TOPIC: Kurtreznor 2013 Review: The Dungeons

True Grind

This event was awesome! for as much as i 'bicker' with incognito on the forums about some things relating to the grind, he always makes it a great event. i played twice, once normal, once hardcore (talk among others confirms we just dont have the desire to run nightmare grind, it would just be a token/money sink), and both were lots of fun and both ended with the dire-bear-druid eating the bunny.


Full Adventures

Both adventures were great. I want to start with that, because i dont want my nickpicking to be taken as not liking the dungeons, i had a great time.

i like that you are getting creative with the combats: the obligatory ranged combat, but then mixing it up with one that didnt allow metal projectiles (which projectiles arent metal?), and the force field (which i didnt actually slide against as i only ran it once with others who knew how to stop it). the only thing i suggest is to be careful not to get too gimmicky with the combats.

something i noticed on a few of the puzzles this year: there was nothing to get you started. the example i remember is the 'activate' button and the holes in the walls. i would be curious what the success rate of people in that room was, mostly those who were in there for the first time. had i not been with a group that knew what to do, i probably would have run out of time (after spending a few minutes searching around before finally trying the button). the real drawback this causes is spoiling. typically, anyone who has solved the room before stands back while others work on it, only to step in toward the end and help get the solution before time runs out. but multiple puzzles this year required so much time that the players who knew what was going on couldnt stand back for very long before taking charge.

Also, i HATED that the final puzzle on golem was not solvable without trial and error. i read the clues, knew what each meant, rogue gave me one more clue...i logiced it out and looked at those who had run before "you need more info to solve it...?" it was then that they reminded us about the clue they paid for at the beginning and we got the answer right away (but not because we figured it out, we were given the answer). i guess this just added to the feeling that i was missing something, that there was something else somewhere that told us what we supposed to be doing, but it wasnt there. and that bothered me. i do want to state this another way: i LOVE logic puzzles, and had this been a convoluted list of rules that you had to parse through and figure out the answer, i would have been very happy. and those that are fine with the brute force method can take the few clues they figure out and start from that before the guessing (like this room made you do).

and the monsters looked amazing...though, both times against cogwin, the curtain wasnt pulled back at first. i remember having to ask the DM to pull the curtain during the 2nd round of combat (or at least after the 1st) because i wanted to see it.

kurtreznor wrote: Also, i HATED that the final puzzle on golem was not solvable without trial and error. i read the clues, knew what each meant, rogue gave me one more clue...i logiced it out and looked at those who had run before "you need more info to solve it...?" it was then that they reminded us about the clue they paid for at the beginning and we got the answer right away (but not because we figured it out, we were given the answer).

In addition to the NPC wandering about giving out the clue to the final Golembane puzzle, there were clues in the dungeon. During the first self-destruct of a construct the voice-over countdown went "...self-destruct 3,2,1,1,1,1,1...". If you were paying attention, you could get it. There were many mathematically correct solutions to that final puzzle, but only *one* of those was the ultimately correct solution. My first group through this took some damage the first time we tried, then someone recalled the self-destruct voiceover... then we got it the next time we tried. I am *super* glad that person was on my run and made that connection, because I sure didn't....

The only puzzle in either Lycans or Golembane that I hated was the Eagle egg in the trunk. UGH! You are asking a bunch of uncoordinated gamers (generally speaking gamers tend to be not super athletic gifted) to suddenly do something that requires a great deal of physical talent and coordination? That was not fun.

I did not enjoy the plank-on-the-pond puzzle, because even if you knew what to do, you were going to run out of time or get dangerously close to doing so even if you hurried. I didn't hate this puzzle, but it wasn't very good either due to the time constraints... again, even if you knew what to do. I also did not enjoy the final Lycans puzzle with the potions and angel statues - it was WAY too difficult to figure out what was what in the dark with that time limit. But then our DM also took his sweet time explaining the puzzle as we attempted solutions, that might have colored my opinion of that one. Didn't hate that puzzle, but close....

I really liked the first Golembane puzzle - my first group through tried it, took some damage and immediately figured it out. it was an innovative fun puzzle. I also really liked the Lycans reflection-in-the-water-heal-my-tree puzzle - it was super neat!

Overall, the puzzles this year were pretty darn good. Only one I hated, two I thought needed improvement, and the rest were rather neato.

