This year is the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a game that I know a little bit about, as I’ve been playing it on and off since I was a teenager back in the 2nd Edition days in the 90s. For those keeping score, that’s after when Stranger Things was set, but still a couple of decades before it would be even marginally cool.
I’ve been a LEGO fan for most of that, and at no point point would I have guessed that LEGO and Hasbro would announce a collaboration through LEGO IDEAS to design an “iconic” Dungeons and Dragons set, character, setting, or similar build. The history between LEGO and Hasbro, owner of Wizards of the Coast (who owns / publishes D&D) is… colorful, to say the least. They’ve seemingly buried the dagger, and not like a rogue in the back of a favored enemy, but instead decided they like money more. I suppose the Optimus Prime wasn’t a one-off thing.
It’s different from the other Ideas submissions, as they’ve set some loose ideas and guidelines around it…
- Detailed Display Model of your Favorite Character or Monster
- Functional Display Models for Players / Dungeon Masters
- Ultimate Build with customizable elements; all rooted in the D&D World
The worlds of Dungeons and Dragons is unique in a way that it’s built around official campaigns, the Forgotten Realms, Ebberon, Ravenloft, and others that have had books out recently. There are channels and podcasts and 3rd party content. More than that, so many go and create their own worlds, create homebrew content, and just about everyone creates their own characters to play the game. So this is an endless well of possible content.
The challenge, of course, is that almost all of that stuff is not “iconic” to build around.
The stakes are like Ideas, but a bit turned up (I think, I haven’t kept up), offering for the winner after a judge and public voting panel:
- 1% of the total net sales of the LEGO IDEAS Dungeons & Dragons product
- 10 complimentary copies of your LEGO IDEAS Dungeons & Dragons set
- Credit and bio in set materials as the LEGO IDEAS Dungeons & Dragons Fan Designer
- A prize package of Dungeons & Dragons goodies!
Not a bad little payday (though, of course, “net” is the key word here). I’m sure the goodie package would be nice too. I still have a lot of parts, so maybe I could build something. I’d probably go for the iconic “characters meeting in a tavern” scene, because forget dragons, Illithid, and Beholders… nothing is more Iconic than that in D&D.
Anyone interested in entering has until November 14th 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST, to submit their entries to LEGO Ideas. A group of judges from the LEGO Ideas team and Wizards of the Coast will then choose any entries that hit the threshold of votes to go into the Fan Vote phase, which will run from November 28th 2022 to December 12th 2022. Sadly, the votes mean nothing, it’s all marketing and engagement, because the judges will ultimately choose the set that will become the final winner, but I guess it’ll still be fun to see everything.
