A Second Summer LEGO RPG Jam!

Last summer, I invited everyone to participate in a Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam. It was a lot of fun! And nineteen people created Lego-themed settings, adventures, and reminisces for the jam. Beyond the participants, I heard a lot of positive feedback, and many people asked me to announce another this year.

 

So, for the second year, I want to invite you all to join a new Summer LEGO RPG Jam! This is an invitation to write something for your favorite roleplaying system inspired by the Lego toys you enjoyed as a kid. This year, the jam will run from Monday, June 2nd to Friday, August 29th. Submit your jam entry by publishing it online and pasting the link in the comments to this post.

 

6365 Summer Cottage image source

 
  

What's Changed from Last Year?

 

Two of the most common concerns about last year's jam were that I was a bit restrictive in my suggestions for entries, and that I didn't give participants enough time. I hope I've fixed both those issues this year!  

 

You can write whatever you like - a class, a monster, a faction, an adventure site, a sandbox, a setting. You can write for whichever ruleset pleases you, or make something system-neutral. 

 

I encourage you to write about your favorite Lego sets - maybe the ones you played with as a kid yourself, maybe the ones you longed for when you saw them in the store, maybe the ones you've treated yourself to now that you have an adult income.

 

(One thing that hasn't changed - I still encourage you to draw on Lego's original sets and settings, rather than any of their licensed interpretations of other companies' intellectual property. If you do use licensed sets as inspiration, think about how you used to transform them when you played.) 

 

Your entry can be whatever length is appropriate to your creation. Last year I suggested making something that would fit on a single piece of paper ... and then the first entry was a 20-page long hexcrawl! Clearly my suggestion was too small. 

  

So, I still encourage you to be evocative and concise, to use language that inspires the readers' imaginations, and to try to say things as clearly in as few words as you can. But what that looks like will depend on your project! My one piece of advice is to try to pick a project you think you'll be able to have fun with and finish, rather than one that overwhelms you or stresses you out.

 

2996 Adventurer's Tomb image source

 

   

How Do I Participate?

 

After you write your jam entry, put it online where others can see it. Post it to your blog, upload it as a pdf on itch, whatever works best for you!

 

People love illustrations, and there are two types that most jam entries will benefit from. First, please include images of the Lego sets that inspired you! I have found Brickset to be an invaluable resource for looking up information about sets, including their cover art. (And please include the official set name and number, and a link to the image source, so that others can see your inspiration too!) And second, if you make any kind of setting or adventure site, try to include a map to help others navigate.

 

Please do not include racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, or islamophobia in your entry. I reserve the right to not share or promote any game jam submission that I think is being used to harass or bully.

Lego trademarks of the LEGO Group. The names and images of all Lego products are copyrights of the LEGO Group and are used here without permission. All names and images of Lego products used here are intended to represent Fair Use under the 1976 Copyright Act. Their use is non-commercial, and is part of a transformative artistic project, which is not a substitute for the original products, and should not affect those products' value.

 

Once your entry is online, comment on this post with a link. After the jam ends on August 29th, I'll write another post celebrating and linking to all the entries!

 

Good luck everyone, and have a fun summer!

 

6560 Diving Expedition Explorer image source

 

Congratulations to All the Summer Lego RPG Setting Jam Participants!

The Summer Lego RPG Setting Jam has officially ended. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated! Nineteen people submitted entries between May 8th and July 8th, including my own entry makes an even 20! I'm so pleased and happy to see them all. Let's take a look at what everyone turned in!

Unofficially, if you still want to make an RPG setting based on Lego, there's no reason not to go ahead and do it. I received so many messages from people about how much fun they had writing theirs - you might enjoy writing one, too! And I hope, in the fall, we'll see a few play reports from people who manage to put one of these settings to use at the table.

 

 

 

Legojam Castle Hexcrawl map by Rise Up Comus

 

The first entry came from Rise Up Comus, who helped get the whole project off to an exciting start! He wrote the Legojam Castle Hexcrawl, a regional sandbox based on Lego's original line of Castle sets. Playing with the idea that Legos are toys, this is a setting where all the NPCs are dressed up in costumes and forced to reenact a child's idea of a rollicking medieval adventure, complete with knights, bandits, and a dragon.

