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True Dungeon

StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
Hey im just curious if anyone else here is interested in doing the true dungeon and would like to book a block together. Also is anyone planning on volunteering for it?

Posts

  • Christopher HuffChristopher Huff Registered User regular
    I'm down. Although I don't like having to register for a slot not knowing what the PAX schedule will be... (Assuming what I'm reading is correct: http://truedungeon.com/pax-south )

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  • ArtDragonArtDragon Registered User regular
    I'm down for 2. Not sure about volunteering.

  • Captain MorganismCaptain Morganism Houston, TxRegistered User regular
    I'm super interested. Right now it's just me and possibly the wife.

  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    Tickets go on sale on Dec 3rd so I plan to get a block asap on the odd chance that they sell out.

  • Captain MorganismCaptain Morganism Houston, TxRegistered User regular
    Stinky,

    Have you participated in TD before, or did you do the sample they had at South last year?

  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    Sample last year it seemed fun.

  • Christopher HuffChristopher Huff Registered User regular
    In that case, I'll gladly take part (and reimburse you for my fair share of the cost) as long as you don't pick the first time slot so I can use it as a buffer if/when there is something that I absolutely desire to do at the start of PAX.

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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    I think the tickets are like 38$ for the passes for a 2 hour session however I can't really afford to buy any extra passes for people. I was thinking we can just hop in a discord and pick a time i was thinking like 4-6 on Friday if it goes after the expo hall closes since most of the big parties are Saturday and that way we don't miss to much of the short expo lines on Friday.

  • Christopher HuffChristopher Huff Registered User regular
    Ah, I misread/misunderstood your previous comment. Friday does sound like a good time. Guess we'll find out what the schedule looks like in a couple of days.

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  • Captain MorganismCaptain Morganism Houston, TxRegistered User regular
    I've purchased my ticket for the 10:00 AM Puzzle Oriented game on Friday.

  • beibeenbeibeen Registered User regular
    Rando here but I'm interested. Volunteering with TD as part of the install crew.

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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    ok im at the 12:01 pm puzzle maze on friday and the 12pm combat maze on saturday.

  • IrsoolIrsool Registered User regular
    Me and wife signed up for the 12:49pm puzzle oriented on Sunday. Figured it would be a safer day to sign up for since the schedule hasn't been announced yet.

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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    Not a bad Choicw honestly I just didn't want to miss any of the con on Sunday since it closes early :) honestly depending on how much this books up I wouldn't be surprised if they were going to sell the open slots on sight though.

  • ArdentbiscuitArdentbiscuit Registered User regular
    Are you required to be in costume to play?

  • Captain MorganismCaptain Morganism Houston, TxRegistered User regular
    I don't think so. I hope not.

  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    Oh God no lol :) I just think super nerdy rpg escape room.

  • mnemonictutormnemonictutor A Mnemonic Tutor in Silicon Valley DominariaRegistered User regular
    My buddy and I want to do it. How do you sign up for stuff early? Is there a website to do it? We wanted to do this last year, but the lines were always stupid long. We'd be game to go in on a block with anyone. Just let me know.

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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
  • mnemonictutormnemonictutor A Mnemonic Tutor in Silicon Valley DominariaRegistered User regular
    still a lot slots open...guess people don't know about pre-reg yet...what slots did you guys get? maybe I can get into one of them with my buddy.

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  • LadBeerLadBeer Registered User new member
    Got me and my wife 12 pm tickets on Friday. Not sure what I'm getting us into but sounds fun haha.

  • japesterjapester Registered User regular
    Looks like nothing is mailed out and we have to check in at the event. Since you have to "purchase" a "free TD badge" when buying tickets, I assume they give that to you when you check in. Anyone know for sure?

    I'm hoping I get a group as good as the one I hooked up with for last year's demo. We were all noobs, only a couple of people knew each other, and we got along great. My biggest worry is getting a person or two who already knows the rooms and spoils them for the rest of the team.

