TOPIC: Thoughts on 5 rooms

The survey question seemed wrong in a couple ways. First 7 room dungeons would have been more than $128 this year. Second it's not the right question. Given the volunteer limitations the question needs to be more like: would you prefer 5 room dungeons like this next year or 7 room dungeons with 2 less actors and instead monsters on screens.

I'm curious if the started objective of getting more new players in was met and if that actually results in more volunteers. I did each run including F&F once and volunteering was not promoted during any of them at any time

Matthew Hayward wrote: I think the survey / feedback approach was done in a way that makes it quite hard to interpret coherently the results.

For me at least, I did 3 dungeons and our group was asked about 5 or 7 room preferences in two of them. In both of them the question was phrased something like "Raise your hand if you'd like to go back to the 7 room dungeon at a cost of $128 versus this year's 5 room presentation."

This form of the survey has several problems:

1. It will lump in people with no opinion or very weak opinions as 5-room-ers. (As if you don't care one way or the other you are very unlikely to raise your hand.)

Likewise anyone who was confused, didn't hear clearly, are still processing the idea, don't want to be conspicuous, or are waiting to see what their teammates do will be counted as a 5-roomer.

2. Status quo bias - It has been shown that people disproportionately stick with whatever has been designated as the "current" or "default" choice in surveys. The phrasing and survey context is likely to overweight 5-room responses.

3. Action vs. inaction bias - it has been shown that when one survey response requires doing something, and another requires doing nothing the response requiring an action will typically be reduced, and that this effect is amplified when the action is publicly visible. This bias will tend to decrease the number of raised hands no matter what option was applied to the hand raising, in this case to likely decrease the number of 7-room voters.

For a better survey, consider these approaches:

a. Make it anonymous and individual.

b. Force a choice between options, e.g. "For your next dungeon, which would you select?" i) 5 rooms at $98. ii) 7 rooms at $128. Randomize the order the choices appear on different surveys.

Or - just skip the survey - find a way to offer both next year and see where the demand goes.

+1

I would recommend not giving a lot of weight to either the survey results (see separate post but has been mentioned here as well) or to the number of slots left open this year. The number of slots not sold in a single year can have a large number of factors influencing it ranging from the economy to are there more events gaining attention that year.

Personally, I saw the 5 room as a great into for new players. I would also recommend they have pre-gen character options (but still get a 10 pack to get them started on builds in the future.)

I think there is a better way for new players to get started than what is currently done. Go with pre-gens or let players present their character to the coach. If players aren't trading around a lot of tokens, traditional coaching could be cut to ~15 minutes. Show the intro video at the end of that coaching.

Have room 1 have an option to be a slow-pitch combat room - maybe "room 1 - the training guild." By that, I mean the players get help learning the caster memorization along with sliding against an actual opponent. Rogues and bards can also do their skill tests in that room to help the group. Keep damage down to 1-2 points per hit with both physical attacks and attacks needing saving throws. If the group succeeds, they get fully healed an an extra 5 max hp for the run. If the group isn't new, it is a "guild qualifying room" where you need to hit specific targets such as total damage, etc in order to earn a boon for the party for the run. - Either way, it would be a warm-up room. From there, it is a regular dungeon.

Having 2 5 room dungeons and 2 7 room dungeons would be a good mix overall for Gencon with 1 of each at other cons (or just the 5 room for something that is mostly new players like momocon but 7 room for vets at places like GHC.)

Mechanically, the 5 room dungeons don't fit either the party card or the current mechanics. The spells can be adjusted for 5 rooms by having anything but normal be additionally "taxing" on characters. One idea would be losing a spell slot after every room as magic is drawn from you. For non-casters, your "essence" is drawn where your max hp is reduced by 3-5 hp or you can mark off a special ability (like raging or several lay on hands slots.)

Fred

Mike Steele wrote:

Manimal wrote:
(3) Gen Con event registration really doesn't tell you much about player preferences since for the vast majority of people who don't luck into an early lottery number, it's a question of what's left rather than what the individual would prefer. And, in any event, new players may not understand the differences between the adventures and will just grab what's left and/or what fits the rest of their Gen Con schedule.

Just a slight clarification, the lottery system is only used for housing, event registration is still a free for all.

By "lottery" for events I meant that even if you submit your wish list the moment event registration opens, it's still close to random luck as to whether you get a low number or a high number to process your events. So it's very unlikely that you'll get your "ideal" schedule and will instead grab a different run (or no run at all).

Also, do event organizers (such as True Dungeon) have the ability to send messages to those who are attending (I believe they do prior to the event but not sure about after the event)? If so, I'd suggest sending a survey to those that did a run asking them questions about how often they play, preferences for 5-room vs 7-room (with cost included), whether they would play again (and would 5-room or 7-room make a difference), and also including information about volunteering. Finally, include info about VTD and Gamehole Con. I know it's mentioned in the video, but the newbies often were focused on practice slides, memorization, etc. I had the change to promote VTD and Gamehole Con to a number of people that seemed very interested.

