http://dndadventurersleague.org/2015/01/open-call-for-adventure-designers/
Have some great ideas for adventures? Want to hear all the great stories your friends will tell about the time they played that amazing adventure you designed for the D&D Adventurers League? Then take the first step towards being a D&D Adventurer’s League adventure designer! Check out the instructions in the Adventure Design Application and send your submission to Resource Manager, Bill Benham at submissions@dndadventurersleague.org. We will be accepting submissions for this open call until February 28th.
Adventure Design Application (Word)
5E Template (Word)
Only a few days left to apply to be an AL adventure designer. The test primarily consists of creating 2 encounters, so you still have plenty of time.
For those of you still thinking about applying for the Open Call for Adventure Designers, but curious about how the actual process of adventure design looks, please read Greg Marks' great article about just that process.
MasterNamer wrote:
MasterNamer wrote:
I have come across some incredibly creative people on these boards, reading about campaign/adventure ideas that I could never create but would love to play. If you have the desire, I say go for it. I also think WOTC is looking for some new blood to help expand the reach of D&D.
caecafortuna wrote:
I had considered submitting an entry but after reading about the process, I'm not so sure.
Apparently significant changes can be made by an editor to something that has your name on it.
EDIT: "As an author, you can always make suggestions or ask for clarification about an edit, but you do not have the final say. That’s something that is initially hard to stomach (your name is on the adventure after all), but it’s needed because a single author doesn’t have the whole campaign vision in sight. You get used to it."
So...even if an editor does a bad job you can't block the use of your work. You can't take your name off. You can't show what the original version was without their permission. Is this correct?
Who are these editors? What are their credentials?
No editor is perfect, and bad adventures do get published. No writer worth their chops would want a bad reputation because of someone else altering their work.
A big question would then be ---> can an anonymous pen name for the writer be used in case an editor does make a human mistake and screws up the draft?
You can always publish under a pseudonym. Many great authors have done so, including Steven King and Samuel Clemens (more commonly known as Mark Twain).
Storyteller-Zero wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Storyteller-Zero wrote:
TheBreen wrote:
In the past of WotC OP programs, people have used pseudonyms for various reasons. Only the current staff can say if that policy has changed for AL.
Three things in the meantime:
1) Welcome to the glamorous world of RPG design. Yes, in most RPG arenas this is how it is. You get the specs for the job, you do it, you hand it off, a developer might or might not completely revise it, an editor might or might not completely revise it, then it is published with your name on it (if you are lucky...). What is finally published might be almost exactly what you submitted. What is finally published might look nothing like what you submitted. You might have turned in brilliant work that was ruined by others, and you look like a fool. You might turn in terrible stuff that is made brilliant, and you look like a genius. More likely, you turn in pretty good stuff that is made better, and you look pretty good. I've had all of the above happen to me, and I am not ashamed to have my name on any of it.
2) At the end of the day, developers and editors are going to have to answer for their work as well. If they are constantly publishing amateurish material, whether because they hire amateurish writers or they drop the ball with their own tasks, editors know that the buck stops with them. If they don't know that immediately, they either learn that, or they no longer have the job.
3) The fastest way to ensure that you never get anything published is to be hard to work with or act unprofessionally. It is a fine line to walk as a writer: knowing when to ask questions and push for something, and knowing when it is out of your hands and accepting it. Asking for the credentials of the editor is probably something that is out of a writer's hands. :-)
Be well!
Also, to be blunt, you're not doing this for the pay or fame, because it won't be all that much. You're doing this because you think you can add something to the OP experience
It is an interesting process - if you haven't done it before and you have the time, you'll probably enjoy a good 90% of it. And getting to DM your own mod and hear about other results of it can be a lot of fun.
If you read the thread linked below, note the commentary about the choice, which managed to hit our target of nearly 50/50 split, with a lot of different decisions from different tables for all kinds of roleplaying reasons. With a link to the mod if you really, really want to understand it. Lorika is the other co-writer of the mod in the commentary.
Storyteller-Zero wrote:
The only reason I'd rather use a pseudonym rather than my actual name is I'm sure most people in the D&D community know me better by my board name than by my actual name.
--
Pauper
Skerrit wrote:
I know this is a bit last minute, but is anyone else noticing a weird problem with that Word template where it wants to capitalize words like "if" and "it"? I'm finding that any time a word starts with I, it gets incorrectly "corrected" to capitalize the I. It doesn't always do it and it's not even consistent about which words it happens to, but it happens about 75% of the time, I would say.