 

 

 

Azure Archipelago map by Tales of Escia

Tales of Escia wrote the Azure Archipelago, a wavecrawl full of early modern pirates and an imperial navy ... and advanced magitech Atlanteans. The three factions are competing for control of the region and access to arcane crystals, and their conflict has the potential to determine the fate of an active volcano on the brink of eruption!

 

 

 

Lego Adventurers Dino Island map by Farmer Gadda

 

Farmer Gadda gives us their take on more recent theme with Lego Adventurers Dino Island, a pointcrawl setting where freelance archaeologists compete against mustache-twirling aristocratic villains to find treasure on an island full of dinosaurs, and another active volcano.

 

 

  

Canton of Ochesbad by Tales of the Lunar Lands

 

Tales of the Lunar Lands wrote Cedric the Bull and the Canton of Ochesbad. The canton is a region at war, full of siege engines and war machines. It's medieval, but a very different feel from the Castle Hexcrawl. At the heart of the chaos is Cedric the Bull, a bloody-handed warlord who wants to be an honorable nobleman, which is a nice sort of internal conflict for a villain to have with himself.
 

 

 

6411 Sand Dollar Cafe via Brickset

 
Switching genres in a couple ways, Prismatic Wasteland wrote a modern-day murder mystery at the beach in Trouble in Paradisa. He treats us to nostalgia for the Lisa Frank neons of the early 90s, and the plethora of vacation-themed prime time soap operas of the 1980s. As a bonus, the whole thing is formatted as a trifold zine! He also wrote a nice retrospective about his design process.

 

 

 

Creatown map by The Lonely Firbolg

 

The Lonely Firbolg gives us another modern entry, Creatown, a neighborhood designed following the principles in Electric Bastionland, and using a dozen of Lego's multipurpose Creator sets to produce some truly quirky and memorable city encounters.
 
  

 

Challenger Crater by Xandeross

 

Taking us into the future, Xandeross wrote Moon War 2199, a small setting of warring cities and factions surrounding a large crater on the moon. Xandeross used some of the same Lego Space sets I grew up with, and provides us with a couple tables of random events to help feed the escalating tensions as the situation worsens.
 
 

 

Slizer / Throwbot Planet map by Faber Files

 

Arch Brick draws on a theme from Lego's Technic sets to bring us the World of Seven Slizers. This is a world divided into seven elemental realms - where two of the elements are energy and city!

 

 

 

Darth Skull, Foreman Mike, Astronaut, and two Ninjas by Benign Brown Beast

  

Instead of a setting, Benign Brown Beast takes us on a nostalgic tour through The Bootleg Lego Star Wars of My Youth. It's fun getting to see the idiosyncratic way he interpreted Star Wars as a kid, misremembering and reimagining key characters and scenes, incorporating elements from other Lego sets, blending it all with kid logic. Although my own childhood fantasy world looked totally different from this, it was assembled from mismatched parts in exactly the same way; reading this really took me back!

 

 

 

Big Mouth by Save vs Worm

  

Half Again as Much gives us a deep cut, with The Monster (Pod) Manual, featuring 20 different monsters, all built from one of Lego's short-lived X-Pod sets. Save vs Worm provides some nice illustrations of each of the monsters.

 

 

 

Dragons High map by Seed of Worlds

 

Seeds of Worlds gives us a delightfully thematic conflict in Dragons High. We get a world that's home to nature loving, dragon riding elves, being invaded via interdimensional portals by an unstoppable army of mechanical sea monsters!
 
 
 

Towers of Trumbagar zine by Leviathan Crossing

 

Leviathan Crossing wrote a very old-school little zine with Towers of Trumbagar, which includes lists of towers, simplified vertical maps of three, as a few encounter tables to liven them up.

 

 

 

Aquanautica map by Old Grog

 

Old Grog made a zine as well, and it's amazingly professional looking for a first effort! This might be someone to watch. Aquanautica is another wavecrawl, this one based on Lego's undersea Aquazone sets, which look a lot like underwater spaceships, which is to say, they look really cool.
 

 

 

Something Bricked This Way Comes by Rogue Wave Arcade

 

Rogue Wave Arcade also brought the professionalism when making Something Bricked This Way Comes, a pamphlet adventure that collects some classic monsters for spooky monster-hunting action!

