The Standings:
Congratulations to our grand champions, Inevitable Doom, our runner-up, The F’ing Gs.

  • The Fun: Watching the thought process of coming up with a team name.
  • The Hard: Keeping track of which group was who.
  • The Inspiration: Game stores needed to have a top score to compete against.

Video Diary
Diary: Our trials and tribulations were documented in a video journal of sorts. This 14-part plus series was an unrehearsed, candid description of what it’s like to do each and every step of the process.

  • The Fun: Watching them post Comicon.
  • The Hard: Fitting them in with the rest of the to-do’s.
  • The Inspiration: Wizards of the Coasts Podcasts.
  • The Download

Game Parameters
Using second level pre-rolled characters, teams of four will have up to 60 minutes to complete the dungeon delve. A unique scoring system will determine the best overall team.

Game Module
The dungeon delve module was 25 pages in all and meant to look as authentic as possible.

  • The Fun: Continually improving the module layout/look-and-feel.
  • The Hard: Editing down the text over and over again.
  • The Inspiration: WotC’s Dungeon Delve book.
  • The Download

Character Sheets
Gamers got to pick four the six characters (at second level) from our own D&D campaign which is available as a video podcast on iTunes.

  • The Fun: Coming up with the final layout.
  • The Hard: Deciding which info to keep on the sheets and printing them all out.
  • The Inspiration: D&D Encounters
  • The Download

Dungeon Map

Once the story arc outline was completed, everything else revolved around the map. We needed it to represent the module rooms/areas and actual game table terrain.

  • The Fun: Watching it come alive before our eyes.
  • The Hard: Pairing it down for the 60-minute time limit.
  • The Inspiration: Paizo-ran treasure chest event at an earlier Gencon (2007-ish).
  • The Download

Game Board
Now that we had an agreed upon sketch, we replicated the flat design with actual Hirst Arts terrain to create a full 3-D game board.

  • The Fun: Building the rooms for the first time.
  • The Hard: Endless casting and painting in factory sweatshop mode.
  • The Inspiration: Grateful for the Hirst Arts Forum Community
  • The Download

The Lava
A visual striking terrain piece was needed to make the whole game board pop. The lava river was the perfect choice.

  • The Fun: Feeding off the terrain with lots of improvised game play.
  • The Hard: Getting the right length and hiding the tape seams.
  • The Inspiration: Loved the Lord of the Rings mountain eruption.
  • The Download

The Score Sheet
Our delve needed a friendly scoring system to differentiate the participating groups.

  • The Fun: Coming up with the categories.
  • The Hard: Agreeing on all those categories.
  • The Inspiration: Created out of necessity
  • The Download

The Registration Sheet
Signing up in an orderly fashion during the Con was anything but easy. This sheet helped immensely.

  • The Fun: Watching sheet after sheet fill up with eager gamers.
  • The Hard: Implementing this in a calm manner during the Con.
  • The Inspiration:
  • The Download

The Promotion
We made two items to promote the delve at the Comicon and in our local game store. A color poster was our heavy hitter and a simple black and white flyer was our down and dirty pass around.

Game Quotes
We love a great game quote so here is a sampling of our favs.

  • “You’re the worst Rogue ever.”
  • “I blame you.”
  • “Where’s my Buddha?”
  • “The tank moves back.”
  • “Diplomacy? Is that the name of my Crossbow?”
  • “I’ve seen bigger Orcs between my toes.”
  • “I try to tame the Dire Wolf. It’s just a big puppy.”
  • “We’re going to split up.”

The People
Nothing beats meeting great people that share your passion for a good game. Special shout outs to Rob and Greg

  • The Fun: Meeting so many cool, cool gamers and making new friends.
  • The Hard: Finding time to talk to everyone while simultaneously running the delves.
  • The Inspiration: D&D Game Days at Gamers’ Inn
  • The Download

The Challenge
Maybe your game group or game store wants to give Lava and a Cup of Java a try? We would love to hear how it went and what your team score was? Feel free to post comments on the official blog entry or reach out to us on Twitter. Everything you need to run the event is on this page but let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Thank You
The entire Pile Gang (Ben, Rob, Gabe, Jason) is forever grateful to everyone who helped make our home-brewed dungeon delve truly an event to remember. Best wishes…and until we roll again.