A Different Take on the Dungeon23 Challenge

I have been reading articles about the #Dungeon23 Challenge, and they inspired me to take the challenge–but in a different form.

The Point of the Challenge

The stated goal of the #Dungeon23 Challenge is to write up a dungeon room a day, for 365 days, from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023. By the end of the year, you would have enough rooms for an entire megadungeon. Twelve levels, one each month.

The point of the whole thing is get in the habit of creating something on a long-term basis. Like the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the goal is to develop that habit of creating, even if it is crap–but something.

In fact, spending time on creating a perfect something–whatever it is–is the opposite of the goal of the Challenge. In other words, don’t obsess about writing up the perfect thing, at the expense of finishing it for that day.

That being said, a number of people have taken the #Dungeon23 Challenge and used it to create things such as NPCs, or sci-fi planets or rooms in a horror mansion. Even though I needed descriptions for rooms in a megadungeon I am writing up, I started to get really hooked on the idea of doing the challenge, but with a different subject.

365 Points of Interest

So what was my take? Well, I wanted something that was useful to me. I wanted something that I could use in my Middle Lands campaign now. I definitely needed to flesh out a megadungeon that has been floating around in my brain for a while, but that did not have any immediate gaming benefit. (I still need that, but that is another story…)

What I needed, though, are some points of interest for my solo campaign. I’m going to use somewhat of a pointcrawl format, and well, I needed the points to make that work.

So that occurred to me–start working on these each day, starting near my initial home base, and then spiral outward. After 365 days I would be pretty well set on a large number of places that are interesting and worth gaming.

I already had a detailed hex map of my setting area, with 6-8 ruins or features placed on each 6 mile hex. What I needed then was the descriptions of those points.

The format that I decided to use is this:

Hex: (RUIN or FEATURE)/LAIR.
Name.
Short description.
Appearance.
Time period.
Details.
Creatures.
NPCs.
How to play.
Hooks.

The (RUIN or FEATURE)/LAIR designates whether the point is a ruin or a feature (natural or manmade), and if it is a lair for some monster.

The Time period line is simply the major historical age when the ruin or whatever happened. That helps in worldbuilding the point of interest.

The rest are pretty obvious.

Using the Points in My Solo Campaign

I actually started my write-ups on May 1st. What I have found is that I want to spend more and more time on fleshing out these points of interest in extreme detail, but I have to hold off on that–just enough to be useful, but not writing up a full adventure for each one.

I do a lot of theater of the mind when I play, so I don’t think I will need actual tactical maps unless some combat takes place. The rest I can just run with on the fly.

My goal is to build the atmosphere and feel of the setting. I have this idea in my mind, and I need to get it in writing and game with it. I’ve written up a ton over the last few years, but I have not done much with an actual, real campaign. I’m really looking forward to that.

I’ve gotten off to a good start on the Challenge, too. I have a few points written up, and will see if I can keep going through the coming year. It will be–a challenge!

Marko ∞