TOPIC: Reviews and feedback

So it seems like many people had issues with both tracks this year.

the Puzzle in room 6 of Zephyr didn't seem to function correctly, being a treasure room that particularly sucked.

Viper run sounds like A LOT of the combats were altered over the weekend. As far as I know the Medusa was designed to max at 30 damage (10 Physical, 20 Poison) via 2 attacks per round. I heard SEVERAL people report much higher or wider spread inconsistent damage.

The High Priest was a spellcaster who was apparently immune to the Mute spell *personal note. Don't give me a spell to use against a spellcaster then make the spellcaster immune to the spell, that's not clever, it's just shitty* and seems to have had his attacks changed over the weekend. We ran Saturday and Sunday, neither days did the Priest use a poison cloud attack.

I did have a DM deal poison gas damage via "skin contact" and declare that the Spindle would not stop it while the sphere would. I find it irritating to have DMs giving inconsistent information on damage. I REALLY hope the training next year will go over the SPECIFIC TOKENS that will negate an effect in their room; it doesn't seem likely to be more than about 4 tokens.

I've voiced my issues with Zephyr *If it's a treasure room make sure the puzzle functions 100% correctly and make sure it's going to have more than a 20% success rate.*

FatalDrakkon wrote: That's when the DM started bragging about our TPK with the Drow.... while we were still in the room.

That's multiple kinds of wrong.

The DM is supposed to be a referee, not an adversary. And unless the DM wrote the module, which I'm sure he didn't, all he did was roll some dice and enforce the rules as written.

And rubbing your noses in it was just insensitive and rude.

Here's the big secret. Almost all of us DMs talk about trying to kill the players, and all but the most sadistic and sociopathic of us are rooting for you to succeed, and feel a tinge of regret when things don't go your way. Those who revel in your misery don't have the right attitude, IMO.

But don't tell anyone I said that...

RE: Medusa

Having the petrification take party members out of the fight sucks but it's part of the fight.

Having the petrification permanently remove party members from your run is dirty pool.

If you have a room with an effect like Petrification there should be some way in the room to free those players once the puzzle or combat is resolved. Penalize players for a mistake in combat, don't penalize a group for lack of specific tokens

Brad Mortensen wrote:

FatalDrakkon wrote: That's when the DM started bragging about our TPK with the Drow.... while we were still in the room.

That's multiple kinds of wrong.

The DM is supposed to be a referee, not an adversary. And unless the DM wrote the module, which I'm sure he didn't, all he did was roll some dice and enforce the rules as written.

And rubbing your noses in it was just insensitive and rude.

Here's the big secret. Almost all of us DMs talk about trying to kill the players, and all but the most sadistic and sociopathic of us are rooting for you to succeed, and feel a tinge of regret when things don't go your way. Those who revel in your misery don't have the right attitude, IMO.

But don't tell anyone I said that...

If we have a DM insulting players or actively trying to KILL them outside of the design of the room they need to be removed from the list of GMs allowed to volunteer for that position. It's a terribly negative play experience to lose because the DM wanted to kill you instead of dying because of something you did.

balthasar wrote: The 'trick' in room 7 was to hit the staff on the slider board. Doing so would stop the area attack that was nuking a lot of people. I do not think there was a clue in previous rooms to point that out.

THAT would have been really nice to know. Granted, in our run, we only had 3 attacks going out on the first round, one attack on the second, so we never had a chance to find it out.

Arcanist, you're the second person I've heard speaking of a DM who seemed out to kill the party. As I said earlier, I spoke on saturday with a nightmare difficulty player and he told me they only saw the group AoE every 3 rounds, not every round.


The rule in True grind regarding at least two dice fails before death (or equiv, petrification included), that would have been a lot less frustrating. Possibly a reflex save to avoid looking at the medusa, since what's the point of a costumed actor if you're not allowed to look at her?

Mustard gas can hurt you and possibly kill you without breathing it in, so I had no problem with one token helping and the other not. My issue was with the five or ten damage on normal. I am thinking maybe 5 or none for normal would have been more 'fair'. We also needed some clue prior to that room that targeting the staff first would be very helpful. If they had some way to reverse the petrification in room 6, ala the Stone Golem, that would have balanced out that room.

I also agree on the puzzle with the short hoses on the Zephyr side. Not only did it seem to dead repeatedly, not offering a solution, but I know that the number of hoses changed as the con progressed.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:

FatalDrakkon wrote: That's when the DM started bragging about our TPK with the Drow.... while we were still in the room.

That's multiple kinds of wrong.

The DM is supposed to be a referee, not an adversary. And unless the DM wrote the module, which I'm sure he didn't, all he did was roll some dice and enforce the rules as written.

And rubbing your noses in it was just insensitive and rude.

