TOPIC: Gen Con TD Highlights

Thanks to all the volunteers, coaches, DMs, staff for putting on a great event!

My personal highlights for the year were:

1. The Drow/Spidaur NPC who attended the party through the Into the Deeperdark adventure - that was really neat and immersive.

2. The Into the Deeperdark dungeon design and props - the Magma, and the strip lighting on the archways was really cool.

3. Thanks to Eric, Shelly, and Brad for putting on an awesome True Grind event - it was the first time I've done grind and it won't be the last! (I especially liked the choose-your-own end boss)!

4. In Behold Her Majesty our group got the "divinator" puzzle with the planks that tell you to "twist knob" and "pull chain" and stuff at the last second, and it really seemed impossible before we got it.

5. The audio in the dungeon was well done, I could hear all the sound cues, and it seemed like several rooms had their own theme music, which was neat.


What were your highlights?

the deeper dark room 7 rogue box was a great highlight

Although not as exciting as Lazlo's GT run, I thought the dungeons were great this year.

I thought the combat was more creative than recent years (e.g. the Beholder combat). The combat DMs were generally great. But nightmare seemed much easier or perhaps hasn't kept up with power creep. I didn't use a single consumable or receive healing in any of my runs.

I like more exciting treasure pulls but this was too far in my opinion. But that's a discussion for another thread

Running into a first time npc drow, that while nervous was one of the better npcs I have seen on into the deeper dark Thursday night.

The beholder combat was fun, as was the puzzle enough of the deeper dark I did this morning.

I pulled my first above rare token from a treasure box, the exalted creeper amulet.

And running with the great groups both from Thursday and Friday and the group this morning.

Thanks for all the fun!

My only complaint I have was my terrible luck at drawing, and that every time I wanted to get treasure bags they were out and I had to use the wand 68 times.

My biggest highlight was the incredible volunteers I worked with in my dungeon. I'll post about that is a different thread.

Loved both dungeons. For the first time I found the solution almost immediately after hearing the clue (password), so I was psyched. The puzzles were interesting and challenging (the lit rods were a little easy). The shield table should have been harder, but tech issues meant we had to keep the UV light on all the time.

We might need to really boost the Nm monsters. The Beholder was hard for me, due to silencing and magic resistance, but the rest of the parties had little trouble with it. Loved the variety of effects.

Never realized how popular The Shadowskin cloak was among Nm parties!

I thought this year was really strong. Great job, all!

awesome token draws...playing ring around the rosie...clap along? wow where to begin?

seeing everyone again. that is definately the highlight........with the possible exception of watching stoner having to face the monster HE created.

bpsymington wrote: My only complaint I have was my terrible luck at drawing, and that every time I wanted to get treasure bags they were out and I had to use the wand 68 times.

My biggest highlight was the incredible volunteers I worked with in my dungeon. I'll post about that is a different thread.

Loved both dungeons. For the first time I found the solution almost immediately after hearing the clue (password), so I was psyched. The puzzles were interesting and challenging (the lit rods were a little easy). The shield table should have been harder, but tech issues meant we had to keep the UV light on all the time.

We might need to really boost the Nm monsters. The Beholder was hard for me, due to silencing and magic resistance, but the rest of the parties had little trouble with it. Loved the variety of effects.

Never realized how popular The Shadowskin cloak was among Nm parties!

I thought this year was really strong. Great job, all!

My Thursday morning group solved the shield puzzle with the light going on and off. That was hard. It was too easy with the lights always on.

I loved the beholder anti magic ray effects. Very creative.

The Drow/drider was great. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal."

Thanks to the coach assistants who helped with the groups who were late, disorganized or otherwise challenging. You were life savers.

Thanks to the parties who used the character builder apps or the spreadsheet. And of course to Tom and David for creating them.

It was awesome to run with Dennis Burdick, Raven, and Team Yeti. Thanks to Sage for organizing Team Synergy again.

Epic Grind was, well, epic. If you have to die, dying as the result of use of a wish ring is a spectacular way to go.


Oh, and coaching for Patrick Rothfuss.

Another great year.

Harlax wrote: The shield table should have been harder, but tech issues meant we had to keep the UV light on all the time.

Anyone know what happened with this puzzle? Our Group went through on Thursday and the blacklights never came on. We tried to solve using the almost impossible to see paint but failed. Then on Friday the words were perfectly legible and the puzzle was solved without much difficulty.

Ohh boy! This was my first year of doing all 5 runs!

