When flipping through the pages of The Dragon and similar
gaming oriented magazines, one occasionally comes across an article
on D&D toumaments—almost invariably dealing with the problems of
scoring in such competitions and possible methods for improving it.
Unfortunately, I have yet to see a satisfactory method of determining
scores without at least a bit of guesswork.

Don’t get me wrong—some systems I have seen work very well for
particular tournaments. But there has never been, at least to my knowledge,
a general-purpose system which could be used for any tournament
with a minimum of modification. Here is my system, based on the
work I have done in small tournaments (particularly in DMing them).

I do not claim that it’s perfect: As I mentioned previously, I’ve yet to
see one that is. It is based on limited experience (my own and that of
other DMs I know), so you may run into problems not covered in it—
this is where the modifications come in, to enable trimming the basic
formula to fit your campaign.

Here is the formula which I have found works best in most tournaments
I have conducted:
 

Explanation of Symbols:
VP — Victory Points.

M — Mission points, i.e. points for completing the main task(s) or
mission(s) for each round (further explained below).

EMP — XP added to points awarded for magical
treasure gained (the latter is optional).

RCP — Special room and clue points, i.e. points awarded for
solving traps, etc.

DAP — Points awarded to the group by the DM; this is definitely
optional and probably shouldn’t be used in large tournaments with
more than one Dungeon Master (see below).

LCP — Loss of character points (see below).

XP:
XP are awarded as usual for monsters killed and
treasure gained; however, for the purpose of finding victory points,
only half of the usual e.p. is awarded for gems and jewelry obtained
(providing, of course, you count such treasure as an experience gain as
if it were gold-piece treasure in your campaign. I have seen some
campaigns where only half or no experience is awarded for the gold
obtained from gems and jewelry).

Magic Points:
These points are optional; DMs may decide not to give any points
for the magical treasure obtained. If these points are awarded, however,
they are added to the XP and divided by 100 (as
shown in the formula) for purposes of finding victory points.

The formula for finding magic points is as follows:

    MP = BN x PM x 10
    with “BN” being the base number (see below) and “PM’ being the
    percent modifier. The base number is found on the chart below and is
    an arbitrary value rating of magic items:
 
 

Type of Item	Base Number
Sword	10
Misc. Weapon	12
Armor	11
Potion	10
Scroll	10 (plus 1 per spell over 5th level)
Ring	13
Wand, Staff or Rod	13 (plus 1 per 10 charges)
Misc. Magic, 01-30	13
Misc. Magic, 31-60	13
Misc. Magic, 61-75	14
Misc. Magic, 76-90	14
Misc. Magic, 91-00	15

The percent modifier is found by subtracting the percent chance of
rolling a particular item from 10 (with a minimum result of 1). Thus, the
percent modifier of a Wand of Cold would be 6 (ten minus four, the
percent chance of rolling it on the “wands” chart, i.e. 36-39%).

Example: Let’s look at that Wand of Cold we mentioned above. It
has 22 charges so its base number is 15 (13 plus 1 per ten
charges, fractions rounded downward). Its percent modifier is 6, as was
shown above. Thus our formula would look like this:

MP = BN x PM x 10
    = 15 x 6 x 10
    = 900

This Wand of Cold would be worth nine hundred magic points.

Special Room and Clue Points:
Often, points will be awarded for solving traps, finding clues, and
exploring certain areas. The exact number of points must be decided
by the referee(s) but it is recommended that a scale of 20-100 points be
used for these rooms and clues, possibly slightly more for rooms that
will have a very direct result on the success of the mission. Of course,
the points must be decided before the tournament begins, so that all
players will get the same number of points for solving the same traps,
clues, etc.

Additionally, DMs may wish to use this system for determining
room values as a total (i.e., not counting each trap, clue, etc. in the
room separately). Each room is rated on a danger scale of one to ten,
with one being the least dangerous (i.e., an empty room or a room with
just treasure) and ten being the most deadly (i.e., a very powerful
monster and a trap on any treasure). This system is optional, but does
make computing room values somewhat easier. If it is used, the chart
below shows the approximate point value of each danger level with an
arbitrary example of that level:
 

