete dungeon (as in through the walls and such) it does not make it fun. So Yes I feel it necessary to let the Mountain Hammer line not effect Non-Hazardous things. Except maybe doors.

And no, the finding doors and such are not that bad, wrecking the dungeon, by crashing through the outer wall with a mountainhammer is.

[Phaederkiel]

ok. you start to hammer the wall. The wall is about 5 ft thick (outer wall) or, if you are lucky only 1 ft inside. How long do you take? Did you just make enough noise that everything in this dungeon comes looking whats cooking at once?
did you make a Knowledge: architecture Check high enough not to sap a bearing wall?

I mean yes, you can tunnel through the Tome of horrors. But you can do that without mountain hammer. And even with mountain hammer it will take a lot of time. And you have dozens of ways to die in the meantime.

[The Gilded Duke]

Silence + Adamantine Axe can do many horrible horrible things to dungeons.

[Gullintanni]

Silence + Adamantine Axe can do many horrible horrible things to dungeons.

You just had to mention it. Now every Dungeon is going to have Adamantine walls, and rather than explore the Dungeon, PCs are going to spend their time trying to figure out how to cart off the architecture. :smallamused:

[Drathmar]

You just had to mention it. Now every Dungeon is going to have Adamantine walls, and rather than explore the Dungeon, PCs are going to spend their time trying to figure out how to cart off the architecture. :smallamused:

Sounds like a good idea to me... characters would be too distracted to notice the horde of monsters about to sneak attack them.

[Ingus]

Read it all, here my thoughts.

As a standard package, I suggest squares. I know the benefits to think in hexagons, but 4x6 is easier to be put down in squares (besides, you may find a square sheet at any corner, but a hexagon-based sheet...?)

The object should be very limited. Surely not a dungeon, maybe not a single room either. I imagine it as a small complex between 1 to 5 rooms. One should specify from contest to contest, but I would second the idea ot keeping it small: does "from 4x6 to 16x16" seems adequate to you?

A good rating system would be this (3 out of 4: credits to DMofDarkness, barred and italics are my mods)


Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.
Background: How well the dungeon presents plot hooks and meshes a story into the combat.
Elegance*: How well the dungeon is balanced to the given level, without exploitment of loopholes, poor written rules, obviously erroneous monster CR and so on. In brief: what a party would found very difficult without complaining of PowerMastering
Difficulty: How difficult the dungeon is to play through; if an encounter seems too strong given terrain/other factors, or puzzles are too difficult/easy to solve, points are lost. If everything remarkably seems balanced, bonus points.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.


*as you should have noticed, I'm very creative :smalltongue:

For the imaginative party which is probably going in, I suggest to steal copy inspire ourselves to the greater wisdom of Iron Chef: consider the complex to be generally hostile to any practical optimized four PCs party.

This is in close conjunction with the other main issue: the goal.
While I liked much the TPK idea, I think it is difficult to support. I would prefer the contest to aim to a hell of a threat, while still being fair. In my mind, the perfect entry would be Tucker's kobolds (ask Google).

Any comment?

[Duskranger]

A good dungeon needs to be survivable and fun I totally agree with that.

[Piggy Knowles]

I remember several years ago (2005ish?) there was a "master DM competition" on the old WotC boards, before they were converted over.

Each contest, you would have something to design as a DM, including things like an organization, a small dungeon, a new trap, a new monster, or a mode of transportation. Within that, you had to stat up at two or three encounters of various levels, and a couple of NPCs.

There were also up to three "bonus points" elements included. The contest would have a list of things you could incorporate that could each generate a bonus point, if done well. Bonus points included things like designing a new spell, incorporating vermin into an encounter, creating monster with different life cycles, etc. Judges would only give you the bonus points if they felt you incorporated those elements well, and there was a maximum of three bonus points - you couldn't rack up ten extra points by tossing in all ten elements, and trying to do so would probably cost you any bonus points, since it's pretty likely that it wouldn't have been done well.

