TOPIC: What to do with Downtime?

Ro-gan wrote: If it's an NPC Room with a chick or dude dressed as a chick Rybak The Dwarf Fighter usually spends his time hitting on them and most likely making them extremely uncomfortable.

Please tell me this complaint reached an AC while the dungeon was running. That's Precisely what the AC's are there for (Dealing with this sort of thing)

Fiddy wrote:

Phillip Evans wrote: ... I’ve been in rooms where you have 11 min worth of stuff to fit in, and it can get brutal trying to stay on top of everything.

E3 Room 1 - even with the groups I was on that had all done the run before, I think we rarely got done much before the horn. That room felt brutal on time usage. I'd be curious what the NPC DM observed, as far as how much time was generally left when a team was done with the room?

Yes, if anything is done for downtime, it should only be in those rooms where the puzzle can be solved in under 2 minutes or in those combat rooms where the combat can be avoided by some relatively quick action.

Some ideas:
3-card Monty for tokens,
musical instruments (not loud ones) the players can play,
a twister-like game,
something like the rogue test but going around/above the room,
something like the ship & ropes puzzle, but an airship above the room,
a big ball of lanyards, lights, & paper clips to untangle (kept me occupied for hours...),
have the projection sandbox as a prop, but the players can have fun with it,...

Ro-gan wrote: If it's an NPC Room with a chick or dude dressed as a chick Rybak The Dwarf Fighter usually spends his time hitting on them and most likely making them extremely uncomfortable.

Ro-gan, I suspect you mean no harm and may think it's fun. However, I'd like to help you see this situation from a different perspective.

If you were an NPC and a really big guy (I'm assuming you're heterosexual, but if that's not the case, imagine instead an extraordinarily unattractive woman), someone even bigger than I am, spent all his downtime hitting on you. How would that make you feel? Uncomfortable, I'd imagine. Maybe so uncomfortable that you start to feel a little queasy because this guy won't take that hint that you're not interested. But hey, this is a big guy and you don't want to piss him off because you're afraid he might harm you. Even if you're strong/trained enough to defend yourself physically, you really want to avoid getting into a physical altercation with a player, so you don't say anything. Is that how you want to make another human being feel?

Deliberately continuing unwanted advances is not cool, no matter what the orientations of the participants are. If one's goal is to make someone uncomfortable, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate one's goals.

You're a good role-player. I'll bet you can come up with an in-character way of interacting with an NPC that's fun for all participants.

Bill Carroll wrote: I originally emailed this to Jeff, he wants more feedback. Thanks for the replies so far. We definitely would want to discourage destruction of the set and "cheating" the puzzle. I was thinking of describing what you do to your DM or to ask them questions about the room or the dungeon, in traditional DND fashion.
We would want egg hunting to be restricted to parties that solved the puzzle honestly. I'm not sure how we could make that work mechanically.

I definitely like the idea of something to do to fill the time if you finish early, as that has happened several times with us - sometimes finishing the combat very quickly, less often solving a puzzle quickly. I do think that it can take people "out of the adventure" if they are standing there twiddling their thumbs for several minutes waiting for the next room to start.

I don't think there should be any sort of reward tied to finishing early because it can lead to the same problems we had with treasure rooms. It shouldn't be anything so awesome that people might spoil the room for others in order to finish it quickly, it should be something that keeps people occupied and in the flow of the adventure.

There have been a few times when we've completed combat early, that the DM let us do the combat again "for fun", maybe at a higher difficulty level.

Another option would be to allow a group photo, in a way that doesn't spoil anything in the room. I've always thought the "no photos" policy is a bit of a mistake, because I think the VAST majority of people don't go online during the convention looking for spoilers to the rooms. If someone wants to spoil a room they can do that without having photos. And, I think if people are posting photos of True Dungeon adventures online, that more than anything is good advertisement for True Dungeon.

Another possibility is that the DM could have some background info ready to give some additional flavor to the Dungeon.

Luke thinks this is funny, but I assure you, it is not. We take complaints from our Vols seriously and if Luke (or anyone else) is harassing the Vols or staff, they’ll likely find themselves on a list nobody wants to be on.

