TOPIC: Trent Tokens Presents: True Dungeon History

dbradical wrote: Your pictures of the "bag of holding" folder also included an early version of the token guide. I need ot go back and look through my files, but I think I still have all the old electronic versions. I originally did the "guide" in 2004 as a quick reference for the DMs. I do not remember if it was Jeff or player demand that led us to publishing a player version (text only), which then started featuring images shortly thereafter.

Dave, old electronic versions of the early token guides would be neat to see. Thanks for all the work you did on that over the years! I'm still happy that a few of my tokens had their pictures used in them.

dbradical wrote: You example of the darkvision ball reminds me we also had a "sunrod" token that got you an additional light source as well.
Early on the magic user had a light spell as well, and there was a token. We used to say that the magic user used the light spell to light the torch, but the scroll of light token also gave you a second light source, similar to the sun rod.

Most of those original wooden tokens were snapped in half and disposed of on site (consumable tokens that were turned in), which is why there are so few left floating around.

Dave, I've always thought the Scroll of Light token might be one of the more scarce ones, since it was only printed in 2003 and many (maybe most) were used.

I'm not familiar with a "sunrod" token - did it go by a different name? Is there another wooden token I need to search for?

Mike,
You know, you are right. I was thinking of the battery operated light wands Jeff had painted gold on the ends (prior to the golf balls) to represent dark vision. We had talked about replacing the Light scroll with a sunrod token since he already had the prop and was using it. I think it did not make the cut since that was about the time we started using the small personal lights so he ditched the mechanic of special lighting all together.

Apologies for the heart attack.

Dave

Here is a snapshot of the very first "token guide" This was a page out of the DM crib notes I would put together for each of the modules starting in 2004. We only called out the ones we thought we needed to remind the DMs about.

Jeff asked me to make a player version at the end of 2004, and that was Token Guide 0.1 the non image version of 1.0 in Trent's photos, it was released in late 2004 or early 2005. I will see if I can convert that to PDF for those who are nostalgic.

Dave

dbradical wrote: Mike,
You know, you are right. I was thinking of the battery operated light wands Jeff had painted gold on the ends (prior to the golf balls) to represent dark vision. We had talked about replacing the Light scroll with a sunrod token since he already had the prop and was using it. I think it did not make the cut since that was about the time we started using the small personal lights so he ditched the mechanic of special lighting all together.

Apologies for the heart attack.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the fascinating background at a wooden token that "almost was".

Thanks!
Mike

dbradical wrote: Here is a snapshot of the very first "token guide" This was a page out of the DM crib notes I would put together for each of the modules starting in 2004. We only called out the ones we thought we needed to remind the DMs about.

Jeff asked me to make a player version at the end of 2004, and that was Token Guide 0.1 the non image version of 1.0 in Trent's photos, it was released in late 2004 or early 2005. I will see if I can convert that to PDF for those who are nostalgic.

Dave

Thanks, Dave, I'd love a PDF. It's really interesting that a lot of the token effects back then (like Cloak & Boots of Elvenkind, Scroll Slow Poison) were different than they are today.

Thanks,
Mike

Mike Steele wrote:

dbradical wrote: Here is a snapshot of the very first "token guide" This was a page out of the DM crib notes I would put together for each of the modules starting in 2004. We only called out the ones we thought we needed to remind the DMs about.

Jeff asked me to make a player version at the end of 2004, and that was Token Guide 0.1 the non image version of 1.0 in Trent's photos, it was released in late 2004 or early 2005. I will see if I can convert that to PDF for those who are nostalgic.

Dave

Thanks, Dave, I'd love a PDF. It's really interesting that a lot of the token effects back then (like Cloak & Boots of Elvenkind, Scroll Slow Poison) were different than they are today.

Thanks,
Mike

+1. I think a .pdf would also be nice to have.

As requested, it was so much easier to maintain!

dbradical wrote: As requested, it was so much easier to maintain!

Thanks, Dave! That was a fun read (Maybe it could be archived on the site somewhere, along with the later versions) - this was my favorite I think:

Special ===
This token is redeemed at the start of the training room to you. You are to collect the
token and then take the player aside. You are to tell them that they have found a magic
item that gives them one “re-do” during the upcoming adventure – with relation to any
bad attack or saving throw. It will not reverse a bad choice by them. Note that at SoCal
this magic item was a CURSED item, but we decided to reverse it to screw up all the
cheaters.

Yep, I saw that. I think that must have escaped the initial edits from first to third person from the DM directives...
I wonder now if this was even distributed widely (maybe to a select few) in favor of wanting to include the visual token references in the official 1.0 version released in early 2005. It unfortunately has been a couple of years and things kind of blur over time.

Dave

dbradical wrote: As requested, it was so much easier to maintain!

Love this stuff! Thanks for sharing, Dave!

Thank you, that was a cool read Mr. Ektdar!

This kind of stuff and the things that Trent has been posting are great for those of us who were super late to the party, but are very interested in TD's history and 'lore' as it were. One of my favorite memories from Gencon last year was the group of us going exploring in relation to the forum Orion's Belt quest, and hearing from Raven tales of the very first TD in the hotel. So neat.