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TOPIC: Anyone playing VTD please read

Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #61

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Personally I'm ok with the idea of pulling the dm aside and telling them you know the answer but would like to give the rest of the party a chance to solve it. Seems like a win win, the repeat player is safe from needless push, and the rest of the party still gets to do the puzzle. Even if it seems a little off menu it feels like a good thing.
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Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #62

David Zych wrote:

Andrew Knoll wrote:

Greg (Fortunes) wrote: My personal pet peeve is players in the dungeon asking can I just give you the answer to the puzzle so we don't take push damage.

Phillip Evans wrote: If you are playing the dungeon and know the answers. Just message the dm tell them you have played and know the answers and I bet they won’t give you push damage if it comes down to time.

Reap wrote: Some DMs have offered to not give us push damage when they knew some people in the party had already solved it. So that is probably causing people to ask. It’s at least better than straight up giving the answer and ruining the puzzle solving experience.

This is surprising to me, as during DM training for V2 I was explicitly told this was not allowed - if a party wants to avoid push damage, their only option is to actually complete the puzzle.


I recall a very official forum post also explicitly stating that was not allowed. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it then, and I still don't.

A priori I can think of 4 plausible things one might hypothetically choose to do in this scenario:

1. spoil the puzzle (FFS NEVER DO THIS)
2. take push damage
3. message the DM privately that you know the solution (officially prohibited -- whyyyyy?)


I would guess because:

a. One person knowing the solution is irrelevant - the party has to solve it - lots of time one person knows the correct solution and it doesn't get implemented because people don't listen, or try something else and run out of time.

b. The DM has no way to know if you actually do know the correct solution: sometimes puzzles change over the course of a weekend and you may _think_ you know the solution but be mistaken. Explaining to a player they are wrong in this situation will probably start an argument - and anyway it's information that should only be gained by attempting that solution.

c. The DM may not have the time, and it may not be a good allocation of DM duties to read the private message solutions of a bunch of people who've run the dungeon before instead of talking with and explaining things to people on their first run.

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Last edit: by Matthew Hayward.

Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #63

David Zych wrote:

Andrew Knoll wrote:

Greg (Fortunes) wrote: My personal pet peeve is players in the dungeon asking can I just give you the answer to the puzzle so we don't take push damage.

Phillip Evans wrote: If you are playing the dungeon and know the answers. Just message the dm tell them you have played and know the answers and I bet they won’t give you push damage if it comes down to time.

Reap wrote: Some DMs have offered to not give us push damage when they knew some people in the party had already solved it. So that is probably causing people to ask. It’s at least better than straight up giving the answer and ruining the puzzle solving experience.

This is surprising to me, as during DM training for V2 I was explicitly told this was not allowed - if a party wants to avoid push damage, their only option is to actually complete the puzzle.


I recall a very official forum post also explicitly stating that was not allowed. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it then, and I still don't.

A priori I can think of 4 plausible things one might hypothetically choose to do in this scenario:

1. spoil the puzzle (FFS NEVER DO THIS)
2. take push damage
3. message the DM privately that you know the solution (officially prohibited -- whyyyyy?)
4. "take push damage" but don't actually dock yourself the HP (definitely cheating, but doesn't actually harm anyone)

I personally am 100% fine with taking push damage, as I know many of us are. But let's specifically consider the small subset of players who absolutely will not willingly take push damage. If option 3 is impossible, and they won't choose 2, then they're left with either 1 or 4. Of those, I would much rather see them break the game rules than break Wheaton's Law, but they might not think of option 4, or they might be of "lawful neutral" temperament and consider "cheating" to be worse than ruining someone else's experience.

Allowing and publicizing option 3 would remove any incentive for those people to intentionally spoil puzzles, thereby making it much less likely that they would in fact intentionally spoil puzzles. What is the downside? As far as I can tell it produces strictly better outcomes for the people whose experience they would otherwise ruin, and does no harm to the game.

(Yes I realize the problem would not exist if everyone just followed Wheaton's Law in the first place, but clearly the problem isn't gone so it's worth thinking about what else can be done besides wishing for that.)


