TOPIC: Feedback on Gencon True Dungeon

I did my first true dungeon this year at Gencon 2017, overall I had a very good experience and was sufficient.
(I ran the Moongate Maze puzzle on normal mode)

[Things I liked-

The first room was very well made- Our group really loved the tree and the general atmosphere of the garden, the puzzle was also very well made

NPCs- All of the NPCs we encountered on our adventure played their part beautifully, either it was the shambling mound, or the girl in the last room. I felt like I was in the world, with those characters, outstanding job on their part

Things that might need some work

Puzzles- Even though our group did not do that well in terms of puzzles, I thought the majority of them were well thought out puzzles, with the exception of one, being the flower puzzle. In this puzzle we had to sniff a variety of flowers, and bring the smells to the 'giant flower' in a certain order. The problem with a puzzle like this is that it is extremely subjective. One of the scents were rose, there was some bickering of which one the rose smelled like, or if that one was the rose at all. Things like this are hard to put in because everyone can interpret differently, and get it wrong, but to them they are right.

Overall Looks- This might just simply be a factor of getting my hopes too high, but I felt that the room designs were bland, it was always the wall, and the important item in the room to solve the puzzle/fight the monster. There was not much variety in how the room looked.

Cost- I felt the game I played was not a $62 game, the price was way overshot. With the quality of game I got, (which I'm not saying was bad) I would pay a good $45-50 for it. If the true dungeon is priced at such a high rate next year, then you should make it feel like a $62 per person dungeon, nothing about it really impressed me. There is a good chance that if the price is not lowered, or there are not changes to the dungeon atmosphere, I will not do it next year.

I hope you will find this feedback useful!

Very helpful and reasonable feedback i my opinion. One thing I'll mention is the Dancing dungeon had much better props and scenery than Moongate.

Thanks for your feedback. I know it's a pricey event, but this year there were (I think) more NPCs than ever and a significant improvement in the quality of the scenery (walls, etc.).

Things I liked: The overall quality was the best yet!

Thing that continues to be frustrating: Combat DMs who use melee to hit and damage bonus while I only use a range weapon. That led to missing a monster despite hitting AC 36. Only can guess the combat DM errored or the AC was 37+.

Thing that may result in broken props: one puzzle where you had to bounce props to solve it. I suspect this will lead to people trying to bounce props in the future.

Kirk Bauer wrote: Very helpful and reasonable feedback i my opinion. One thing I'll mention is the Dancing dungeon had much better props and scenery than Moongate.

I think the Dancing Dungeon was the best "dungeon" I've seen in terms of decoration and theming.

I think moongate maze was trying to do something different, and I appreciated the effort to make a stylistically different dungeon, with its own look and feel.

edwin wrote: Things I liked: The overall quality was the best yet!

Thing that continues to be frustrating: Combat DMs who use melee to hit and damage bonus while I only use a range weapon. That led to missing a monster despite hitting AC 36. Only can guess the combat DM errored or the AC was 37+.

Thing that may result in broken props: one puzzle where you had to bounce props to solve it. I suspect this will lead to people trying to bounce props in the future.

What room was this?

The crow/fae monster had a very high AC on nightmare, but it was indeed a melee only AC, versus ranged it was lower.

Lario wrote: I did my first true dungeon this year at Gencon 2017, overall I had a very good experience and was sufficient.
(I ran the Moongate Maze puzzle on normal mode)

[Things I liked-

The first room was very well made- Our group really loved the tree and the general atmosphere of the garden, the puzzle was also very well made

NPCs- All of the NPCs we encountered on our adventure played their part beautifully, either it was the shambling mound, or the girl in the last room. I felt like I was in the world, with those characters, outstanding job on their part

Things that might need some work

Puzzles- Even though our group did not do that well in terms of puzzles, I thought the majority of them were well thought out puzzles, with the exception of one, being the flower puzzle. In this puzzle we had to sniff a variety of flowers, and bring the smells to the 'giant flower' in a certain order. The problem with a puzzle like this is that it is extremely subjective. One of the scents were rose, there was some bickering of which one the rose smelled like, or if that one was the rose at all. Things like this are hard to put in because everyone can interpret differently, and get it wrong, but to them they are right.