  • Christopher HuffChristopher Huff Registered User regular
    I really do hope that they make this a regular thing because I can't go this year with my new job. But to all those going, I would like to know what you think of the full experience... :)

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  • japesterjapester Registered User regular
    I really do hope that they make this a regular thing because I can't go this year with my new job. But to all those going, I would like to know what you think of the full experience... :)

    Why wait? There are plenty of TD reviews out there from the past few years. And there are even reviews of this specific dungeon (Moongate Maze) since it was debuted elsewhere (Gen Con?). Being a proven concept that travels around, I imagine it becoming a regular thing at South will depend almost entirely on ticket sales. I suppose something like a lack of volunteers or unfavorable contract terms from PA might discourage them, but if people like it and it is making money, that sort of stuff tends to work itself out. Heh.

    My friends and I were extremely impressed by the free demo last year. It was great fun. But we were baffled by the rookie mistakes they made on Sunday that left a lot of attendees disappointed and upset. Just basic customer experience issues that hopefully won't repeat now that they plan to have a full presence this year.

  • japesterjapester Registered User regular
    japester wrote: »
    Looks like nothing is mailed out and we have to check in at the event. Since you have to "purchase" a "free TD badge" when buying tickets, I assume they give that to you when you check in. Anyone know for sure?

    If anyone else is curious, they confirmed in their latest newsletter that both the TD badge and tickets are virtual. The free TD badge is nothing more than a formality to purchase tickets.

  • japesterjapester Registered User regular
    Man, the forums are dead this year. Did all the tabletop gamers go to Unplugged instead?

    Earlier today I was regaling someone with stories of the epic swag we used to get at PAX, back before there were so many iterations and before game companies' advertising budgets got stretched so thin. One year, not long ago, Cards Against Humanity offered random packs of PAX-exclusive cards in the swag bags. They were in understandably high demand. I've never been a fan, so I agreed to try and grab a full set for a friend. In the great spirit of geek camaraderie, some attendees set up a trading station in an unused corner, on a decorative ledge. It was pretty amazing. Basically on the honor system, and they had gathered and organized a good thousand cards. Nerds at their very best. I got my full set and managed to leave some bonus cards for the next lucky soul.

    Got me to thinking about the cash cow that is True Dungeon tokens. I imagine once new players catch on, there will be some furious trading before sessions. I hope TD plans ahead and maybe sets up some tables off to the side so people can trade without getting in each other's way or disrupting the line. Maybe they already have a system in mind based on all their prior events. I've never been, so I don't know. I just want to avoid a situation where people have to stalk the line and hawk trades up and down the hallway.

  • futilesfutiles Registered User regular
    My group booked 5 out of 10 spots for The Moongate Maze at 1:00 on Sunday. There were still 5 spots left if anyone was looking for a group.

  • japesterjapester Registered User regular
    I'd be interested to hear what people thought. I really enjoyed the demo last year but found the full experience (puzzle version) underwhelming. It didn't have the "wow" moments the demo had. And it didn't really seem to matter if we passed or failed rooms. Nobody was in danger of dying (which might be typical for the difficulty level we were playing on). And stuff didn't seem to happen when we finished a room (pass or fail). We would be told the outcome, maybe with a little music or sound effect, and then be led into the next room. It was particularly frustrating at one point when a couple of us tried to heal up the party, but the combat attendant (GM? referee?) was more interested in regaling us with descriptions of his own very expensive token collection. We were right in front of him, lights aimed at our player cards, asking him 4-5 times to please note what we were doing and mark off our spells/abilities.

    I supposed the combat side may have been better. But I don't know if I'll be back.

  • JurgmanJurgman Tech Director NYC, NJ, LARegistered User regular
    Spoiler I guess....

