| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1carbon_dragonAug 17, 2009 13:59:26 | I played an ultimate delve at Gencon this year on Sunday Morning. I arranged to checkout late since it ended at 12. As it turned out I needn't have bothered. Ultimate Delve despite being a 4e event is not in fact a role playing game. It's effectively D&D miniatures, stripped of any actual role-playing or description. Furthermore, it is a timed event – set time per encounter, 4 hours for the whole event, no extended rests. Apparently the “ultimate” means that they took the normal “MONSTERS WILL KILL YOU” ethic of 4e and blow it up to make absolutely sure you have no chance unless you have the most min/maxed characters and a tactically brilliant party, and even then you're probably going to die. Now maybe I'm an old grouch (and I am) but this was not what I thought I was signing up for in the imaginatively written description of what seemed to be a role-playing game. Furthermore I'm not sure how this constitutes fun. It has no RPG aspects, cuts no-one any slack, and is attempting to eliminate as many players as quickly as ruthlessly as possible. If I wanted this kind of attention, I could just hit myself on the forehead with a hammer. It was all the more surprising given that it was being run by the RPGA, and organization which presumably concerned with the role-playing aspects of D&D. |
| #2_Mithreinmaethor_Aug 17, 2009 14:13:26 | I played an ultimate delve at Gencon this year on Sunday Morning. I arranged to checkout late since it ended at 12. As it turned out I needn't have bothered. Ultimate Delve despite being a 4e event is not in fact a role playing game. It's effectively D&D miniatures, stripped of any actual role-playing or description. Furthermore, it is a timed event – set time per encounter, 4 hours for the whole event, no extended rests. Apparently the “ultimate” means that they took the normal “MONSTERS WILL KILL YOU” ethic of 4e and blow it up to make absolutely sure you have no chance unless you have the most min/maxed characters and a tactically brilliant party, and even then you're probably going to die. This sounds exactly like what Delves are meant to be. I am not sure what you were expecting it to be. They are nothing more than grinds where you just try to survive. |
| #3grahamwillsAug 17, 2009 14:41:07 | Now maybe I'm an old grouch (and I am) but this was not what I thought I was signing up for in the imaginatively written description of what seemed to be a role-playing game. Furthermore I'm not sure how this constitutes fun. It has no RPG aspects, cuts no-one any slack, and is attempting to eliminate as many players as quickly as ruthlessly as possible. If I wanted this kind of attention, I could just hit myself on the forehead with a hammer. Looking online, the first description that comes up in google is: "The Ultimate Dungeon Delve is an endurance test, whereby you and your team attempt to finish six encounters without taking an extended rest. Here are the rules for play: ..." Seems pretty clear that roleplaying is going to be light, but I guess if you didn't check that out before signing up maybe it was less clear? And yeah, not much of interest to me either. I like the tactical miniatures game play style, but a whole four hours. Not for me. |
| #4carbon_dragonAug 17, 2009 15:16:01 | Well it's a fair point, and had I thought to google it I might have found the same information. But the delves were, I thought, merely a set of encounters you were supposed to fluff up into a real adventure. It never frankly occurred to me that they might not do that. The RPGA folks admitted that to me when I asked them about it. They were very nice about it, but I didn't think I needed to google anything because I thought I was just registering for a RPGA 4e event. It's kind of like going to a cooking event and finding out they're actually doing water aerobics. This is the "Role-Playing Gaming Association" right? Why would I have guessed that there would be NO role playing involved? It was a horrible way to spend my last event at Gencon, but it's a fair point that perhaps I should have known better ... but I didn't. |
| #5carbon_dragonAug 17, 2009 16:42:20 | Hey I was just thinking about this stuff over dinner laughing at myself for the irony of my present position. 15 years ago I occasionally played RPGA events and occasionally masters level events (because my friend was a masters player not me) and I complained that they were TOO much role-playing -- almost a frustrated actor level of role-playing. I complained they weren't tactical ENOUGH. Now here I am 15 years later playing a few RPGA events (this delve thing and two living Forgotten Realms events) and they're TOO tactical. I enjoyed the Living events, though I'm not sure I really like the regimentation and the role-playing was really just a transition between encounters. The delve showed just how far down that path it was possible to go. It's ironic really that I should be saying that the RPGA should have a bit more of a story and a little more role playing in it's normal events, and a LOT more in the delve. I wonder if that means that about 7 years ago I would have thought it was perfect? |
