What is Iron GM?
Adventure Making Gets Competitive
The Iron GM tournament turns adventure-making into competitive sport and rewards GMing talent with phenomenal prizes. Inspired by three Secret Story Elements unveiled at the show, GMs spend an hour crafting an adventure then run it for players who, in turn, judge them on their performance.
Local veterans go on to represent their home town at Regional Semi-Finals. Regional Semi-Final winner are called Iron Contenders, and are sent by their sponsoring conventions to Gen Con Indy (hotel, airfare and a 4 day badge) for FREE to represent their gaming community in the Iron GM World Championship, and for a shot at the Iron GM world title.
While all participants at Iron GM events receive prizes – and players have the opportunity to win even more during our halftime show – the top three GMs always win big, walking off with an impressively expensive pile of loot from top RPG publishers.
How does it work?
GMs are randomly assigned to a table of Players. Next we reveal our three secret story ingredients. At Gen Con Indy 2010 our three secret story ingredients were Bodak, Banishment and Boudoir.
GMs have sixty minutes to craft adventures, placing the secret ingredients at the nucleus of their games, while Players have sixty minutes to build characters. However GMs are only permitted to say three words to players to guide character creation. That’s say as in “verbalize”. After hours of gaming thrills – and an that intermission filled with contests allowing players to win yet more prizes – the players rate their GM on special scorecards, using tournament-tested criteria.
Iron GM uses the 3.5 SRD by default, but you are welcome to substitute an alternate game system if the Players at your table unanimously agree to the change. Just arrive, prepped to the hilt and ready to use the rules as found in the 3.5 SRD http://www.d20srd.org/. If possible, GMs should also bring core rulebooks or other aids to assist players with character creation. Pre-gens are permitted but optional. GMs are NOT permitted to use published adventure material or adventure material not of their own devising.
You want prizes?
Prizes for GMs and prizes for Players! So far Iron GM has given players an average $125 in great gaming product just for playing. While we can’t guarantee those numbers – prize support varies by tournament – we make sure every player wins. Moreover, the GM crowned victorious at each Regional Semifinal wins a FREE trip to the Gen Con Indy Iron GM World Championship! And GMs victorious at the World Championship should consider themselves lucky if they can get it all on the plane!
Looking forward to seeing you at Iron GM!