TOPIC: Just a Bard looking to tell an Adventurer's Story

So I am still relatively new to TD and have been reading up on the forums a lot! I wasn't quiet sure where to post this since there isnt a forum to just talk about the things you love about TD, not as feed back just say 'hey this is a cool thing that happened on this run with xyz' so I decided to be safe and post it here. I think that should be a forum topic bit that is just me.

So anyways! I want to hear about your favorite experience in TD whether it be your first run or your most recent one. The first trade you did or someone you've made friends with just because of your love for TD. I want to show other new people how cool this is since I know it can seem really intimidating but reading cool stories of praise from people is always fun! And I would just love to learn more about you guys! I have talked with so many cool people the last couple of weeks and have met some amazing people at GenCon last year. The love and respect that this community shares doesn't always get shown. So please tell me an amazing story! or more than one!

I'll start!

My first run was last year at GenCon and I went on one of each story and tried a puzzle and combat (liked puzzle more) anyway at the end of our first run there was a rubber duck. everyone told me not to touch it so I obviously ignored them all. I mean when someone says don't touch you touch right? Then I picked up the duck (my mom loves rubber ducks and used to collect all og the cool decorated ones) The DM was so happy I picked it up and he made me have to quack at the end of every sentence or verse if I was singing. I loved this and had a blast in the last room. Afterwards Sir Michael and I went to look at what tokens were released that year so we could trade some and I saw a 250 GP Duck of the Underdark and just had to have it! I turned in my treasures and didn't get it sadly, but there was a very nice lady who was behind me who asked me if this was my first run and what class I had chosen and she was a fellow bard! So she had me follow her and she gave me the duck and a few other wonderful things to help me get started! She was so kind to me and it was so nice. I still have my two ducks (I also pulled a duck decoy) and will never trade them away <3 This made my first experience a memorable one because I got to see how wonderful the community was and was shown a lot of kindness and had a great time!

-Lady Brittany

I think it was 3 years ago several of us forumites decided to a sealed greedy bastard run. We went into the dungeon with only Treasure Enhancing tokens and those we opened from our starter pack.

It was a very late run probably not the last of the night but close to it. I believe it was Saturday as well. We were really tired. Okay some of us were plan right loopey. Almost all of us had played the dungeon before so in puzzle rooms those of us that knew the solution would huddle in a corner and tell awful jokes that we thought were hilarious. Lots of bad puns.

Combats were more serious since we had crap for weapons. That said on one monster when I believed it was about dead I was sliding first as the barbarian I walked up and slide a beautiful 19 or 20 and walked away giggling. As each other slider approached the table to slide and saw what I slide they laughed as well. I had slide a decoy duck. The DM had been busy with the casters as the oft are and returned to table. He removes all the misses and then starts to tally the hits when he says something like okay who throw the duck at the monster. I fess up and all have another good laugh. The DM being a good DM adds some favor about upsetting the monster or distracting the monster enough for the rest of the party to defeat it.

In another room I 'licked' a mushroom prop and the DM provided me with some fun results. I came down hard from a room or two later.

I know I am not doing the time justice but I had a blast with at the time complete strangers that had the same passion for TD as me.

I refer to the first year I played as the Year of the Harpy, because that was the first monster we fought. She said she'd let us pass if we gave her 25 ranged weapons. One of the guys in the group broke out his binders and bags and came up with the toll. She was lying, of course, so we had to fight her anyway. She soon regretted her treachery.

Later, we were in a room full of chests, and as the group was messing around with one of them, the one behind me reached out (!) and grabbed me from behind. That was startling... But we beat it, and spent the rest of the time chatting with the DM and the woman who was spending the weekend crouching inside a chest. As we were healing up, I got within one hit point of my max and said "I'm good, only one room left and it's only one hit point..."

Sure enough, the final monster, a large animatronic ogre-cleric or something, hit me twice and I was at exactly zero. (Today, I never enter room seven without making sure everyone's hits are topped off, just in case.) Our paladin died as well, but the group succeeded in beating it anyway.

So, I was hooked.

A couple of years later, I was DM for a room with a giant ice worm. And the guy who shoved the worm out of the hidden hole in the wall to surprise the party? The ill-fated paladin from the Year of the Harpy.

Lesson two: the two best ways to become a part of the TD community are to join the forums, and volunteer, at least part time.

The bard in my party who started flirting with the Medusa. Yes, he had awesome saves. I particularly enjoyed when he broke out into Bob Dylans "Rainy Day Women." "Everybody must get stoned." But no one did.

The Nightmare greedy sealed plus one run at WYC last year. All but two of us had already done the dungeon, so we ran with only what we pulled from our starter tokens, any treasure enhancers and one token of our choice. All of us could have run purple/blue/orange builds, but only our Elf Wizard did. We lost half the party, but survived.

These are all great!

Generally I play Bard, but last year I was feeling a little sidelined and wanted something different. So I threw a rogue build together. We went into a puzzle room and it was webs and letters and basically you had to figure out what was going on. Letters above and letters below. I did the rogue box and grabbed the treasure, of course right away someone asked what the clue was (how presumptive!). Thinking fast I said...."Uh....as above so below." Everyone looked up and down and was like "Oh yeah...that's gotta be it." I then pocketed my gold token with a smile.

