TOPIC: True Dungeon Concerns Posted to /r/gencon (reddit)

I am not trying to ruffle any feathers but I found the following posted on reddit and thought I would re-post here for the correct set of eyes to see.

My two friends and I have been doing the puzzle True Dungeons for the past 6 years and always enjoyed them. Until this year and I need to vent.

We were with a group this year that was completely selfish and ruined the experience for us. Three of them were True Dungeon volunteers and had already gone through the rooms several times earlier so they already knew how to solve every puzzle. As soon as we walked to the first room one of the them immediately told us what the cryptic instructions on the banner meant, what we had to do, and the order everything had to be done to solve the elevator puzzle.

It went like that for every puzzle room! After immediately telling us what to do the second time I told them to give us some time to solve it first. They waited about :30 and the moment we paused to think about something they blurted out the answer or as soon as we said our first guess they said no and told us the answer.

They also had ridiculous tokens. One of them even admitted to spending over $1,000 on his armor token. Our Bard had a 30 AC and the Wizard had a 23 AC. Keep in mind we were on the puzzle quest and normal difficulty so nothing could even touch them. Whenever we'd enter a room and they would give the GM the party card they would laugh and wonder why they weren't doing nightmare. Two of the three combats were over in the first round!

So basically I paid over $50 to stand around and watch these guys blow through everything, act like know it alls, and not care about the rest of us. My two friends and I were pissed but I felt even worse for two other people in our party who were doing TD for the fist time. We talked to them afterwards and they said they'll never do it again. I'm wondering if I ever will, either. That is too much money to waste for an experience like that.

Link to original post -> Ruined True Dungeon experience

Ideally well equipped people on normal should be letting newer players do most of the heavy lifting until time becomes an issue. Sad to hear this happened

balthasar wrote: Ideally well equipped people on normal should be letting newer players do most of the heavy lifting until time becomes an issue. Sad to hear this happened

same here..i always ask if anyone has done the run..there is no reason to spoil that
what armor is worth $1000...that i would like to sell to someone

Really sorry to hear this happened. If I'm running with newer players I may try to guide them in the right direction if time becomes an issue, but sometimes it's better to just let them fail a puzzle and take the push damage rather than give it away. It all kind of depends upon the group and the situation. No, I wouldn't let them just die, but letting them take some damage can actually be a fun part of the adventure, because there are consequences.

That is unfortunate to hear.

1. While I realize different people like different things (and some people enjoying stomping on weak monsters with Legendaries), there is a reason why I only play Nightmare difficulty level, why I never bother with Normal, and why I no longer bother with random pickup runs with strangers.

2. There is also the real chance that part of this issue was magnified by the lack of dedicated Hardcore of Nightmare slots. This increases the likelihood that tokenholics will end up in random pickup games with newbies, which often (though not always) leads to these situations. (In contrast, there are also plenty of newbie-friendly tokenholics who play on easier difficulty levels because they enjoy the interaction with newbies).

3. AFAIK, there is no armor token worth $1000. Maybe he misheard and meant a $1000 Legendary weapon or cloak or something.

Incognito wrote: That is unfortunate to hear.

1. While I realize different people like different things (and some people enjoying stomping on weak monsters with Legendaries), there is a reason why I only play Nightmare difficulty level, why I never bother with Normal, and why I no longer bother with random pickup runs with strangers.

2. There is also the real chance that part of this issue was magnified by the lack of dedicated Hardcore of Nightmare slots. This increases the likelihood that tokenholics will end up in random pickup games with newbies, which often (though not always) leads to these situations. (In contrast, there are also plenty of newbie-friendly tokenholics who play on easier difficulty levels because they enjoy the interaction with newbies).

3. AFAIK, there is no armor token worth $1000. Maybe he misheard and meant a $1000 Legendary weapon or cloak or something.

i thought about it, I guess you could say the legendary bracers are armor token....that could be $1000

Ugh. That is terrible.

My wife and I did a run with total newbies a few years ago. My wife and I were all kitted out and had done the run before. We just sat back and let the new players try everything. We only helped in combat after the newbies had decided what order we should do everything. And on puzzles we only spoke up in the last 2 minutes if they hadn't solved it yet. We just tried to support them only when they needed it.

