TOPIC: Too Many People in puzzle runs

I think the popularity of true grind lends itself to the notion that an all combat dungeon would do well. Several members of my group would come back to TD to play that.

I'm not saying the ticket sales prove anything. My point was comparing last years sellout to this years 90% sellout doesn't prove anything either, because it ignores the much larger supply of tickets this year.

And I'm not minimizing the disgruntled veterans. But when something like TD grows so fast you're going to have tension between the old guard who don't want things to change and the newbies who want to participate too and help shape the future. It's natural for both groups to resent each other, and neither side can understand why the other can't just "be reasonable, do it my way." It's how thousands of organizations (churches, corporations, political parties) have matured throughout history, and we are not immune.

You see it in topics like RoSP ( "why should I be penalized for starting late?" say newbies), and party sizes ("why can't they be smaller like they used to be?" say the very experienced) there's going to have to be some compromise on both sides because no one is going to be 100% happy. We need those who have supported TD from the beginning to help keep it on track, and we need newbies for fresh ideas and to replace those who fall away. And we need to all try to realize there are going to be speedbumps and conflicts but we all want the same thing in the long run - for TD to thrive and remain the best part of the best four days of gaming.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote:

valetutto wrote: Yes if you want fewer people just buy more tickets. My group does this. The side effect is, much higher prices. On the plus side, you can get tokens for each wristband you buy.


@lazlo I might have a party of 4 you can join on thursday. We're currently debating on if we can quad it.


Puzzles are trending on requiring more warm bodies to solve, which can pose additional challenges for groups running under the 10.

what time on thursday

Doh forgot about your golden ticket run until just now sorry.
My run is at 7:38pm

An idea that was banded about a while back was taking a set of runs like they do for nightmare and making them "smaller sized" but increasing the ticket price. This way you could run in a small group but not have to worry about forming the party of buying all the tickets and dividing out the cost.

If they were to do it this year it would be like limiting the run to 5 people and charging $88 per ticket. As a "bonus" these folks would get an extra pack of tokens at the start and double the number of stamps coins at the end (or whatever it took to simulate a second wristband of pulls).

Now, 88 might be too high but that is just a reflection of the $44 which is probably too high. I am hopeing it goes down next year. But then again, if these increased costs are more of a reflection of better trained and more reliable staff that is worth some money in my opinion. The better your experience the more it should be worth and a well trained staff helps with that as much as a smaller more intement experience.

I agree that ten is pushing it. More of the issue, however, is groups of 12 in a puzzle run. The rule of which I was aware as a volunteer with the wrangling department for a few hours last year, was that groups could go in with twelve <i>if</i> all players agreed to it.

I ran in a group that was already 10 when two players showed up who had immediately come off of a previous run. I don't know what happened that they were allowed in our group, but I am beyond doubt certain that our permission was never asked. We were simply told that we would be a group of 12.

Twelve is too many for a puzzle run. Full stop. Too many. Things like what happened to us last year are what we need to be sure do not happen again. We can do ten. Just not more.

Deaterrae wrote: I ran in a group that was already 10 when two players showed up who had immediately come off of a previous run. I don't know what happened that they were allowed in our group, but I am beyond doubt certain that our permission was never asked. We were simply told that we would be a group of 12.

Twelve is too many for a puzzle run. Full stop. Too many. Things like what happened to us last year are what we need to be sure do not happen again. We can do ten. Just not more.

This was likely some combination of:

A. The two players doing back-to-back runs did not do due diligence in checking in for their second run beforehand. (Trying to get the wristbands early, or informing people on the run that they were coming, but would be arriving late).

B. Over-eagerness on the behalf of the TD desk to fill apparently empty slots.

Unfortunately, once you reach the point where you have sold the two apparently empty slots but have two people with a ticket, TD is in an uncomfortable position. Even with the explicit warning about needing to arrive on time, turning anyone away will be bad PR, so going with 12 may be the lesser evil.

commanderFuron wrote: I think the popularity of true grind lends itself to the notion that an all combat dungeon would do well. Several members of my group would come back to TD to play that.