At first I assumed this was an overenthusiastic version of automatically changing "i" to (the word) "I" (though that word should never appear in an Adventurer's League scenario as far as I'm concerned, except in dialogue). But there is nothing in the autocorrect settings that would explain this, and I don't have the problem in any other Word documents, only ones based on this specific template. It must be something screwy about the template, then, but what?
jeff-heikkinen wrote:
Now it's suddenly decided that when I hit the spacebar, I sometimes want one space and sometimes two, with no discernable pattern to which one happens. Again, I don't have this problem in any other Word document that isn't based on this template.
Oh, I have another one: it wants to correct "decorated" to "décorated."
devlin1 wrote:
Another friend of mine who submitted experienced the same issues, so they're definitely widespread. All part of the submission process? ARE THEY PLAYING WITH OUR MINDS?
That sounds like a problem with your input language. It sounds like it swapped to Canadian French (an issue we Canadian's have to deal with all the time).
That would at most only explain the accent thing, not the other problems mentioned here. And no, my input language is set to English (US). (Normally that would be English (Canadian), but it's for a US company, so I made sure to set it to do US spell checking.)
And, I haven't heard of that being a common problem for Canadians. Your keyboard settings changing to French against your will, yes, certainly - cleaning out the keyboard options is part of my ritual for a new Windows installation - but not the language in Word. I've had it default to something silly on a new installation, but once corrected it generally stays corrected.
Well I sent in my submission. I'm kind of doubtful that I'll be picked up since I have no prior published history but it was fun trying to cram stuff together in two single page scenes.
My old campaign files are missing, so I submitted a 2-page scene from a drama class writing assignment (for the "past design work" part of app). 
Since writing/developing entire adventures really is not my comfort zone I decided to not heed this particular call. But as someone that has done a fair amount of work for organized play I can assure you that there is not some kind of barbed wire fence and huge security procedure between you and writing. I am conviced it will be every bit as open as is communicated.
So good luck to all, and I will be looking forward to running the exciting stuff people come up with 
So it's a bit past the deadline, but for the few who were unsure whether to submit, I highly recommend doing so next time. I published my first adventures through D&D OP (4th Ed's) having zero design experience. It just took a lot of persistence, a bit of luck, and working as hard and as fast as I could when the call came down. My initial request had been rejected, as did my second and third, but eventually someone dropped out last minute and a spot opened up.
If you don't try, your chances are zero percent, but even if you get rejected, you never know when Lady Tymora will smile on you.
Sounds like you have a lot of experience with the process, then. How often do they do one of these? It's the first one I've seen. Of course, I haven't been paying attention, but that's neither here nor there.
Depending on how successful they are, we might do 0-2 per year.
Greg Marks
DnDAL Associate Resource Manager
Cool! Then I'll be prepared to wait for the next one.
I had a lot of fun with mine. My process was to brainstorm about the list of required elements, observe that it was disappointingly anodyne as it stood, and brainstorm ways to use them that were just a bit counter to expectations while still feeling recognizably like D&D. Like, you had to do a role-playing scene and a combat scene and there had to be skeletons in one of them, I think most people would have put them in the combat scene, so I didn't. A nice little two-encounter scenario, written as though it were part of a larger plot but standing on its own reasonably well, came out of that pretty organically as soon as I started thinking about how the ideas I was coming up with would interact. The hardest part was getting the first scene down to one page (the second never had any problems in that regard), I had to drop a few details that would have been nice to include.
I was in a really good mood so some of my descriptions for the GM ended up being pretty funny, though it would by no means be a joke scenario in actual play. Don't know if the humour will help or hurt me. That's probably my biggest worry.
devlin1 wrote:
So anyone heard back yet, or at least know what constitutes a reasonable time frame in which to expect to do so?
The submission guidelines said it'd be 2-4 weeks, IIRC.
Okay, gremlins seem to have come along and snuck that text back into my copy too... swear that wasn't there when I asked! Anyway, thanks.
We had A LOT of submissions at the very last minute, so while we had triaged those who were early, we're still wading through the submissions. Unfortunately stuff for Origins and Gen Con are do in the next few days and the new season is starting... so it will likely take the 2-4 weeks we originally suggested (closer to 4 is quite likely).
Greg Marks
DnDAL Associate Resource Manager
I just hope they get back to everyone, even if it's just a form letter. Not knowing is the worst thing.
Skerrit wrote:
So... how did everyone distribute the mandatory elements? For me it was:
Social encounter: manticore, elf noble, hidden spiked pit, ruined temple
Combat encounter: orc(s), skeleton(s), secret door, ruined temple
Just wondering what the common patterns might be, if any.