At the end of the run, we gave them all the Rare and Uncommon tokens we had picked up during the run - we didn't need them, so pass it on. They thanked us profusely for our help and letting them explore TD. They said it made for a great experience for them.

My wife and I really enjoyed that run. It was great fun for everyone. I sang very, very, very badly as a Bard, but it sure was fun. LOL....

Sigh... I don't understand why people feel empowered while acting selfishly.... Sad that those people as per the original post above had such an awful time.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote:

3. AFAIK, there is no armor token worth $1000. Maybe he misheard and meant a $1000 Legendary weapon or cloak or something.

i thought about it, I guess you could say the legendary bracers are armor token....that could be $1000

Ironic cause the Relic/Legendary Bracers suck and don't actually help that much.

Maybe RoP+6? That would be more significant.

Also, Bard AC 30 and Wizard AC 23 is really not that impressive.

Just using Reds or lower, you can get a Bard AC 25 and Fighter/Paladin AC 29. And Rogue AC 23 and Druid AC 24.

So pretty much the Bard was getting Fighter/Paladin level AC and Wizard was getting Rogue/Druid level AC.

I like to help newbies, but I've come to realize I have a hard time not helping too much, so I didn't play with any this year. It's a shame, really, but I'm paranoid about being "that guy."

Maybe next year I'll do a pickup run and roleplay their drill sergeant cleric, there to lend out greed tokens and a few rare weapons, and keep them vertical, and only slide or help with a puzzle clue if they beg me.

We do almost all of our runs with our extended gaming group, filling in some slots with forum members, plus on average one mercenary run per year (our run with Raven and Kim's group this year was wonderful!).

When we are in a puzzle room that one of more of us have seen before, we do always try to sit back and give as much time to the people that haven't seen the room yet, before stepping in with hints or instructions if necessary before time runs out. Although there is the occasional puzzle room that is extremely time constrained, in which we might step in sooner. And of course sometimes we weren't able to solve the puzzle yet so we jump in to help, or the rest of the group is able to solve it without our assistance.

That said - I really can empathize with these folks, because a couple of years ago, we did have a friend of a friend of a friend (who none of us in the group knew) join us, and she'd done the adventure before. Even though she said at the start that she'd hang back before giving advice, she just jumped right in every room (puzzle and combat) and either started giving advice and info, or just went ahead to try to solve it. And the worst part is she was usually wrong. She gave the completely wrong advice in a couple of rooms which threw us so far off track we never solved them. And in at least one room she just jumped in with one or two people to try to solve the puzzles in the first minute or two, while the rest of us were just watching without even really understanding what she was doing. In one room she jumped in and started touching the items to solve the puzzle, and within 2-3 minutes she had failed at it three times. That experience (along with some bad DM encounters) resulted in such a bad time that a couple of my party members permanently quit True Dungeon after that.

Fortunately, we didn't invite that member to join us again, and the last several years (including this one) have been extremely enjoyable for all of us. But, I can certainly understand why they might not want to play again if that was their experience.

I think experienced players are much more concerned if the given room is a Treasure Stamp room.

Fortunately, nowadays with the RoSP Prestige Troubadour class (combined with Restore Spell or Carter's Tome), you can ensure that you gain all the treasure stamps, even if you fail the puzzle or combat.

For example, during the 4 runs are did this GenCon, each time we had a Troubadour (with different people contributing a RoSP voucher each time).

I do realize though that not everyone is going to be fortunate enough to be adventuring with people with available RoSP vouchers.

Similarly, the pin lovers are going to be much more focused on making sure the party survives the final room. Etc.

That is not cool, and I can sympathize with them. It would be like gaming with an open strategy guide telling you every exact step you needed to take, without ever giving you a chance to just enjoy the game.

My fiance and I usually try to run four runs each year (both the puzzle and combat for each side of story) just because we want to experience the differences in each run, so inevitably we end up facing some of the same puzzles.

Now, sometimes in our previous run we failed a puzzle room or didn't get it quite right, so we don't know the answer, which is nice because we can bail right in and get a second chance to try and solve it. Other times we have solved it once already, so we just look busy investigating things without actually doing anything. We may jump in if the time starts to get close to running out, just to save the party from the typical push damage if we are late in to the run and running low on heals, but otherwise we don't interfere because it really does take away from the fun of the rest of team.