Lori

Lori Martin wrote: Luke thinks this is funny, but I assure you, it is not. We take complaints from our Vols seriously and if Luke (or anyone else) is harassing the Vols or staff, they’ll likely find themselves on a list nobody wants to be on.

Lori

Luke isn't doing this. Rybak The Dwarf Fighter is. I have no control over this guy. He's out of control!!

I guess I should have posted my original post in teal.

Breaches of consent are not a joking matter. This is a topic that is banned in all RPG games I run. Thanks Lori for standing up for your volunteers!

Thanks everyone for your replies. I appreciate your perspectives, as I have only been playing since Pax West this year, first time puzzle DMing for True Dungeon.
I realized afterward that I added a lot of my own flavor to a character who didn't really exist in the module, so thanks to AC Michael for letting me improvise.

I think that the module has enough information for the DM to fill in the blanks themselves, but I could have used more notes on specific interactions that came up. I was prepared for 90% of interactions.

If I had one note for other DMs it would be stay in character during technical issues if at all possible. You can really get a laugh from your players and turn a potentially negative moment into an opportunity for comedy! "This place really is Hell..."

What do you all think about mini game in E3 where the DM plays dice with the players? Players could wager tokens or gold or their very souls to gamble with the denizens of the Redoubt. We could build the game so that it works in any room with something portable like dice.

I agree that a physical reward would lead to too much meta gaming and power gaming, and the downsides outweigh the potential benefits. I quite like the inspiration mechanic from 5e, maybe we could just adapt it to TD? We could write down buffs or debuffs on the party card, and we would want something simple and temporary like inspiration that speeds up play rather than slowing it down.

Another example would be rather than taking the props with them, the players could just describe and imagine taking their cursed item with them; because it can be whatever they want, the props are just a starting point anyway. The party can tell the combat GM in r5 what kind of cursed item they are carrying, and they can have secret stats written down for what it does in combat. We could mark it down with a C on the party card next to the PCs who take cursed items.

Honesty I think this is a solution looking for a problem. I don’t remeber anyone ever bringing this up as a legit problem (maybe someone has and I don’t remember) in the years I have played. People running the dungeon multiple times and standing around because they know the puzzle does not count in my book. If you are playing the dungeon that many times with people that know all the answers I don’t think it is TD’s job to keep you entertained for those 12 minutes. You have already decided to run again for whatever reason. I say this as someone that sees the dungeon multiple times. I just think there are LOTS of other things TD could work on to improve everyone’s gameplay than this. That is my final two cents.

I think Bill has some good ideas. And whether it's with a PUG run or with a group of vets it would be nice for there to be some type of themed activity available to players once a puzzle/monster is solved/defeated. Would be more enjoyable then just standing around. I'll have to think more on this...after I have a few pounds of Turkey simmering in my belly..

jedibcg wrote: Honesty I think this is a solution looking for a problem. I don’t remeber anyone ever bringing this up as a legit problem (maybe someone has and I don’t remember) in the years I have played. People running the dungeon multiple times and standing around because they know the puzzle does not count in my book. If you are playing the dungeon that many times with people that know all the answers I don’t think it is TD’s job to keep you entertained for those 12 minutes.

I agree. It's a good time to heal up, talk to your teammates, (or even rest!). Sometimes the downtime in the room is the only time you have to really get to know who you're running with. I wouldn't want to take that away.

If folks are seeming bored, and you want to be entertaining, that's of course fine. I've seen GMs tell jokes or riddles, bards who sing during the downtime, lots of options. It's hard to put something structured there since the time before the next room can be highly variable depending on how early you finish and you don't want to leave the room late and mess things up for the next group.

Ro-gan wrote:

Lori Martin wrote: Luke thinks this is funny, but I assure you, it is not. We take complaints from our Vols seriously and if Luke (or anyone else) is harassing the Vols or staff, they’ll likely find themselves on a list nobody wants to be on.

Lori

Luke isn't doing this. Rybak The Dwarf Fighter is. I have no control over this guy. He's out of control!!

I guess I should have posted my original post in teal.

I fail to see how this is a joking subject dude.

Had fun one run trying to get our sage dm to break character.
Dm can ask the party if anyone needs to tend to their wounds as a reminder to heal up.