TOPIC: How long does a run really take?

My gencon schedule is really tight.
I understand that you need to turn up 15 mins before your run.
Does the run always take the full 2 hours?
What about treasure/xp, do you need to spend additional time to do these?

Presumably on my first run I'll suck at it and get killed, so can count on finishing it a bit early?

No, plan on the full 2 to 2.5 hours. Really, plan on closer to 2.5.

To further elaborate, even if you die (which is very unlikely nowadays before the last room or two) you are not allowed to leave the dungeon. You have to follow along as a ghost.

If this is your first time, you want to show up the full 30 minutes before the run - especially if you have a particular class you think you want to play.

Getting treasure and registering XP are very important and take about 15 or so minutes after the run. I mean, you could walk away without XP and not really suffer from it, but treasure is good and only replacable by real-world money.

Toran wrote: To further elaborate, even if you die (which is very unlikely nowadays before the last room or two) you are not allowed to leave the dungeon. You have to follow along as a ghost.

If this is your first time, you want to show up the full 30 minutes before the run - especially if you have a particular class you think you want to play.

Getting treasure and registering XP are very important and take about 15 or so minutes after the run. I mean, you could walk away without XP and not really suffer from it, but treasure is good and only replacable by real-world money.

You are not "required" to follow a long as a ghost
You can
If you really want to leave you can, someone will just have to escort you.
It will be like if you have to use the restroom. ( which if you do once, you are in the dungeon, your run is over)

Paul Anderson wrote: Presumably on my first run I'll suck at it and get killed, so can count on finishing it a bit early?

Come on, Mister Sunshine, have some faith

If any in your party are experienced it's very unlikely you'll die before room 6 (as Lazlo said)... but it could happen. Tag along as a ghost if you do to see how it goes, and if any of the survivors wear a Shade Cloak you can help with the puzzles along the way (you can talk but you can't touch anything, but sometimes ideas are more important than doing something.

But it sounds like you'd rather bail early. Just ask your group to let you check out first, and unless they're jerks (or you were) I'm sure they'll hustle you out as quickly as possible.

I don't know if its possible, but maybe you can swing by the XP desk very early in the day before the first runs start finishing up and ask them to create your account for you to speed up checkout as much as possible.

Brad Mortensen wrote: possible.

I don't know if its possible, but maybe you can swing by the XP desk very early in the day before the first runs start finishing up and ask them to create your account for you to speed up checkout as much as possible.

The only way that there would be time to make your account early would, indeed, be for you to show up before 10:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, XP entering and token distribution tend to get behind because they have entirely too much to do with only one minute scheduled per player, so they will not have time to help you out once their job starts. Be very, very nice to the volunteers. Very, very nice. (Also be sure to talk to the XP person associated with the run you're about to do. At least last year the computers were not networked on-site, so new accounts only existed on the computer on which they were created. Yes, another person can enter the XP, but they won't have the buttons and tokens associated with the scenario you ran.)

Really, plan the 2.5 hours. You probably won't die, except maybe in the last room. You're going to have a great time, your adrenaline will be pumping, and try to keep your whole self in the game. Needing to be somewhere else will diminish the fun, which is really what you're paying $44 for.

I have never died anywhere other than the last room.

Though there was that one run where we all staggered into the last room with single digit hit points...

Well I hope that I can keep my runs near 2 hours because I have a few back to back (2:00, 4:00, 6:00).

Now I have all my tokens set, my player card printed out for the game master to verify, and need no practice.

You might want to get your wrist bands for those back to back runs all together as the rules posted by Jeff say they will start looking for someone to fill that spot if you are 3 minutes past your start time if the band has not been claimed and will try and fill it 18 minutes after your start time even if you have picked up your band and bag of tokens

Also you normally end right at the 2 hour mark and then have to go to the xp and treasure pull desk which takes a min or two.

I have a run right after the GT run that ill be getting my wrist band for and will be informing the coach (same run) that ill be there ASAP after the extra after my GT run

Also a pre-printer character card and maybe a backup character would be super helpful.

It can be challenging on coaches if you turn up late.

Thanks for the good advice. Alvin you don't have to worry cause you are my first run on Friday.

Ed