TOPIC: my experience... not good

I think "Breaking Puzzles" is still solving puzzles and is fun/should be allowed. Both my parties had a great time together shoving all our sticks into the spider then hauling it across the room. And if I was a dm in the Lava room and somebody was like "we walk across the Lava with boots of lava walking or scroll endure elements then walk through the portal to chase the drow" I would have been like congratulations you completed the room here's your stamp would you like to try the puzzle?

TOO MANY New parties walked out of the Dungeon with NONE ZEROtreasure because of stupid shit. If I didn't get any treasure chips my first year I would have been like fuck this game what's the point. COMPLETION TOKEN IS NOT A TREASURE CHIP. I really want to suggest a 1 Treasure token MINIMUM but I think that would bring a lot of hate even though it would do tons of good.

I think it's fair to say that different people have different ideas of what constitutes fun. I personally have no problem with brute forcing puzzles, and have a greater problem with the way that True Dungeon alternatively punishes it (e.g. lava walking puzzle of this year) and requires it (e.g. the final "switch" puzzle on the airship).

I'm very much against making tokens useless (which is different from making useless tokens). If a token has a printed effect, it should be able to have that effect without penalty. Being able to walk over lava at the cost of treasure is definitely a significant penalty.

But there's an even greater issue which is being touched upon, and that's the desire to balance a consistent play experience with avoiding "one true way" to solve a puzzle. I've run into plenty of DMs and GMs who are running games where the right answer is completely and totally obvious... to them. I've sometimes been that guy too, though I've tried to learn from it. I think that the pendulum is swinging too far towards the "one true way" side of things in order to provide a greater challenge, and that this hurts True Dungeon more than different rulings over the course of multiple runs.

bpsymington wrote: The poison barrel room with the MoG is an example why there is a problem with brute-forcing a solution.

You keep saying that “brute forcing” is somehow bad. Or equals bypassing a room. But I simple do not think you have shown your premise to be even remotely valid. I think you are showing a clear bias.

For example. What is the difference between using a Medallion of Greyhawk to solve a room or pulling out my common Torch to get rid of the grubs and spiders? How is one “brute forcing” and the other not. In both situations we are using a token to make the room easier. In what way is that not functionally equal?

My opinion is that the only difference is that you have arbitrarily decided that you like one and not the other. This is the bias that you are exhibiting. Maybe it is some sort of design bias. Since one was written into the room and the other was not. Is that why one is bad?

I think that your thought process leads to simple railroading and meta-gaming and erodes away the immersion that makes TD so amazing.

Pstyle wrote: I think "Breaking Puzzles" is still solving puzzles and is fun/should be allowed. Both my parties had a great time together shoving all our sticks into the spider then hauling it across the room. And if I was a dm in the Lava room and somebody was like "we walk across the Lava with boots of lava walking or scroll endure elements then walk through the portal to chase the drow" I would have been like congratulations you completed the room here's your stamp would you like to try the puzzle?

TOO MANY New parties walked out of the Dungeon with NONE ZEROtreasure because of stupid shit. If I didn't get any treasure chips my first year I would have been like fuck this game what's the point. COMPLETION TOKEN IS NOT A TREASURE CHIP. I really want to suggest a 1 Treasure token MINIMUM but I think that would bring a lot of hate even though it would do tons of good.

I've never even tried to approach a puzzle or had a party approach a puzzle with the force, that being said, if you can do that creatively, I hope that more DMs go, wow, okay good job. Letting players be creative enough to take it a different way and succeed I think will better over all experiences.

Also, I agree with the one chip minimum. If you're in a completely new group and don't know what you're doing then some of the puzzle are very alien in nature. I like puzzles, but I find I'm just not in the right mind set for most of them though I do try to be.

Brad Mortensen wrote: Brute-force breaks the room for less fun. Nerfing tokens is less fun. Something in between might be more fun.

For example, the barrels. Instead of all poison but one, they could have been a mix of deadly poison, virulent diseases, nasty acids, and rot-grub-like parasites. MoG would protect from a fraction, detect poison would eliminate a few options, the Paladin's disease immunity would protect from some, but no one effect would break the room.

Add the warning that mixing any three potions in your belly will have dire consequences, and trying to "break" the room becomes almost as challenging as solving the original puzzle.

Plus, it would have given people a chance to use some abilities, spells, and tokens that normally don't do anything. More fun!

I like this suggestion. Adding damage variety means any particular damage type isn't too easy to stack against (if all the damage faced is fire, that's too easy to build up especially after the dungeons have been run a few dozen times), and simultaneously means that having a variety of damage resistances are all more likely to come into play, rewarding those who are either lucky enough to have them or well geared/prepared enough to set themselves up.

Instead of using unresistable damage, simply have enough damage types that it's not easy (or even possible) to negate (or neuter) many or all of them.

Granted, across seven rooms this might be a bit tough to weave thematically, but it has some potential.

Davoruk wrote:

bpsymington wrote: The poison barrel room with the MoG is an example why there is a problem with brute-forcing a solution.