Memorable moments:

My first run:

I believe in 2007 - it was 8 newbies and 2 experienced token-a-holics (at least one of them had a Horn of Plenty).

We were enjoying the dungeon, but we got to a fiendishly difficult puzzle - details are hazy but:

* There was a riddle that suggested a numerical solution
* There was a grid of numbers on the floor - it seemed the solution was to cross the numbers in a way that summed to the answer of the riddle

We reasoned it out and tried to cross - Bang! Damage from the puzzle for wrong solution.

We tried a bunch of stuff - but with time expiring our token-a-holics broke out bunch of healing and we just brute forced the puzzle. It felt great to try to solve it, to fail, but still to get through due to help from generous players.

Watched the riddle reveal - and the whole numeric thing was a misdirection! The "numbers" on the floor were actually letters, written sideways (e.g. a 3 was an M, etc.), and you were supposed to spell out a word!

Useful gear!

Once in a dungeon we had to traverse a tiled hallway, where stepping on the wrong tiles had a negative consequence.

We had a "10 foot pole" gear token, and used it to identify safe tiles.

Best puzzle! (Pickiest DM!)

We were introduced into a small puzzle room (maybe 6x6), which was completely dark. Feeling around the exterior of the rooms there were some indented alcoves / features in the walls.

In the dark, with people split up, we had to try to figure out how the related and what the puzzle was.

Eventually we noticed that the indentations maybe were shaped like letters?

Also - breakthrough! There were subtle tactile differences - one was warm, one was damp, one had air blowing over it, one was rough...

We figured out that this was "the four elements" or something - and tried several iterations on that theme.

We never solved the puzzle.

Upon watching the riddle reveal, we had the right solution. However at "nightmare" there was some persnickety wording required. We weren't playing nightmare.

Oh well. Still a cool room!

This has become a theme for puzzle rooms: often you have to use multiple senses to put together all the clues - just going by how things look is likely a problem.

The Abyss

One year we went through a dimensional portal - it was formatted as a tunnel of black fabric inflated with air blowers like a bounce house.

The result was a very claustrophobic, walking through a pressurized tunnel that was all black and dark - got the adrenaline going.

Wizards are Special!

In the early days of my playing - maybe 2007 - there were special tokens and scrolls like:

* Detect secret doors
* Knock
* Detect Magic
* Read languages

Which when activated in some rooms would cause the DM to give you a UV flashlight for a time, and you could explore the environment for hidden writing, markings, etc.

It was awesome and made the arcane classes have something interesting / differentiated to do.

I remember one room which was quite large and intricate - half was a grove / garden, and half was a graveyard. I actually don't remember much about that room - other than I think birthstones were related to solving the puzzle. I do remember running around the room with the UV light looking for clues!

Surprise!

Over the years we've been fooled by shamblers, mimics, and lurkers hiding in plain sight as bushes, chairs, and treasure chests who then attack when probed. Things aren't always as they seem...

Speaking of which - one year we entered a room with demonic glow in the dark writing everywhere, and a scary looking demon! It turns out they were actually an angel, and once black lights were turned off things returned to normal. It was awesome - two rooms in one!

I still remember handing in a potion stoneskin during the round of prep in that room because it looked very lethal .

Bradley I never trust a rogue for this reason xD

Matthew those are all great stories and sound fun! I hope I can get a cool party like that together at some point (:

-Lady Brittany

Lady Brittany wrote: I never trust a rogue for this reason

You need a reason not to trust that shifty-eyed, sticky-fingered lot!?!

Last year was one of the best years I ever had at TD, a lot of it has to do with a VERY memorable Team Synergy Run and the rescue of Lotus Blossom

Lotus Blossum wrote: And thank you for rescuing me from the Spider's web. You are honorable adventurers to save a corpse form a dungeon Are these small yellow faces the glyphs need to send messages on this message box?

For those of you who remember the Mummy hanging in the middle of the room in the Puzzle room with the Spider over looking the room. We completed the puzzle quickly and with time to kill one of our players asked if we could revive the mummy. The quick thinking DM said sure. So we fed the mummy a Potion of Death's Door and found that the corpse was Lotus Blossom, a poor adventuring Monk who had wandered in the dungeon on a quest nearly 400 years ago. Lotus was waylaid by spiders and cocooned in the state we had found him in. I healed him with scrolls and the DM ran off and came back with a 4th level player card and Lotus Blossom continued with us through the rest of the dungeon and eventually to safety. Take a look at the the "Thank You" post above that Lotus Blossom set us. Lotus even went on to open an account and still reads the TD Forums to this day

Druegar wrote:

Lady Brittany wrote: I never trust a rogue for this reason

You need a reason not to trust that shifty-eyed, sticky-fingered lot!?!

Ha no! But I like having valid reasons for when people ask me (:

-Lady Brittany

Ramsildor that is beyond cool! We had asked about it but didn't have any potions like that on us because we were newbies :/

-Lady Brittany