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One Page Dungeon Winners!

July 1, 2009 by The Chatty DM

What started as a crazy idea in the last few weeks of Winter has finally come to its conclusion.

Since late May a panel of 6 judges: Chgowiz, Dave: the Game, Sham, Amityville Mike, Alex Schroeder and myself have slogged through 112 entries and we’ve finally arrived with the final results.

If you are curious about our judging process, have a look at Alex’s excellent post on the subject.

So without further ado, here are the winners of the first ever One Page Dungeon Contest:

Honorable Mentions – these dungeons will not receive a prize, but they are extremely worthy of note and made it into the final Judges Picks before we had to whittle the list down to the last winners.  These dungeons will be included in the Winners One Page Dungeon PDF publication. The category listed was the decision of the judge who selected these honorable mentions.

Best Aquatic Entry: The Barnacle Caves – Sam Kisko
Best Classic: Ruffthroat’s Rathskeller – Lee Barber
Best Dungeon Circa 1974: The Crumbling Dungeon – Lord Kilgore
Best Dungeon Crawl: Shrine of the Savage Jungle – John Laviolette

Most Elegant: Clockwork Crypt – Gary S. Watkins
Funniest: The Vareh’gra Depths – Gary McCammon
Best Geometry: Halls of the Mad Mage – Justin Alexander

Best Homage: The Omenous Portent of the Highlands Meteor – Tim Hensley
Best Introductory One-Shot: The Tomb of Durhan Oakenshield – Dyson Logos
Best Non-Dungeon: The Great Cloud Caper – Jonathan Lee
Best Unconventional: Traps-R-Us – Chris Torrence
Best Use of Tables: Mountain Lair of the Misanthropic Magus – Sean Wills

Runner Ups – these dungeons were the top of the Judges Picks, after we had picked the top 3 winners. Each of these represents an outstanding dungeon, showing high quality and inventive design. These dungeons will be awarded prizes as noted. The category is as the Judge picked it:

Best Hack-n-Slash: The Gray Goblin Warrens – Christopher Brackett
Prize: Random Esoteric Creature Generator

Best Non-Fantasy Entry: The Horror of Leatherbury House – Michael Wolf
Prize: Bundle of Goblinoid Games products

Best Pub: Arendt’s Old Peculiar– Antti Hulkkonen
Prize: Tabletop Adventures bundle: Bits of Darkness, Deck O’Names

Best Replayable Entry: The Infinite Tower – James E. Raggi IV
Prize: Otherworld Minatures – Pig Faced Orcs box set

Best Retro Use of 30×30 Space: Megadungeon of the Mad Archmage Gary Stu – Adam Thornton
Prize: Bundle of Knockspell and City Encounter PDFs

Best Silly Dungeon: Maze of NAMCAP – Patrick Riley
Prize: Bundle of Wizards of the Coast D&D 4e Adventures (or equivalent)

These top 3 dungeons represent a lot of hard work, imagination and a very interesting situation from a judging perspective – these 3 were the easiest to agree up on as nearly all of us had them at the top of our lists. So, here are the Best of Old School and Best of New School entries:

Best New School Dungeon: Cry of the Gravegod by Heron Prior
Prizes: Bundle of Necromancer games product, Fantasy Grounds II License, Wizards of the Coast – Dungeon Delve book and Adventurer’s Vault book, 6 month membership to Obsidian Portal, AvatarArt free artwork, Quarterly membership to DungeonADay.com

Best Old School Dungeon: Valley of the Necromancer Kings by Andrew Gale
Prizes: Bundle of Brave Halfling Production products, Demon Idol Miniature, 6 month membership Obsidian Portal, Fantasy Grounds II License, AvatarArt free artwork, Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues

Now here’s the best of the best! This dungeon was highly favored by almost all of the judges, once we lined up our top picks, this entry got unanimous support to be declared the grand winner of the contest…

Best Overall One Page Dungeon: Secrets of the Old City by Simon Bull
Prizes: Patron membership of Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design, Kobold Guide to Game Design, Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day, A full License for Smitework’s Fantasy Grounds II, 1 year membership to Obsidian Portal, 50$ Gift Certificate from One-Bookshelf, Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues.

Also, please note that we  will also be offering passes for the Las Vegas NeonCon gaming convention to any of the honorary mention, Runner ups and Best of winners, that would like to attend.

Our next step will be to create a swanky PDF with all the entries described in this post.  The PDF will feature a  color cover to be created by the recent winner of the Erol Otus/Fight On!/Otherworld art contest: Mark Allen and will feature a scene from the Secrets of the Old City winning dungeon.  It will  also contain a few One-Page dungeon related posts that Chgowiz and I wrote and will feature a copy of the template itself.  The PDF will be distributed for free by Tabletop Adventures and will be available on most RPG PDF outlets.

We will also create a second PDF which will feature the winners and runner ups, but will not feature the color cover and additional freebies. This PDF will be placed into an archive (ZIP) file which will also have all the entries for you to download. Yes, if you want to see all 112 entries, you will be able to do so. We’ll work out where that will be hosted, but be forewarned, it’s a large 68 MB file.