 

 

 

6160 Sea Scorpion from Brickset

 

VDonnut Valley actually wrote three posts to describe an underwater setting. The first post describes the general setting, Sea Scorpion. In the second post about Sea Scorpion Locations, we see a half-dozen locations, their resources, and how events unfold in each one over time. The third post, Sea Scorpion Crews, introduces us to several different undersea adventuring groups, who again change over time. The temporal component here seems interesting; I'd like to know how it works in action at the table.

 

 

 

A Legend Returns map by Noriksigma

 
Noriksigma wrote an impressively detailed setting, A Legend Returns, based on the Matorans from Lego's Bionicle line. I think he wanted to write something longer, including barrens outside the city, but there is plenty to see and do here already.

 

 

 

Island of Tyn Mava map by Noise Sans Signal

 

Noise sans Signal also hoped to write something longer, but still produced the Island of Tyn Mava, City of Weather Vanes, a pointcrawl with a dozen locations. A fuller setting may appear someday! One thing I find really interesting here is that this isn't based on childhood memories of playing with Legos, but rather viewing random Lego sets and using them as sparks for creativity.

 

 

 

Knights on the Borderlands map by Scriptorium Ludi

 

Scriptorium Ludi put together a zine, Knights on the Borderlands, that pays tribute to Lego's Knights Kingdom series and the classic D&D adventure Keep on the Borderlands. This is the second entry that comes with a helpful companion post describing the design process!

 

 

 

Scary Monster Madness map by Knight at the Opera

 

Knight at the Opera uses, I think, the same classic monsters as Rogue Wave Arcade, for the pointcrawl adventure Scary Monster Madness. Here the players take on the roles of documentarians, reporting on the way a major movie studio is exploiting a rural, monster-filled European backwater to make horror movies with no special effects. Like Rise Up Comus's hexcrawl, I think this one is playing with the toy-ness of Lego, depicting an environment where many of the NPCs are themselves acting an playing roles.

 

 

 

I will share my own Lego-inspired setting soon, but I wanted to share the list of other entries as soon as possible. I'm so glad that so many people participated, and felt inspired to make something of their own. I also received a lot of messages from folks asking questions, sharing their favorite Lego tips and resources, and reminiscing about their childhood favorite Lego sets. This was no Dungeon 23 or Gygax 75, but it was small, and it was fun, and I'm very happy with the outcome. 

 

If you have the time and energy and to try want another summer project, why not join Prismatic Wasteland's Barkeep Jam, which is open until August 14th?

Helpful Links for the LEGO RPG Jam

Hi everyone! I have two announcements about the ongoing Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam, still open until July 8th. First, several people have reached out to me with links that might be helpful for anyone working on their own entry. And second, the first few entries have been submitted!

 

 

71469 Nightmare Shark Ship image source

 

I'll talk about those in just a moment. But first, my friend and colleague Prismatic Wasteland is also hosting an game jam this summer - the Barkeep Jam, which will be open from June 14th to August 14th, inviting you to add your own location (or other contributions) to the already-overflowing Barkeep on the Borderlands.

 

I wrote one of the original bars, but I'm going to try to come up with another to enter in the jam. I'm thinking of playing with the similar sounds in cocktail and cockatrice, although I'm not sure exactly where that will lead yet...

 

In the mean time, let's talk about Lego!

 

  

6494 Magic Mountain Time Lab image source

 

I have been using Brickset as my primary interface for locating and looking at older Lego sets. It's not the only way to search them, but I've found it very helpful.

Certified Lego fan Farmer Gadda has a few recommendations! First, Rebrickable is a site where people can post instructions for their own fan designs, reusing old pieces in new ways.

Next, Brick Owl is an online marketplace for buying and selling Lego pieces and minifigures.

 

BrikWars hosts a community of people who use Lego to play wargames. There's a complete ruleset, a wiki for lore, and forums where people talk about and post pictures of their games.

And the BrickLink Studio is a downloadable program from the official Lego website that allows 3D modeling of Lego pieces and sets, and can output .png files.

Knight at the Opera discovered that the official Lego website also has some great history articles, including accounts of the original Castle, Pirates, and Space lines, along with plenty of other topics.

I also got a great link from Mindstorm -  a really detailed overview of the Lego space factions from the 1990s and 2000s from the almost overwhelming Rambling Brick blog. This covers the period when I was most into Lego as a kid, as well as the time right afterward.

And finally, Prismatic Wasteland found a link to a review of the inspiring 1992 Lego catalog, and discovered that Brickset also has a way to browse old Lego catalogs, from 1966 to 2011.
 

