TOPIC: Thoughts from a new player

Hello all,

This was my first true dungeon experience. I unlike many new people had checked out the forums and with some gifts of other gamers in the area who knew they were not going to play this year and a small ebay purchase I went in with a decent supply of uncommon and rare tokens.

While I see alot of concern for new players here, I enjoyed my experience with both rounds. The Underdark session (Thursday, 6:36 Combat), I played the bard since most of the fighter types were already taken when I arrived. Not what I was wanting but fair is fair and everyone in the room before me had my level of equipment or better. Our group had 3 new players in it and as far as I can tell everyone had fun and participated and we ran it at normal level. The elevator puzzle was a blast, the mushrooms puzzle was a process of trial and error. We didn't defeat the mind flayer in time but I enjoyed. Treasure pulls were nothing to write how about but oh well.

The Sable session was Saturday (10:02 Combat) and I managed to snag the fighter. We also had three new players on this one and we debated going hardcore but decided against it with three new players (one of the new players was outfitted about as well as I was but the other one was a walk on). The new player that was outfitted well had also been active on the forums and I think that made a big difference in our experience. The walk on player was a bit lost and I think he could have done more if he wasn't busy trying to figure out the mechanics of being a wizard. We failed miserably at the ball puzzle. In hindsight I am wondering if we could have built a ramp system out of the poles but I didn't think of that until the next day which is part of the reason it was a blast. I personally was thrilled with the spiders under the skin room and the plot room of having to decide which party members got to burn out the spiders first before the poison took effect. We managed to get thru the run pretty well and I know I left thinking maybe we should have done hardcore. Treasure pulls on this one were amazing so I can testify that there were cool tokens in the boxes. Honest.

Suggestions for how to treat new people:

1) Encourage at registration for people to check out the forums more. They are mentioned in the event information but I think there should be a much more active encouragement for newbies to go to the forums/website. The Forums help alot with understanding the mechanics. How to place your tokens. How the process works. Etc. Etc. Etc. The two newbies with forum experience allowed the trainer to concentrate on the newbie who didn't have it to focus their experience. I can not emphasis this enough. I think a few hours of time on the forums made a HUGE difference for my enjoyment.

2) I am sure that there are some experienced people who overwhelm new players. This did not happen with me on either run but I think part of it was that I had some base knowledge before the run.

3) Clearer explanation to look for the T symbol (or other common symbols) in the rooms. I didn't get the connection until halfway thru Sable run.

4) Better explanation of the difference between the difficulty levels. For the sable run it was really a coin flip for which level to do and the new people didn't have anyway to assess if the party was strong enough to try.

5) Suggestions to new players for how to organize what they carry during the run for it to be accessible and how to keep track of what their damage modifiers and save modifiers can be applied. I am pretty sure that I missed some modifiers because I didn't have a system to keep track of them.

I enjoyed my experience. The cost is a bit high for me personally but it certainly was worth doing once and if I am at GenCon right now I am leaning towards doing it again which is a success for Jeff and the True Dungeon staff.

Thanks you very much.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Tony.

I agree it would be good to get more players checking out the forums, and familiarizing themselves a bit with the game before they go in, but it's really hard to get that message out there. The TD 101 seminar does a *fantastic* job of it, though, so kudos to any new players who took the time to attend it.

Tony McCormick wrote: Suggestions for how to treat new people:

1) Encourage at registration for people to check out the forums more. They are mentioned in the event information but I think there should be a much more active encouragement for newbies to go to the forums/website. The Forums help alot with understanding the mechanics. How to place your tokens. How the process works. Etc. Etc. Etc. The two newbies with forum experience allowed the trainer to concentrate on the newbie who didn't have it to focus their experience. I can not emphasis this enough. I think a few hours of time on the forums made a HUGE difference for my enjoyment.

I would suggest that TD get the registered email address for everyone buying a ticket for True Dungeon and send them an email with a link for new players.

Ed

Tony McCormick wrote: 1) Encourage at registration for people to check out the forums more. They are mentioned in the event information but I think there should be a much more active encouragement for newbies to go to the forums/website. The Forums help alot with understanding the mechanics. How to place your tokens. How the process works. Etc. Etc. Etc. The two newbies with forum experience allowed the trainer to concentrate on the newbie who didn't have it to focus their experience. I can not emphasis this enough. I think a few hours of time on the forums made a HUGE difference for my enjoyment.

MasterED wrote: I would suggest that TD get the registered email address for everyone buying a ticket for True Dungeon and send them an email with a link for new players.

People don't read (or follow) instructions.

Every year, every person who registers for Grind gets an automated e-mail with instructions to e-mail me (via my True Grind Gmail address).

Every year, less than a dozen people actually bother to do so.

Great, thank you for the feedback. Even though I hope we continue to focus on improving the first-timer experience it is important to remember that we mostly hear about the first-timers who have a bad experience and not the vast majority who likely had fun like you did (and we did back in the day too).

Tony McCormick wrote: 5) Suggestions to new players for how to organize what they carry during the run for it to be accessible and how to keep track of what their damage modifiers and save modifiers can be applied. I am pretty sure that I missed some modifiers because I didn't have a system to keep track of them.

We all have this problem. I actually create myself a cheat sheet before each convention but even then still forget some of my abilities and bonuses.