Danger Level:	Point Value:	Example:
1	1	Empty room.
2	5	Kobold or 10' deep pit trap (not both). Possibly a small clue.
3	10	Goblin or poison needle trap on chest or 15' pit trap.  Possibly small clue.
4	15	Gnoll, several kobolds or goblins, 20' pit trap, etc. (not all of these -- only 1 or 2).  Possibly average clue.
5	20	Average trap and/or 3rd or 5th level monster.  Possibly average clue.
6	25	Average trap and/or 4th or 5th level monster.  Possibly average clue.
7	30	Dangerous trap and/or 5th or 6th level monster.  Possibly a good clue.
8	40	Dangerous trap and/or 6th or 7th level monster.  Possibly a good clue.
9	50	Deadly trap and an 8th level (plus) monster.  Probably an excellent clue.
10	60	Deadly!!!  A very deadly trap and one of those monsters you're always saying you should spring on the groups that are getting too confident (dragon, demon, etc.)!  Probably an excellent clue, but they'll have to fight for it!

DM-Awarded points:
As mentioned previously, this part is optional since it is the one
completely subjective variable in the victory point formula. However, if
this is used, the DM should have a set number of points he can award to
each group, usually in a scale of about 0-100 per round. Thus, he can
never award more than 100 points (and only this much if the group
played very well). If there is more than one DM for the tournament,
they should discuss how each team played and come up with an
evaluation from there. This sounds like a rather tenuous way to award
victory points; indeed, it is-that’s why it is seldom used in large
tournaments. However, if there is only one DM for the whole tournament,
this scoring becomes more practical since he will know exactly
how each group fared and can evaluate them from there.

Loss of Character Points:
In many tournament scoring formulas, the number of characters
left in the group serves as the multiplier of the rest of the points; the
formula might look something like this:

Victory Points = Number of Characters Remaining x (E.P. +
Room Value Points)

This looks fine on paper, but I see one immediate problem with it:
What if all the characters in the group are killed? That would make the
multiplier zero, and, of course, zero-times any number is zero. That
group would end up with no victory points at all! To make matters
worse, if it happens to more than one group (or worst of all, if it happens
to all of the groups) there is no way of telling how well each group did in
comparison to the others! In my formula I have not made the Loss of
Character Points the multiplier; you lose only a relatively small number
of points for each character killed, and the group won’t usually end up
with zero victory points.

Thus, for each character killed the group loses 10 points plus a
number of points based on the dead character’s level (plus a lot of
pride). In other words:

LCP = 10 + 1/level of character over first.

If the character is resurrected before the tournament is over, only
one-third of the points are lost.

Optional: In some dungeons it is very important that the characters
remain alive, since most of the victory points are obtained from
them staying alive, not from discovering clues and such. Also, in
dungeons which are relatively easy compared to the level of the
character exploring it, the characters will find it very easy to stay alive. In
cases such as these, the DM(s) may want to multiply the LCP by 5 so
that the group will lose more points for losing a character. Thus the
formula would look like this:

Mission Points:
Many (indeed, most) tournament dungeons have a certain objective,
a certain task which must be completed by the group, often with
one such task per round. Mission points are awarded for this as follows:

Group comes nowhere near completing it: 1 point
Group comes close to completing it but doesn’t quite do it: 2 points
Group completes the mission or task successfully: 3 points

These points are awarded after each round and totalled at the end
of the tournament to get the group’s total mission points for use in the
formula. Note that some dungeons will have no special objective, so
the mission points for them automatically count as “1.”

After studying this article, readers may begin to think this system is
overly complex; however, I intended it this way. Due to its complexity,
it can be used as presented here to give a very detailed, precise point
total so there won’t be a shadow of a doubt as to who won. Or, you can
take out some of the optional parts (or ail of them, for that matter) to
give a not-so-exact, but simpler-to-figure-out total. This depends on
preference (though, of course, each group must use the same formula).

For instance, if you wanted to have a very simple formula and the
point value total didn’t have to be too exact (based on treasure obtained,
etc.) you might even wish to leave out all optional parts, The
formula would look something like this:

And if you didn’t even have a special task or mission (so there
probably wouldn’t be any special room and clue points either), it might
look like this:

Obviously, this will not give a very accurate assessment of the
group’s skill, but it would be very easy to work out.

Parts of the formula can be replaced or slightly modified to suit a
particular dungeon. For instance, you may wish to only award victory
points for certain monsters killed, not for all (awarding it just for giants
in TSR’s G1-3 Modules comes to mind).(G1, G2, G3)