1 doesn’t suck as much as hints that are clearly hints when we’re solving puzzles on our own and the dm is saying things like “you’re the fastest to solve that puzzle all weekend”

Even if 3 had a sliding scale of side push damage .. dunno exactly room/push …. 1/2, 2/4, 3/5, 4/7, 5/9, 6/10, 7/dead you could multiply out the damage for HC and epic except room 7
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Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #64

Matthew Hayward wrote:

David Zych wrote:

Andrew Knoll wrote:

Greg (Fortunes) wrote: My personal pet peeve is players in the dungeon asking can I just give you the answer to the puzzle so we don't take push damage.

Phillip Evans wrote: If you are playing the dungeon and know the answers. Just message the dm tell them you have played and know the answers and I bet they won’t give you push damage if it comes down to time.

Reap wrote: Some DMs have offered to not give us push damage when they knew some people in the party had already solved it. So that is probably causing people to ask. It’s at least better than straight up giving the answer and ruining the puzzle solving experience.

This is surprising to me, as during DM training for V2 I was explicitly told this was not allowed - if a party wants to avoid push damage, their only option is to actually complete the puzzle.


I recall a very official forum post also explicitly stating that was not allowed. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it then, and I still don't.

A priori I can think of 4 plausible things one might hypothetically choose to do in this scenario:

1. spoil the puzzle (FFS NEVER DO THIS)
2. take push damage
3. message the DM privately that you know the solution (officially prohibited -- whyyyyy?)


I would guess because:

a. One person knowing the solution is irrelevant - the party has to solve it - lots of time one person knows the correct solution and it doesn't get implemented because people don't listen, or try something else and run out of time.


I agree those things are common when solving for the first time, but that's even more incentive for this particular selfish category of player to end up spoiling the puzzles (either all at once or more gradually through unwanted "hints") to make sure the party solves it in time.

b. The DM has no way to know if you actually do know the correct solution: sometimes puzzles change over the course of a weekend and you may _think_ you know the solution but be mistaken. Explaining to a player they are wrong in this situation will probably start an argument - and anyway it's information that should only be gained by attempting that solution.


The knowing part is easily solvable in VTD by PM. In physical TD I'll grant that the analogous "whispering" has its flaws, especially if it starts an argument, as you point out (I wasn't thinking about that possibility). Even so, I still feel this would be an improvement over just saying the answer out loud to start with.

c. The DM may not have the time, and it may not be a good allocation of DM duties to read the private message solutions of a bunch of people who've run the dungeon before instead of talking with and explaining things to people on their first run.


In my experience puzzle rooms involve lots of talking to the DM for the first couple of minutes, but then there's a substantial lull while everybody stares at the puzzle and talks among themselves deciding what to try. Anytime both groups want their attention simultaneously, the DM should absolutely pay attention to the new solvers first, but I'm confident that over the course of 12 minutes there would be plenty of time to fit in quick conferences with those who already know (and who insist on not taking push) in a way that wouldn't impair the new solvers, and I'm sure the DMs would do a great job managing that.

I suppose another possibility worth considering, though, would be to officially legitimize option 4, hypothetically thus: if on your honor you already know the solution from a previous run, you are permitted to quietly not take the push damage provided you keep your mouth shut and don't spoil the experience for new solvers. (no arguments, no PM/whispering, no extra work for the DM, and if it happens they were incorrect then oh well no actual harm done -- especially since HP are entirely on the honor system, all this does is give the lawful neutrals permission to do what the chaotic goods are probably already doing anyway, for the sake of protecting the innocent from the guilty)
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Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #65

This topic is a difficult one to solve for everyone, and I'd like to provide my examples and possible solutions.

TL;DR:
I offer to outfit new players with a Rare build for their class.
If we have new players, we strongly encourage playing at the Normal difficulty.


I've been playing TD since 2004, and I'm part of a small group (of three) who have been playing for that long as well.
We also have a group of another three players who've played for 4-7 years.
We only play once a year when we get together at Gen Con, and it's become a welcome tradition of ours.

I'll put the personal historical experiences of our party into another post, and begin in this first post by discussing the solutions.

For our solution, I started buying out the entire slot and tried to find players I knew to fill out the slots.
This avoided problems with TD Veterans spoiling the dungeon, and also avoided problems with inexperienced players who were disruptive (see the second post).

