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thief abilities for 15 minutes after the armor or shield is removed. As the Darkon rulebook explains, “This skill relies heavily on role-playing, both on the part of the Thief, and the other players surrounding him. Often, players will notice a disguise when the characters do not; all involved are encouraged to act as if the Thief fits normally in his surroundings.” This is a case where media richness is a hindrance in role-play, conflicting with the diegesis of the costume; players are encouraged to role-play ignorance. Conversely, fifteenth-level thieves can detect disguises, determining that a character is disguised without revealing their true identities. After interacting with the suspect for 60 seconds, the thief declares his rank and asks if the player is in disguise; the player must respond truthfully. The act of asking is out of game, but the observation must be in-game.

WIZARD • In True Dungeon, wizards, like clerics, are chiefly defined by the spells they cast and the mnemonic they are required to use to cast their spells. By correctly remembering the various planes and their interaction, a wizard casting a spell can increase its effectiveness. Interestingly, the wizard’s spells are the most varied. Continual flame provides a glowing orb instead of one of the faux flickering torches provided at the start of the game. Some attack spells (magic missile, ray of frost) deal straightforward damage. Melf ’s Acid Arrow, however, requires a shuffleboard slide to strike a target.

In Darkon, wizards are called mages. They wear knee-length robes as part of their costume and must use material components to cast spells. They have the full range of spells granted to wizards in Dungeons & Dragons, ranging from pure offensive spells to transformation (growth, gaseous form) and other miscellaneous spells (enchant item, animate dead).

Fellowship

In True Dungeon, adventuring parties are composed of eight players. A stand-by pool of additional players rounds out any party missing the required eight members. In this way, some groups are introduced to new players while others are groups of old friends.

Because many of the challenges in True Dungeon require teamwork, the teams that fail are the ones who fail to cooperate most effectively. This is similar to MMORPGs and FPS, which also throw disparate groups of players together. Treasure is divided up amongst the team members, which is always a cause for stress due to conflicting priorities (greed and personal gain vs. teamwork).

One way True Dungeon helps reinforce sharing and cooperation is through lighting. Light sources are limited to torches or continual flame orbs, forcing players to huddle together to read a hint or examine a glyph. The group must also contend with time limits, as the party can stay in each room in the dungeon for approximately ten minutes.

Another interesting aspect of the True Dungeon adventuring party is that there are no class duplicates. Each character class is uniquely suited to their role in the game, a necessity in part of the considerable planning of True Dungeon.

Parties are also possible in Darkon, but the game goes one step further to allow groups to form countries. Countries are teams of at least four players, with a specific banner and tunic. Countries can trade with other countries, establish alliances, and even wage war. Each country designates two leaders, known as senators, who attend senate meetings and vote on rules for the overall game.

Status

True Dungeon advances players just as if they were characters. However, the experience points and leveling are tied to the player, not the character. These experience points carry over across all “True” events (including True Dungeon and True Heroes). All experience earned for all True Adventure events, past and present, are tabulated to calculate the player’s level.

The base award for an adventure is 650 experience points, plus 50 points for every room that the player survives. At first level, the player can access certain special events, like True Arena. At second