Lego Ideas Considers Dungeon Masters Set
Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: Gifts, Homebrew, World building
Greetings and salutations all today I want to highlight a rather interesting development which may excite some of you master builders out there.
Now over the years many groups (including my own) have often used Lego minifigures as characters and monsters on their game boards and battle maps, some ambitious Dungeon Masters have even created whole dungeon from Lego and even developed games such as BrickQuest by Peter F. Guenther.
Brickquest at Gencon 2003
The Lego company themselves have taken tentative steps in a similar direction with their release of the Heroica, a game very similar to Games Workshops 1989 game Heroquest and it has proven popular enough to have numerous different adventures such as the Caverns of Nathuz, Ilrion, Draida Bay, Waldurk Forest and Castle Fortaan. Each of these sets can be connected and while costly like many Lego products are far cheaper and easier than trying to obtain a copy of Heroquest which at a minimum is over £100. Also much like the original Heroquest it seeks to emulate Heroica has attracted the attention of the gaming community especially /tg/ and has had additional rules created for it to further expand its gameplay.
So with this in mind with the introduction of Lego Ideas in 2008 it was really only a matter of time until a Dungeon Master Set was suggested, for those of you unfamiliar with Lego Ideas it is a website run by Chaordix and The Lego Group, which allows users to submit ideas for Lego products to be turned into potential sets available commercially, with the original designer receiving 1% of the royalties.
Submitted on the 22nd of January 2017 by a user named Ymarilego, the Dungeon Master Set reached the 10,000 supporter requirement at such a record pace even the Lego Staff commented on its popularity:
Dear Ymarilego,
What just happened?! We're pinching ourselves to make sure it wasn't a dream, as your project spread like wild fire over the weekend seemingly backed up by all of the internet. In fact, the countless "Well, that escalated quickly" internet memes spring to mind for some reason. Your very well presented project forms the basis of an interesting role-playing based game through which players can express their creativity in different ways. From your comments we can see the neat touch of having yourself and your sons as the heroes of this journey. Well, you're already heroes to 10,000 supporters that's for sure!
You can a foot off the gas pedal and relax as we're glad to now officially advance this project to the Review phase.
What happens now?
This project moves from the Idea stage to the Review stage. A "LEGO Review Board" composed of designers, product managers, and other key team members will examine the idea. We'll build concept models and determine if the concept meets our high standards for what it takes to be a LEGO product. This includes factors such as playability, safety, and fit with the LEGO brand. Every potential LEGO product goes through a process like this and must meet the same standards.
The LEGO Review Begins in May
This project qualifies for the First 2017 Review, which includes projects that reach 10,000 supporters between early January and early May. For more information about the LEGO review process, please see the Project Guidelines and House Rules.
The review is a thorough process and from its start it can take several months. When finished, we make a "go/no go" decision to develop and sell a product based on the Dungeon Master.
When the review is complete, we will inform you of our decision. If green-lit, this project goes into the longest phase of the project; the Development phase. During this time, LEGO model designers refine the product and develop it for release, we create the product materials (box, instructions, marketing), and get everything ready for a production run. This also takes several months.
We will post follow-up information and our decision here.
As you can see from the screen shots its modular design means that a large variation of dungeons can be designed and clipped together sturdily, not to mention the rooms themselves can be easily customised. So when May rolls round I will be greatly surprised if Lego fail to acknowledge the support and demand this has as a produce, not to mention wit their previous designs of Medieval, Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit sets many of the required blocks are readily available.
If you like this idea and want to support it further then check out Ymarilego's next project, a smaller expansion for the Dungeon Master Set called The Mine.