Manimal wrote: Also, do event organizers (such as True Dungeon) have the ability to send messages to those who are attending (I believe they do prior to the event but not sure about after the event)?

TD certainly does, because nearly every player willingly gave their email address to the fae in exchange for an extra treasure draw!

If TPTB aren't yet sure what to do based on the info they have, a survey like you suggest seems like a great idea to gather more input.

If so, I'd suggest sending a survey to those that did a run asking them questions about how often they play, preferences for 5-room vs 7-room (with cost included), whether they would play again (and would 5-room or 7-room make a difference), and also including information about volunteering. Finally, include info about VTD and Gamehole Con. I know it's mentioned in the video, but the newbies often were focused on practice slides, memorization, etc. I had the change to promote VTD and Gamehole Con to a number of people that seemed very interested.

I view TD has increasingly moved away from what the intent was. That's not surprising - most things evolve.

To me, the point of TD was to feel like doing a live action dungeon adventure where danger is real and survival is an accomplishment. VTD I'm fine with being a different animal, so will keep to the in person experience.

The in person experience should be tiring. This isn't visit a dungeon day; it's supposed to be grueling to survive. I don't sign up for 2 hour RPG sessions at Gen Con "to see what character creation is like" or "to get a taste of rolling some dice", so I'm not interested in a few TD rooms.

How 5 rooms or 7 rooms or whatever interacts with tokens doesn't matter much to me ... because any of the dungeons with less than 7 rooms has made me not care what the results of the runs are. It's not that I can't get some enjoyment out of a room or hanging out with friends or looking at the aesthetics, but the total run just feels irrelevant.

It doesn't matter if increase difficulty so that 5 rooms is hard for my party. It just feels like the run doesn't matter when it comes to results as I have historical benchmarks to compare with.

Sure, if TD started in 2003 with 5 rooms, I might feel different. And, humans adapt, so enough repetition will eventually be "Remember when parties used to be 6 classes and the cool tokens were things like Elven Chainmail so that my rogue could have a decent AC and we pretty much always lost rm7 combats and survivor pins were effort to get and we equipped less than 20 tokens and gear was a big thing and ...?" when it comes to shorter dungeons, but TD has already lost so much of its core identity with things like tokens overwhelming the importance of playing classes well and teamwork.

The cost thing isn't something I can speak to as I don't have the financial data, conversation data with GC, etc. to know what's actually possible and what isn't. Fundamentally, TD has a problem with its pricing model, and I get trying to do something about it. What I can speak to is that the less compelling the experience is, the less likely any similar version of the game will survive.

Now, I played with new/ish players who liked my runs way more than I did and didn't feel the brevity in the way that I did. And, new players are more important than old IME with other games. So, yes, keep getting input from a much wider breadth of the player base.

As for +2 rooms with projected monsters, well ... another thread I'm sure can be about evaluating the limited content we did receive.

For me the 5 room dungeon felt more like an escape room then TD. My overriding thought after the runs were:

"Do I really need Tokens?".

5 rooms under the current format makes me less interested in playing. It wasn't as fun.

Suggestion to consider:

Go to a 4 room format but have the first 3 rooms be both puzzle and combat and extend the time in each room to accommodate both accordingly. Then have the last room be a choice between puzzle or combat, or maybe just keep the last room combat. With less rooms TD should be able to make each room larger to accommodate both the puzzle and combat. This gives players what they were used to in the 7 room dungeons, cuts down on the need for volunteers, and probably makes set up and tear down easier for TD. A win all around. TD could even tie in the puzzle with the combat some how which would be cool. Lots of options. Less rooms, same content as before.

Rob F wrote: For me the 5 room dungeon felt more like an escape room then TD. My overriding thought after the runs were:

"Do I really need Tokens?".

5 rooms under the current format makes me less interested in playing. It wasn't as fun.

Suggestion to consider:

Go to a 4 room format but have the first 3 rooms be both puzzle and combat and extend the time in each room to accommodate both accordingly. Then have the last room be a choice between puzzle or combat, or maybe just keep the last room combat. With less rooms TD should be able to make each room larger to accommodate both the puzzle and combat. This gives players what they were used to in the 7 room dungeons, cuts down on the need for volunteers, and probably makes set up and tear down easier for TD. A win all around. TD could even tie in the puzzle with the combat some how which would be cool. Lots of options. Less rooms, same content as before.

Rob, I really like that you're thinking out of the box, but if you had 24 minute rooms in the Dungeon, you'd only be able to have new groups enter the Dungeon every 24 minutes, and that would cut True Dungeon revenue from the dungeon by 50%.

