allgeektout

The blog 6d6 Fireball just announced that they would be holding a contest the likes of which have not been seen before: an adventure-writing contest, either written for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 or entirely system-netural, and the winner will not only get it published but they will also get 100% of the profits! This is a unique opportunity, and if anyone is interested in getting an adventure published, you should check out the rules here. In the meantime, however, you can read my interview with Chris Tregenza of 6d6 Fireball after the jump.

When and why did you decide to hold this contest?

I’m a big fan of creativity and believe that all humans are incredibly creative. This is doubly true of gamers. Our whole hobby is about creativity. So it seemed logical when we were looking to expand our product range to produce a module that taps into all the pent up creativity out there.

One of the decisions you made was that only adventures written for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition. Why did you choose that system?

Simple economics. D&D is the game with the widest appeal and the widest base of adverture writing GMs.

Picking 3.5 over 4e was a business decision. To move to 4e would mean signing up to the 4th edition license. That would prevents us doing stuff for 3.5 in the future and I still think that 3.5 has a lot of legs left in it.

That said, based on reader’s feedback, we are opening up the competition for truly system neutral adventures. These adventures will need to be full of great ideas to get into the module. We aren’t interested in dungeon crawls where the author has simply left out the monster’s stats.

You opened it up to two categories: Amateur or Semi-Pro. Is there a reason you chose to separate them into two different groups?

We want to tap that vast pool of unpublished creativity that is out there. At the same time we recognise that there are loads of good writers who have been published one or two times. Splitting the competition into two seemed the best way to appeal to both groups.

What will you be looking for in the winning adventure?

I’m going into this with an open mind so that I don’t exclude really great adventures just because they don’t fit with my ideas.

Are you planning on running more contests like this in the future, perhaps opening it up to other systems?

A big fat YES.

We have another great batch of miniatures being released in the autumn and we want to do another module to coincide with their release. That means we will be making the announcement for the next competition not long after the end product of this competition goes on sale.

It is likely to be D&D 3.5 again as they are fantasy figures. However I like the idea of taking an open version of the game, say Microlite D20, and basing the competition around that. The module could then include the rules and the adventures plus it would be easily convertible to other systems.

You mentioned in your newsletter that part of the reason you were holding this contest was to promote your miniatures. Are you going to be selling a mini/adventure bundle as well?

There will be module / mini bundles plus we have plans for some t-shirts and high quality artwork as well. They will all be available individually or in various money saving bundles.

You’ll be selling the winning adventure for six months. Will the winner have the option of continuing to sell it through you after that?

Actually, we will be selling them for less that three months. The 6 months exclusive copyright is just to give us a safety margin. We are a small company (both Rob & I do this part-time) and cannot afford to invest money into large stocks of unsold books. So we plan to do a fairly small print run and sell out quickly.

There will be a pre-order process (with a discount) which people can use to guarantee they get a copy. Once the module is sold out, within 2 – 6 weeks of publication, we will talk to the winners about digital distribution and what happens after the 6 months is over. We have several ideas but at the moment no firm plans.

Finally (and perhaps most importantly), what do you think makes a good adventure?

The real short answer is anything I have fun playing but that is a bit trite.

The real answer is that it is a very personal thing so this is a personal answer (e.g. it is not how we are judging the entries).

To me writing adventures is a major part of the hobby and I write my own adventures for my group of players. If I’m buying an adventure it is purely because I don’t have the time to prepare my own adventures. I think many GMs are like that.

A good adventure therefore has to be 100% ready to run with no preparation. And yet it should have plenty of plot hooks so if the mood takes me, I can expand it or adapt it. These two goals may be impossible to reconcile but I like to strive for the impossible because sometimes you surprise yourself.