This story will seperate the real geeks out there from the wanna-bes. If you know what a LARP is, True Dungeon claims it isn’t one. If you don’t know what a LARP is, you already have a pretty low geek score, and you may wish to skip this story. Apparently Wil Wheaton was playing it at GenCon this past weekend and thought it was a blast. Oh, and if you don’t know what GenCon is, don’t bother to read on.True Dungeon is summed up in the first answer in their FAQ. You can browse the website for more details, but suffice to say it sounds more on par with a D&D based “haunted house” than playing D&D on the holodeck, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you ever get to GenCon. This is just the first year, and they intend to improve the sets as they go on.

“The decision was made early on that since we were given a big enough budget to make an actual walkthrough dungeon, we needed to do as much as we could to immerse the players into our 3D dungeon. We wanted players to experience some of those classic D&D moments that before only their characters got to enjoy. For instance, we thought, what about rogues. Wouldn’t be cool, we asked, if the player with the rogue character actually got to feel what it was like to disarm an actual trap — instead of just rolling a d20? Wouldn’t it be so cool if the rogue got to feel his pulse pound and his palms sweat as he careful manipulated a device with HIS hands — knowing full well that failure to disarm the trap might have a somewhat painful (or shocking) result?

With True Dungeon™, we seek to immerse players within the old-fashion D&D module and let them feel what the stress of combat can do to their coordination, how hard it must be for wizards to remember all those mystical teachings, how difficult it must be for clerics to know all the tenets of their faith, and how invaluable it can be to recall the meaning on an ancient glyph.

True Dungeon’s™ goal is to transport you into another world for a few hours. There you will find out how well YOU stack up against the adventure. You will find out how well you respond to the challenges that are laid before you, while experiencing some of the classic D&D moments from your past.”

Wil Wheaton’s recent experiences (playing a Bard) are recounted on his blog