TOPIC: Tokens - a closer look

OK I give you that much Douglas - but what is better to talk about on this forum than tokens??? (Well that is my opinion - other than playing the game tokens take a front seat with me!)

So you saw the "glut" factor I pointed out and spun the numbers a bit differently - at the end of the day we are saying the same thing. It appears there will be a load of weapons in the re-sale cart - and TD can expect to see less gold purchases and more weapon trading. I hope this does not spin the entire token economy into a depression???

Let's see - less gold per bag (to the tune of about 100gold less per 10 bags) and more weapons which could be worth what - 10-20gp each???

I guess that is the real factor here - what are the weapons and armor worth in terms of gold? If it takes 5 weapons or "items" to equal a 1 point potion of healing - yikes we are in trouble.

Sorry I use weapons to mean BOTH weapons and armor.

Hey y'all,

Let's answer this question by using statistics. Assuming a perfectly normal distribution of tokens, we can expect each bag to contain 31 gp. In addition, each bag should contain 3 armor and/or weopons.

With this distribution, common armor and weopons will have very little value, rare with have some value, and very rare items will have the majority of worth. It is very likely that the full plate and the magic items will have a large value, even though there is a lot more of them this year.

My more interesting question is: let's say someone gets there for the opening day and he decides to corner the market on say healing potions. What's to prevent someone who buys twenty or thirty bags and selling everything from purchasing every available healing potion?

I missed the statistics in that rebuttal ???

What I think what you are saying is what I am saying - weapons will be a dime a dozen and when you consider that gold has started to run scarce - if the weapons and armor are not sellable for a decent amount of gold - there goes the economy! :shock: NOT GOOD

As for your question about buying out all the healing potions - this is exactly what I asked TD to respond to - as the only thing stopping this is a TD mandate that limits such a thing - either that or they have one heck of a supply on hand! (I hope it is the latter as who wants to keep tabs on which person buys what! YIKES)

These are all very good questions, and I am not sure what Jenn has said about this subject, but here are my thoughts.

I know that Jenn has been doing some trading in the tavern last year, but I think this year the trading will be more player to player -- since the tavern will be open to everyone all day long. I am a firm believer in the free market, and I imagine that the free market is the best way to go here with the tokens. Sure...there will be "some" tokens available from NPC's for people with player cards around their necks, but I think a majority of the trading will be done with TD out of the transaction -- between people just hanging out in the tavern.

And yes...we will have to put some kind limit on commerce between NPC's and a player with a card around their necks. We have to do this for time reasons AND for pure token logistical reasons. Otherwise there will be a huge line at the NPC's and we would have to print 1,000s of extra tokens. I am sorry if it sounds unfair to anyone, but we really don't have much choice. If anyone wants to change their token order because they feel this is non-correct I totally understand. Just call and let us know. We can alter your order.

The back alley will have a dedicated market area where gamers can meet and trade tokens. If we have the personnel, it would be fun to keep some kind of exchange board (like a commodity board) where we can track transactions involving GPs. It would be cool to see how much a certain token is trading for...for example. I hope we can make that happen, but we won't know until the last minute. My dream for this commodity board is to have some kind of computer system with a LCD projector shooting a large image on the wall.

And you guys thought you were big token geeks! I got you beat!

The exchange board sounds like a neat idea. The backalley will have to be called Wall St.
David

Fantastic comments and analysis. I really look forward to Indy and SoCal. I think the token trading will take care of itself. D&D geeks are terribly creative. I don't know it needs much supervision. I would hope that cure potions and scrolls used in the dungeon are collected by the DMs and recycled through the shops where they are concocted. After the hardcore sessions at night there might be a plethora of cure potions at the apothecary shop, etc the next morning. Concerning gold--maybe there is a higher percentage of gold and gems to be claimed by successful parties in the dungeon. I mean isn't that the reason we crawl into these dank corridors--kill the dragon, save the girl, take the gold, and live to save the known world again, and again, and again.

I think the player to player exchanges will begin long before Indy. I expect a healthy economy to start to pick up soon after April 14th or 15th, as people with preplanned characters and parties will begin to strengthen their positions. And other things might be up for trade--as in my golden ticket, that I will trade for some special items is anyone is interested. I also plan to spend a lot of time in the tavern and even at my booth in GenCon--I am an exhibitor selling my book, so my wife or I will have little time in the tavern during the day, but at night we'll be there wheeling and dealing.

I look forward to the haggle.

Widseth

Wow! A lot of discussion on this. And Jeff turns out to be a token geek, awesome! ;^)

I agree that the free market will ultimately determine the pricing of things. In fact, Jeff, you should suggest to vendors with booths at GenCon Indy that they should buy tokens in bulk and resell. I was surprised that none of the vendors at So Cal were reselling.

But with the current distribution and given that everyone will get a free weapon to start, is there any doubt that the COMMON weapons will be nearly worthless? I doubt that anyone would pay even 5gp for them. Perhaps they will be come the 1gp standard and something like this might transpire:

"I'll give you 20 weapons for that scroll."

"20?!? It is worth atleast 50 weapons."

"Ok 25?"

"Sold!"



Either way, it there any way that the distribution could be changed to make weapons rarer? Or are we past that at this point. I'd just hate to be the one that gets a pouch of all weapons. :shock:

-Douglas

8 in one bag is the best/worst I have seen so far...

I guess I can leave this topic alone - and see what happens at INDY.

*leaves room to go roll some more token kits*

Guys, keep in mind that this is only TD's 3rd year... and only its 2nd year using Treasure Tokens, or any kind of "economy" system (if I remember correctly, anyways). It'll take a few tries to the ratio right. Please remain calm and back away from the token generator.

* RUNS back into room - screaming- *

WHO'S NOT CALM....

I thought I was calm - just making a point and beating it to death. :oops:

This is a Feedback string is it not? Besides my posts give Douglas something to roast and tear all apart...

*Exits room once again - brow beading with sweat*

*returns with very sly look on face*

Anyone interested in seeing 10 "bonus" token bags and a bag with 7 weapons/armor in it?

Ok, I couldn't resist. Gary, since you are probably the only that cares, here it is. The TRUE average (assuming random distribution) of weapons and gold per bag is

___________% chance of weapon/token
____________________Average # weapon
Common_____0.222____1.56
Uncommon___0.111____0.22
Rare________0.195____0.194

So the average number of weapons per bag is 1.972.

The average amount of GOLD per bag is:
__________%chance of gold/token
__________|_______Avg gold/token
__________V_______V________Avg gold.
Common___0.222____6.375____1.417
Uncommon__0.166___22.5_____3.75
Rare_______0.167___83.33____13.89

Total average gold per bag 19.06

So now there is no more need to go through the bag generator. ;^)

Enjoy,
Douglas

WOW - real statistics...I hated that class.

When you say weapons - do you mean Weapons and armor? Just under 2 per bag sounds low to me.

The way I see it there are 11 common W/A tokens, 8 rare W/A and 8 very rare W/As - counting both weapons and armor.

That breaks down to 30.5% of the total common tokens are weapons or armor, 22.2% of the rares and 22.2% of the very rares OR in a bag of 10 where 7 are common, 2 are rare and 1 is very rare you should see - on average about 2 common items and maybe 1 more in the rare or very rares... This falls right in the middle of my original guestimate of 2-4 weapons and armor from testing with the token generator.