Dungeons and Dragons DMs are likely used to creating massive caverns and catacombs for their PCs to explore with minis, Dwarven Forge modules, or on square grids with dry erase markers, but a new contest announced today tasks them to build an epic DnD dungeon in the Core gaming platform for the chance to will up to $20,000 in prizes. The Dungeons & Dragons Design-A-Dungeon Contests was just announced today and gives creative DMs a chance to flex their game-building muscles in a brand-new way.
The contest is a collaboration between Dungeons and Dragons and Manticore Games that utilizes Core, a user generated content platform for building games and stories, to help D&D fans create new world to explore, which will then all become playable for free during a special PAX Online storytelling and gameplay panel. Depending on what the community comes up with, this could end up being a pretty exciting tool for fans of DnD and indie game development...
The contest details are available now and creators have until September 6 to finish their projects and submit them. Contestants will be eligible to win $20,000 in prizes for creating games and adventures in four themes: strongholds, the wilderness, elemental planes, and dungeons. That offers a lot of interesting territory to explore and players could look to published adventures for inspiration or dip into their own notebooks full of home-brewed encounters, realms, and monsters.
"All of the games and explorable worlds created during the contests will be revealed live and playable for free during a special PAX Online storytelling and gameplay panel. Some of D&D’s most notable adventurers and experienced Dungeon Masters—including Acquisition Incorporated's Jerry Holkins, Relics & Rarities' Deborah Ann Woll and more—will reveal and play the winning D&D creations from the contests and tell the tale of their most epic D&D adventures live from inside Core."
Having some celebrity names like Deborah Ann Woll and Jerry Holkins around at PAX Online to play and test out the new creations is some additional fantastic motivation to put together something truly special. There will be some fantastic D&D personalities checking out the winning creations and this may be the closest that most Dungeons and Dragons fans ever get to sitting at a table and running a game for some of these celebrity personalities and streamers.
We'll be keeping a close eye on the contest as it progresses, so be sure to check back in the coming weeks to see updates on what the community has come up with and which designs were impressive enough to make their way into final showcase when PAX Online arrives.
Core is a free platform and community for creating and playing games. Dungeons and Dragons books are available now in hardcopy at game stores or digitally through DnD Beyond.