Mike Steele wrote:

Rob F wrote: For me the 5 room dungeon felt more like an escape room then TD. My overriding thought after the runs were:

"Do I really need Tokens?".

5 rooms under the current format makes me less interested in playing. It wasn't as fun.

Suggestion to consider:

Go to a 4 room format but have the first 3 rooms be both puzzle and combat and extend the time in each room to accommodate both accordingly. Then have the last room be a choice between puzzle or combat, or maybe just keep the last room combat. With less rooms TD should be able to make each room larger to accommodate both the puzzle and combat. This gives players what they were used to in the 7 room dungeons, cuts down on the need for volunteers, and probably makes set up and tear down easier for TD. A win all around. TD could even tie in the puzzle with the combat some how which would be cool. Lots of options. Less rooms, same content as before.

Rob, I really like that you're thinking out of the box, but if you had 24 minute rooms in the Dungeon, you'd only be able to have new groups enter the Dungeon every 24 minutes, and that would cut True Dungeon revenue from the dungeon by 50%.

Maybe this is just a math problem? Where's Matt H? Maybe they just need to add more adventurers under this scenario or variants of it? Like "Cool Adventure 1" and then have a "Cool Adventure 2" where rooms could be roughly the same. Under my 4 room scenario total in dungeon time would be the same as lets say a 7 room dungeon. Hmmmm...there must be a way...

New player here: this was my first year playing in (or even hearing about) True Dungeon. I took a risk by signing up for all four events and had an amazing time at each. I also convinced two friends who had also never heard of True Dungeon to give the sealed Fang and Fury beginner adventure a try with me. Both said they enjoyed it, and one volunteered that they'd enjoy doing it again while the other seemed to think it was a fun one-of experience, so they gave their token bag immediately afterwards.

Off topic slightly: describing the sealed event as a beginner event definitely helped in bringing those friends in. Pregenerated characters would likely have the same effect (although I personally would prefer sealed).

With regards to the polling, it was first asked at all four events I was in if there were any new players in the group. My imperfect memory of the question is that it was asked something along the lines of: "would you prefer the current 5-room dungeon for [price], or return to a 7-room dungeon for [price]" (emphasis mine). I remember feeling uncertain whether the question was really for me as a new player, because I didn't have any experience with 7-room dungeons, so I couldn't make an informed decision about whether the format should return to old ways or keep the new ways.

In the end, I did decide to vote for 7-room dungeons because I was having fun and seven rooms obviously meant more time in the dungeon to have fun with. I do wonder if other new players felt similarly, which would be unfortunate, since it sounds like the idea behind 5-room dungeons was at least partially to attempt to cultivate new players

I do feel as if 7-room dungeons would have a better ratio of coaching/training to playing in my opinion.

Keeping in mind that I have far less experience to compare it to than most everyone else here, I felt as though there was a skew of resources vs resource sinks. I survived all four dungeons, but likely should not have. Our group failed to defeat the final boss of Fang and Fury, but the DM pushed us forward anyways to a victory with a story about how we distracted the monster long enough to escape.

The takeaway that my group of new players found from this was that damage > any other stat. Puzzle room damage can be circumvented without any character card stats. Monsters seem to attack at most three people a turn (vs AC, making that stat devalued). With only two, at most three combat encounters, spell slot healing was plentiful as long as we were able to kill the monster quickly enough to have time left over to heal before the next room, further incentivizing damage > everything else. In fact, in two runs, we didn't even have a cleric, and nobody died to damage or used any healing potions. The only actual death I saw over my runs (sealed normal, normal, hardcore (borrowed tokens), and Nightmare (borrowed whole build)) was to an instant death mechanic, which could only be mitigated by killing the monster faster. To bring this back to the topic at hand: two extra rooms worth of threats may improve the value of other stats.

Rob F wrote: For me the 5 room dungeon felt more like an escape room then TD. My overriding thought after the runs were:

"Do I really need Tokens?".

5 rooms under the current format makes me less interested in playing. It wasn't as fun.

Suggestion to consider:

Go to a 4 room format but have the first 3 rooms be both puzzle and combat and extend the time in each room to accommodate both accordingly. Then have the last room be a choice between puzzle or combat, or maybe just keep the last room combat. With less rooms TD should be able to make each room larger to accommodate both the puzzle and combat. This gives players what they were used to in the 7 room dungeons, cuts down on the need for volunteers, and probably makes set up and tear down easier for TD. A win all around. TD could even tie in the puzzle with the combat some how which would be cool. Lots of options. Less rooms, same content as before.

In a 24 minute room scenario you either lose half your runs or you create duplicate rooms. The :00 group goes into room 1A while the :12 group goes into room 1B. If the final room is the same, you now have 7 rooms for a "four" room dungeon. Plus you need to duplicate some of the set pieces. Some of the puzzles I can see TD only having one version of, like the rope table in Monster Unbound.