Talk:True Adventures

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Be bold-ly merging three articles with little individual content, namely True Dungeon, True Dungeon Fantasy Tavern, and True Heroes GRuban 19:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a live-action role playing game

The website make it clear it is not a live action roleplaying game. it is a "true" roleplaying game. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.113.146.30 (talk • contribs) 12:33, September 13, 2006 (UTC)

Quoth Live action role-playing game, "A live action role-playing game (LARP or LRP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants perform some or all of the physical actions of the characters they are playing within a pre-determined space for a pre-determined span of time." That's a perfectly reasonable definition of LARPing. That seems to define True Dungeon quite nicely. The counterpoint to LARP isn't "true role-playing"; that term has no meaning. The counterpoints are table-top role-playing and maybe video game role-playing. True Dungeon is obviously neither. I've heard Jeff Martin claim that True Dungeon isn't a LARP. I believe this is the result of him not understanding what a LARP is. As True Dungeon was born out of increasingly elaborate props and eventually scenes for his tabletop game, I suspect the shift was so gradual that he didn't realized he crossed clearly into the LARPing realm. Could you link to the page on the website that you feel makes it clear? Some quick browsing and Googling failed to turn up a clear statement. Also, please sign your posts, it's as easy as putting "~~~~" at the end of your post. Alan De Smet | Talk 22:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Quoth Jeff Martin on the TD Forums, "TD has never been about LARPing...and never will be." (I'm not the above poster, but I knew I'd read that quote before. :) -- Parody 17:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I was going to leave it at that, but I thought I'd throw in an opinion. IMHO, while TD is Live Action it's not Role Playing. There's abstracted action sequence combat/trap disarming, memory tests, and community puzzle solving, but you don't talk to anything or otherwise act like you are actually playing a character. Most of the LARPs I've been in have been completely the other way, with only characters and talking and very little combat or puzzles. If TD is a LARP, then I'm LARPing when I walk up to the Cloud Kingdom Games booth and attempt to solve the riddle of the hour to get a banner for my badge. That just doesn't seem right to me. -- Parody 17:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Parody: Thanks for the link; it's definately a useful reference for this conversation. I think he's saying "we deemphasize the role-playing," which I agree with. Perhaps his goal is to discourage people who are interested in more role-playing heavy LARPs from playing for fear they would be dissatisfied. However, that's not enough to make something not-role-playing. I'm reminded of my experiences with the D&D Open: if you want to advance to later rounds you kept the role-playing to a minimum and focused on finding optimal solutions for the puzzles, traps, and battles.

I don't believe there is a useful definition of role-playing that includes relatively gamey D&D games while excluding True Dungeon. As soon as True Dungeon went beyond "here's a series of completely unexplained puzzles," it became a role-playing game. It's got a plotline that we're presumably supposed to have some interest in; otherwise why's it there? This year featured three NPCs (employer at start, demon mid-game, drow at end) you could interact with, not terribly deeply, but they were there. You are addressed by those NPCs are adventurers, not players. The Cloud Kingdom Games riddle game isn't a LARP: No NPCs, no plot, you don't have a character. When you answer the Cloud Kingdom Games riddle, you're Parody, talking to the CKG employee. When you answer the demon's riddle in this years True Dungeon, you're and unnamed warrior addressing a demon. Alan De Smet | Talk 23:01, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

My TD experience was in 2005, where there were no speaking characters in any of the rooms we (failed to) puzzle through. There TD was merely puzzles with RPG trappings, much like some D&D games (D20 especially) become very detailed miniatures games with RPG trappings and how video game RPGs aren't really RPGs at all. I think if you skim through Mr. Martin's posts, you'll find that he says similar things about what TD is supposed to be. (Main emphasis on puzzles, secondary on combat and other character and item abilities, no emphasis on role playing.)

In fact, here's another quote that the original poster might have been referring to: "Not a LARP, True Dungeon instead focuses on problem solving..." - From the True Dungeon Overview page on the TD website.

A game should at least have more role playing than, say, The Bard's Tale to really be considered as a role playing game. TD doesn't have that. The riddles may be presented in a fancier way by someone in a costume, but it's still just ask and wait for response. Your description puts it about on par with the puzzle presentation in Bard's Tale.

One last (somewhat pointless) observation: I find it funny that an average night in my World's Largest Dungeon campaign has more RPing than my TD run did, but only because my WLD players like to grouse in character. :) -- Parody 05:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The current article emphasizes that while True Dungeon is a LARP, there isn't much RP in it. Is that an acceptable solution? True Dungeon fits common definitions of role-playing games. It certainly does so better than computer role-playing games. It matches the level of role-playing found in many tabletop RPGs, include games also running at Gen Con. Any definition of role-playing that excludes True Dungeon is going to exclude D&D as it's played by many people. Any definition of role-playing that excludes lots of relatively mainstream D&D groups isn't a useful definition. Alan De Smet | Talk 20:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)