This coming weekend, The World's Largest Dungeon--first published in 2004--is launching a 'Secret Doors' contest. Participants are invited to contribute material containing encounters or mini-dungeons found behind the many secret doors in the dungeon. Winning contestants win a share of a $500+ cash prize and published as part of a Platinum Edition of the dungeon being crowdfunded in May (it already has over 8,000 followers, so it looks like it will do very well).
The contest is run by Portals to Adventure, and is open to amateur writers, which they define as people who have not held a full-time job creating roleplaying games.
A submission is made of up to 4,700 words, a map, an image, and a video. The submissions must be for D&D 5E.
7 winners will win 5% of the prize money ($25+), 1 wins 10% ($50+), and the final winner wins $50% ($250+). A further 10 finalists win no cash prize (but they do get a ribbon!) The prize money is generated by fan voters, who pay $1 per vote (with a minimum total of $500). And yes, you can vote for your own submissions, and you can pay for multiple votes (to a maximum of 10, which the site says is to prevent people from simply buying a victory). The prize money for the winners works out at about 5c/word for the winner, 1c/word for second place, and half-a-cent for the 3rd-10th places.
The contest opens on April 13th, and entries close on July 2nd. Fan voting then runs until July 17th.
Unfortunately, this is one of those contests where all submissions (even those which don't win anythng) become property of the publisher, and they retain the right to use or monetise the submissions with no payment to the author. While this competition structure is becoming less common, it does still pop up from time to time; and characterising publication of the work as a 'prize' rather than something which should be paid for can sit uncomfortably with many freelancers. It's far more common these days for publishers to retain the right to use the material (to protect themselves from later accusations of plagiarism) but to pay any writers whose content they actually do use.
"All submissions become the sole property of Producer and may be used in any manner, commercial or otherwise, including without limitation in the Program or any other Program, in any and all media and/or technologies now known or hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity."
On a more positive front, the contest forbids AI-generated content, including text, images, and maps.
The upcoming Platinum Edition of The World's Largest Dungeon is an updated version compatible with D&D 5E. It launches on Backerkit on May 13th, and is over 1,500 pages in size, plus posyter maps, dice, and miniatures. It looks set to be a big one--perhaps a new million dollar club member?
