TOPIC: Volunteers don't play TD?

Angela Small wrote: This year an acquaintance of mine volunteered for TD (we both help coordinate monster camp at our local LARP, so TD was kinda up his alley).

Previous to this year, he had never heard of TD, let alone played TD. I guess through selective targeting, he came across a call for the need for volunteers either on FB or through some other gaming forum or email *shrug*. He signed up because of the perks of being a TD volunteer (free badge & hotel)... and TD sounded interesting so he kinda wanted to check it out.

One shift he was up front at check in, and another shift I saw him near the coaching rooms (assistant coach I think?)

After his Saturday shift, he decided to try a run out for himself, and he enjoyed the class he played and the game itself.

If it was mandatory to play TD before becoming a volunteer, TD wouldn't have had this volunteer this year, he would have not attended GenCon, and TD wouldn't have this new player.

Rather than trying to say, if you haven't played TD, wouldn't it be better to find a position for which someone is best qualified - if they don't know how a lot of the tokens work, don't put them in a combat dungeon room.

I know TD always needs more volunteers, but declining people who haven't played seems to be shooting themselves in the foot.

I agree with this. The problem lies with the amount of bad Volunteers. I think too many people are afraid to complain when they have bad experiences, so they continue year to year. It is one of the reasons I started to Volunteer. I wish I could give more time to help. I will say if it meant eliminating some of the bad I would happily volunteer full time.

Picc wrote: Seriously though, how would we identify less then qualified volunteers / is there enough interest from new volunteers that we can really be that picky and choosey about who we take in their place. Not that I disagree with you, just considering the logistics of how a vol purge would work.

To start with, there needs to be a better accountability/feedback mechanism.

MasterED has advocated feedback cards for each room, which could work.

Either every room should have some display which mentions the name of the volunteer(s) currently working it. (If you are worried about privacy, then some sort of employee number or code would suffice).

Or feedback cards are handed out (in the room or at the end of the adventure) which is specific to the appropriate volunteer(s).

That way we can find out who the problem volunteers are. And it is more systematic than word of mouth (or word of forum).

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: I definitely agree to a point. I myself have gotten frustrated with the amount of DMs that seem to be there only to kill the parties. During the opening of training I heard 3 talking about how many parties they have killed and they were shooting for way more this year. That is definitely the wrong attitude to have. In my opinion we are there to help the players enjoy their time in the Dungeon and make them want to come back. There is definitely a difference between a room being difficult (which is fun), and DMs actively trying for TPKs (this needs to stop).

Well that's disappointing to hear.

As an RPG player, I'm not a fan of any table where it's the DM vs the Players.

As a consumer, I'm even less a fan of paying $56 in an entry fee plus whatever I choose in tokens for the privilege of dealing with said 'killer DM'.

Obviously nobody asks for a free ride, but having a DM actively out to kill me/the group would be something I'd expect to be notified of in advance, such as in a 'rogue-like' game, not something discovered mid game.

Forar wrote:

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: I definitely agree to a point. I myself have gotten frustrated with the amount of DMs that seem to be there only to kill the parties. During the opening of training I heard 3 talking about how many parties they have killed and they were shooting for way more this year. That is definitely the wrong attitude to have. In my opinion we are there to help the players enjoy their time in the Dungeon and make them want to come back. There is definitely a difference between a room being difficult (which is fun), and DMs actively trying for TPKs (this needs to stop).

Well that's disappointing to hear.

As an RPG player, I'm not a fan of any table where it's the DM vs the Players.

As a consumer, I'm even less a fan of paying $56 in an entry fee plus whatever I choose in tokens for the privilege of dealing with said 'killer DM'.

Obviously nobody asks for a free ride, but having a DM actively out to kill me/the group would be something I'd expect to be notified of in advance, such as in a 'rogue-like' game, not something discovered mid game.

Luckily I've only encountered it a couple times myself, but that is still a problem in my eyes. Luckily my group is well enough equipped to combat this, but I do feel for groups that aren't. A lot of newer groups may not even know it's going on.

I was disappointed myself hearing them talk and laugh about it during training. I just don't see that as the point of TD... maybe I'm wrong.

I do agree some sort of feedback system could help with this.

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: I definitely agree to a point. I myself have gotten frustrated with the amount of DMs that seem to be there only to kill the parties. During the opening of training I heard 3 talking about how many parties they have killed and they were shooting for way more this year. That is definitely the wrong attitude to have. In my opinion we are there to help the players enjoy their time in the Dungeon and make them want to come back. There is definitely a difference between a room being difficult (which is fun), and DMs actively trying for TPKs (this needs to stop).

Interestingly enough, there were only 2 TPK's in True Grind this year. And both of them were on NORMAL difficulty!

In one case it was their own fault, since one of the party members said the "H word" three times when it was only the second room. (They still had a lot of fun with it).

I think in the other one, they were pretty close to winning and I gave them a fair shot at it, but they just slid/rolled bad at the very end.

There were also 5 groups that ran out of time. Raven would be in the best position to comment on those but I would guess that about half would have resulted in TPK's anyway and the other half would have resulted in Victories if they had just a little more time.

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: Luckily I've only encountered it a couple times myself, but that is still a problem in my eyes. Luckily my group is well enough equipped to combat this, but I do feel for groups that aren't. A lot of newer groups may not even know it's going on.

I was disappointed myself hearing them talk and laugh about it during training. I just don't see that as the point of TD... maybe I'm wrong.

Bear in mind that there is a difference between talking and laughing because they mean it, and talking and laughing because they are joking about it.