For example, the only time I ever received the gold medal, the contest was to design a new mode of transportation that PCs and NPCs could use. I created a windship that was attached to a roc. An adventurous bard had researched a new spell that masked one object's presence from a creature's mind, no matter how obvious, and used it in the most audacious way possible: he trapped a roc and attached a windship, then used the spell to make it forget the windship existed and attach it. He did not tell the roc where to go, and travelers on his windship would pay for the adventure of it, never knowing where they would end up or how long the journey would be. I got three bonus points for designing the spell, for including vermin in the location (giant termites were a constant problem on the ship), and for including an encounter that involved an organization of druids (they decided the treatment of the roc was unjust). I statted up the bard who was the captain of the ship, a couple of low level NPCs that were constant presences, and a few encounter blocks of different challenge ratings. It was a lot of fun.

Other contests I participated in but didn't win involved designing a new monster that was of the ooze, plant or construct type (IIRC, the winner created a Living Lake, which was an ooze so large that it was frequently mistaken for a lake), and designing a one-room trap.

I think it would be super interesting to see something like this pop up again. It could include dungeons, but it could also be a whole lot more, too....

[Ingus]

Snip

Very nice project and very good idea. This, however, will be definitely up to the organizator.

By the way...

I created a windship that was attached to a roc. An adventurous bard had researched a new spell that masked one object's presence from a creature's mind, no matter how obvious, and used it in the most audacious way possible: he trapped a roc and attached a windship, then used the spell to make it forget the windship existed and attach it.
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

This bard will be named Piggy Knowles and this idea will be definitely used in one of my games, if you don't mind. Very well deserved gold medal.

[Ingus]

So here we are again.
Following, there is a draft of the rules we all discussed. I'll keep it there for as long as it will be necessary for anyone to intervene. Then, we'll start :smallwink:

To be clear, this is not the actual contest, just a beta version of the rules.


Iron Kitchen - Dungeon Design Challenge

Behold, Ladies, Gentleman, sexless races and gentle public, the challenge of the dungeon creators. To participate you need but your fantasy and planning skills - and yes, a PC, a keybord and a mouse.
I defy you to design a small dungeon, devilshly effective, so to engage any party in a funny, challenging and breath-stealing adventure in a fair and DM-appropriate way, and as adherent as possible to the main theme

The Complex. Your task will be to design a room, rooms and corridors or another similar space using as mesurement squares (5ftx5ft). Your work, unless otherwise noted, can't be smaller than 4x4 squares and no bigger than 16x16 squares. It is not needed to actually draw a map, but the Complex should be clearly described in the way you see fit.
The Complex may contain anything a dungeon normally contains: traps, monsters, spells, NPC, furnitures and so on, but see main theme
Your entry has to be sent to the chairman (the author of this post) before the deadline set for the contest.

The Main Theme. You will be given a desing theme and one or more caveats. This will always include the general purpose of the dungeon or the appearence, or resourcers, class and level of the creator. It may include other caveats, like Encounter Level, monster limitations, special traits or anything the chairman will feel fit.

Your work will be judged on four different grounds:
Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.
Elegance: How well the dungeon is balanced to the given level, without exploitment of loopholes, poor written rules, obviously erroneous monster CR and so on. In brief: what a party would found very difficult without complaining of PowerMastering
Difficulty: How difficult the dungeon is to play through; if an encounter seems too strong given terrain/other factors, or puzzles are too difficult/easy to solve, points are lost. If everything remarkably seems balanced, bonus points.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.

Please reply here to sign in as a judge or as a contestant or follow us as a reader.

Today Main Theme is : [add Main Theme here]

Send your works with a PM until: [add deadline here]


Please PEACH

[Gullintanni]

So here we are again.
Following, there is a draft of the rules we all discussed. I'll keep it there for as long as it will be necessary for anyone to intervene. Then, we'll start :smallwink:

To be clear, this is not the actual contest, just a beta version of the rules.


Iron Kitchen - Dungeon Design Challenge

Behold, Ladies, Gentleman, sexless races and gentle public, the challenge of the dungeon creators. To participate you need but your fantasy and planning skills - and yes, a PC, a keybord and a mouse.
I defy you to design a small dungeon, devilshly effective, so to engage any party in a funny, challenging and breath-stealing adventure in a fair and DM-appropriate way, and as adherent as possible to the main theme

The Complex. Your task will be to design a room, rooms and corridors or another similar space using as mesurement squares (5ftx5ft). Your work, unless otherwise noted, can't be smaller than 4x4 squares and no bigger than 16x16 squares. It is not needed to actually draw a map, but the Complex should be clearly described in the way you see fit.
The Complex may contain anything a dungeon normally contains: traps, monsters, spells, NPC, furnitures and so on, but see main theme
Your entry has to be sent to the chairman (the author of this post) before the deadline set for the contest.