Here's the big secret. Almost all of us DMs talk about trying to kill the players, and all but the most sadistic and sociopathic of us are rooting for you to succeed, and feel a tinge of regret when things don't go your way. Those who revel in your misery don't have the right attitude, IMO.

But don't tell anyone I said that...

If we have a DM insulting players or actively trying to KILL them outside of the design of the room they need to be removed from the list of GMs allowed to volunteer for that position. It's a terribly negative play experience to lose because the DM wanted to kill you instead of dying because of something you did.

I have no problem attempting to kill players on Nightmare, that's pretty much the entire point of Nightmare. People with awesome gear that actually want to be challenged. Playing through normal, getting one shot by environmental effects and then having to watch as my party got systematically destroyed was no fun. I know that I could have cheated and fudged my damage and kept playing but I shouldn't have to cheat to have fun at TD.

I'm not saying don't kill players in combat rooms. I'm saying don't insult players that do die and don't talk about killing other groups.

We had several reports this year of Combat judges incorrectly recording spell damage and not properly calculating spell slide hits. *Was told I missed on a spell slide on an 8. It's completely impossible for that to happen with my stats + hat + sniper spectacles + bardsong*

i was really glad i had kept that "Gaze Reflection" scroll with me all these years. What save was it to save vs petrification?

I don't remember the number, but it was difficult enough that 4 of us got insta-gibbed. I'm pretty sure the only reason I didn't was because I was a cleric, and I had a ridiculous fort save.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I'm not saying don't kill players in combat rooms. I'm saying don't insult players that do die and don't talk about killing other groups.

We had several reports this year of Combat judges incorrectly recording spell damage and not properly calculating spell slide hits. *Was told I missed on a spell slide on an 8. It's completely impossible for that to happen with my stats + hat + sniper spectacles + bardsong*

This is my first year being a combat DM and I did my best to be fast with the math but if anybody challenged me, I took the moment to listen to why I was wrong and 99% of the time, I gave it to them because they were right. To many DM's tried to be "fast" and were too proud to admit mistakes. The game is about the people and for the people.

I tried to keep my DMing to the level of my players. Ff they were normal, I was super nice to them. Hardcore, I let them know that I wouldn't make things easy. Nightmare I just laughed manically and told them that I woudn't let them past without a good battle. 100% of the people that were running Nightmare were more than prepared for my Viper room 2 or my Zephyr room 3 but I always tried a little harder to kill the nightmare folks, they actually appreciated it.

First of all, I'm gonna say that, yet again, True Dungeon was one of my favorite parts of Gen Con. I also got to introduce two newbies to the event and they were both blown away as well. Now for some more detailed opinions:

Flight of the Zephyr (combat - Fri morning)

Pros:
*The opening NPC was great (sadly, I automatically tuned her out after being Zephyr training room coach for 8hrs the day before... lol, sorry)
*The first puzzle was great, engaging, and cooperative (though we failed by under 5 seconds)
*Bringing back the crazy automaton/golem thing was awesome
*The final wyvern fight in the helm was brilliant and gorgeous (though the DM couldn't roll under 15 for the wyverns and took us out in the 3rd round)

Cons:
*****The liftonium gas-flow puzzle was brutal and aggravating though cool in concept (I got the vibe that someone forgot to test to see if the motor could run effectively for 15 hours straight)
*I was a little dismayed by the lack of physical representations of the first two fights (wind elemental & drone)

Conclusion: Going into room 6, I'd have given it a 7-8/10, but between the brutal puzzle (in a combat run) followed by the insanely good rolling taking out the party way too fast in the last encounter put me in a very sour mood that almost made me sell every token and never come back. Almost.

Into the Vipers Pit (puzzle - Sat evening)

Pros:
*Puzzles were generally very well done and interesting (though the obelisks in room 1 needed better securing)
*I really liked needing to remember details from rooms before for the last puzzle (well done!)
*****Medusa! Bravo! You single-handedly reminded me why I love True Dungeon so much. Between the tapping on the shoulder, whispering in my ear, taunting and flirting, and (I think) crouching behind the backplate of the combat board, you made the whole experience so entertaining and memorable that I could've kissed you (and the costume was beautiful - I took a peek when you gave up on me)

Cons:
*My only beef was w/ the drawing in the sand puzzle. While it was a really cool hands-on puzzle, between the temperamental tech and a harsh DM, it fell short for me. We knew what we were doing from 15 seconds in, but we were held back by "too shallow", "too small", "too slow", "too fast", "too large", "not clearly enough drawn", etc. We soaked probably 30 damage total in there just trying to get the first symbol done "right".

Conclusion: a solid 9/10

Final note: True Dungeon - your greatest strong suits are great practical effects (mirrors, smoke, costuming, some animatronics, etc) and a diehard crew of volunteers. CGI is kinda cool, but it'll often be finicky and unreliable for live effects, and can often be done just as well w/ practical effects.