I'd go for that too.

Incognito wrote: Even with the explicit warning about needing to arrive on time, turning anyone away will be bad PR, so going with 12 may be the lesser evil.

I can pretty much guarantee that's what happened. In fact, it did happen during my shifts last year. However, there's absolutely no way I would let it happen if the main party did not unanimously agree to it.

Putting more than 10 people in a run is not something we do willy-nilly. The leads know it stresses the DMs, Coaches, and most importantly, the players, so we only do it under very unusual circumstances. I think it happened a total of three times throughout my shifts last year. (I'm a full time volunteer, so I had a seven hour shift every day.)

If it happened to you with or (hopefully not) without your permission and you had a lousy time because of it, I am genuinely sorry. I can't go back in time and change things. But if you have a lousy time because of something we (TD) did, please, please, please let us know right then and there. We will try to make it right.

Turning the two late comers away may have been bad PR, but what about cramping those 10 people through 7 rooms?

darkangel866 wrote:

Brian Hofmeister wrote:
This year, without asking us or even really letting us know, True Dungeon inserted two extra people in our party. That's right, we went up to a party of twelve without any explanation. The woman in our room kept telling us that it was a good thing, but it wasn't. I had no place to prep my tokens, until the last couple minutes, and with the new board system (which by the way made little sense to me, but that's a whole other entry), it really wasn't enough time.

I can tell you what happened. True Dungeon sold tickets to the event before the Gen-Con Event Host Policy allowed them to. I had tickets to the 12:01 Friday Draco-Lich Nightmare run. We got out of the dungeon at 11:37, waited about 10 minutes to check out and get our treasure. I then went to take care of some "creature comforts". I walked into the Draco Marshalling room at 12:02, with my buddy and we were told our tickets had been sold. While this was going on, the other 6 members of my party kept telling them we would be there. Per Gen-Con's policy:

community.gencon.com/files/folders/pmg/entry81972.aspx
page 12

A player with a registered ticket for your event is guaranteed a spot in your event as long as they show up within 10 minutes after the scheduled start for the event.

Here's where things get really odd. They sold an 11th ticket between 12:01 and 12:02. Now, 6 of my party was there, and I had tickets 7-10. They still took 5 people who were not prepped for Nightmare into a designated Nightmare spot.

Now, TD did everything they could to make us happy after they screwed up. They bumped us to the next run. They gave us the completion token for Nightmare. I had another Draco Combat run, so I did not miss out on XP. However I did not get to spend 2 hours with friends I see once a year.

What was most upsetting to my friend (who's not on the forums) was we were told no way we could run 13 people in my 12:01 run, then they tried to jam 13 into the 12:13 run.

My suggestion for alleviating this kind of problem: change the event time to 2.5 hours. Have the event time start in the Marshaling room. Then TD can see (with 2 minutes left in the beginning room) who are no shows at the GC approved time (10 mins). They will still have 26 minutes to get any stand-byes up and running before they hit the training room.
The rest of the time would be allocated to xp/treasure desk and drawing.

www.truedungeon.com/forum?func=post&do=quote&catid=525&id=157393

I'm surprised how nice I was in this write up. I am still upset about the situation.

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!

darkangel866 wrote:
www.truedungeon.com/forum?func=post&do=quote&catid=525&id=157393

I'm surprised how nice I was in this write up. I am still upset about the situation.

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!

Agreed!

With the full extra run and so many extra tickets over crouding hopefully won't be an issue this year.

I know as a coach I only experienced more people than 10 was by design of the party and even then I asked if it was allowed.

I did hear about some late comers having their tickets sold out before they got there and I agree the start times and run length should be adjusted to prevent this.

As a coach late comers always pose a challenge.