I really enjoyed our Drow friend with us in Deeperdark. It's much easier to understand someone who's in the room with us rather than trying to make out distorted overhead recordings in rooms. Both Drow NPCs did a fantastic job being Drow. The room 6 spider was AWESOME! (Great use of mirrors too!)

I want my own stone golem puppet!

I will admit, I saw the lava beast over a wall when on a puzzle run - It was quite impressive from there and may have contributed to finding a ticket for combat just so I could get a closer look. Great job! It looked great!

I ran both puzzles with forum groups. I initially felt a little unworthy, running with some of what I will call True Dungeon Celbs, and even needed to borrow a few tokens so I would be up to par for Nightmare - but everyone was awesome and I had quite a good deal of fun (and I hope that feeling was mutual). Thank you everyone! (Raven, I would totally be down for a Tea with a Succubus event next year if one was offered).

I was also part of Raven's first ever DMing True Grind. Ooohhh boy! Mind you, this was also my first ever True Grind, but she made it quite fun and did an awesome job! Thank you Kirk for your help as well, and despite your best efforts, not killing me. Shout out to our little dwarven fighter who apparently only knows how to roll 20s and was able to squash everything in his path! Kurt - it was good meeting you (I recognized you from your apple artifact from here on the forums). I'm glad you had the idea to (try) to keep tally of everyone's damage. It was very helpful for knowing who to heal and when. From our short interactions during grind, I think you are genuinely a great guy and hope to run with you again in the future. Raven & Kirk, thank you for all you did to help our 3 gentlemen be prepared for grind and make it a truly memorable, and crazy adventure!

I managed to get into a last minute pug at 2:50p Beholder Combat on Saturday. Not sure if you guys are on the forums, but I had a lot of fun running with you guys, and if you have the space, would love to be part of your regular group ... even if I need to forfeit my druid role, and play cleric for you (I would do that). Thank you to our chained monster we defeated for putting up with my dancing... and the rest of the group's dancing that joined in (I've been informed that I'm probably a cleric that has some sort of dance to praise her deity) ... and then my questions while we were waiting to go to the next room. You were a very good sport.

I also pugged a 10:24 pm Deeperdark combat - it was me, a volunteer and a bunch of people on their first day of TD (they ran their first earlier in the day). After this run, I now have a greater appreciation for the volunteers, and feel I've been taking them for granted. The volunteer (human wizard) brought an insulated water pitcher with him and made sure all room GMs and NPCs were able to get refills of ice cold water (and offered them an oreo). a HUGE THANK YOU to all the volunteers that make True Dungeon possible and allow me to adventure within. (Master Ed, the newbies that were on this run ran with you earlier and were very impressed with your mad skillz)

The DMs and NPC were all great. I particularly want to thank Raven and Kirk for the great grind.

Additionally, I'm endlessly impressed by the quality of the costumes and life size monsters. I don't know how much time went into putting together the beholder or the lava slug, but they looked amazing.

Angela Small wrote: I was also part of Raven's first ever DMing True Grind. Ooohhh boy! Mind you, this was also my first ever True Grind, but she made it quite fun and did an awesome job! Thank you Kirk for your help as well, and despite your best efforts, not killing me. Shout out to our little dwarven fighter who apparently only knows how to roll 20s and was able to squash everything in his path! Kurt - it was good meeting you (I recognized you from your apple artifact from here on the forums). I'm glad you had the idea to (try) to keep tally of everyone's damage. It was very helpful for knowing who to heal and when. From our short interactions during grind, I think you are genuinely a great guy and hope to run with you again in the future. Raven & Kirk, thank you for all you did to help our 3 gentlemen be prepared for grind and make it a truly memorable, and crazy adventure!

Thank you!
You guys were a fantastic group to work with for my first time as a lead DM in Grind (I've DM'd Grind before, but only as Incognito's assistant) and it really helped me get in the groove for future runs.

I'll second that shout out to Kirk, too. He did an incredible job Coaching Grind, and DM his combat boards, and making sure players had fun as they charged headlong towards their doom.

Davoruk wrote:

Harlax wrote: The shield table should have been harder, but tech issues meant we had to keep the UV light on all the time.

Anyone know what happened with this puzzle? Our Group went through on Thursday and the blacklights never came on. We tried to solve using the almost impossible to see paint but failed. Then on Friday the words were perfectly legible and the puzzle was solved without much difficulty.

We were wondering about this one as well. When we went through on Saturday this looked like plain white puzzle pieces that had been written on with a ball point pen. Didn't feel like the production values were up to par at all.