TOPIC: Gen Con 2019 feedback

Jacob Hohensee wrote: Played through the Abyssal Swamp and the Path of Death at Gen Con 2019. While our group had fun in both rooms, we had some issues with the set up that we thought could be fixed with some minor tweaks. Granted, this was our first time with True Dungeon, but I hope our ideas have some merit.

1.) Difficulty selection - in the Swamp, the person filling out the party card asked 1 person what difficulty was being played, and went with what that person answered, without discussing it with the rest of the group. In the Path, 5 of 10 people (my group) were new players. The other 5 had been playing for 10+ years. The other 5 pushed for Hardcore, which our group wasn't ready for and one of our players ended up dead because of it.

Our suggested fix: base difficulty on time slot. That way, more advanced players can buy hardcore or higher tickets, and less advanced players can buy normal or non-lethal time slots.

2.) Player imbalance - as mentioned before, in Path, we had 5 newbies and 5 advanced players. So our 5 players walked in with the tokens we got that day, and a few basic 10 packs that we bought before going to Gen Con to try to prepare. The 5 advanced players in the group had thousands of dollars worth of tokens, with some individual tokens worth $1,000+ that they have collected over the years. This lead to some of the advanced players replacing our players entire loadouts with their tokens because our stuff was inadequate.

We think the same fix as before would work. Players with better gear could go to higher difficulty levels, and new players could stay on the lower levels.


Just a thought.

Sorry that happened, doesn't sound like the most fun.

The official rule is that if anyone wants to play Normal, the run is on Normal (e.g. must be unanimous to go off normal) - but I totally understand not wanting to get confrontational in the coaching room with a bunch of vets.

The idea of finding a way to make certain runs for different difficulties is worthwhile - it's finding a way that works.

Having certain runs be for certain difficulties in the past has been tried and doesn't work because people don't read the event rules when they register, and that helps no one.

Also, for better or worse, one of the perks of being a 3rd level player is you get priority for class selection over 1st and 2nd level players. It is very tacky IMHO to come in late and do that.

Kirk Bauer wrote: Another thing that should have happened is something that's new for this year. As I understand it, up to 4 members of the party is allowed to play on Non Lethal difficulty even if the difficulty of the party is something else (even Nightmare). This is designed to help a minority of newbies in a group of veterans and when I heard about it I thought it was a great idea. In your case the coach should have offered that four of you could have chosen that option, presumably the least-well-equipped ones.

I didnt know about this until Saturday, and I'm not sure if I like it. On the one hand, I can see the benefits, but I'm not sure using normal gear and hardcore stats is good for newer players.

Fighter switched to barbarian because the veteran came in and demanded that our group give his group fighter, wizard, and ranger. When we told him no, he turned to the fighter and and kept asking him to give up fighter, then grabbed the barbarian card and handed it to the fighter with a pack of tokens to borrow for the barbarian.


If advanced players are going to be allowed to play with new players, the coaches should be watching for things like this and shut it down. But again, that is another should, and it seems like a lot of things that "should" happen don't.

Jacob Hohensee wrote: Fighter switched to barbarian because the veteran came in and demanded that our group give his group fighter, wizard, and ranger. When we told him no, he turned to the fighter and and kept asking him to give up fighter, then grabbed the barbarian card and handed it to the fighter with a pack of tokens to borrow for the barbarian.


If advanced players are going to be allowed to play with new players, the coaches should be watching for things like this and shut it down. But again, that is another should, and it seems like a lot of things that "should" happen don't.

I'm sorry that happened.

As a few folks that said it already, I'm sorry that you had this experience.

As one of the Coaches I can say that for multiple reasons we were under a lot of time pressure this year, and I felt like I was in a constant rush, so in that environment, mistakes will happen -- and be exacerbated by a group of unfriendly vets (this is unusual in my experience).

A reason that we were taking longer is that we had more information to fill out on the sheets, including provisions for mixed difficulty groups (as Kurt mentioned), so I see these as all growing pains. Sorry that you had to experience them though!

Jacob Hohensee wrote: Fighter switched to barbarian because the veteran came in and demanded that our group give his group fighter, wizard, and ranger. When we told him no, he turned to the fighter and and kept asking him to give up fighter, then grabbed the barbarian card and handed it to the fighter with a pack of tokens to borrow for the barbarian.