The Main Theme. You will be given a desing theme and one or more caveats. This will always include the general purpose of the dungeon or the appearence, or resourcers, class and level of the creator. It may include other caveats, like Encounter Level, monster limitations, special traits or anything the chairman will feel fit.

Your work will be judged on four different grounds:
Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.
Elegance: How well the dungeon is balanced to the given level, without exploitment of loopholes, poor written rules, obviously erroneous monster CR and so on. In brief: what a party would found very difficult without complaining of PowerMastering
Difficulty: How difficult the dungeon is to play through; if an encounter seems too strong given terrain/other factors, or puzzles are too difficult/easy to solve, points are lost. If everything remarkably seems balanced, bonus points.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.

Please reply here to sign in as a judge or as a contestant or follow us as a reader.

Today Main Theme is : [add Main Theme here]

Send your works with a PM until: [add deadline here]


Please PEACH

One thing that should be added is a target party ECL. I'm not sure reading over the proposed rules that the notion's been incorporated. To really evaluate "difficulty" you have to have a party ECL, because difficulty is a different concept for a Level 1 party vs. a Level 20 party. For example, my group of Minotaur PsyWars in the first room of the dungeon will mop up the level 1 party, but might be appropriate for a party of 4-5 seventh or eighth level characters.

So the chairmen, rather than proposing a Secret Ingredient as is currently the case in Iron Chef, would propose an ECL and a theme.

[Piggy Knowles]

Very nice project and very good idea. This, however, will be definitely up to the organizator.

By the way...

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

This bard will be named Piggy Knowles and this idea will be definitely used in one of my games, if you don't mind. Very well deserved gold medal.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun with that one.

I wouldn't mind one day trying to revive that old Master DM competition, although I wouldn't want to compete with all of the other excellent competitions that are going on...

Anyhow, on to your theme idea.

"DIFFICULTY" seems a bit misleading as a judging category. To me, that implies that the more difficult the puzzle/dungeon is, the higher you'll score. Instead, I would call it "balance" or something similar.

To me, a balanced dungeon would be able to give a positive answer to both of the following questions:

Does the dungeon both engage and challenge the PCs? Gain points for doing this well, lose points for a dungeon that fails to properly challenge the PCs or is too passive and doesn't really engage them.

Are all the tools to complete the dungeon available to the characters? Bonus points if the dungeon is self-contained (insert PCs and you have an encounter!), lose points if the dungeon is too difficult or unable to be completed without certain super-specific skills.

[Gullintanni]

"DIFFICULTY" seems a bit misleading as a judging category. To me, that implies that the more difficult the puzzle/dungeon is, the higher you'll score. Instead, I would call it "balance" or something similar.

To me, a balanced dungeon would be able to give a positive answer to both of the following questions:

Does the dungeon both engage and challenge the PCs? Gain points for doing this well, lose points for a dungeon that fails to properly challenge the PCs or is too passive and doesn't really engage them.


This is sort of what I was going for in my post above about ECL. Difficulty as a category, would try to account for how well the dungeon challenges the target ECL given at the beginning of the competition, rather than being a measure of maximum possible difficulty.

I mean, you could put Pun-Pun in every room, and the dungeon would be unbeatable, but such a configuration would, and should receive failing marks in light of the fact that it really isn't an appropriately difficult set of challenges for the target ECL.

[Ingus]

Uhm, "difficulty" may be, in fact, misleading.

I'm on a rewrite


(this is a substitute for Elegance) Playability: The entry should be a viable insertion in anyone's campaign, adventure, rainy afternoon. A good score means the dungeon is for every one and it is self-contained (insert PCs and you have an encounter), a bad score for entries that need a specific item, skill, spell, class/racial/special ability to be completed.

