It has almost been 50 years since Gary Gygax and his business partners published the first set of rules they called Dungeons & Dragons. Ever since, it has grown and found its own market within the tabletop market. In the last decade, the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) brand has grown massively in part due to the fact that a lot of D&D games have been able to stream on Twitch and YouTube—with shows like Critical Role, Dimension 20 and High Rollers, high fantasy has proven to be very successful and has thus been finding a more mainstream audience.

Now there is another chapter to be added to this popularity (hopefully) since LEGO and D&D’s parent company Wizards of the Coast have decided to bring their brands together. Yes, my friends. It is actually true, LEGO Ideas is hosting a D&D contest. A team of judges from both The LEGO Group and Wizards of the Coast will pick a submission that we AFOLs can vote for on the LEGO Ideas site—but better yet, it will result in the first-ever official LEGO Dungeons & Dragons set!

The Precedent of LEGO Ideas

I wrote an article in April about using LEGO to play D&D with many examples of brick-built minifigs, locations and monsters. I am positively surprised with the fact LEGO and D&D have actually partnered up, although I must admit I’m slightly disappointed they will use the Ideas platform to make these sets a reality instead of announcing a full lineup of amazing sets. Maybe it is because I’m constantly bombarded with people who want me to vote on their entries of which I know most of them will never be going through the review rounds, but it just does not appeal to me that much. But a start is a start.

However, I might be biased a little bit—amazing sets have come out through LEGO Ideas. Actually, now that I think about it, because of LEGO Ideas we've had an entire Ghostbusters line with a minifigure- scale Ecto-1, their headquarters and even a highly detailed large-scale Ecto-1. The same can be said about Back to the Future with the minifigure-sized and large-scale Delorean that came out this year. And even Minecraft, although not really popular amongst us AFOLs, is a theme that is still producing sets a decade after first becoming a LEGO Ideas set.

And of course, the amazing Medeival Blacksmith is a highly popular set that many of my Castle-loving friends bought immediately. And later this year, the Viking Village is going to be a Target-exclusive—it is very clear that the fans love a good Castle set. Maybe this D&D contest is what's needed for us Fantasy loving AFOLs to make the message even more clear to the LEGO group.

A Chance for Fantasy

We do not know what this partnership is going to entail exactly, but we do know that this is the chance to get fantasy minifigures back. Don't get me wrong, LEGO has produced amazing Lord of the Rings minifigures in the past that can be used for D&D, but everyone has seen the prices of those figures skyrocket last couple of years. This Ideas contest might actually be the message the LEGO Group needs to finally realize how insanely popular Castle and Fantasy Castle is amongst us AFOLs.

Every convention I've been to, there are always several amazing Castle layouts—and the discussions I have with those builders is always how much we miss the days of the Fantasy Era and Kingdoms sets that were actually available in the stores. LEGO has been testing the waters the last two years, first with the Medeival Blacksmith, then the Creator 3-in-1 Castle and now with the amazing Lion's Knight Castle set (I know several people who have bought more than one of!). Castle lives! It's one the best themes LEGO has produced during its 90 years of producing toys yet the theme was missing for nearly the last decade.

I am definitely curious to see where all this is leading to, however. I am cautiously optimistic. We’ve been burned before. I remember feeling the same when it was announced that LEGO would partner with Blizzard and thinking we would get amazing World of Warcraft-themed sets, but unfortunately only got a wave of Overwatch sets and the Horizon Zero Dawn Tallneck, which as amazing as they are, are not exactly what I expected when LEGO partnered with a brand that has such a wide range of themes.

The partnership with Wizards of the Coast offers an even greater range in potential sets than just castle as it can dive into Steampunk elements with the Eberron setting, sci-fi with the Spelljammer books and even horror themes with the vampire lord Strahd in the Ravenloft campaign.

But this contest is a chance for LEGO Fantasy fans to make ourselves known. Can you imagine official LEGO dice sets!? Or a buildable LEGO D20? A UCS Yawning Portal? A proper dragon!? A Beholder!? I know there are lots of Dungeons and Dragons fans that work at LEGO, so if they get the opportunity to go wild with the theme, I can only imagine what could be possible.

D&D-like fan-designs from fantasy fan and LEGO designer Wes Talbott

A Call to Arms for Fantasy Fans

No, I am not getting carried away—this might just be our greatest chance! This contest on LEGO Ideas is the chance not just for us D&D folk but for the Castle folk as well to finally send a message to the LEGO Group that we want Castle! We want Elves and Dwarves and Barbarians! We need to rise up! A red Day! A Sword Day! 'Ere the Sun rises! We will let ourselves be heard! We will let the LEGO Group know that we Castle and Fantasy fans are here to stay and that if they will bring out amazing sets we will buy them!

We must take every Guidance spell, help action and every advantage we can muster to roll such a high persuasion check on them that they cannot ignore us forever! Let this be the hour when we draw swords together! Fell deeds awake! Now for reasonably priced Fantasy minifigures, affordable Castle sets and new amazing LEGO sets! Forth AFOLs!

Full press release from LEGO:

Join us in celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons!

We want to share news of an exciting new collaboration. Gather your adventuring party, prepare your spells, and don your gear because we invite you to join us in celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons! We, at The LEGO Group, have partnered with Wizards of the Coast to bring our two epic brands together through the LEGO Ideas platform.

LEGO Ideas is a platform where fans can share their creations and creativity, enter prize challenges, showcase their proposals for new LEGO Ideas sets and vote for awesome models dreamt up by fellow fans. Some of these incredible creations will be selected to become official LEGO sets.

We are preparing a celebration of an incredible 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons! For this, we are looking for you to ignite your imagination and showcase your favorite elements of the world’s greatest roleplaying game using LEGO bricks.

You could create your ultimate builds, based on your favorite storylines, monsters, characters, adventurers, and locations.

Once built, submit your product idea to ideas.LEGO.com where a panel of judges consisting of members of the LEGO Ideas team and members from Wizards of the Coast, will choose entries among these submissions for a Fan Vote.

Excitingly, all entries that reach the Fan Vote phase, will stand a chance of becoming an official LEGO Ideas set! A mighty reward for any fan!

We look forward to where this adventure is going to take us!

What are you waiting for!? Let’s start submitting ideas! The deadline is Nov. 14th!

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