This contest would not haven been possible without the tireless work of Chgowiz and the active support of the other 4 judges. I also want to thank Graham Poole who had initially signed on as a judge but got called away by real life.   I also want to thank you all dear readers and Twitter followers who have been so enthusiastic about the whole thing, making us even more motivated to see this through.

Finally, I wish to extend a big thank you to all Sponsors who have been so generous and have provided so many great prizes:

  • Avatar Art
  • Brave Halfling Publishing
  • Fight On Magazine
  • Goodman Games
  • Malhavoc Press/DungeonADay
  • NeonCon 2009
  • Mythmere Games
  • Necromancer Games
  • Obsidian Portal
  • Open Designs
  • Otherworld Miniatures
  • Smiteworks
  • Tabletop Adventure

All right!  This is done!

Now who wants to hear about my “Kill Drittz for Charity contest” idea?

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Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: contest, one page dungeon

Comments

  1. Bob says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:07 am

    Congratulations to all the winners!

    Now I just need to work out which ones to let the kids loose with 🙂
    .-= Bob´s last blog ..I Am A Gamer =-.

  2. Trabant says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:39 am

    Gotta join next time.

    I assume there will be one?

  3. Bob says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:43 am

    @trabant I know one of the judges is already demanding beer before he’ll run another 1pd competition 😉
    .-= Bob´s last blog ..I Am A Gamer =-.

  4. Paul says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:43 am

    Agreed…congratulations to all the winners! Can’t wait for those PDFs.

    And thanks to the sponsors and judges. When’s the next one? 😉
    .-= Paul´s last blog ..DM Riches: Printable Graph Paper =-.

  5. Omar says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:54 am

    Are these going to be available to download?

    Sorry I was directed here by somone retweeting your announcement.

  6. Bob says

    July 1, 2009 at 7:57 am

    @Omar

    Yup…a swanky pdf version for the winners etc and a bulky version with all the entries as well.
    .-= Bob´s last blog ..I Am A Gamer =-.

  7. ChattyDM says

    July 1, 2009 at 8:12 am

    @Bob: Thanks for holding the fort while I was dealing with my family’s morning routine 🙂

    Both PDFs will be available for free.

    As for the next version of that contest, I’ll check with my partners in crime in a few months… right now we’ll focus on making the PDF and recover our sanity.

  8. m.a. says

    July 1, 2009 at 8:21 am

    Awwww… I had hoped that we would get to see all of the entries, no matter how they scored?!
    .-= m.a.´s last blog ..Nicht vollständig unerwartet, aber trotzdem… =-.

  9. ChattyDM says

    July 1, 2009 at 8:41 am

    People! Read the freaking post! 🙂

    All entries will be available in a Zip file. Only the winning ones will be packaged in a single PDF.

  10. Christopher B says

    July 1, 2009 at 9:01 am

    Thanks for pulling this off, Chatty, Chgowiz, et al! And kudos and congrats to all of the entrants. As I said this morning on my blog, I can’t wait for next year’s 1PD Design Contest. This is the first occurrence of an annual contest, right? 😉
    .-= Christopher B´s last blog ..And the Winners Are… =-.

  11. HermitDave says

    July 1, 2009 at 9:18 am

    What was this a contest for again? 😉

    Congrats Chatty and Gang; this was one hell of an endeavour and i will be glad to see (and use) the PDF and zips.

    Any thoughts of having the PDF sold through bricks & mortar stores or is that too much of a process considering how many people were involved?
    .-= HermitDave´s last blog ..pondering the disposible existance =-.

  12. Toxidyne says

    July 1, 2009 at 9:32 am

    Fantastic job, everyone! Well done!

  13. greywulf says

    July 1, 2009 at 9:36 am

    Congratulations all, and thanks to the judges (and sponsors!) for providing an excellent contest!

    Looking forward to the next one already……… 😀
    .-= greywulf´s last blog ..DAZ Freebie of the Week: Giant Transforming Robot! =-.

  14. Andrew Gale says

    July 1, 2009 at 9:48 am

    Oh cool! This was an unexpected but pleasant surprise to come here and find this announced! It goes without saying, but is certainly worth reiterating; ChattyDM, Chgowiz, Dave: the Game, Sham, Amityville Mike, Alex Schroeder; thank you for for taking the time and exerting the effort to go through each entry. Thank you also, to the sponsors for their generous donations.

    To have my entry be considered sufficiently ‘Old School’ is prize enough in my book 🙂 Thanks again.
    .-= Andrew Gale´s last blog ..ARTWORK =-.

  15. Eric Maziade says

    July 1, 2009 at 11:04 am

    Awesome! Can’t wait to see the collections.

    The titles alone are already stimulating my imagination!
    .-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..Jinx Shot : bad metafluff? =-.

  16. David Nett says

    July 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    Congrats, everyone. So excited to read what everyone else made!

  17. John Laviolette says

    July 1, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Congrats to the winners, and thanks for the honorable mention! I suppose this means I should start an RPG blog so that I can explain the background on how my 1-pager came to be.