You keep saying that “brute forcing” is somehow bad. Or equals bypassing a room. But I simple do not think you have shown your premise to be even remotely valid. I think you are showing a clear bias.

For example. What is the difference between using a Medallion of Greyhawk to solve a room or pulling out my common Torch to get rid of the grubs and spiders? How is one “brute forcing” and the other not. In both situations we are using a token to make the room easier. In what way is that not functionally equal?

My opinion is that the only difference is that you have arbitrarily decided that you like one and not the other. This is the bias that you are exhibiting. Maybe it is some sort of design bias. Since one was written into the room and the other was not. Is that why one is bad?

I think that your thought process leads to simple railroading and meta-gaming and erodes away the immersion that makes TD so amazing.

And how is my bias any different from your bias? I am apparently biased towards solving the puzzles, you are apparently biased towards breaking them. I don't agree that your way is fun or involves any "immersion."

"Okay, the druid with the MoG drinks from all the barrels and finds the right one. Now we'll just stand here for eleven and a half minutes."

Now in that room there would have been ways to avoid breaking the puzzle - allow only one drink per person, have the different drinks do different things (poison, acid, disease, etc.). If I were DMing the room, it would depend on if the solution were drinking the right beer or identifying the correct beer. If the second, I would say, "The Druid tastes all of them but b/c s/he is immune to poison s/he can't identify the correct one."

DMs are just doing what they are asked to do by the directors, coordinators, and the modules. Psychic poison was not in my dungeon, but the lava room was. Over time, DMs gave more clues to help groups solve the puzzle - "You see a footprint on the T, the elf was the FIRST to cross the lava river, etc." With the number of people who have been upset about this, we clearly could have done something differently to address their concerns.

As I've said before, TPTB are listening to these concerns and are considering what to do about them.

Druegar wrote:

MU Skulls Rob wrote: The damage from the mushrooms was not considered "poison" damage, but we were informed it was something else - spore damage, I think.

Several of the mushrooms mentioned their siblings were acidic.

Yeah, my first time through, Thursday morning, I thought they were saying Hasidic... I was looking to see if they were circumcised...

Beertram wrote:

Druegar wrote:

MU Skulls Rob wrote: The damage from the mushrooms was not considered "poison" damage, but we were informed it was something else - spore damage, I think.

Several of the mushrooms mentioned their siblings were acidic.

Yeah, my first time through, Thursday morning, I thought they were saying Hasidic... I was looking to see if they were circumcised...

Must. resist. making. mushroom. cap/phallus. comment...

bpsymington wrote:

Davoruk wrote:

bpsymington wrote: The poison barrel room with the MoG is an example why there is a problem with brute-forcing a solution.

You keep saying that “brute forcing” is somehow bad. Or equals bypassing a room. But I simple do not think you have shown your premise to be even remotely valid. I think you are showing a clear bias.

For example. What is the difference between using a Medallion of Greyhawk to solve a room or pulling out my common Torch to get rid of the grubs and spiders? How is one “brute forcing” and the other not. In both situations we are using a token to make the room easier. In what way is that not functionally equal?

My opinion is that the only difference is that you have arbitrarily decided that you like one and not the other. This is the bias that you are exhibiting. Maybe it is some sort of design bias. Since one was written into the room and the other was not. Is that why one is bad?

I think that your thought process leads to simple railroading and meta-gaming and erodes away the immersion that makes TD so amazing.

And how is my bias any different from your bias? I am apparently biased towards solving the puzzles, you are apparently biased towards breaking them. I don't agree that your way is fun or involves any "immersion."

"Okay, the druid with the MoG drinks from all the barrels and finds the right one. Now we'll just stand here for eleven and a half minutes."

Now in that room there would have been ways to avoid breaking the puzzle - allow only one drink per person, have the different drinks do different things (poison, acid, disease, etc.). If I were DMing the room, it would depend on if the solution were drinking the right beer or identifying the correct beer. If the second, I would say, "The Druid tastes all of them but b/c s/he is immune to poison s/he can't identify the correct one."

DMs are just doing what they are asked to do by the directors, coordinators, and the modules. Psychic poison was not in my dungeon, but the lava room was. Over time, DMs gave more clues to help groups solve the puzzle - "You see a footprint on the T, the elf was the FIRST to cross the lava river, etc." With the number of people who have been upset about this, we clearly could have done something differently to address their concerns.

As I've said before, TPTB are listening to these concerns and are considering what to do about them.

Not to beat a dead horse but everyone is going to have their own idea of fun. Imo why not let them solve the rooms in the way that works for them, much of anything else is only going to result in hurt feelings. For a specific adventure most folks will only ever do once I honestly don't know why were worried about people breaking the puzzles at all. Granted they need to have set solutions to ensure everyone has the means to solve them but if someone can pull a rabbit out of their hat I say let them.

Druegar wrote: Must. resist. making. mushroom. cap/phallus. comment...

Looks like someone failed his Will Save...

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