    True Dungeon had what ya dont see at PAX
    A NAKED ELF QUEEN! (Sorta implied I guess)
    I was pleasently surprised, but found it hard to concentrate on the puzzle.
    Our entire group made it thru ok. Moderate challenge I'd say. Definately something that a decent group could all get thru on the next higher difficulty, hardcore.
    As for $ for fun, its worth it ONCE or twice. But the game is just setup for pay to win with a collectable crack token system. Imo the excuse "its expensive to pay the employees" doesn't fly when your paying someone $150 for three days to sit naked on a rock 8 hrs a day.

  • SutibunRiSutibunRi Montreal, Quebec, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2018
    Hey! Don't you talk smack about Felurian! That lady deserves all our respect.

    She had to listen to me sing from a spot kneeling in front of her throne. She was not paid enough for that nonsense.

    3 of my party died in the combat version of the maze, myself included. All of that in the 2nd to last room where the two enemy tables were set up apart from each other.

    SutibunRi on
  • PreacherChePreacherChe Houston, TXRegistered User regular
    True Dungeon is what I was looking forward to the most, for this PAX South. Unfortunately...
    japester wrote: »
    I really enjoyed the demo last year but found the full experience (puzzle version) underwhelming. It didn't have the "wow" moments the demo had.
    This is exactly what ran through my head as we stepped out of the exit.
    japester wrote: »
    the combat attendant (GM? referee?) was more interested in regaling us with descriptions of his own very expensive token collection.
    This was by far the most disappointing aspect, to me. There's entirely too much emphasis placed on token collecting and real world dollar token values. I had some inkling from reading up on the game last year, and a bit before going in this year, especially by looking at what they charge for token packs, but the sheer amount of emphasis was sickening. Multiple volunteers spoke as if this was the focal point of the game, not the gameplay itself. One volunteer after we exited mentioned at least three times in 90 seconds how he knows of folks who buy $24,000 worth of tokens every year. I'll gladly admire someone's ultra rare weapon token, but I'm not impressed at all by what they spent on it or what it's worth in dollars. If I play this again, I don't plan to spend a dime on extra tokens. I don't see the point, so I really think I must be missing something in what makes that worth it. If I were able to play this once a month? Maybe. If I'm just really into collecting pretty nicely weighted tokens (which I'll admit they are)? Again, maybe. But, not at once a year, and I like collecting things, but not that much.
    japester wrote: »
    And stuff didn't seem to happen when we finished a room (pass or fail). We would be told the outcome, maybe with a little music or sound effect, and then be led into the next room.
    This was the second most disappointing aspect. We had zero idea how we were doing collectively. It felt very rushed going from room to room. We could have interacted better as a group in the little waiting areas between rooms, so maybe that's a bit on us, but the overall story aspect was lacking (i.e. like a good DM might provide). It may be a completely different experience (1) in the combat version and (2) playing "lethal". Maybe that's also where better tokens that cost $90 each really help out.

    Don't get me wrong - we had a blast and I don't at all regret having played - but, if I do it again, it's more likely to be for my kids than for me, and I'm going in with nothing but the tokens I got this year and will get with my basic purchase next time.

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  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    My True Dungeon group has been running the GenCon version for over a decade, and we’ve never bought any extra tokens aside from the free stuff you get from doing the actual run. This is a perfectly acceptable way to play it. I kinda think the whole hardcore/nightmare aspect with heavy-duty token collectors spoils the experience a bit, but it’s really nice to see our progress in our gear every year.