CrowOfPyke wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: The only puzzle in either Lycans or Golembane that I hated was the Eagle egg in the trunk. UGH! You are asking a bunch of uncoordinated gamers (generally speaking gamers tend to be not super athletic gifted) to suddenly do something that requires a great deal of physical talent and coordination? That was not fun.

I did not enjoy the plank-on-the-pond puzzle, because even if you knew what to do, you were going to run out of time or get dangerously close to doing so even if you hurried. I didn't hate this puzzle, but it wasn't very good either due to the time constraints... again, even if you knew what to do. I also did not enjoy the final Lycans puzzle with the potions and angel statues - it was WAY too difficult to figure out what was what in the dark with that time limit. But then our DM also took his sweet time explaining the puzzle as we attempted solutions, that might have colored my opinion of that one. Didn't hate that puzzle, but close....

I really enjoyed the egg in the trunk puzzle. My group worked together and made it happen with plenty of time to spare.

The ravine puzzle was also really easy, and we'd never done it before (or those who had kept their mouths shut). One guy did trial and error all the way to the end and we still had plenty of time when we were finished. I can't imagine any reason to run out of time in that room unless people are bickering.

The final Lycan puzzle was brute forced by my group; One by one we just tried solutions until we had the right answers. Most of us died, of course, but that wasn't very relevant in the end. I'm not sure what the actual puzzle solution was, though my group speculated on what it might have been.

the eagle egg i failed with 2 groups, but i dont want to say that i hated it...we knew what needed to be done, and once got it close enough to prove that we could, but then dropped it and ran out of time. no doubt, it was really tough.

i liked the plank across river puzzle. and the first time we even went the wrong way and still had time to go back and find the correct path. on nightmare, i think all our eyes widened a bit when the DM took two of the planks away. just had to be quick about it.

potion puzzle it is hard for me to say; i run each of the four dungeons once, so i only saw this room once. we didnt start really looking at the statues until it was too late to figure things out, so im not sure how difficult it was to get the clues.

I liked the last puzzle on Golembane. It reminded me of Mastermind.

I saw the egg puzzle 5 times. 2 times with groups that had never worked together and were new to True Dungeon. The first group really surprised me because I didn't know if it was possible. After my first two runs got it. I kept telling everyone it is possible we just need to take our time and move slowly. 5 for 5 on the egg.

We had two planks removed on us on Hardcore as well. The team took off in a straight B line for the opposite shore and had to do the backtrack as well. We still had plenty of time to joke about stranding each other by removing boards the other guy needed.

I thought the Star puzzle in the lycan run was too easy, our group got it in under 2 minutes the first time. I head however that many others had troubles with it.

The final Lycan puzzle with the statues was my favorite, even though we all died in the end (Nightmare) it was a lot of fun and took a good group effort to figure it out. In the end we ran out of time with one goblet to go.

The Egg one was really hit or miss, half the part was not able to help work it our because it made it harder. The first time we failed, and second time we got the Egg and the Leprechaun box. I heard a lot of discussion on this puzzle about if people were allowed to reach in or not; some groups were able to reach half way in while others were not allowed to reach in at all. With us we had people with small hands that could reach in and hold the egg to help balance.

I really liked the two puzzle rooms in the Golem run, the Combat then metal ball puzzle, and the 36 tile puzzle.

Team Yeti and friends had trouble with the egg puzzle as well, simply due to everyone trying too hard - getting ine ach other's way, etc. The second time, Boonie managed the sticks while our 6'6" paladin lifted ouor 12 year old over the top for the win - he took damage, but the success was well-earned.

The river stone puzzle is a classic and well-received, but it presented issues for our mobility-challenged. Then, on our second run the stones had shifted - makes it a little tough! DM compensated, though.

The gear room and ball room were favorites, as they required thinking and teamwork. The rope puzzle kept us up late drawing out a solution - exactly what a good puzzle should do!

Yes. The largest problem with the stone / board room was that the stones shifted and were not replaced after the previous party left the room. It made several attempts quite annoying to figure if a particular board fit or not.

Also, I apparently 'triggered a trap' and destroyed one of the boards during one run. There was no indication of any sort of trap that I could see... I was just trying to spread out and fit everyone in that narrow strip of land.

In the egg room, we had an interesting advantage. I an 6' 11" with nice long arms. We only needed to get the egg about 2/3 of the way up to where I could reach it.

The stupid treasure box in the tree, now that was impossible.