| #6kenobi65Aug 17, 2009 17:06:43 | As the others have indicated, any time you see the term "Delve" attached to an RPGA event, it's going to be heavy on the tactics, with role-playing pretty much non-existant. GrahamWills and I played a few rounds of the "regular" Delve (i.e., see if you can finish 2 encounters within an hour), and one of the players with whom we were playing gave me a tongue-in-cheek compliment for injecting some role-playing into the Delve -- as my Artificer swung at the same monster for the fourth or fifth time, I yelled, "would you die already?" Even in Living Forgotten Realms, the modules are written towards a specific XP budget, which means you're almost always going to need to have 3-4 XP-awarding encounters in a four-hour timeslot...and that usually means 2-3 combats, plus 1-2 skill challenges. Some of the LFR modules do give you a chance to do some role-playing, but if you're expecting the sort of deep role-playing in a mdoule at a convention that you might have seen 15 years ago in "classic-style" RPGA modules (i.e., those that provided you with a pregenerated character), you're going to be disappointed. |
| #7projectmercyAug 17, 2009 17:25:41 | Hello, I'm one of the two writers of UDD1 and UDD2. I thought I might give you some insight into our styles and thinking in regards to the Ultimate Delve. (I hope this also mirror's Chris' vision for what he wanted us to produce :D ) Nick and I love RP and story-style adventures. In fact, were you to go back and find our older LG modules, most of the feedback about them would be that they were too complex or too wordy. I used to gripe to Chris regularly about being forced into combats in a module just so I could assign XP. That said, there are some people who prefer the tactical side of these games and just want to throw some dice with friends. It's especially true at cons where many people would like to see some competitive aspects to pit their teams against similar goals. One of the things that I think is great about the RPGA; is that it's able to respond to different needs, tailor each aspect to different people and provide outlets to all of them at a con. We wrote the UDD as a competitive beat down for people who prefer the tactical and dice-rolling side of the game. So to that goal, yes we did take some of the same core concepts and ideals from D&D minis as well as other mainstream miniature games, while still trying to follow the guidelines on what the spirit of a 4th ed encounter is. I think you can see that more in UDD2 with how complex the encounters and maps were. Obviously there was room for improvement, but I was overall happy with the result. A lot of our editing period involved cutting out pages of fluff and box text because in the end all it did was consume valuable time for something that wasn't fully germane to the situation (Side note: UDD1 lost over 4 pages of background and story during editing). Every line of the box text is there for a reason, to provide a hint or description of something I felt critical to the spirit/flow of the module or to the encounter. As much as writing a story-minimal module was actually pretty frustrating at times for the two of us (and also very fun at other times), I like to think that by providing games like this for some people that the RPGA will also be able to provide more story-driven modules that will cater to the RP-focused people, and that those modules won't end up failing to meet the needs of both play styles. So, I'm sorry that the module wasn't what you were looking for, though I hope this explains why it is the way it is. I do hope that other people found the modules entertaining and fun though. We spent a lot of time on them! |
| #8_Mithreinmaethor_Aug 17, 2009 18:17:00 | Role playing is much easier in home campaigns than in Delves or even Living Campaigns. The Delves and Living modules are written with a time frame in mind, and in the case of the Living modules an exp budget which guarantees certain levels of combat or skill challenges. However if you play your Living modules with a group and they dont mind taking 5 or 6 hours to play it so that you can throw in some Role Play then that will work great. It doesnt and cant, or at least rarely, will work at a convention with tight slot management of the modules. |
| #9Lord_DarquainAug 17, 2009 19:36:18 | I would reiterate that Delves and Adventures are two different things and I like the fact that both exist for different reasons. Delves are a series of tactical combat encounters, period. Adventures include tactical combats, but also feature roleplaying throughout, skill challenges to break up the pace, and potentially offer puzzles as well. Delves are usually designed to run in a tight timeframe, while adventure are usually set up to offer the time needed for roleplaying throughout. The Ultmiate Delve is a new type of Delve that premiered at GenCon specifically to be very tough to cater to the min/maxers amongst us. This allowed them to use the Classic Dungeon Delve (that was on the other wise of the fenced-in Delve area) as an easier play experience that is more newbie friendly than it has