TOPIC: Token Judgement Calls in 2013 (SRoEC, etc)

Toran wrote: I had Medallion of Greyhawk for the poisoned drinks room and the GM, very properly told me: "Yes, that will work to destroy the puzzle. If you haven't solved it by the time we get to 10 minutes, you can use that method to defeat the puzzle."

That's the way to handle it, as Picc and CommanderFuron said. You paid for the token, it's supposed to work. As TD players, we WANT to do the puzzles, but we also want to feel clever by working around the puzzles. I feel that the solution presented above is a way to accomplish both goals.

And yes, working around a puzzle is the same as solving it. You just solved it in a way that the creator didn't think of.

That does seem like the proper approach. I too think that creativity should be rewarded and tokens should work for what they say they should.

bpsymington wrote:
I liked the solution of the DM who said to try the puzzle, and would allow the poison immunity solution if needed at the end.

I think that's really all we are asking for. If you have a token that lets you bypass some of the danger or solve the room without doing the puzzle. it should be allowed. I don't think anyone would be upset if they had to try the puzzle first with the understanding they could use the tokens.

Kithren Bloodwood wrote:

Toran wrote: I had Medallion of Greyhawk for the poisoned drinks room and the GM, very properly told me: "Yes, that will work to destroy the puzzle. If you haven't solved it by the time we get to 10 minutes, you can use that method to defeat the puzzle."

That's the way to handle it, as Picc and CommanderFuron said. You paid for the token, it's supposed to work. As TD players, we WANT to do the puzzles, but we also want to feel clever by working around the puzzles. I feel that the solution presented above is a way to accomplish both goals.

And yes, working around a puzzle is the same as solving it. You just solved it in a way that the creator didn't think of.

That does seem like the proper approach. I too think that creativity should be rewarded and tokens should work for what they say they should.

Exactly how I handled it with our group. I announced that I had a MoG on and the DM groaned. I then told the DM that I would wait until the last minute to use that approach if the rest of the party did not get the puzzle by that time. I think that tokens should be able to be used that way and was VERY disappointed when the MoG did not stop the dark stain since it was a touch attack. Yes, there are some tokens that are a guaranteed win for some puzzles and that should be okay. A limit of using them at the very end if all else fails is much better than negating them completely. Otherwise, why have the token at all?

cdsmith wrote: A limit of using them at the very end if all else fails is much better than negating them completely. Otherwise, why have the token at all?

Completely agree, the party still gets to try the room as designed but the token holder can be the hero is things go sideways.

bpsymington wrote: It's pretty insulting to say that DMs are "winging it." This implies they are not doing their jobs and don't care about what they are doing. This is not the case. Most DMs take their responsibilities very carefully, and we do try to anticipate how tokens could be used to break the room. Sometimes, though, a DM is a last-minute replacement - these volunteers do their best with limited time and exposure to the information about the rooms.

No insult was intended, but now that you have explained that some DM's are last-minute replacements, it does explain some of the contradictory experiences some players have had, and why it sometimes feels like they were "winging it."


I am glad you used the term Most as in "Most DMs take their responsibilities very carefully." I know some convention Pencil & Paper DMs who approach con-games with a "less prep" approach and show up a couple hours before they are supposed to run an event and glance through the special con module and just try to wing it. Sometimes it works, but most time it does not. So was not sure if the same could be applied to the DMs of TD. I am glad to hear it is the exception rather than the rule.

But to my point, if someone signs up as a room DM, they should be an active participant in the discussion of the room features and solution. Now I understand a last minute DM cannot be in such situation. When I read over the published modules they tend to hit the "FAQ" level of what to do when such and such token shows up, but what about the really fringe cases. Like Fly and RoSEC (though apparently not as fringe as I thought)?

Anyway, no insult was intended, I know you folks who volunteer give up a huge chunk of time as part of your "Best 4 days of gaming" to enable us to enjoy TD. And having never volunteered myself I can only go off of the bits and pieces of what goes on behind closed doors when I am lucky to have a conversation with a volunteer.

