I appreciate the #dungeon23 project a lot. It sounds just like the "great days" of the OSR, albeit in a less collaborative fashion, perhaps. But it's awesome to witness such a rush of creativity, sharing, resources, blogging and reblogging, etc. That's the DIY stuff the OSR is made of. (Other resources and relays : on Mazirian's Garden, on HereticWerks, on Reddit...)
As for myself ? I'm awfully bad at doing these kinds of self-imposed, regular challenges. As much as I love writing, I haven't ever been able to participate in NaNoWriMo, for example, much less complete it. And my current life and health would be enough to deter me anyway.
But, of course, I still find myself bursting with ideas. So here's a random table of #dungeon23 projects and variations ! I know the year has started already, but hey, if there are other people like me out there, some will come late or will want to change the project once started. That's not the goal, but we do what we can...
1, #dungeon23 : the challenge as originally proposed. 1 level per month, 1 room per day.
2, # monster23 : a theme a month, one bestiary entry per day.
3, #treasure23 : same, but with sweet treasure.
4, #kid23 : make good use of the challenge by exploring, in any way you want, a setting that haunts you since your childhood or teenage years. Or do a #dream23 : if you have a dream journal, use bits and pieces from it to fuel your inspiration and flesh out your inner worlds.
5, #ocean23 : each month an island, its secrets, its surrounding islets, atolls, encounters, etc. Can double as #sky23 for floating islands, because of course sky islands are cool.
6, #space23 : each month a world or system in a space opera universe. Build a sector or subsector along the year for Classic Traveller or any space opera game !
7, #spelljammer23 : mixing the best of 5 and 6, it's worlds, islands and weird encounters for your favorite space fantasy setting / Spelljammer ersatz.
8, #pungeon23 : fill your dungeon / whatever with one pun or wordplay per day. Room number 5 is an NPC named Gael Ubo (or is it Ugo Elba, or Gabe Olu ?) dancing the mambo.
9, #hexcrawl23 : a generalisation of the oceancrawl, each day is a square or hex or point on a wilderness exploration map.
10, #wiki23 : each day, your inspiration must come from a different random Wikipedia page. Or from the featured article of the day, that works too !
11, #book23 : each day, you guessed it, your inspiration must come from a different random line or word in a book of your choice. Might be always the same book, might not be. (Heck, I'm half-tempted to try a #bible23 just to see what comes out of it.) Might also come from movie, series, magazines, podcasts or video games lines. (Those kinds of creative constraints might bother some people, but they're also great guides and supports for those that, like me, welcome an external source of focus and discipline. Just like in improv acting or acting in general, or writing or any other artistic pursuit. Just like random tables help the OSR referee imagine and discover what happens next !)
12, #home23 : take your inspiration from around your home, hometown, surrounding region that you know well. Or use it as a pretext / motivation to discover cool things about your region if you don't know it well !
13, #group23 : gather the spirit of the early OSR : find a group and collaborate together ! Each can do a piece, or you can share the days, or one writes and the other draws or proofreads, etc.
14, #saints23 : many religions have saints, some official, some popular, and many have attributes, portfolios or biographies that are ripe with direct gameable material or inspiration. Pick the religion that tickles your interest and go look at its saints ! Better yet, some calendars associate a different saint du jour to each day, so your content is already in place. There are other calendars out there with daily attributions, such as the old French revolutionary calendar with its rural and agricultural focus.
15, #magic23 : each day a new spell. Dividing the months in schools, themes or spell levels is optional.
16, #misc23 : be less constrained, follow your fancy. Each day, write just a small thing : a room, a hex or wilderness locale or encounter, an item, a magic item, a trap, a spell, a creature, a faction, an NPC, a bit of lore, a small finding, whatever.
17, #city23 : each month a district of your fantasy / sci-fi / cyberpunk / historical city or megalopolis. Or each month is a different city in the same world. Fill it with NPCs, rumors, shops, places to be and to see, scheming factions, hidden corners, looming threats.
18, #people23 : what people are and do. Each day is, to your preference, a fantasy species / ancestry, a faction, a class or subclass, a particular NPC... Here again there's room to theme per month as you wish !
19, #lore23 : flesh out your setting with a bit of lore a day, as consequential or trivial as you want. There are many worldbuilding questionnaires and generators out there to give you inspiration, thematics, etc. The more gameable or actionable, the better.
20, #no23 : don't participate, or not all of it, because, hey ! it's just for fun, don't stress about it. Don't be like me.
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