I planned on doing this once for a campaign, but its silly and whimsical formula did not mesh well with the current game.

So now I present it to you:

Vanthan the Mad Archwizard cleared the legendary Crypts of Nerull of its monsters, looted all of its treasure, and was the last surviving member of his adventuring team.  He became a rich man, but he felt that it was not enough.  One day, while visiting the arena in the capital city, he hatched upon a brilliant idea.

He renovated the Crypts of Nerull, reactivated its traps, filled it once again with monsters and treasure, and installed scrying crystal balls safely outside in a nearby structure.  They'd be keyed to rooms and corridors in the dungeon so that watchers can witness events in real time.

At Midsummer's Eve every year, adventurers from across the land compete in the Festival of Dungeons.  Contestants are organized into parties to make their way through the Crypts, all the while onlookers cheer on their favorite teams and place bets on potential winners.  The parties earn points for killing monsters and earning treasure, and must clear sections of the dungeon in a limited time frame; otherwise they lose and all treasure earned is forfeited, teleporting away into Vanthan's vault.  The highest-scoring team which still survives is awarded a unique magical item crafted by Vanthan himself.

Do you have what it takes to win?

During the D20 boom, there was a RPG that did D&D as a game show and your character could do stylish finishing moves to impress the audience. I saw it played at a con and thought the idea would be better as a boardgame.

X-Crawl is its name IIRC.

Yup, X-crawl. Kind of weird though, it was set in the modern world, but a magical version of it.

But if you remember the old show American Gladiators, for like the first season or so (maybe just a few episodes), the referee was called "The Dungeon Master" in a hood and cloak.

Smash TV!

"Big money! Big Prizes! I love it!"

You should throw in anachronous prizes, like VCRs and Televisions!

It makes me think of a .... not-so-good? sci-fi movie with Arnold Swartzenegger .... or however his name i spelled, called "The running man" ...

I like the idea, though, independent of the setting(s) involved.

I'm pretty sure there was something along these lines in Mystara.

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