TOPIC: Difference between run numbers?

Apologies if this is answered somewhere; I couldn't find it in the Player's Handbook. Is there a difference between R1, R2, and R3 of a game that folks are looking for one over another? My friends and I got R3 tickets, but we're new to TDs, so I hope the R's aren't for experience level.

Oh no, it's just a way to differentiate the three dungeons. They should be roughly equal in terms of experience.

You'll get to pick your difficulty level during coaching, right before you go into the dungeon. There are 5 levels, non-lethal, normal, hardcore, nightmare, and epic. The party has to agree unanimously to raise the difficulty, so don't worry about getting stuck.

Non-lethal is if you want no challenge and just want to enjoy the scenery and story.

Normal is the base difficulty. It's designed to be hard but beatable using just the ten pack you get when you show up. It is really challenging with just a ten pack though, the final room is designed to be a lethal challenge so if you fight your way through it's a big deal.

Hardcore is designed for experienced players who have a decent amount of tokens, maybe even a couple of ultra rares.

Nightmare is for players who have invested a silly amount of money into their tokens and are using mostly ultra rares with a few relics.

Epic is for crazy people who have token collections about equivalent to the value of a small car.

Bear in mind, the dungeon is the same for all these difficulties. The story is the same, the monsters are the same. The treasure you get for playing is the same. Only two things change based on difficulty. The higher the difficulty the higher the numbers, IE damage, monster AC, saves, etc. And hardcore and above get 1000 more XP than normal. Those are the only differences.

XP, by the way, doesn't make you stronger in the dungeon. XP provides benefits outside the game for people who have been playing awhile. As you level you get access to a special section of the forums, you get a special convention badge holder, you get a bonus treasure, that kind of thing. Whether your character in the dungeon is level 4 or 5 is based on your tokens, not your player XP.

Hi Victoria! To expand a little bit on what Allen said, the codes are just shorthand for

R1 = Felurian's Feast
R2 = Weird Magic
R3 = Ebony Bay

Each one is an independent 7-room adventure with its own distinct storyline, puzzles, and combats. You can find a brief description of each at truedungeon.com/gencon (as well as inside the GenCon event system of course).

As far as folks looking for one over another, some people read the description of each adventure and pick whichever one seems most interesting to them thematically. People who have played before and know they love it may try to get at least one ticket to each adventure at different times during the weekend so they can experience it all. And of course many of the super-fans who hang out on this forum a lot will play each adventure more than once!

Long story short: welcome to True Dungeon! You're going to have a great time

Thank you all so much for the help! For some reason I was thinking there were "R1/R2/R3" for each theme, but it makes way more sense that those are the shorthand codes for each room type.

I'm very much looking forward to it! We've played a goodly amount of room escapes and D&D (admittedly just 5e), so we're up for the challenge!

Victoria, welcome to True Dungeon!

There are years in which the GENCON Dungeons are connected (one leading to the next), so even though they can be played in any order many people try to play them in the "chronological" order. In those years, I've found it's often easiest to get the "first" Dungeon on Saturday and the "last" Dungeon on Thursday. This year, however, they are completely independent I believe.

Victoria wrote: Thank you all so much for the help! For some reason I was thinking there were "R1/R2/R3" for each theme, but it makes way more sense that those are the shorthand codes for each room type.

I'm very much looking forward to it! We've played a goodly amount of room escapes and D&D (admittedly just 5e), so we're up for the challenge!

Specifically

R1 - Felurian's Feast - is an adventure themed to the Patrick Rothfuss world. It's a fun Faerie based adventure.
R2 - Wierd Magic - is the culmination of the Season 0 of Virtual True Dungeon adventures that were crafted in the wake of the Covid pandemic. It's a very wierd but fun mismash of themes.
R3 - Ebony Bay is the "new" adventure this year (R1 and R2 first appeared last year at GameHoleCon) This new adventure is the culmination of the Season 1 of Virtual True Dungeon adventures that finishes in May and restarts in June.

Given it being a fairly new thing for your group. If you want to follow a multi event storyline I would highly recommend finding a group for R3 and potentially see if your crew would also be interested in playing VTD7B in June VTD 8b in July(probably) as the three adventures feature the same storyline and NPC sets. It'll give you a great look at the TD multiple storyline design


That all being said any one of the three would be a good spot to start TD, they will all be similar in design, scope and playstyle!

The default difficulty is "first-timers who know what they're doing should be able to reach the final boss, possibly down a man or two, where you'll at least get a fair shake at defeating said boss". Sometimes they overshoot, sometimes they undershoot, but that's the general idea.

The party can unanimously agree to a higher difficulty, should they have sufficient experience (and have collected enough gear tokens TCG-style to need said challenge), but that's not something a first-timer really needs to concern themselves with.

Vitoria said: Apologies if this is answered somewhere; I couldn't find it in the Player's Handbook. Is there a difference between R1, R2, and R3 of a game that folks are looking for one over another? My friends and I got R3 tickets, but we're new to TDs, so I hope the R's aren't for experience level.

The Letter designation usually refers to a specific set of modules for True Dungeon. This is similar/ direct play off of the D&D dungeon module Letter/Number reference. Or at least this is what I have been told.

Spud