Guide to Special Events: Day of the Dungeon Master

[Alphastream]

The Harbingers guild loves learning Neverwinter's secrets and collecting knowledge. We share our guides on major events as a way of giving back to the larger community. And, we also hope that if you like what you see you will consider joining our awesome guild!

This post will be updated each time a major event takes place in Neverwinter.


The Neverwinter Wiki has information on events here.

[Alphastream]

Event: Day of the Dungeon Master / Respin / Portobello's Campaign

About the Event
This is a revamped version of Respin's Marvelous Game, an event where your Neverwinter character could become a miniature in a tabletop D&D game. The three-week event has grown and changed over the years to include the Burrow Down Inn, several queues, and to become part of the Appointment Event system using the same Hell Pit currency.

Theme: The story and locations is based on the Acquisitions Inc. live play games run at the PAX convention and featuring players known in the gaming community. They are hilarious! Watch the most relevant one here. This event predates the Acquisitions Inc campaign.

Recent changes
As described here, this event in 2023 became part of the same currency as Hell Pit, and uses the same "Appointment Event" rewards vendor located across from the event podium, by the druid's tree. The event may provide additional rewards in a given year, which then join previous rewards.

The intern process where you completed training via a campaign system is now retired. You instead gain titles as you complete the queues.

Some older rewards, such as the 2019 Deck of a Few Things, Crumpled Card, Apocalypse Dagger, The Natural vanity pet, and various potions and class-insult-hurling consumables, have been retired and may be available later in other ways.

Why it is Worth Doing
The Appointment Events are generally relatively quick to complete and the rewards are very good. The event is pretty funny and entertaining. It provides a fun version of a tabletop game, turning your character into a miniature.


Getting Started
Go to the event podium in PE to start. Speak to Portobello DaVinci (Chris Perkins), who gives a welcome quest to speak to Flabbergast in the Burrow Dawn Inn.

You can reach it by interacting with the game table or speaking to Portobello. You shrink and become a D&D miniature version of yourself and can now speak with Flabbergast who is standing not far from where you appear.

Flabbergast provides you with a main quest which has two parts:
1) Do an event challenge. (Flabbergast's Daily Evaluation, The Daily Race, or Game Mastery Challenge)
2) Do the Trial of Traps.

Doing these things will provide you each day with 2 Tokens of Participation. In later weeks, you can get the Token of Challenge and Token of Achievement. Once you complete the daily quest, you can take on additional quests, and may gain up to 1 more Token of Participation.

Challenges
There are three types of challenges: The Daily Race, Flabbergast's Daily Evaluation, or Game Mastery Challenge.

The Daily Race: Flabbergast's Foot Race
Speak to the attendant and then stand by or on the bleachers and wait. Eventually you are paired up with one or two other players, each on a separate obstacle course. You will have to defeat dummies, move past scything blade traps, and hop over wooden platforms. Bring strong single-target damage powers for the dummies, and a strong companion.

Flabbergast's Daily Evaluation: Training Activities
The Evaluator of Games will give you a quest to do any two challenges. Behind him in the back of the area are various evaluators with different challenges. Different ones may be easier depending on your character. They can all be fun to try.
- Bindings Mastery Challenge: Show you have what it takes to control the enemies on the battlefield. (Use powers that immobilize, slow, or push back the giant D20.)
- Battle Mastery Challenge: Demonstrate your ability to deal damage to multiple enemies. (Equip AoE powers, mount powers, companion.)
- Duel Mastery Challenge: Prove your ability to inflict damage on a single target. (Equip single-target powers and a companion and mount suitable for a boss.)
- Escape Mastery Challenge: How are you at dodging out of danger? (Watch for the red zones and move out of the way.)
- Shields Mastery Challenge: Show that you can protect your team. (Equip skills to push foes away and protect your charge.)

Game Mastery Challenge: Dummies and Dice
In 3 minutes you must kill 3 target dummies and find 10 dice scattered around the place. usually you can kill dummies as you go, and only the dummies count (not Straw Men). Tip: jump up the various hills, as there are often several dice there.


Trials
For the second part of Flabbergast's daily quest, you must use the Queue system or talk to a bartender. Queue up for Trial of Traps in week one. Each week additional trials are made available (though sometimes they show up earlier).

- Week One: Trial of Traps
- Week Two: Artificers Workshop
- Week Three: A Rock Falls
- Week Four: Strange Things at the Burrow Dawn Inn

Trial of Traps
A dungeon run. Start by killing some drow, then dodge through scything blades. These do very high damage in some years. After more drow, a long hallway features rolling D20s you must evade. Try going just after one and then duck into the side chambers to fight drow before proceeding.

You then face a Drider (drow spider hybrid) who will resist a lot of damage. If the person with aggro can draw the drider to an explosive rune, the drider will then take much more damage. Worth doing if you can coordinate with players.

One more trap-filled corridor, more drow, and then a beholder with some sticky tiles. Generally an easy end fight. You will gain a title for completing the trial.

Artificer's Workshop
There are three main phases. First, you are being poisoned, so you must go open the vents to stop the poison. Then, knock out the svirfneblin. Finally, gather crystals and put them in holders by the globe of force containing the mind flayer. This will bring down the globe and allow you to briefly fight the mind flayer. Repeat with the crystals until defeated.

Rocks Fall
Combination of dodging rocks and fighting demons. The cut scene tells you that the order in which portals appear is important. You will move around fighting cultists and reach open areas with three portals. Note the color you find, red, yellow, or blue, in each room. You can interact with the portal to close it, must close all three, and then must also kill the mobs to proceed.

You will find three rooms like this, each with portals of one color. The order of the colors changes each time.

After the third room with three portals, you reach the final room with three bosses. Each is color-coded. You must kill the bosses in the order of the portals you found. So, if the first portals were blue, then the first boss to kill is blue. If you kill them out of order, they respawn.

Strange Things
This features the drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden. You appear to be in the inn, but must speak to Flabbergast as the place has been attacked. Fight drow and the Taskmasters. You then find a beholder and must dodge its red zones and take them down. We then see rocks falling and portals similar to Rock Falls. You face the drider from Trial of Traps with the runes (again, lead them into it) before facing Mad Drizzt Do'Urden and defeating him. Few people do this event as it is long. However, as with other queues, it does grant a title.

Respen's Marvelous Game
You will also be able to take on the original two tabletop events. You queue for one event, but each time could end up in either the outdoor or dungeon adventure. Each one is humorous, with a DM supposedly running the event for you and reading the adventure aloud to you as if you were actually playing D&D. You are a miniature and all the monsters are miniatures (except when they are dice, because the DM didn't have enough miniatures).

These are pretty fast to complete, and the rewards are no longer in the chest. You now go back to Burrow Down Inn and turn in the quest.

Recommendations
This is for most a pretty fun event, with decent humor and reasonable amounts of work for good rewards. Because of how rewards work, you want to complete this with the same character you use for Hell Pit and other similar events, so that they gain the currency and over time you can turn it in for the best rewards.