been in the past (and they've been doing it for years and years). LFR Adventures are, however, adventures and many offer interesting roleplay with some being almost exclusively roleplay. Unfortunately, at any big event like a con most DMs will be running adventures they didn't hand-pick according to their DMing style, so you sometimes get DMs that don't have a feel for what the writer was going for or that are running an adventure that doesn't run the way they prefer. This can lead to the session being very different from another session of the same adventure you play at another table (with another character, of course). We call this "table variance". Often table variance leads to a fun and exciting variety of gameplay throughout the con when you are seated with DMs of varying styles, but sometimes it also leads to poor play experiences. This is regrettable, but I've found it to be very rare, especially with LFR. carbon_dragon, I would suggest that you check out LFR's Cormyr adventures and/or the MINI campaign for the kind of play experiences you seem to be looking for. Hope that helps, Kyle |
| #10prchambAug 17, 2009 19:51:28 | It's kind of funny being on the other side of the situation - having a min-maxed character... sitting down with a few people you've successfully delved with before... hoping to set a new best time for the delve... the first encounter begins... and suddenly some one at the table starts role playing. :D |
| #11carbon_dragonAug 17, 2009 19:52:26 | I would reiterate that Delves and Adventures are two different things and I like the fact that both exist for different reasons. Delves are a series of tactivcal combat encounters, period. Adventure include tactical combats, but also feature roleplaying throughout, skill challenges to break up the pace, and potentially offer puzzles as well. Delves are usually designed to run in a tight timeframe, while adventure are usually set up to offer the time needed for roleplaying throughout. I will indeed keep that in mind. But consider the description in the event: Floating on an earthmote above a verdant island realm, the enigmatic wizard, Kelleck, once built a magnificent tower as a beacon of hope to the villages of Windrock. Now word has reached far and wide that the tower has crumbled, & has reached the ears of many adventurers. What has become of Kelleck? An Ultimate Dungeon Delve for 5 6th level characters. Now how was I supposed to know this wasn't a 4e Role playing adventure again? How about dispensing with the explanation which is meaningless anyway and just writing: Ultimate dungeon delve for 5 6th level characters. Note this is not a RPG, but only 6 timed combat encounters for highly organized min/maxed characters. Come test out your super-character in a terrifyingly difficult test of endurance with back to back combat and no rest. Can your character survive? Note that few parties make it to 4 hours so have something else to do with your time after you are eliminated. Only the best (or the crazy) need apply. |
| #12Lord_DarquainAug 17, 2009 22:00:28 | Now how was I supposed to know this wasn't a 4e Role playing adventure again? Unfortunately the difference between Delves and Adventures isn't widely understood. This is largely due to the fact that the difference isn't publicized or very well explained in basic 4e materials, but also some higher-ups aren't being very clear on the difference in their own posts. This misunderstanding with people that aren't delvers from previous cons in previous editions has probably led to other problems at cons, but was also a big problem with Delve Night, a program that ran from last fall to this spring promoting weekly or monthly delves at your flgs. Just so you know, these are the current places to find various WotC-written delves: 1) Con delves - these are available at the conventions WotC attends. See the CCG1.9 for UDD location, while the CDD is offered at DDXP, Origins, and GenCon Indy. 2) Dungeon Delve book - this is a collection of 3 delves for each level from 1-30. A second colection is expected in the future. 3) Dungeon Magazine delves - These pop up in Dungeon Magazine, part of DDi. I believe the plan is to start including one a month of various levels in addition to the several adventures every month. 4) Delve Night delves - Delve Night is no longer supported, but PDFs and cardstock delve cards used to run this event can be still played for fun. As far as them being very clear on the difficulty of the Ultimate Delve, the GenCon description could've included more on what UDD is, but that has been made clear in several RPGA News posts which you can find at the front page link below as well as in the CCG 1.9 which includes the character creation rules for all RPGA events (therefore including the UDD) and an appendix specific to the UDD. Unfortunately, there isn't a centralized official RPGA FAQ wiki that contains everything needed to help newbies with whatever they need explained, but maybe (hopefully) that will come after the new upgrade. RPGA front page: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga RPGA Downloads section: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/downloads |