XDMC 29 - Design a Haunt!

It's that time again for the next Expert Dungeon Master's Competition! This time around we have #29

EXPERT DUNGEON MASTER COMPETITION #29 - DESIGN A HAUNT

Taken from the Competition Page:

The topic for this competition is Haunt. Fear and terror are staples of the fantasy genre, but it is not easy to create a locale that can terrify the larger-than-life heroes your players control. Creating a truly terrifying location requires the work of an Expert DM! This competition asks you to create an encounter location designed to strike fear into the hearts of heroes.

Required Elements

In order to enter this competition, your entry must fulfill the following required elements:

• Name: Name your haunt.
• Lore: Describe what is commonly known about the haunt. The haunt's reputation must be such that even heroes may believe themselves to be in mortal danger within.
• Lure: Describe one or more ways an adventuring party may be lured to the haunt.
• Lair: Describe what the heroes will find in the haunt. You may, but need not, include stat blocks for any NPCs, items, terrain, or other objects or effects in the haunt.

If you do not include a required element, you will receive a score of zero in Themes. Please note that a significant portion of your score in Creativity and Themes will be based on how scary you make the haunt's reputation and/or location.

Optional Elements

Your story must include at least three of the following optional elements:

• Can Nothing Stop It?: The haunt threatens the world outside its walls (i.e., it begins expanding uncontrollably) unless the heroes accomplish a task described in the entry.
• The Curse is Broken!: The haunt can become a haven to the heroes, or a resident of the haunt can become a companion to the party, if a task described in the entry is completed.
• Guys? Where Are You?: One feature of the haunt is designed to split the party.
• It's Alive!: The haunt's interior physically changes at least twice while the heroes are within it.
• It's Not Human!: The haunt has one or more residents, but none are of the humanoid type.
• It All Started When...: Surpassing one or more obstacles becomes easier if the heroes learn the haunt's history, as described in the entry.
• Looks Fine to Me: To the outside world, the haunt appears completely mundane.
• What Have You Done?!: The haunt rewards characters who interfere with or harm one another.
• We're Trapped!: Once inside the haunt, the characters cannot leave until accomplishing a difficult task described in the entry, and which does not require combat.
• What's That Doing Here?: The haunt has one or more residents, but none are of the aberrant or shadow origin, or of the undead or shapechanger subtype.
• You Startled Me!: The players are asked to roll initiative checks against something that intends their characters no harm.
• You Were Dead... I Saw the Body!: The heroes must defeat some aspect or resident of the haunt twice or more.

Sounds like a lot of fun.  This might be a really good way for me to get back into the blog again now that my schedule has cleared up a bit.  I'll be trying to pull this off, maybe with the help of my wifey who is actually making an effort to get involved in my hobby once again.  I wish you all the best! Good luck!!

Wizard’s Sell Your Sole competition an attempt at Mainstreaming DnD?

If you haven’t seen the news you haven’t heard that Wizards has posted up a new competition on their website, which I can only be disturbed and intrigued by. They are asking people to design a pair of shoes which are Dungeons and Dragons themed…

Here are some links to this so you know I’m not crazy…

Link to the competition at wizards:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20090625

Link to the competition at RYZ wear:
http://www.ryzwear.com/blog/233/sell-your-sole-dungeons-and-dragons

What does this say? Well, for a long time I have been under the impression that Wizards of the Coast is doing everything they can to mainstream Dungeons and Dragons and make it “cool.” It makes sense from a business perspective to make the game more appealing to the masses by getting rid of the nerdy pen and paper elements and making the game as electronic and consumer friendly as possible. D&Di is a big part of this; adding revenants back into the game and making the Raven Queen more important, while having basis in prior editions, seem to be an attempt at piggy-backing off the success of Blizzard with The Scourge in World of Warcraft. If Wizards saw the kind of user numbers and money that Blizzard was seeing they would never have a money problem. Ever. What do shoes have to do with this then? Well, how many gamers care what they are wearing. I’m not saying that gamers don’t usually have good style sense…wait, I am. Designing a pair of custom kicks seems like something that wouldn’t be something a pen and paper RPG company like this would do; if you’re going to make something for Nerds T-Shirts and Sweat-shirts like those sold by JINX are the way to go. Very few gamers realistically want to spend over a hundred dollars on a pair of shoes when they could easily spend that money on new books for their games, it just isn’t practical for appealing to this group, in my opinion.

I guess I myself don’t fall into this category because I consider shoe fashion to be one of the things I pride myself on. I have well over twenty pairs. I have been called a girl on many an occasion for it. I have custom sets of converse weapons. I have custom Nike’s and I have custom slip-ons from Vans of every color and variety. Maybe I am just the type of person that Wizards is trying to appeal to… perhaps they are being very successful in this new marketing, but the reason that they are successful is because I am highly susceptible to fashion and trying to look cool, call me a lemming if you will, but I live in a city where 50% of the women riding a given train at one time are all carrying Luis Vitton bags, regardless of whether or not they had to mortgage their tiny house to get them. If Wizards of the Coast is trying to make Dungeons and Dragons fashionable and cool, where will it take them in the actual game department? Will they make an attempt at doing nerd makeovers? Where will the madness stop?

Will you be designing a pair of sneaks for the competition? I would love to give it a try, but my tragic lack of any artistic skills or media to work with on this would probably be a big problem.