Just another input for the good/bad/ugly:
Scale:
Bad – What were you thinking?
Poor – Could have been better
Neutral – Meh
Good – Was good could be slightly better
Excellent – Awesome time!
This is based on our group input and what we as a group enjoyed. We did three True Grind and nine TD runs. Each TD run had between 1 – 4 new players and True Grind had 1 -2 new players, and the great thing is two players will be returning next year for sure!
Registration and Treasure Box Area: Poor
The entrance was crowded when you had multiple groups trying to pick up their armbands; some of the volunteers were getting so busy with people confusing which line was which. The area a few times was so congested that players were getting frustrated. Spread out the event registration to two distinct lines. Maybe more the registration near the doors and have “Enter the Dungeon” sign above the doors…
Treasure box line next to registration was confusing for new players. The issue worked out soon as the lanes were established. Better signage would be nice!
Location: Good
The group enjoyed the location but not the hallway walking to it with the Cosplayers playing loud (IMO crappy music) and just being annoying to people on the way into TD.
Storyscape: Poor
We miss having the photo op at the end of the adventure, would be nice to bring that back to TD. Since the exit did not take people back to the storyscape, the storyscape was completely dead most of the time. The lighting was horrible at most of the tables, but you could see when standing at the table.
Bathrooms! When the ladies in our group were told sorry but your bathrooms are the furthest away, you better go now. Never checked on it myself. Maybe convert a men bathroom to a women bathroom? I do not know the answer to this one!
Volunteers:
True Grind: Excellent
Even though they kept killing the annoying bard the True Grind DMs did a fantastic job. Kept combat moving and entertaining! Eric and crew (we had Brad and Eric) did an awesome job, combat descriptions were great!
Next time I need a permanent marker to write down our deaths on potions of death door, I forgot to do that this year! ARGH!
Coaching: Good/Excellent
Coaching was good to excellent this year. We only had one inexperienced coach that even when presenting a printed of sheet wanted to see each token. No problem… then needed an explanation of each token… problem. Thanks to Kubu for walking and telling the GM we were good. KUDOS Joe!
Training Room: Excellent
Just have to give major KUDOS to the training room volunteers this year! They did an outstanding job! We decided to let the trainers train the new players and sit back and just chat. The new players experienced the training, which was in their words FANTASTIC!
Adventuring in Dungeons: Good (Ranged from poor to excellent)
Well good over all but some poor and excellent, the experience and tone of the runs are set by the DMs.
Combat – DMs were hit and miss again this year, seems to be a trend. We had two awesome DMs out of the nine runs we did this year, they described the combat, understood the tokens and can do math!
We had some okay DMs, once you explained how a token worked they understood it and combat moved okay. Math seemed to be an issue for some while others can do math failed to describe the combat and was just slide.
On the flip side we had some horrible DMs… slide – add – slide again – add… and took forever to add! One DM we had three times… oh wait was that a bow that crits on 18 – 20, never seen that one before, the ranger misses. Wait a minute… slides a 14 (+23 with bow) misses? DM says the Ranger only has a +8 to hit… that is melee, go back through another run same DM same situation with the bow… wait for it. Yes, when in a third run with the same DM and still the same issue. /sighs
DMs that just add the sliders (bad math a few times) and not describing combat make the room really… boring! Good thing some DMs were great for describing combat or it would have been just fighting a new monster just sliding.
Tokens being knocked out of a slider do not count. Oh wait next room just put the token back in the slider. Consistency is key here… regardless what the DM guide says, as long as it is a consistent rule it would be all good.
Puzzles – Just amazing this year, except again the DMs. The puzzle with the blue light flashing on and off was a serious challenge! We enjoyed that room it was a super challenge trying to read in 5 seconds but we did it successfully on the on first run! Next time through the blue light was on permanently, argh to simple to figure out! Then later on the same room had permanent marker written... Things wear out.
The room with pull the ropes to spell out what you needed to do… horrible DM. We as a group decided NOT to tack push damage. The DM spent our time on his cell phone due to boyfriend being lost at GENCON. We informed him to call for a backup DM/coordinator, he said he can do both… NOT. We have been in the room previously and solved it, but we had another set of new players that wanted to try and solve the puzzle. Even when we had the answer right, he would say nothing happens… really?!?! Went through the whole process correctly and was still told nothing happened. I understand a loved one is lost at GENCON, call for a coordinator! Do not ruin the experience for the players.
Room Design: Good
Very nice this year, the monsters were just fantastic! The Eye and Lave Beast looked awesome! Only bad thing the Lava Beast did not work.
Sound was great, I could actually hear most of what the DM was saying.
Drow: Good
Our first run was fantastic! We had a Drow from last year that remembered our group due to the Dwarf Fighter criting three times in a row. Well, she interacted with the group consistently, sarcasm, taunting, and just being fun! Out of the runs we had only had two Drow was like… is there a Drow NPC even in the room?!?!? Never said a word the whole time… boring!
After Math: Good
Treasure token bags were awesome! (Even though we had horrible RNG in bags!) While we heard rumors of Legendary tokens never saw one, we did have a person from our group pull a CoA which is awesome!
XP cards were great but would nice to have the name of the dungeon on the card. Example Into the Deeperdark – Puzzle on the card. We had the right cards after each run, so was not an issue with our group. But we did hear of people not getting the right cards.
Have an XP desk again, set the desk up at the end. This way people can enter their XP at GENCON. Use a card with a barcode and code so the XP desk can just scan the card.
Other items:
Magnetic Sliders: AWESOME (exceeds excellent)
Just… AWESOME! Our group over all really liked the sliders! The fact that the tokens did not get knocked out on a slider.
Board Backstop: Excellent
While the board backstop was excellent having the board backstop and new slider combo would be a dream for us combat sliders!
Overall Experience: Good
While our group was split on some topics. (I am bias and just love TD!) With only two from the total of eight new players willing to return is still good! I think a few others "might" return. The two that was with us when we were in the room with the really poor DM are the ones returning, go figure! Those two did do another run with us and saw how the room was supposed to work.
Combat seems to be an issue every year... since we do 50/50 for combat and puzzles to get the experience of playing all the dungeons.
Puzzles were challenging, really like the fact if you did not have a rogue in the first puzzle room, the room was almost impossible to complete. More rooms based on two classes would be interesting, since all the damage output is starting to be almost identical regardless of class.
Hopefully the new story arch is exciting! We can not wait!
Team Legacy
Yes I'm an Arneson you do the math.