4970 The Chrome Crusher image source

So far, there have been four contest entries (that I know of! if you've seen others, please share them in the comments!) 

The first past the finish line is Rise Up Comus, who wrote the Legojam Castle Hexcrawl. This is 27 hexes of medieval adventure, populated by people forced to reenact and relive the same heroic drama year after year, with only the player characters able to break free from the eternal recurrence of the same.

The aforementioned Farmer Gadda wrote Lego Adventurers Dino Island, which pits pulp-style explorers and criminals in a race against one another to capture a dinosaur before the volcano explodes...

Dr Curious VII went a different route and found monster designs from a Lego boardgame. In The Monster (Pod) Manual, DC7 offers ideas on how to describe and use 20 of these little beasties as roleplaying adversaries. I'd really like to encourage this kind of creativity! If you don't want to write a setting, but have another idea for adapting Lego to use with D&D, please know that you're welcome.

 

And in the most recent entry, for now, Tales of Escia gives us The Azure Archipelago, a 36 hex ocean setting where pirates, ghosts, and a royal navy all compete with ancient high-tech Atlanteans to find arcane crystals that will fuel their various factional goals.

There's still plenty of time to join the jam, and plenty of room for more ideas. Don't feel discouraged if you want to write something smaller, or if you too want to write about pirates or knights! I'd love to see what you can make!

Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam

I want to officially announce the start of the Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam! The goal of this game jam is to design a small roleplaying game setting based on the Lego sets we enjoyed in our youth. The jam will run from Wednesday, May 8th to Monday, July 8th, 2024.

 

6075 Wolfpack Tower image source

What is the Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam?

A few years ago, I wrote about how the Lego Castle sets that came out when I was a kid formed an important part of my fantasy imagination, and helped to shape what I want from fantasy roleplaying games. I know I’m not the only one who feels like this, and that childhood Lego sets continue to inspire many of us who enjoy designing and playing RPGs today.

 

So, the goal of this project is to design a small game setting based on a few Lego sets. I encourage you to draw on sets that you remember from your childhood - either ones you owned and enjoyed, or ones you saw and wanted but never got to play with. Now is your chance! 

 

(Since this is a celebration of Lego's original sets and settings, I think it will be more fun if we don't try to riff off of Lego's licensed interpretations of other company's characters.)

 

 

1492 Battle Cove image source

 
 

What Kind of Setting Should I Make?

 

Create a setting where the players can be heroes or scoundrels, and let them decide how to act. Set up rival factions with conflicting goals, make a powder keg, ready to explode, and hand the players a match they can strike. Give them a safe home base, a dungeon to delve, a wilderness to travel, monsters to fight. Make the game you want to play!

 

I encourage you to think small, to be expressive and concise, and to write a setting that will fit on 1-2 pages of 8½ × 11 paper when printed out. You can reference the game mechanics of your choice, or save space by leaving your setting systemless or system-neutral.

 

Anyone who uses your setting will have to do additional work to get it game-ready, so help them out by making something exciting and inspirational! Basic guidelines are more important than fine-grained distinctions. Be clear and coherent, use motifs and themes, and trust that the person running the game will make decisions that are shaped by the tools you've given them.

 

 

6878 Sub Orbital Guardian image source

 
  

How Do I Participate in the Game Jam?

 

Once you've created your setting, go ahead and put it online! If you have a blog, make it a post. Upload it somewhere as a pdf. Then, share your links here, as comments on this post!

 

Once the game jam closes on July 8th, I'll write a new compilation post that has links to all the entries. I'll also create a companion document that combines all the pdf entries into a single file.

 

I'm going to create a setting too! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

 

 

6879 Blizzard Baron image source

 

 

Anything Else I Should Know?

 

Please credit the original Lego sets using their official names and set numbers. That way, everyone will know what inspired you, and anyone who likes your setting can look up the same sets you drew from.

 

Please do not include racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, or islamophobia in your entry. I reserve the right to not share or promote any game jam submission that I think is being used to harass or bully.

Lego trademarks of the LEGO Group. The names and images of all Lego products are copyrights of the LEGO Group and are used here without permission. All names and images of Lego products used here are intended to represent Fair Use under the 1976 Copyright Act. Their use is non-commercial, and is part of a transformative artistic project, which is not a substitute for the original products, and should not affect those products' value.

So please, share your Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam entries in the comments below!