2009-06-05 Judging 1PDC 2009

What I really want to do is make the One Page Dungeon Contest a yearly thing: 1PDC 2009, 2010, etc. We’ve had more than a hundred entries! I’d love to collect them all and make them available for download. Integrate them with a wiki and provide some commentary, too. Like the yearly Interactive Fiction Competition. One page dungeons are simple adventures, and adventures support play.

=> One Page Dungeon Contest | more than a hundred entries | Interactive Fiction Competition | adventures support play

Essentially I like a healthy mix of adventures I think of myself and professionally produced adventures. But when it comes to my own stuff, I’m never quite sure with what to compare it to. Should I aspire to write as the pros? I don’t think that would be time well spent. The One Page Dungeon Contest gives me the opportunity to compare my work with ordinary DMs from all over the world. I can learn from the successes and failures from others. That’s why I hope that the contest submissions will remain a crazy mix of things. I don’t want a contest dominated by Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Eric Mona, Nicolas Logue and other people in their league. I want to compare my entry with authors in my league.

=> Wolfgang Baur | Monte Cook | Eric Mona | Nicolas Logue

Anyway, I got pulled into the circle of contest judges, and therefore my 2009-05-15 Water Temple is no longer a competing entry. 😢

=> 2009-05-15 Water Temple

I’ll try and report on the things I like and the things I don’t like about entries I see. And to keep track of my progress. Yesterday, I looked at eight entries. It takes me about ten minutes per entry.

Stuff I like myself (the other judges will have different elements, I’m sure):

• A usable map. If the adventure doesn’t require a map, or the encounters don’t refer to the map, then there’s no need for a map.
• Multiple entries and exists. I love extra tunnels, shafts, chimneys, and crawlways.
• A short background. I don’t like the long backgrounds. There’s a German saying: “In der Kürze liegt die Würze.” It says more or less that making it short is making it hot.
• I like there not to be too many numbers. The exact height and width in feet, the diameters and dimensions – I finde them hard to read and easy to improvise.
• I like the use of bold to highlight the important parts in a dungeon key. It makes it really easy to scan. I hate it when I blab about the dimensions of the room, the chasm, the bridge, the sound of drums, the stray arrows, and … the balrog!

More as I dig into the submissions!

​#RPG ​#1PDC

Comments

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Oh, darn. I’m pretty sure I specifically went out of my way to do something similar with the last one on my entry. Oops! Good luck judging the entries!

– Aaron 2009-06-05 12:57 UTC

=> Aaron

Well, if you’re talking about the scene itself, I don’t mind at all. What I mind is sitting behind the screen, quickly looking up a map key, summarizing the description for my players, and wasting time with details until we get to the part the players really care about, such as monster or other obvious threats or treats.

– Alex Schroeder 2009-06-05 22:40 UTC

=> Alex Schroeder