What I had before I came to my senses and realized I should not be trying to develop entire adventures :
Social encounter revolved around a very old elf noble/necromancer (with his pet manticore enforcer and skeletal army) that was sending orcs into unexplored parts of the temple. At their eventual demise (spiked pits) he would add them to his collection of skeletal servants. Noble very bored with life in general and does not view orcs as "people" . He is however almost out of orcs so would like you to procure a fresh batch. Negotiation options to either go with it gaining info on the nearby orcs, or to make him see the error of his way. A tad cliched but I enjoyed working on it.
Combat encounter, unsurprisingly, orc raid the temple to get their buddies back, oh and the noble's left eye for their priests ritual. Same temple, secret door and pits, many pits.
RogerC wrote:
Welp, I got my rejection notice today, so that's that. I'll try again next time.
As for my thing:
Social encounter was a band of orcs who'd abducted an expert in ancient history (the elf noble) to find the secret entrance to a ruined temple's inner sanctum. Except they got the wrong elf, and he's been stalling for time until he can figure out how to escape. The orcs' debate about whether or not to keep him alive has become especially heated when the PCs show up. They can negotiate for the elf's release (their mission is just to rescue him) in exchange for finding the secret door themselves.
Combat encounter was the inner sanctum -- a vast room with a high ceiling, a floor made of bones suspended over a muddy pit, a magically trapped altar, and a summoned spirit avatar (the manticore) that shows up to accept the supplicants' sacrifice. But it'll settle for the PCs.
Better luck next time, devlin! Sounds like you have some interesting ideas.
Thanks! Maybe I'll salvage it for my home game one of these days.
RogerC wrote:
Probably too late, but I can't read the docx on this computer - what's the pay?
Noon wrote:
Enworld wrote an article a few weeks back about how much freelance writers are paid in the industry. As a general rule, they are paid 6c per word. I forget the specific wizards pays but I think it was close to that.
tl;dr don't quit your day job.
Kalani wrote:
For those who are interested, here is the article I was referencing:
What's a Freelance RPG writer worth?
I should mention that the rates listed are starting rates for new/unknown freelancers. More established writers might be able to set their own rates, as they usually have a working relationship with the company.
- Wizards Rate: 6c/word for Freelance Insider Articles.
I suspect the same rates might apply in respect to writing Expeditions modules but don't quote me.
Some companies pay much worse than this, with the lowest starting rate being 1c / word. Examples of companies which pay such apauling rates include the esteemed Kobold Press.
Going into freelance RPG writing expecting to make a living wage from it is... unrealstic, let's say.
Sorry to hear about your rejection notice, devlin1. Your encounter sounds very interesting. I'm sure your players will enjoy it.
Neat article, Kalani. I think people trying to earn a living writing in the RPG industry are probably stymied by people like me who have day jobs that are happy to do it just for fun. It's the type of industry where the supply is high and the demand is low. And in Wizards' case they aren't even charging for the adventures, so there's literally no value in paying someone a living wage to write.
Also, is it terrifying to anyone else that these guys are talking about 2000-word days equalling $12.50/hr. How much design iteration and playtesting do you think that affords?
If I could wish one thing on the industry, it's a platform for self-publishing. Look what the iTunes store and Steam did for indie developers? But there are so many rights issues, and anything popular is just going to get megauploaded by scumbags that don't realize (or care) about the damage that does.
Is DriveThru RPG not a platform for self-publishing?
devlin1 wrote:
Well, no, obviously you can't use WotC's IP in your product. But not having access to that IP certainly hasn't stopped several small-press publishers from putting together adventures and supplements for "5th Edition" on DTRPG. Not being able to use WotC's IP isn't the same as not having a platform for self-publishing.
It also hasn't stoped game companies from using the IP either. Take for example 3D0's "Heroe's of Might and Magic 3" which includes the Beholder as one of the troops.
Well, that deserves a C&D for sure. But that's neither here nor there.
The following was posted today in regards to the open call. It should definitely help those aspiring to write for AL, especially if they have another open call.
http://dndadventurersleague.org/open-call-for-designers-wrap-up/
My best wishes to everyone who submitted an entry. From past writing calls for previous campaigns I know just how hard it is to make the cut. If you didn't make it this time, keep at it! And, keep honing your skills. Grammar and clear writing are essential, but there is also a lot we can learn from studying how others write really good encounters. Some of my favorite writers don't just come up with good ideas. They deliver those ideas efficiently and clearly in an evocative manner. That takes real practice. The more you write up encounters for your home games, the more you scrutinize published works to analyze how experienced writers do it, and the more you think through how an encounter's approach drives DM behavior, the easier it gets to deliver a great adventure. It isn't easy!
On the subject of pay, I really wish our industry were better. I see writing for it as a chance to improve gaming and advance the 'science' of adventure writing forward. We can't do it every time, but if we write enough we can make a real difference in how DMs and players approach organized play. That, to me, is a fantastic value for the many hours it takes to create an adventure.