Speaking of the ale room, I think there was a purify water scroll available that year - or maybe the year before. We didn't have one, but I would have thought it would have negated the poison as well as the MoG. But if the wins contained an odorless acid instead of poison... Now what?

The idea of preventing fail and push damage with certain tokens seems perfectly fair, that's what they're for. It's the total negation of the puzzle I struggle with. But I realize that for many puzzles, negating the damage sort of negates the puzzle as well... Unless you put some limit on the number of tries, and everyone hates that. Like last years axe room. We heard you only got 3 strikes and you're out, and that seemed harsh. So... I dunno.

I don't mind Barney's killing a monster in one round, that still takes sliding skill. But negating a room completely because you spent a ton of money on a legendary? I don't know, there should be some perk for that kind of investment and commitment. But there needs to be balance. No one wants the coach to look at your party card in the muster room and say "let's save everyone 2 hours, here's your treasure chips..."

But I do like creative thinking. I just don't know how to standardize it across all DMs without calling in the directors, and they have other things to do, and everything that eats into those 12 minutes is suspect.

After playing every year since 2007 and volunteering for three years as a DM, I can honestly say the vast majority of volunteers work hard and do their best. That being said, there are some sudden replacement DMs with familiarity issues. That's just going to be unavoidable.

What I do think is avoidable though is that occasionally some very immature people find their way into roles in which they are managing mature situations, such as treasure box and DM. Some of these people simply lack the level of maturity needed to deal with a room full of eager and enthusiastic and sometimes manipulative players.

I also had an experience at the treasure box in which the manager of the box pulled some of my treasure tokens "for me" because I was "too slow". When questioned, he pointed to a sign on the wall, noted the seconds hand on his watch, and muttered something low about the people behind me being inconvenienced (they were all in my party and didn't care).

In a few odd cases last year, DMs were just plain stubborn and short sighted. By means of example, carrying the bowl of lava to the dumping area - if I have the ring of supreme elemental command are you really going to tell me I can't survive carrying the bowl a few feet? It was clearly one the DM should have been reasonable about.

So all in all, I think Greyseer has a point, but most of the time it doesn't really come up as an issue. When it does, people react. That being said, things generally go very well, and the need is for tweaks to the DM system rather than a major overhaul in my opinion.

Brad Mortensen wrote: ?..Like last years axe room. We heard you only got 3 strikes and you're out, and that seemed harsh. So... I dunno.

Do you mean Room 6 Puzzle of Draco? If so, it was 3 strikes and done. But! Done taking damage as the max for push damage for that room was 9 (IIRC). After 3 unsuccessful tries the door would open. But! If the party wanted to keep trying and time allowed I was letting them. Once time was up I sent them on their way. Some parties didn't want to keep on guessing after 3 tries and just gave up and waited for the horn.

First off, I think this thread is based on a false premise. The Supreme Ring of Elemental Command does *not* grant any immunities. It only provides a -10 reduction in damage.

If that's supposed to be enough to let you touch the containers, then maybe any player should be allowed to touch the container if they are willing to take 10 points of damage.

cdsmith wrote: I think that tokens should be able to be used that way and was VERY disappointed when the MoG did not stop the dark stain since it was a touch attack.

According to the module, MoG was supposed to stop dark stain.

However, since dark stain was a completely new concept that almost all players and most DM's didn't even know about at the beginning of GenCon (we can hope that the appropriate DM's did their homework and knew that the MoG should stop it), it's not all that surprising that some DM's might have messed it up.

However, the undead touch attack aspect does bring up an interesting point.

Does it negate all touch attacks by monsters that happen to be undead?
Or does it negate all touch attacks that are related to the monster's undead nature?

Because there might be monsters who naturally have touch attacks. So if they become undead, should the MoG suddenly start working on that?

As an example, the MoG won't help against a normal Sirine's intelligence draining touch attack. Suppose now it's a mummy Sirine. The MoG would logically prevent mummy rot, but would it now help against the intelligence drain (which isn't tied to the undead nature)?