We avoided randomly recruiting people on the TD forums, as we'd had bad experiences with people spoiling the dungeon for us.
This meant we ended up playing with new players that we knew outside of TD, and we would offer to outfit them ourselves.

I offer to outfit new players with a Rare build for their class--similar to the type of tokens you can buy from a few of the Token stores each year.
The exception is that I have minor UR items (Cook's Hat, Medallion of Heroism, etc.) to get to 5th level as well to help them feel like they haven't been left behind.

If they don't want the help getting equipped, then I back off and offer to help in any way needed (explaining token slots, class differences, etc.).

In previous attempts, we found that if we outfitted new players to a mostly purple build, it would frighten them away from the game.
The cost of the tokens was too high, or they feel uncomfortable with the risk of carrying thousands of dollars of tokens through a dark dungeon.

If the cost of the loaner build was about the same as the cost of a TD ticket, then that seems to be a good entry point.
If they loved TD, I could even point them to the Token stores that would sell similar builds for the to use in the future.

This practice meant that new players didn't have to stress about equipping their characters if they didn't want to, and it meant that they would feel like a real adventurer in the dungeon.


The other problem was difficulty when playing with new TD players.
While the Veterans in our party have builds capable of Hardcore or Nightmare, the new players wouldn't.

When we played at Hardcore, the new players were ineffective (could only hit on a 20)--and in some cases died before the last room.

When we played at Normal difficulty, the veterans complained that it was too easy (the monsters died in a single round), but the new players had a much better time.

I discussed this with the group, and we decided to favor the new players and play on Normal when we had new players join us.
I, personally, love introducing new players to TD, and my belief is that the Veteran players can take care of themselves (find other groups to play with).

Those are the best solutions I've found over the years of playing.

I really like Laz's suggestion of having different builds for Normal, Hardcore, and Nightmare, and this solution works great if you play the adventure more than once.

However, I don't this works very well for players who only play the game once.
I think the veteran players might stop playing TD if they didn't get to use their hard won toys on the only TD adventure they play in a year.

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Anyone playing VTD please read 2 years 9 months ago #66

The background for my previous post is that we’ve been playing TD since 2004, and we only play once a year--when we get together as a group at Gen Con.

This seems to make us unlike many other veterans—who play the same dungeon over and over, but we were also much more experienced and better equipped than new players.

Since we only play the dungeon once a year and we don't make large token buys, we aren't outfitted as many other TD Forumites (who may have Epic or Nightmare builds for all the classes).
We would buy one PYP pack a year and maybe a couple of ebay auctions.
We would occaisionally be able to trade some of our old stuff for new tokens on the forums.
(I have changed in the past few years, and I have been buying $1K packs or $2K packs to keep up.)

Over the years, we've run into a number of issues with other TD players, and we've tried to solve them different ways (see the previous post).

Here are a couple of examples:

In more than one instance, we had TD Veterans who spoiled the puzzles for us.
I remember one instance when a veteran solved the puzzle as soon as we got into the room--before we had a chance to even look around.
The rest of us objected to this, and then, in a later room, he solved the puzzle at the end of the room--without asking--in order to avoid push damage.

This type of behavior was not uncommon for our group to experience.
To be honest, I’m amazed at the number of long time players who have been posting in this thread that they haven’t seen this behavior.

On the other end of the spectrum, we had been playing in PUGs for a few years, and we ended up with a group of new players who were very drunk.
They showed up 20 minutes late (as we were entering the training room), and I was legitimately worried that we'd have someone *puke* in the dungeon.
It was awful. :(

Our experiences led us to avoid random PUGs as well as random TD Veterans—mainly because we only played TD once per year.
If we had one bad apple, it soured TD for the entire year.
This contributed to us losing one of our long term players.

I'll end this post on one of my favorite experiences:
A father and son joined us years ago (in the Woodie days), and I loaned them some rare armor and weapons.
After the adventure, the son was upset--as he had lost the loaned weapon.
I asked if he had fun, and he said he did. I told him that that was all that mattered.
I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to give him another weapons to replace the lost one!

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