Dragon's Keep Utah 2nd DCC Tournament

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Dragonskeep
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Location: Provo Utah
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Dragon's Keep Utah 2nd DCC Tournament

Post by Dragonskeep »

Hey,

I wanted to let who ever cares, that our store in Provo Utah just finished there second Dungeon Crawl Classic Tournament. This time we used Gen Con's DCC #30 Vault of the Dragon Kings. We announced the tournament for almost 2 months in advance. We knew that we had a lot of interest in running another tournament and after our initial announcement we heard a lot of people talking about it. Despite all the talk no one was signing up. Part of the reason was some conflicting personal problems, and another tournament we were holding so we postponed the tournament two weeks.
We held the tournament from November 16th and 17th. We had 9 teams wish to sign up and compete but were only able to take the first 5 due to lack of DM's and the general procrastiation of those last 4 teams waiting to within days of the tournament to try to sign up. If we had more time we could have found more DM's but as it stood the DM's need time to prepare.
We choose not to use the pregenerated characters, opting to let the players form their own teams and classes. This worked out well. People came with their unique classes and characters not knowing anything about the module before hand. We strongly adivsed people to create balanced groups, since they did not know what kind of things that could encounter. This proved to be valuable wisdom, those groups that did best were well rounded.
We limited the amount of gold they could spend on any item, and in general. We did not allow sociopaths, although to alow a broad range of prestige classses Evil was allowed. The players had to turn in their character sheets a few days before the tournament so they could be reviewed by the judges to assure that they had followed character creation guidelines.
The entry fee was $10 per person, and the level of the characters was determined a bit by how many people they choose to have in their group. If they choose to have a 5 man group they all had to be 9th level, 6 people all 8th level, and 4 people all could be 10th level.
At 6:00pm on Friday the 16th of September 2007, we started on the first level of the module. We gave a maximum of 4 hours per round. Teams fought there way through the module. The first night we only had a few deaths, (which result in a small penalty to points but you are able to come back into the game right after the encounter).
After getting a good feel for what they believed were in store for them in the second round the groups went to bed, we finished around 10:30pm on Friday, prepared to do battle on Saturday.
Starting just after 10:00am on the 17th, we did another 4 hours of crawling. The teams all played so well it was a very close game and everyone was still in the running by the time the last round started at 6pm.
We played until just after 10:00pm. All the groups were either engaging or just about to engage the Dragon at the end of the module when time ran out. No one as of yet has gotten to finish the Dragon, although many of the groups opted to come back this coming week to finish the module outside of the tournament.

In the end despite there being over 10,000 points available to be earned one team one by a margin of only 150 points. It was a close match and everyone had fun.
As far as prizes we have to thank Goodman Games for providing...
1) Signed modules from the original writers
2) Signed original artwork from the module
3) Unique gen Con DCC T-shirt
4) Fantastic DCC modules.
Dragon's Keep Game and Comic provided,
1) Additional Moduels
2) A huge discount from DK Pizza--partnership Pizza store for those in the tournament
3) Gift Certificates for the Winning Team

Overall it was a great experience, and the Goodman Game modules again came out on top as a fantastic means to producing some fun competition in the world of Dungeons and Dragons.
Anyone that is interested in learning the finer details about how we run the event, or if you want to come to our next event let me know at the Dragon's Keep forums or our email.
www.dragonskeep.com
thedragonskeep@gmail.com

It was an awesome time and again want to publically thank Joseph Goodman for providing great prizes, producing great tournament modules. As well I want to thank the great staff at Dragon's Keep for working hard on providing great customer service. And finally but not lastly the great Dungeon Masters that helped us provide such a great event for the players.
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Jengenritz
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Post by Jengenritz »

In the end despite there being over 10,000 points available to be earned one team one by a margin of only 150 points.
Oh man, that's perfect. That's three potions or charges, IIRC. I love close games like that!

Your character selection process with numbers vs. levels was mighty clever, and I'm willing to bet it was more fun for the participants to use their own characters instead of pregens.

Sounds like you guys put on a great tournament! Believe me, I know...it ain't easy!
Co-Author: The Almanac of the Endless Traders, DCC #13, DCC #29, DCC #49, DCC #51, DCC #52, DCC #63

Author: DCC #55: Isle of the Sea Drake, DCC #61: Citadel of the Corruptor, more to come....
goodmangames
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Location: San Jose, CA

Post by goodmangames »

This sounds like a great experience and a great tournament! I'm glad it went so well.
Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com
ynnen
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Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2004 8:46 am
Location: St. Louis

Post by ynnen »

Wow. Sounds like a great time was had by all!

I'm glad the participants enjoyed themselves and I hope it was good for your store and passersby watching all those people having fun. I always enjoy hearing how other people fare in Vault of the Dragon Kings -- it's probably my favorite module I've worked on so far.

I hope you continue to host other tournaments in the future and keep us apprised of how they turn out.

Keep gaming!

- Jay
Crypt of the Devil Lich, Dungeon Interludes, The Mask of Death, Adventure Begins, Vault of the Dragon Kings, the Power Gamers Wizard Strategy Guide, The Adventure Continues, Palace in the Wastes and PhoenixCrawl Open
goodmangames
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Posts: 2703
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Location: San Jose, CA

Post by goodmangames »

Here is a link to some of the Dragon's Keep pictures:

http://dragonskeep.com/dsk_cms/index.ph ... &Itemid=38
Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com
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