TOPIC: True Dungeon History - The first Golden Tickets and Patsy

After GenCon 2004 people continued to buy tokens from True Dungeon. However since there was no website they were harder to buy. You had to call Lori and place the order with her. The 2004 token mix was only Red, Green and common. After buying $100 worth you had most everything. There was little incentive to buy the huge quantities of tokens to get special tokens. So Jeff came up with an idea to encourage token buying.

He created the Golden Ticket. If you would buy $250.00 worth of tokens, you could be among the first to go through the 2005 dungeon. For GenCon 2005, Jeff was already planning on doing a “Final Test” of the dungeon the night before GenCon opened for a group of sponsors (Peter Atkinson and other WotC folks.) So adding extra runs for token buyers was not a major change. Unlike future Gold Ticket runs, there were no special prizes. You got a nice invitation and the right to see the dungeon before anyone else.

Several Golden Tickets sold and then Jeff said those fateful words “If anyone buys $500.00 worth of tokens I will dress up as Patsy (from Monty Python’s Holy Grail) and carry your tokens”. Within minutes I was on the phone to Lori to buy more tokens.

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Patsy showed up for a Team Token run. The picture shows Raven, Douglas and I. I remember Gary (Aswegan) was with us. I think Stu was with us. Not sure who the other two were. Might have been Kim and/or Bryan. I am fairly sure Widseth and Mrs. Widseth were at their booth so they didn’t make it.

The run was 2005 Assault Atop Castle Greyhawk. I had already run the dungeon once, so I ended up spending most of my time getting to know Jeff. The final room was very memorable, it was the first time the “Chromadepth 3D” glasses were used. That was an amazing effect. The puzzle in the room was designed by (and named after) Gary which turned out to be helpful, because we got a little confused.

Another fun puzzle was a room with board of numbers and the clue saying “the answer is as easy as 1-3-2” which is sorting the number alphabetically.

It was a great run.

PS: Jenn, the head Tavern Wench, made the costume.
Second PS: No auction this time just a story.

So awesome, thank you.

Thank you for posting. It is so awesome to hear how things developed.

AWESOME story George...please keep them coming!

I am currently working one about the dungeon in 2004. Jeff and Trent have sent me a bunch of photos, but I just realized if I really want photos I need to talk to Fritz. I sent her a note on Facebook. I am hoping to hear back in the next day or so. With the exception of one room, my memories are matching pretty well with the photos.

If anyone else has 2004 photos they want to share (or just get included in my story) please PM me.