Gen Con 2023 Tournament Statistics

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DCC Open 2023 Arch-Daihaks of Dying Earth Tournament Results

At Gen Con 2023, Goodman Games ran the 6th annual DCC RPG team tournament, Arch-Daihaks of Dying Earth. This year’s tournament was set in the DCC Dying Earth setting and saw 165 players across 36 teams compete in the team tournament format – where five-player teams consisted of 5th-level PCs, our highest level tournament yet! Over the course of three days and two hard-fought rounds, dozens of characters fell to the deadly traps, multiple bubble-worlds, and for the first time, a five-way Battle Royal finals before team Los Hermanos Jabronis emerged as the champions.

We now present the official tournament stats, including all the judges, rooms and authors that contributed to this year’s amazing event. (For more of our Gen Con coverage, visit our Gen Con 2023 headquarters).

Round 1 Results¹

This year’s adventure featured multiple “bubble” worlds that teams had to journey between to recover pieces of a powerful artifact known as the god-husk. Teams could pick from multiple paths to take, and even return to bubbles they had already visited by using multiple portals scattered within each bubble. Some teams took advantage of the format to move on from harder challenges, other teams remained fixed on solving a particular encounter – many times to their own detriment!

There were five bubbles in Round 1, with each including a different unique encounter that was roughly equivalent in challenge and therefore fair in a tournament environment despite which path each individual team chose to take during the round. Even so, at Gen Con, teams were competing only with other teams in the same flight for the top spot to guarantee advancement, ensuring that results were not being compared across flight. A fifth “wild-card” team also advanced, with the highest score from the remaining teams securing a position in the finals.

Also new for this year’s tournament was a reduced amount of standard time to complete round 1. Teams started with only three and a half hours to complete Round 1; however, during the round teams could discover various means to extend their time to add up to an additional 30 minutes of real-time, allowing those teams up to a full four hours to try to collect more god-husk pieces!

Below are the final Round 1 results broken out by team by flight:

Round 1, Flight 1 Results

* Games that ended in a TPK

Round 1, Flight 2 Results

* Games that ended in a TPK

Round 1, Flight 3 Results

* Games that ended in a TPK

Round 1, Flight 4 Results

* Games that ended in a TPK

Round 2 Results²

At Gen Con 2023, Round 2 was divided into two parts: Part 1 found the teams running through a series of encounters, attempting to activate their god-husk by mastering a series of elemental challenges. Part 2 then saw the teams ascending into their completed god-husks to compete in a Battle Royal against the 4 other teams, with the last team standing being declared the Arch-Daihaks of Dying Earth!

The finals were another epic battle to the finish, running into overtime with four teams still standing. After the dust from the tie-breaking dice rolls cleared, Los Hermanos Jabronis came out on top, just barely squeezing by the second place team The Esoteric Legion with a tie-breaker score of 30 to 29!

Below are the final Round 2 results broken out by team:

Round 2 Results*

* Games that ended in a TPK.

** Designates players from one of the first round alternate teams that joined an advancing team in the finals.

Deadliest Round

* “Total PC Fatalities” includes both the total number of times a PC reached 0 hp and the number of PCs that fully bled out.

** Total includes the number of teams that TPK’d during the round. While only five teams made the finals, teams that TPK’d in Round 2 Part 1 were “reset” back at the start of the round with each PC revived with a number of hit points equal to the number of elements mastered multiplied by their Hit Dice. For example, a team who mastered two elements before they TPK’d would be reset with 2HD worth of hit points for each PC.

TPKs by Round and Judge

*As noted above, when a team TPK’d in Round 2 Part 1, they restarted with a healed characters based on how far they progressed in the round before TPKing. Judge Haley’s team managed to TPK twice during the round, resulting in the unique achievement of having the most TPKs in both Round 1 and Round 2!

Deadliest Encounters by Round*

*Includes stats for Part 1 only, the Part 2 Battle Royal had 100% of the casualties for that part of Round 2.

Deadliest Judges

* New tournament judge this year.