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  • KhadourKhadour Dinosaur Cupcake Hillsboro, ORRegistered User regular
    As a first timer, I doubt that I will be back. Had a friend organize the group, and give us the rough overview. We expected to be given some instruction on what to do with the tokens in the first room, but all we got was bad attitude and rushed out the door, not being any wiser as to what we were supposed to do, other than that things were now "recorded" and we could not change. When we didn't know where we were supposed to put things, we got told that we were doing it wrong, but not told how to do it right. I had several items that I had no idea how to use, and when I tried to use them in the game, was told that they needed to be used in a way that did not make much sense. Very little to no explanation, background ambient sounds making things hard to hear, and tiny print in a semi-dark room made for lots of frustration and stress. Second room where you learned how to cast/fight/etc. was much better, but I still didn't really feel equipped for facing much of anything. When we went through the subsequent rooms, they were either puzzle or combat - both of which felt very cramped with 10 people in a party. When you can really only fit about 3-5 people around whatever the area/item of interest was, it left the rest standing around feeling useless. When you place the DM in the corner, with the shuffleboard blocking one side of him, and a rock fountain leaving all of 12" for all of the casters to try to get through to cast or interact with him, people start tripping over themselves and the scenery. If you are going to rely on mechanisms for your puzzles, you'd better make sure that they function properly, and make sense - in one room, we had an NPC who was solely there to explain how the puzzle worked mechanically, which it then proceeded to not do. We had it figured out, but it wasn't working properly, so everyone take 6 HP and move on, sucks to be you. Similar puzzle problems in the next room. At $400/group, running two groups every 12 minutes, and not actually paying your volunteer staff much more than room, board, passes, and swag, all while pushing your tokens . . . yeah, felt like a poorly implemented cash grab. That being said, the NPC cast was reasonably solid, with a few exceptions, and would drop character when appropriate to address real world concerns (we had some party members with physical limitations, and those were worked around when needed).

    Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error - Linus Pauling
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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    Did you get the snippy guide in the puzzle room? I ran into him after really cool guy ended up running into him the next day when I did combat ended up talking to him a bit before tge rest of my group showed up.

  • The AviatrixThe Aviatrix Registered User regular
    I'm sad to hear all the negative experiences with different staff members :(

    My group had a great guide who managed to never break character - Condescending and looking down at us - he was quite amusing. He also never mentioned a thing about anything outside of the game. When somebody had an issue (non-emergency) he simply said "I'll see what I can do" while looking down his nose and spoke to the room's GM. So the GM (who is already not a character) handled it. That was a nice touch that really helped with keeping him as a character. I also ran into him afterwards and got the impression he also volunteers at Gen Con so is experienced, which may have helped. (He was also super chill and was saying sometimes he's paranoid because the character is meant to be an ass and is worried about people taking it personally.)

    Pre-game they were open to questions - although sometimes it took a moment for them to notice I had a question as they seemed to be doing other stuff as well.

    I don't think a single person talked about their own experience at TD. Nor do I think we were ever encouraged to actually buy more tokens. We were encouraged to come back next year or to gen con, but tokens were never really discussed. (Except to encourage trading/loaning pre-game so people could fill their slots better. Like when the GM saw my second choice weapon would be great for the Barbarian, he mentioned it and I loaned it to him.)

    I definitely think that TD is heavily reliant on having a good staff working with your group. My group did have good staff, and as a result, afaik, everybody had a great time. I wonder how much of that is new vs experienced TD staff.

    A part of me wants to do Gen Con specifically to be a TD volunteer - it seems amazing. (I'd do South, but I'd rather enforce...)


    About the puzzles themselves...
    The puzzle requiring scent was maddening. We knew what we needed to do, but the smells were hard to identify. Perhaps it was due to being late in the day? Not to mention... The concern of sticking your face next to something other people have and breathing in deeply... during flu season... Didn't seem the best idea.
    And the one with the stones and the lights... We had color blind members who literally could not tell the difference between two colors...

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  • StinkyTurdStinkyTurd Registered User regular
    I'm sad to hear all the negative experiences with different staff members :(

    My group had a great guide who managed to never break character - Condescending and looking down at us - he was quite amusing. He also never mentioned a thing about anything outside of the game. When somebody had an issue (non-emergency) he simply said "I'll see what I can do" while looking down his nose and spoke to the room's GM. So the GM (who is already not a character) handled it. That was a nice touch that really helped with keeping him as a character. I also ran into him afterwards and got the impression he also volunteers at Gen Con so is experienced, which may have helped. (He was also super chill and was saying sometimes he's paranoid because the character is meant to be an ass and is worried about people taking it personally.)