Similarly, I sometimes get people who argue that the MoG should protect them from certain spells cast by undead spellcasters because in Edition X of D&D, that spell is a "ranged touch attack" and since it happens to be cast by an undead, it should apply. (I don't buy that argument since TD is not a exact conversion of the pen and paper game).

bpsymington wrote: DM: You have to find the right cask to drink from - the rest are poisoned. You must solve this puzzle!

PLAYER: I am immune to poison, so I drink from all of them and find the right one.

DM: Okay, what do we do for the next 11 1/2 minutes?

I liked the solution of the DM who said to try the puzzle, and would allow the poison immunity solution if needed at the end.

For puzzles of this type, I feel there are ways around letting one person derail it completely; set it so that each person only interacts with one of the choices.

It's ancient / dwarven / godly / evil / insert adjective here magic; we've certainly seen more contrived restrictions then this!

Or, say only that the effects of being wrong are deadly / dangerous, and you don't know *why*, unless you've experienced it or additional detective work has been done. IE: Detect Poison, or what have you.

If the entire party, or even a good number of them are equipped so as to be immune to whatever the stated danger is, then I consider that to be good planning.

Fizzikx wrote: Another example of game mechanics not working as how I perceived them to work was the whisper room in Giant’s Travail (creative room I thought).

One of our party members had completed the TrueCraft challenge for the day and had received an “Earcuff of Abjuration” and when someone spoke too loudly we were told that a rock had come down and hit us all taking damage.

The player responded with, doesn’t this provide immunity? And the answer came back that it was now “Ice” instead of “rock” and therefore it didn’t work.

The Earcuff of Abjuration states:

"Immune to damage from falling traps & rock slides."

Falling rocks is not the same as a rock slide.

Traps has a special definition in TD (as seen with the Boots of the Leopard and Ring of Warning) so it also wouldn't apply.

As a result, I would not interpret the Earcuff of Abjuration as protecting you in that particular case.

As a sidenote, the Token DB states:

"This ear adornment grants the wearer immunity to damage from rock slides and/or traps that cause the victim to fall."

which provides an interesting interpretation of "falling traps" in that it apparently means traps that make *you* fall, instead of traps that make *something* fall on *you*!

First, this thread is not based on a false premise, however, perhaps it was mis-stated. It is not solely based on immunities, such as MoG but rather judgment calls made by DMs (and perhaps adventure creation in general). As a result I have changed the Subject line in an attempt to better capture the premise.

The bottom line is that tokens which impart any sort of benefit that requires a judgment call are frequently overlooked and/or dismissed.

I will concede to your point that "falling rock" does not equal "Rockslide". Having said that - is there really a need for such a narrow band token?

What will be next? "Earcuff of Pointed Salvation - Wearer is immune pinprick by sitting on a half threaded needle made of bronze"? Only to have the GM argue that the needle wasn’t threaded or made of bronze? Then to find out it had some sort of poison affect on it that your MoG doesn’t convey an immunity to? Or perhaps you walked into it rather than sat upon it?

While the above is *extremely* exaggerated - that principal is the point (no pun intended) of why I began this thread. Rulings like the greatly exaggerated example above truly hurt the player base and detract from the TD experience.

I'm simply asking that we be given some leeway and encourage creativity - not beat it down with a stick and treat it with great frustration.


As an alternative suggestion; I wish Jeff & co. would create rooms with these types of tokens in mind! If the fire effret responded to the presence of the SRoEC by instead of attacking you - assisting the party in some way - that would be amazing!

Or maybe make a room that is dynamic? May be a little harder but if you plan a room where someone has a token the monster is looking for - instead of being combat, it reverts into a puzzle room.


Example;
You enter the room - the fire efreet (Draco Lich Undone Room?) pops out after you do the spoon dip. The GM asks if anybody has any rings of elemental command - if not she attacks

IF SO: you get a riddle - Obviously the elemental does not want to the party but the person with the ring can exert enough controll to prevent her from attacking. So she reverts to some sort of brain teaser - or series of them. If you succeeded you get a bonus for the rest of the dungeon? If not - then her riddle bought her enough time to shift back to her plane of existance. To the party this means no push damage and no benifit either.


Maybe a Rock Golem this year could have a similar experience with the SRoEC or Earth Elemental Command ring?