Design and Publish a 5th Edition D&D Monster

[Wolfgang Baur]

Time to celebrate the best in new, upcoming talent for a new edition of D&D!

Kobold Press has launched a 5th Edition D&D monster contest. Entries are due February 23, prizes and payment are awarded for the winner and the winning monster will be illustrated and shared with 5th Edition gamers.

Submission details here.

[Charlie D.]

Great news! D&D could use both more monsters and more designers putting out good stuff.

[Adjule]

Is there any rules on what can be submitted? Does it have to be something brand new, or a conversion of something from a previous edition/other system?

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Since you are doing this, does that mean that WotC has finally released some sort of OGL/GSL/etc?

[Adjule]

Kobold Press are the ones WOTC outsourced Tyranny of Dragons adventure creation to, so I assume they have some sort of license with them.

[Drejk]

Uh. Executing and returning affidavit of eligibility within five workdays required?

*checks* Seems to be a declaration of being eligible for the wining as a separate document instead of being eligible to winning being a condition of entering... The problem is that I see no way of guaranteeing that any document I would be sending from Poland to USA would arrive in five days. Which means that even if I would win I would be disqualified for not being able to fill in the paperwork. :/

[Lorathorn]

Does it have to be a physical document?

[Hitdice]

It doesn't, the submission guidelines talk about email attachments.

[Drejk]

Can affidavit be in digital form? As far as I know in Poland it would require a valid e-signature to be considered written legal document. Otherwise it would (probably) have status comparable to verbal declaration, not written.

Unless I am reading too much from the use of term affidavit.

[Lorathorn]

Would there be any interest in forming pit crews for this contest? I sorely lack in terms of feedback and outside perspectives.

[Hitdice]

Taking warning from RPG Superstar mishaps in the past, I wouldn't publish your submission anywhere before submitting to the contest, Lora. That comes close to putting your signature in the monster stat block, and it could give the appearance of favoritism if the wrong person saw it.

Not that the appearance would be true, but that's the sort of thing Kobold Press has to avoid in this interconnected media platform day and age.

I mean, if you ask me if a monster more like a hippopotamus than a polar bear appeals to me, I'll answer, but I don't see how such general advice could be very helpful, y'know?

[Wolfgang Baur]

I clearly should have checked in on this thread sooner. Questions submitted on the KoboldPress.com site get answered faster, FWIW.

Adjule wrote:

Is there any rules on what can be submitted? Does it have to be something brand new, or a conversion of something from a previous edition/other system?

Great question, and yes, it must be something new. Any conversion from another edition or other game systems will be disqualified.

Enevhar Aldarion wrote:

Since you are doing this, does that mean that WotC has finally released some sort of OGL/GSL/etc?

WotC has not released any sort of open license that I am aware of. I think that news would be all over the net.

Drejk wrote:

Can affidavit be in digital form?

A digital document has legal status in the United States, which is where we're holding our contest, so we'll accept it. We are not accepting paper submissions of any kind.

Thanks for the interest, and I'll check back again tomorrow.

[TealDeer]

Bloody hell I need to spend more time on this forum.

[Wolfgang Baur]

Entries are due on Monday. Hope to see a few from folks here!

[Lorathorn]

I have to say, building monsters for 5th edition is a blast! I think I'm in love with the format.

[Drejk]

Wolfgang Baur wrote:

Entries are due on Monday. Hope to see a few from folks here!

*sends an entry* Here you are.

[Wolfgang Baur]

Thank you to everyone who entered! We're compiling the entries for the judges, and should have finalists chosen within 10 days.

[Drejk]

Don't mind me. I am just sitting here.

[Wolfgang Baur]

The judges have a top 10. We're debating a top 5, and should have finalists very late Monday night or very early Tuesday, depending on where you are on this globe.

If so many of the entries hadn't been so good, this would be a lot easier.

[Wolfgang Baur]

The judges decided to go with a Top 6, because we had a lot of great entries. The first 3 are posted at KoboldPress.com, and voting will start this weekend or Monday latest.

[Drejk]

Voted. And surprised by the current results...

[Jester David]

Voting is now open: clicky
I encourage people to vote on whatever monster they think is best.

<----- "Jester" David Gibson. Just sayin'

[Lorathorn]

Supposing we were not selected for the final cut; are we able to post our entries elsewhere, say a personal blog article or on these boards?

[Wolfgang Baur]

Lorathorn wrote:

Supposing we were not selected for the final cut; are we able to post our entries elsewhere, say a personal blog article or on these boards?

Nope, the contest rules are pretty clear that submitting a creature to the contest grants publication rights to Kobold Press.

That said, it isn't over yet. We're hoping to write a couple little spotlights on some of the other interesting creatures (after the voting is done, appearing in April), so it might appear there.

Also, anyone who is especially eager to keep their creature off the Kobold blog should send me a note. I'm happy to revert the rights.

[Lorathorn]

Gotcha. That's good to know, and quite interesting. I've got a monster writing bug, and a blog, so I think I'll just fire up an unused idea for the contest and go with that instead, so it works out either way. Thanks for the response!