TOPIC: Total Newbie with Newbie Group

So my friends and I discovered that TD was coming to Origins and we pounced upon the opportunity to participate. We're signed up for a Friday slot of Behold Her Majesty, and I just want to know what to expect?

If you didn't buy all 10 tickets. I suggest put out your time and seeing if you can find the others that might be on the run with you. Now that I got that PSA out of the way...

Can you be a little more specific with your question?

Do you want to know how to play? Do you want to know what to expect on the run?


Also welcome to the forums.

Kevin Kortekaas wrote: So my friends and I discovered that TD was coming to Origins and we pounced upon the opportunity to participate. We're signed up for a Friday slot of Behold Her Majesty, and I just want to know what to expect?

Welcome to the forums!

thanks,
I don't really have specific questions, just more a general sense of what to expect. I've kinda poured over the website and still am at a loss of what it entails fully (and I recognize that it may be intentionally vague so as to present myster)

There are some good videos on youtube that can be watched to get the feel of what each area and room feels like. The rooms change with each event.

Essentially:
- go the restroom since it will be over 2hrs before you get another chance (if you exit during the event you are not allowed to re-enter)
- check in and get wrist band and ten-pack of tokens
- go to preparation room and decided which characters and have the TD coach put together the team card. Get your character card, elastic necklace, light thingy, paperclips to indicate remaining hit points
- go to practice area where each person can practice the skill that relates to their class and the TD coach will check each person Treasure Enhancement tokens and denote how many treasure chips each player will get on the team card
- enter the first room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the second room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the third room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the four room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the fifth room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the six room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- enter the seventh room and either have a puzzle you have to solve or a monster you have to defeat
- go to the wrap up area and turn your team card, light thingy, paperclips, elastic necklace and then the individuals are called forward to pull their treasure chips using a magnetic wand
- exit

Coaching room. This is where you plan your party. Character selection is made out of the 12 available character choices. Tokens, which represent gear, weapons and armor are equipped. Don't worry you get a starter bag of 10 when playing and it is enough to play with on a normal difficulty level.

Training room. As Edwin mentioned it is a room to practice 'skills' you will need in the dungeon. You get to practice combat. Spell casters can work on their memorization for their spells to be more effective.

Dungeon rooms 1-7
Combat is a shuffleboard system with a visual representation of the monster you are fighting with different parts of of the body displaying numbers. How well you slide represent the D20 you would be rolling. For example if fighting a cyclops perhaps the eye is a 20 while his shins are a 3 or 4.

Puzzle could be a physical task should get everyone to the other side of the room while carrying something while the party is 'chained' together. Or it could be more mental puzzle. Figure out which combination of switches to flip based on a clue. It could be a combination of the two. Some puzzles can be solved by one 'smart' person that figures out the clue, but there is usually at least 1 room that requires the entire team's involvement (it often is the first room).

That is a VERY basic overview. We MAY get a player guide before Origins is so I would suggest reviewing it but it is not necessary. My number one tip is always try to find the other people you are playing with. If nothing else you can work out possibly what classes you and they would like to play. They may be even able to loan you some tokens so you have a better weapons and armor going into the dungeon (though it is not necessary as I mentioned before).

I imagine you should get a few more basic overviews as I have likely missed something. But please if anything doesn't make sense let us know we are generally a friendly group to new people, though we do fight among ourselves about other aspects of the game.

If we've got an allocated 2 hour block, how early should we show up? How much time does it take to do the "adventure prep"?

To answer your specific question; you should show up 30 minutes before your start time. That will give you time to check in, then go to your coaching room. Once there you will start to meet the others in your party, and pick your character classes, and open your free 10-packs of tokens, and create your character builds. Don't worry, once your start time arrives, a player coach will show up to walk you through the rest of the process. The 2-hour duration of your event includes 24 minutes with the player coach, 12 minutes of training, and 84 minutes spread across the seven rooms in the dungeon. BTW, depending on which dungeon you are running, I'll be the DM in room #7 , so say "hi"

The only thing I'll add to the already great explanations are that you can really prepare as little or as much as you want. If True Dungeon is your kind of thing, you'll pretty much love it no matter how much or little you prepare. But to a small degree the more you prepare the more you're likely to enjoy it.

In other words, you can just walk in to the coaching room with no preparation (I suggest arriving 30 minutes before your start time though) and you will probably have a great time. There is a chance you won't get to play the character you want (for example, if you really want to play Rogue, but somebody gets there before you and already has selected Rogue). You'll get free tokens, but they may not be great for your class. It's OK, you'll still do fine though. You might not understand a rule of the game and it might frustrate you when you find out, but again it's OK because it is a co-operative game. In any case, you might die in the dungeon, although most likely not until the last room. If you are likely to just move on and enjoy yourself anyways then none of these are a big deal in my opinion. But if you are the type where one of these things occurring will ruin your experience, then more preparation is in order.

So what does more preparation look like? As Jedi said, you can try to find the other people in your group here on the forums (if they happen to be veteran players), and perhaps pick your classes in advance. You can read the Player's Guide (under Resources on this site) to understand the rules. You can look at the player cards (again under Resources) to get some strategy and understanding, or at least figure out the classes you might like. You can buy some tokens in advance, or even pre-created builds for your preferred character class, to make sure your build is decent. All of this gives you a better chance of surviving (no guarantee though) and probably less opportunity for unpleasant surprises.

For my first few years playing True Dungeon, I bought like 2 or 3 10-packs of tokens online and then just showed up to the run, knowing very little about the game. I even played Non-Lethal difficulty once. I had a blast (obviously). Now I know I really didn't need to buy any tokens in advance at all.

Another (now infamous) player played his first time fairly recently and showed up practically an expert at the game, and with more tokens than most veterans. Obviously he loved it as well

Ohhh something I think is important is that you get 12 minutes in each of the dungeon rooms regardless of success or failure because there is another group behind you.

I'm not super concerned about the group as 6 of us are doing it together, and I think I'll have a blast no matter what.

I've got my fingers crossed!

Kirk Bauer wrote: Another (now infamous) player played his first time fairly recently and showed up practically an expert at the game, and with more tokens than most veterans. Obviously he loved it as well

OMG - who was this!?!