    Pre-game they were open to questions - although sometimes it took a moment for them to notice I had a question as they seemed to be doing other stuff as well.

    I don't think a single person talked about their own experience at TD. Nor do I think we were ever encouraged to actually buy more tokens. We were encouraged to come back next year or to gen con, but tokens were never really discussed. (Except to encourage trading/loaning pre-game so people could fill their slots better. Like when the GM saw my second choice weapon would be great for the Barbarian, he mentioned it and I loaned it to him.)

    I definitely think that TD is heavily reliant on having a good staff working with your group. My group did have good staff, and as a result, afaik, everybody had a great time. I wonder how much of that is new vs experienced TD staff.

    A part of me wants to do Gen Con specifically to be a TD volunteer - it seems amazing. (I'd do South, but I'd rather enforce...)


    About the puzzles themselves...
    The puzzle requiring scent was maddening. We knew what we needed to do, but the smells were hard to identify. Perhaps it was due to being late in the day? Not to mention... The concern of sticking your face next to something other people have and breathing in deeply... during flu season... Didn't seem the best idea.
    And the one with the stones and the lights... We had color blind members who literally could not tell the difference between two colors...

    Was that guide the puzzle guide he was so i was talking about loved him and such a nice guy :) was cool seeing him vs the combat guide who played it a bit more comedy like but still stayed in character. About those 2 puzzles agreed I did not care for them which is why I liked combat more it reminded those 2 puzzles and when I was talking to the first guide he said they were just having issues with the scent puzzle in general.

  • cabsycabsy the fattest rainbow unicorn Registered User regular
    I was in the same run as @Khadour and I'm gonna copy this from where I posted it in another thread:

    highly dependent on who you were interacting with. finding out after the fact that a lot of their labor is unpaid volunteer was not a surprise. the guy who was supposed to help us newbies figure out classes and gear was rude and shitty and kept harassing us to go faster without any explanation of anything. the practice room explained fuck and all and just made us feel rushed and cramped and added to the level of anxiety and pissiness we had going on from setup room

    the actual fancy dress dungeon guide with a gorgeous bow was great in and out of character, showed concern for party members who were in physical pain or high anxiety, made conversation, was happy to talk in or out of character during down time

    after he 'betrayed' us and we went back to volunteers in tshirts, it went back to annoying and anxiety inducing, including snarky comments about us not checking our items for fire damage (in the dark, while constantly being berated about how slow we were, and ignoring all our healers requests to heal anyone); the light pillar puzzle was malfunctioning but we were still given a bunch of hp in damage despite the guy standing there watching it fuck up and be unsolvable; the guy in the flower puzzle room was a neutral, so that wasn't so bad. the ending was super anticlimactic and sudden. and then immediately after all this they come at you with the pitch to sign up as a volunteer, which made it feel like the whole thing was a gross cash grab/real life version of crappy loot boxes

    at $400 per party it was kinda unacceptably poorly run

    and adding for here: I have no sense of smell and stayed way the fuck away from all the flowers in the flower puzzle. so far I'm one of the few members of our group not to get sick. also I have zero sense of smell, someone else in our group had a very limited sense of smell/couldn't smell anything except the strongest smells, and I think someone else in our group was limited sense of smell as well. so not only was it super plague-y, it completely knocked a third of the room out of being able to do anything, plus all the smells got cross-contaminated from people 'pollinating' them so we ended up having conversations about which muddy dirt smell was the most dirt-like. if this was free trial run groups or a smaller fee it would have been whatever, but again, at $400 per group, one group every ten minutes, kinda unacceptably shoddy

  • KrathoonKrathoon Registered User regular
    Will True Dungeon be at PAX South 2019?

  • TruedungeonTruedungeon Registered User new member
    Krathoon wrote: »
    Will True Dungeon be at PAX South 2019?

    Yes!

    Tickets for two completely different True Dungeon adventures at PAX South are now on sale at the link below. Come enjoy an amazing two-hour live-action D&D adventure!

    https://td.events/

This discussion has been closed.