Overall Looks- This might just simply be a factor of getting my hopes too high, but I felt that the room designs were bland, it was always the wall, and the important item in the room to solve the puzzle/fight the monster. There was not much variety in how the room looked.

Cost- I felt the game I played was not a $62 game, the price was way overshot. With the quality of game I got, (which I'm not saying was bad) I would pay a good $45-50 for it. If the true dungeon is priced at such a high rate next year, then you should make it feel like a $62 per person dungeon, nothing about it really impressed me. There is a good chance that if the price is not lowered, or there are not changes to the dungeon atmosphere, I will not do it next year.

I hope you will find this feedback useful!

If you want to pay in the $40 range, come to Gamehole Con or Origins. At Gamehole Con this year tickets are $42.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

edwin wrote: Things I liked: The overall quality was the best yet!

Thing that continues to be frustrating: Combat DMs who use melee to hit and damage bonus while I only use a range weapon. That led to missing a monster despite hitting AC 36. Only can guess the combat DM errored or the AC was 37+.

Thing that may result in broken props: one puzzle where you had to bounce props to solve it. I suspect this will lead to people trying to bounce props in the future.

What room was this?

The crow/fae monster had a very high AC on nightmare, but it was indeed a melee only AC, versus ranged it was lower.

I would guess the room to be the one with the shadow thing in the hedges, that could only be hit by ranged. My Paladin was pretty useless in that fight.

The NPC in the crow costume walked up to me at one point and stood next to me, staring his beady little eyes at me...creepy but cool.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

edwin wrote: Things I liked: The overall quality was the best yet!

Thing that continues to be frustrating: Combat DMs who use melee to hit and damage bonus while I only use a range weapon. That led to missing a monster despite hitting AC 36. Only can guess the combat DM errored or the AC was 37+.

Thing that may result in broken props: one puzzle where you had to bounce props to solve it. I suspect this will lead to people trying to bounce props in the future.

What room was this?

The Alchemist workroom had two nearly-identical rubber balls. One bounced, one didn't. But they were both obviously rubber. I hope people won't intentionally drop things that aren't.

The Moongate side made more sense if you realized you were in a hedge maze. It should have been obvious from the name of the adventure, and I'm sure some NPC said something somewhere about it, but I was thick and it didn't click for me until later.

Lario wrote:
Cost- I felt the game I played was not a $62 game, the price was way overshot. With the quality of game I got, (which I'm not saying was bad) I would pay a good $45-50 for it. If the true dungeon is priced at such a high rate next year, then you should make it feel like a $62 per person dungeon, nothing about it really impressed me. There is a good chance that if the price is not lowered, or there are not changes to the dungeon atmosphere, I will not do it next year.

I hope you will find this feedback useful!

I think the price problem is two fold.

1. Very popular game. A complete sell out in less then 20 min. this year. Demand drives cost. And demand is very high.

2. Gencon's take. Jeff asks for a certain amount to cover cost of props, transportation, tokens and such. But Gencon takes a massive chunk too.

Look at the other conventions where Jeff does TD. Cost is no where near that of Gencon.

Dave Autzen wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

edwin wrote: Things I liked: The overall quality was the best yet!

Thing that continues to be frustrating: Combat DMs who use melee to hit and damage bonus while I only use a range weapon. That led to missing a monster despite hitting AC 36. Only can guess the combat DM errored or the AC was 37+.

Thing that may result in broken props: one puzzle where you had to bounce props to solve it. I suspect this will lead to people trying to bounce props in the future.

What room was this?

The crow/fae monster had a very high AC on nightmare, but it was indeed a melee only AC, versus ranged it was lower.

I would guess the room to be the one with the shadow thing in the hedges, that could only be hit by ranged. My Paladin was pretty useless in that fight.

The NPC in the crow costume walked up to me at one point and stood next to me, staring his beady little eyes at me...creepy but cool.

No issue hitting the shadow thing. In one run, I was the only person who was able to attack it in every round.

No issue hitting the raven.

No issue hitting holly.

IIRC it was the furnace contruct room.

Moongame Maze puzzle run 8:37am Saturday.