Balance: How challenging, active and well balanced the entry is. As a dungeon, it should be challenging, difficult and a complex defy to PCs. Bonus points if the dungeon is "active", points lost if the dungeon is too passive, unchallenging or too difficult to overcome.
Self defense clause: There never will be a penalty for entries that are easily overcome with a specific, unusual combo and/or with a behaviour that an average DM would never allow. To be more specific: a very specific group of PCs that are built to deal with the exact threat the dungeon poses; tunnelling the dungeon with adamantium pikes; any tactic involving the use of a candle of invocation will never cost a deduction. Not having considered a party with two arcane spellcasters or with two PCs with initiator level might.


I hope to have clarified.
I added the self defense clause for more clarity, since there was a discussion before exactly on tunnelling

[SamBurke]

Is the 16x16 square count? Or feet? Because it still seems kinda small either way... with squares, it'd work, though. 80 feet by 80 feet is doable. Especially if you build a tower or a dungeon that goes down or up...

[Suddo]

I think size should be up to the chairman's discretion. If you are designing a single room then it might be okay to have a 16x16 limit. But if you are designing a whole level it might be preferred to make a large catacomb of tunnels.

[legomaster00156]

I recommend "underwater dungeon" as the first "secret ingredient": the dungeon has to be at least 70% water. Think the Ocarina of Time Water Temple. :smallbiggrin:

[Razanir]

*updated with balance and elegance

Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.Playability: The entry should be a viable insertion in anyone's campaign, adventure, rainy afternoon. A good score means the dungeon is for every one and it is self-contained (insert PCs and you have an encounter), a bad score for entries that need a specific item, skill, spell, class/racial/special ability to be completed.
Balance: How challenging, active and well balanced the entry is. As a dungeon, it should be challenging, difficult and a complex defy to PCs. Bonus points if the dungeon is "active", points lost if the dungeon is too passive, unchallenging or too difficult to overcome.
Self defense clause: There never will be a penalty for entries that are easily overcome with a specific, unusual combo and/or with a behaviour that an average DM would never allow. To be more specific: a very specific group of PCs that are built to deal with the exact threat the dungeon poses; tunnelling the dungeon with adamantium pikes; any tactic involving the use of a candle of invocation will never cost a deduction. Not having considered a party with two arcane spellcasters or with two PCs with initiator level might.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.


I second these rules


I recommend "underwater dungeon" as the first "secret ingredient": the dungeon has to be at least 70% water. Think the Ocarina of Time Water Temple. :smallbiggrin:

I also like the idea of a water dungeon. But with that, I'd recommend raising the size limit to allow for more water-themed puzzles. Also, whoever (not me) is chairman (NOT ME) should be warned that hilarity WILL ensue

[Razanir]

*updated with balance and elegance

Ingenuity: How unique the dungeon was based on the SI, though being too off-base with it would lose points.Playability: The entry should be a viable insertion in anyone's campaign, adventure, rainy afternoon. A good score means the dungeon is for every one and it is self-contained (insert PCs and you have an encounter), a bad score for entries that need a specific item, skill, spell, class/racial/special ability to be completed.
Balance: How challenging, active and well balanced the entry is. As a dungeon, it should be challenging, difficult and a complex defy to PCs. Bonus points if the dungeon is "active", points lost if the dungeon is too passive, unchallenging or too difficult to overcome.
Self defense clause: There never will be a penalty for entries that are easily overcome with a specific, unusual combo and/or with a behaviour that an average DM would never allow. To be more specific: a very specific group of PCs that are built to deal with the exact threat the dungeon poses; tunnelling the dungeon with adamantium pikes; any tactic involving the use of a candle of invocation will never cost a deduction. Not having considered a party with two arcane spellcasters or with two PCs with initiator level might.
Variety: How diverse the encounters are; if it's just hack and slash at everything, points off, if there are far too many traps, or one certain class can easily solve everything by himself, points off. If there are challenges that require the efforts of multiple party members, or at least different challenges that require a different person for each of them, without being too hard/having too hard a bypass, bonus points.


I second these rules


I recommend "underwater dungeon" as the first "secret ingredient": the dungeon has to be at least 70% water. Think the Ocarina of Time Water Temple. :smallbiggrin:

I also like the idea of a water dungeon. But with that, I'd recommend raising the size limit to allow for more water-themed puzzles. Also, whoever (not me) is chairman (NOT ME) should be warned that hilarity WILL ensue