** Judge David did all the work of a tournament judge to get ready for Gen Con 2023, but did not run games.

Most Popular Pre-gens:

1. Warrior-magician – 28
2. (Tie) Vat-thing – 27

2. (Tie) Thief – 27
3. Wayfarer – 25
4. Chaotic witch – 18
5. (Tie) Neutral witch – 16

5. (Tie) Chaotic magician – 16
6. Lawful magician – 8

Notable Team Compositions:

• Turn the Phlogiston to 11: Teams with all four magicians and witches – 1
• Dueling Luck: Teams with both a wayfarer and a thief – 17
• Healing Schmealing: Teams without a healer class – 6

Special Awards:

• What a Debut: Judge Jeff started his tournament debut with a bang, TPKing both teams he judged in Round 1!
• We Haley Knew You: Judge Haley ran a marathon four games in Round 1, three of which were TPKs, but one team, The Rookies, had the dubious honor of standing above the rest in only taking 2 hours to TPK, the earliest exit from the tournament out of any team!
• Sandestin Coddling: One of the fun aspects of this year’s tournament was the Lawful magician having access to a sandestin – a powerful creature that could effectuate magic, but at the cost of indenture points that bound the sandestin to the magician’s service. Most of the teams with that pre-gen managed to use their sandestin to solve tricky puzzles or cast magic spells, but judge James’ team, The Royal Bachras, chose not to use their sandestin at all, in retrospect perhaps a decision that might have cost them a higher place.
• Count Dante Black Belt Part II: Goes to judge Tim for running a record total of 24 official tournament games since joining the tournament team in 2017. Over that same period, judge Tim has also participated in or run multiple playtest sessions, and this year joined the tournament team staff as a co-director, only extending his support of the tournament!
• The Last One You Would Expect…: Judge Harley is known for running fantastic games for his teams, but in this year’s tournament he also was brutally efficient, recording almost two and a half fatalities for every PC, the highest ratio out of any judge in the tournament!
• The Buttery Road: While judge Davin worked hard to challenge his players, he ended up running perhaps the easiest games this year, with not a single PC in his two Round 1 games being reduced to 0 hit points!
• A Spot for Everyone: Both Judge Jim and Judge Alan graciously stepped up to run unofficial games for teams in Round 1 who either did not have enough players and/or were new to DCC and just wanted to play without the pressure of the tournament. While neither appear in the official stats, the deserve our recognition and gratitude for keeping DCC an open and welcoming environment!
• Something in the Phlogiston: Judge Alaric had three teams reach the finals from his Round 1 events, including the eventual tournament champions, an amazing 75% advancement rate!
• Invoke Patron Olson – Once again, judge Terry saw this year’s tournament all the way from design to implementation, and played a crucial role during the first flight of Round 1 wrangling all nine tables that were being run simultaneously. His continuous presence (and dashing appearance in his fashionable red capelet) gave all the judges what they needed to make this year’s event so successful!

Complete Stats by Room

Round 1

Round 2 Part 1

* Rooms that only two teams reached during the tournament at Gen Con 2023.

Round 2 Part 2

Deadliest Round 1 Flight

Most God Husk Pieces and Extra Time Collected

Teams that Collected the Most God-Husk Pieces:

1. Tie – The Vice Squad (5)
2. Tie – The Esoteric Three (5)
3. Tie – Los Hermanos Jabronis (4)
4. Tie – Arazal’s Angels (4)

Teams that Acquired the Most Bonus Time:

1. Tie – The Vice Squad (30 minutes)
2. Tie – Shigs (30 minutes)
3. Tie – The Bills (30 minutes)
4. Tie – Team Ramrod (30 minutes)
5. Tie – Things Look Bad (30 minutes)

Teams that Burned the Most Luck:

1. The Vice Squad (36)
2. Tie – Brute Smartz (31)
3. Tie – Bovine Appreciators (31)

All-Time Stats for Judges

1^ At Gen Con 2023, only one team managed to collect all five god-husk pieces and finish the round within the starting allotment of 3.5 hours – a remarkable achievement! And only one other team managed to finish the round with all five god-husk pieces, but only after acquiring 30 minutes of bonus time!

2^ At Gen Con 2023, the finals came down to four teams still standing after 30 minutes of overtime. After conferring with the lead designer of the Battle Royal, Harley Stroh, the tournament directors decided that a dice off was the only fair way to decide the winner. This precedent was also used in a past tournament when 2018’s Riders on the Phlogiston ended in a two-way tie, ultimately decided by a d20 roll-off in front of the crowd gathered at the Goodman Games booth. For this year’s tournament, teams were awarded bonuses to their roll based on their progress in the tournament and remaining hit points, with a bonus point awarded for the number of god-husk pieces collected in Round 1, the number of elements mastered in round 2 part 1, the number of remaining PCs at the end of the Battle Royal, and for every 10 hit points remaining for the team. Team Ramrod led all teams with +21 bonus to their d20 roll, but in epic fashion rolled a natural “1” on the dice-off, allowing Los Hermanos Jabronis with a +19 bonus to come out on top!