LEGO and DnD publisher Wizards of the Coast, two bonafide giants of the toy world, announced on October 5 they were teaming up for a LEGO D&D crossover product – but it’s fans who will submit the design ideas. Until 6am EST / 11am BST on November 14, anyone can submit their idea for a D&D LEGO build through the LEGO Ideas website. A winning idea will be selected through a combination of crowd votes and judges’ review, and the chosen build will become a real-life LEGO product.
LEGO Ideas is a website that, since 2008, has allowed the brick-building community to submit their own ideas for LEGO products. Any successful creator whose work becomes a LEGO product traditionally receives 1% of the net sales, and the D&D LEGO Ideas challenge is no different. The winner also receives ten copies of their D&D set, credit as a fan designer in the set materials, and a prize package of as-yet-undisclosed “Dungeons and Dragons goodies”.
One way the D&D challenge does differ is by including a crowd voting phase of judging. A panel of experts will review the D&D designs from November 14 to November 28, and then the potential designs will be put to a crowd vote. The fan vote doesn’t determine the winner, but it does give the judges a better idea of which ideas are most popular. The winner will be announced on December 19.
LEGO and Wizards are looking for all kinds of D&D LEGO designs. The suggested ideas include display models of your favourite characters or monsters, a functional model to be used in-game, or an “ultimate build” with customisable elements. We’ve already spotted a few Beholders among the entries.
There are plenty of rules any budding builder will need to follow to submit their D&D designs. Firstly, the submission must include up to five photos (in as high a resolution as possible) of the design, which can be built from physical bricks or using a digital building tool. Builds should use between 50 and 3,000 unmodified LEGO pieces, and these can be from any LEGO product.
Submissions can’t have been posted online or submitted to other contests before the D&D LEGO Ideas challenge. They also can’t copy or reference any third-party work other than Dungeons and Dragons. The LEGO Ideas website also has plenty of rules and guidelines regarding image quality and harassment.
Unsurprisingly for some of the biggest toy companies on the planet, there’s also plenty of legal red tape you’ll need to familiarise yourself with to take part in the competition. In addition to the standard LEGO terms and conditions, there’s a large list of D&D content terms that ensure you don’t have rights to D&D properties outside of the competition – and that you’ve no rights to any future DnD products that could be related to your LEGO design, regardless of whether your submission wins.
For D&D minis you can get your hands on now, check out our guide to the best DnD miniatures – as well as our top tips for painting miniatures.