In the past, there have been instances when people misinterpreted by "DM trash talking the players" on the forum as being indicative that I am actually a killer Grind DM! This is especially the case when I am joking or bantering with forumites I know, but outsiders might not understand the context.

Incognito wrote:

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: Luckily I've only encountered it a couple times myself, but that is still a problem in my eyes. Luckily my group is well enough equipped to combat this, but I do feel for groups that aren't. A lot of newer groups may not even know it's going on.

I was disappointed myself hearing them talk and laugh about it during training. I just don't see that as the point of TD... maybe I'm wrong.

Bear in mind that there is a difference between talking and laughing because they mean it, and talking and laughing because they are joking about it.

In the past, there have been instances when people misinterpreted by "DM trash talking the players" on the forum as being indicative that I am actually a killer Grind DM! This is especially the case when I am joking or bantering with forumites I know, but outsiders might not understand the context.

But, but, you are a killer dm.... At least in various other ways long as i've known you Eric.

Pains me to agree that in some respect a minor tweak of some volunteers would be good thing. Obviously and overall though a better feedback mechanism so that we know what standards we are held to and what is 'over the line' to avoid misunderstandings and feelings of 'that aint right/fair'.

Incognito wrote: MasterED has advocated feedback cards for each room, which could work.

Either every room should have some display which mentions the name of the volunteer(s) currently working it. (If you are worried about privacy, then some sort of employee number or code would suffice).

Or feedback cards are handed out (in the room or at the end of the adventure) which is specific to the appropriate volunteer(s).

One way which would be very easy to track without having to give the names of the DMs (and without needing to make different cards for each DM / each shift / each dungeon) would be for each room to have a card which said, "ROOM [Number]" and space on it for a bit of feedback.

At the end of the run, you take off your wrist band, and tape it to the feedback card, and deposit it in some sort of comments box/bin.

It's really easy to tell who was the DM for a room if you have the info "Room 5, 12:14 Sat" - You immediately know the Dungeon (each dungeon starts at a different time) and you can cross-check with the volunteer schedule to see who was working room 5 during the time that the party would have been walking through.

Incognito wrote: There were also 5 groups that ran out of time. Raven would be in the best position to comment on those but I would guess that about half would have resulted in TPK's anyway and the other half would have resulted in Victories if they had just a little more time.

Sounds about accurate. A couple of teams were well on their way to being TPKs. A couple would have been easy victories with just 1 or two more rounds (but we were already 10 - 20 mins past the adventure's end, and I wanted time to reset the room before Kirk was done with Coaching the next group.) There's a 3rd group which I think could have done it, if they were able to take out their traitorous companion first...

galandros wrote: TPTB could hold a few runs back each year, and let volunteers only buy the tickets to those slots.

While that sounds great on paper, there are a number of issues related to it.

1. Gen Con does not take kindly to TD "holding back a few runs".
2. TD has hundreds of volunteers. If only a few runs are held back, how would TD determine who gets to buy them?

Lotus Blossum wrote: no one (outside of Jeff the Great Lord of the Dungeon) knows what every token does

Jeff is amazing, but Jeff is a human being. He does not know what every token does.

And in case you were wondering, I don't either. My brain is too small and old to keep all that minutiae in there.

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: I myself have gotten frustrated with the amount of DMs that seem to be there only to kill the parties. {snip} That is definitely the wrong attitude to have. {snip} DMs actively trying for TPKs (this needs to stop).

hear, hear!

Incognito wrote:

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: Luckily I've only encountered it a couple times myself, but that is still a problem in my eyes. Luckily my group is well enough equipped to combat this, but I do feel for groups that aren't. A lot of newer groups may not even know it's going on.

I was disappointed myself hearing them talk and laugh about it during training. I just don't see that as the point of TD... maybe I'm wrong.

Bear in mind that there is a difference between talking and laughing because they mean it, and talking and laughing because they are joking about it.

In the past, there have been instances when people misinterpreted by "DM trash talking the players" on the forum as being indicative that I am actually a killer Grind DM! This is especially the case when I am joking or bantering with forumites I know, but outsiders might not understand the context.

If I had never been through their rooms I may have thought they were just talking. However I have been through their rooms and I can say that they seem to take a certain joy in killing the parties. As I stated above if it wasn't for my group being very well equipped we would have problems. Even joking about it is a bad attitude to have. If a new volunteer hears this, they could think that it is OK. I just think we need to be careful.

Trash talking on the other hand is fine to me... that can be a lot of fun. I'm more than willing to give as good as I get.

Incognito wrote:

Chris Von Wahlde wrote: I definitely agree to a point. I myself have gotten frustrated with the amount of DMs that seem to be there only to kill the parties. During the opening of training I heard 3 talking about how many parties they have killed and they were shooting for way more this year. That is definitely the wrong attitude to have. In my opinion we are there to help the players enjoy their time in the Dungeon and make them want to come back. There is definitely a difference between a room being difficult (which is fun), and DMs actively trying for TPKs (this needs to stop).

Interestingly enough, there were only 2 TPK's in True Grind this year. And both of them were on NORMAL difficulty!

In one case it was their own fault, since one of the party members said the "H word" three times when it was only the second room. (They still had a lot of fun with it).

I think in the other one, they were pretty close to winning and I gave them a fair shot at it, but they just slid/rolled bad at the very end.

There were also 5 groups that ran out of time. Raven would be in the best position to comment on those but I would guess that about half would have resulted in TPK's anyway and the other half would have resulted in Victories if they had just a little more time.

Grind is the perfect example. I feel it is difficult, not that you are actively trying to kill the party... this is good.