    (Irrelevant Aside: my anti-spam word today was “d6”.)

  18. ChattyDM says

    July 1, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    Thanks for the kudos everyone.

    Just so we’re clear, we the judges and organizers will need a few months and quite a lot of beer before we even think of making this a regular event.

    @Hermit Dave: We never planned to have a physical product to be sold in store. The whole idea was to have a Creative Commons product freely available on the web. If my old school buddies are interested, we may make it available on Lulu at cost.

    @Andrew: Your entry was a huge favorite and was among those in line for Best of the Best! Thanks for participating and I can tell you that I would DM your dungeon anytime!

    @John Laviolette: My captcha has a special algorithm to detect old schoolers. 🙂

  19. Doug Daulton says

    July 1, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Congratulations to all of the winners. Your badges will be waiting for you at will call! If you need to book a room for the show, use promo code “JIMP09” for an additional 10% discount on already crazy low early bird room rates.

    @ChattyDM & @chgowiz – Awesome work on a great contest!

    Doug Daulton
    Neoncon 2009
    http://www.neoncon.com/register

  20. kaeosdad says

    July 1, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Any chance of linking the actual pdfs to each of the winners? I know the compiled pdf is coming but it’s a bummer to finally have a list of winners but being unable to see some of these entries as they are not hosted on the compiled entries blog post. Maybe even a zip file containing just the winners? People really want to check out the winners. Sorry to be repetitive.
    .-= kaeosdad´s last blog .."But, it’s not even Dungeons & Dragons anymore…" =-.

  21. ChattyDM says

    July 1, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    @Doug: man I would love to be able to make it to NeonCon. Maybe if my freelance gigs make me enough dough I may be able to afford a Vegas gaming con. Thanks for being a Sponsor.

    @kaos: We’re painfully aware just how bad you guys want to see the entries. Believe me, one of the judges is probably thinking about going rogue and posting them all. But we want to do the Winning PDF thing right and do something nice for the Sponsors. Just give us a few more weeks and we’ll give you a killer PDF for the winners and a nice fat Zip file of all the entries.

  22. MoonlapseVertigo says

    July 1, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Mine was Cry of the Gravegod. I nit-picked this thing to death, so it’s really nice to see that it paid off. If I could buy the judges a round or two, I most certainly would. Thanks, guys!

    At some point, I’d love to see some commentary from the judges on which elements of the various entries really stood out. (later, of course, after you’ve all recuperated)

  23. labsenpai says

    July 1, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    I submitted the Rathskeller. I’m guessing the “classic” part is the feeling of running a party into a dungeon with oddball monsters, gross traps, arcane devices, and a pile of loot to haul at the end. I’m going to run some of these at a Con in the Fall…
    .-= labsenpai´s last blog ..My One Day Spree at ORIGINS =-.

  24. Mike says

    July 2, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    Can we at least see a copy of the winner? I want to play it over the 4th!
    .-= Mike´s last blog ..Three Motivations for Your Villains =-.

  25. John Laviolette says

    July 2, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    I seem to remember a blogpost somewhere that linked to several of the 1-page dungeons. Some of the winners and runners-up might be linked there.

    I’ve started an RPG blog, The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms, specifically so that I could explain some background to my entry, The Shrine of the Savage Jungle. You can find a link to my PDF there.
    .-= John Laviolette´s last blog ..Shrine of the Savage Jungle =-.

  26. Gary says

    July 3, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Thanks to all the judges and the sponsors. This contest was a hoot! My entry was The Clockwork Crypt and it was the first adventure I’ve taken the time to write out in a year at least! Thank you for getting me off of my creative duff. I’ve never been called “elegant” before. I like it! If/when another 1PD contest is announced (or calls for product submissions are made), you can count on me for another dungeon. Best wishes to all!

  27. ChattyDM says

    July 3, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    @Gary: I’m the one who picked your entry as a Judge’s pick. I absolutely loved how you integrated a fountain, a workshop and a crypt all into one. And the puzzle-trap was wonderfull. All in so few rooms. I love such designs. Great work!

  28. Doc Holaday says

    July 3, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    Link to my entry: http://porousmind.net/misc/The Holes1The Summoner’s Cave.pdf

  29. ChattyDM says

    July 3, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    @Doc: I grabbed your complete link over at Midnight’s Lair.

    Added both new entries, thanks!

  30. tim says

    July 4, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    It was an honor just to get an Honorable Mention!
    .-= tim´s last blog ..Devoid of old school =-.

  31. Justin Alexander says

    July 24, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    The Halls of the Mad Mage are available on my website:

    http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/2009-07.html#20090724
    .-= Justin Alexander´s last blog ..The Halls of the Mad Mage =-.

About the Author

  • The Chatty DM

    The Chatty DM is the "nom de plume" of gamer geek Philippe-Antoine Menard. He has been a GM for over 40 years. An award-winning RPG blogger, game designer, and scriptwriter at Ubisoft. He squats a corner of Critical Hits he affectionately calls "Musings of the Chatty DM." (Email Phil or follow him on Twitter.)

    Email: chattydm@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/chattydm/

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