If advanced players are going to be allowed to play with new players, the coaches should be watching for things like this and shut it down. But again, that is another should, and it seems like a lot of things that "should" happen don't.

That was a crappy group of veterans. Sorry that you ran into them.

Badgerring and pressuring someone is not ok.

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Another thing that should have happened is something that's new for this year. As I understand it, up to 4 members of the party is allowed to play on Non Lethal difficulty even if the difficulty of the party is something else (even Nightmare). This is designed to help a minority of newbies in a group of veterans and when I heard about it I thought it was a great idea. In your case the coach should have offered that four of you could have chosen that option, presumably the least-well-equipped ones.

I didnt know about this until Saturday, and I'm not sure if I like it. On the one hand, I can see the benefits, but I'm not sure using normal gear and hardcore stats is good for newer players.

That is sooner than me finding out just now.

Should have been made more obvious around the TD area and assemvly rooms.

Jacob, I just read this.
1. PLEASE LET ME APOLOGIZE FOR THE BAD BEHAVIOR OF SOME PLAYERS. I am sorry you experienced that.
2. I am a coach and am very careful about difficulty levels especially with new players. There is more information needed on the party card recently but it seems like the majority of the fault lies with the extremely bad behavior by more experienced players.
I think there could be some modifications to the current policy allowing a third level player to take a character class from a player who is not yet third level. I would add a caveat to that that if the player is going to take a character class card that player must be on time. I believe some experienced players will not like that because they often do back to back runs and are necessarily late because of that. If they are in that Situation they should have taken what was left over. Giving the players in your room the benefit of the doubt they probably were above their level but it doesn’t sound like they explained the rules in a clear and concise manner.

3. Things I think might help:
One of the suggestions I’ve seen here on the forums since GenCon is selling blocks of 10 tickets. I don’t know if that’s even feasible within the GenCon system but that might help. Also pre-arranging runs you’re on the forms helps out. Lastly if you have not told the officials at True Dungeon I would suggest sending an email to them letting them know the exact time of your runs. It seems like the coach might need just a little refreshing on a few of the things that Need to take place such as unanimous agreement on difficulty level.

I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it enough to continue coming back and hopefully this hasn’t sour due on the experience.

Jacob Hohensee wrote: The advanced guys came in at the last minute, the coach was in a hurry because they were so late, they threw vacuum sealed packs of tokens to our paladin, badgered our fighter into switching to barbarian, then handed the coach pre-filled out character sheets, which he just took and walked out before we could say anything since we were now running late.

One advanced guy came in and totally steamrolled the rest of the group, and the coach just took what he said as what needed to happen.

Jacob, sucks that that happened to you. You're 100% right the coach should have spoken up. That said, I hope the experience you had doesn't deter you from trying again. At least for me, the group that I'm with makes a big difference to my enjoyment of the game. With a fun group, TD can be absolutely amazing. I hope you'll consider giving it another try.

Best,

Dan

Jacob Hohensee wrote: Fighter switched to barbarian because the veteran came in and demanded that our group give his group fighter, wizard, and ranger. When we told him no, he turned to the fighter and and kept asking him to give up fighter, then grabbed the barbarian card and handed it to the fighter with a pack of tokens to borrow for the barbarian.


If advanced players are going to be allowed to play with new players, the coaches should be watching for things like this and shut it down. But again, that is another should, and it seems like a lot of things that "should" happen don't.

Hi Jacob,
I'm sorry that this happened; I've experienced this myself, and it's not fun.
I think the TD forums is the correct place to have come to mention it because we can work to try to make things better in the future for you and for everyone playing TD.

The TD "chieftains" try very hard to make sure new players and veterans have a fun time, but it doesn't always work.

As many people have said, we (TD fans) try to make certain everyone is ready for higher level difficulties by mustering groups here on the forums or by loaning tokens--when there is interest from the players.

If you are interested in playing TD again, you (and your friends) are welcome to join my group when we play TD. (As long as the Event Registration Gods are with us to get tickets!)

With new players, we play the Normal difficulty, and I get a lot of joy out of seeing new players have a good time playing TD.

I think that you will find others in the forums that are also interested in helping you have a good time.

Thanks for the feedback!

--Steven