TOPIC: New Token Mats!

We are updating the Player Token Mats this year, and I wanted to get your feedback before we go to print. Thanks for your advice.

The attached is what I would propose for a layout.

With the red color spaces I worry players will think that is a "required" slot. And 99% of players don't read the text at the top so it needs to be as intuitive as possible. Coaches know which classes NEED weapons and will help players with that without needing the red spaces.

Jeff, looks great! I'm guessing the different color for the five at the top is for emphasis that they need to try to fill those?

I think some of the additional wording might backfire a bit by making players think that is the only option. For instance, on ranged offhand, it also says in parentheses Archer's Buckler. Players might think that is the only option for ranged offhand based on that, but (for instance) players using a sling can also use a shield in their ranged offhand.

Lose the character all together and put gear/weapons/armor in the background to appeal to all and it aligns more with the what this is for:

Mike Steele wrote: Jeff, looks great! I'm guessing the different color for the five at the top is for emphasis that they need to try to fill those?

I think some of the additional wording might backfire a bit by making players think that is the only option. For instance, on ranged offhand, it also says in parentheses Archer's Buckler. Players might think that is the only option for ranged offhand based on that, but (for instance) players using a sling can also use a shield in their ranged offhand.

Red Circles - yes...I am hoping the Coach (and text above) can let folks know to try to fill in those circles.

Better Wording on Ranged Off-hand: How does this look?

Thanks.

Reap wrote: The attached is what I would propose for a layout.

With the red color spaces I worry players will think that is a "required" slot. And 99% of players don't read the text at the top so it needs to be as intuitive as possible. Coaches know which classes NEED weapons and will help players with that without needing the red spaces.

Thanks for the idea, but I'd rather leave most of the illustration visible (especially the Head).

JACKOFTRADZE wrote: Lose the character all together and put gear/weapons/armor in the background to appeal to all and it aligns more with the what this is for:

Thanks! I think I'd rather try to keep the old RPG PC view of a character as shown.

Jeff Martin wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Jeff, looks great! I'm guessing the different color for the five at the top is for emphasis that they need to try to fill those?

I think some of the additional wording might backfire a bit by making players think that is the only option. For instance, on ranged offhand, it also says in parentheses Archer's Buckler. Players might think that is the only option for ranged offhand based on that, but (for instance) players using a sling can also use a shield in their ranged offhand.

Red Circles - yes...I am hoping the Coach (and text above) can let folks know to try to fill in those circles.

Better Wording on Ranged Off-hand: How does this look?

Thanks.

Jeff, that looks good to me. The Coach can give additional guidance if they pull something like an Archer's Buckler. Although - is the only one-handed ranged weapon a sling? If so, maybe it could just say "If using a Sling".

Your wording might be better anyway though, because it let's them know why they can use an offhand token (the ranged weapon is one-handed).

Not sure it's worth changing, but replacing crossbow with Mystic staff in Ranged mainhand if there is room could avoid confusion with somebody new putting one in Melee main where staff is listed

I'm still bothered by the alignment of the Ioun Stones. The Torso looks to be slightly higher than the rest of the openings in that row.

Slot arrangement looks fantastic, except that Torso is still located 20 feet above the character's head instead of near the middle of the picture where new players intuitively expect to find it.

The special placement for mainhand/offhand makes sense because those slots have special behavior, both during coaching and during play (okay, you can put all these other tokens back in your bag now, but keep your weapons handy at all times!).

Torso is a fairly important slot (effectively emphasized now by red coloring), but it behaves just like any other body slot, and moving it next to Shirt will make it much more apparent to the casual observer that:
1. armor goes on Torso, not on Shirt
2. you can equip a Shirt and armor at the same time

Other, minor points:

- top text no longer explains what to do with e.g. Potion tokens ("Do not put them on this mat - keep them with you to show the DM in the dungeon.") and I feel like that's useful enough to be worth putting back in.

- you can save a little space by deleting "To help your Coach quickly and accurately fill out your Party Card, " and just starting the sentence with "Please arrange". Everyone loves putting tokens on the mat, they don't need any extra motivation.

- Ranged Offhand is tricky in several orthogonal dimensions, and I wonder if it would be a better use of limited space to label the circle "Ranged Offhand (if different from Melee Offhand)" to make it clear that you can use one shield token for both modes (other rules permitting) even though you can't physically place it on both circles.

- if you want the mat to help summarize hand rules, my suggestion would be to add a sentence to the top text right after you talk about RED circles, something like "Note that a weapon with 2 black hand icons requires your mainhand and offhand." That's more efficient than putting it in the circles since the same explanation covers both melee and ranged.

One thing I can take away from this new mat that has 35 slots is....please no more new slots. The only people that use these mat's are the new players. Vets don't, even casual TD players typically don't. There's only so much time in coaching, when new players enter the room and bust their ten packs the first thing they start trying to do is fill the existing mat they see in front of them with what they have in addition to trading others Tokens to help fill everyone's mat. Even with help from vets they barely have enough time as it is to get it done as they careful search out where to put each Token. With this new beast it's going to take them even longer. You might also want to have staff at the check in tables ask every player that checks in if this is their first time playing, for the first timers I say give them two or even three ten packs instead of one. That way they have more Tokens to fill their mat with. It won't look as empty then. Even now with one ten pack I see the new player looking at their finished mat that has only 3 or 4 Tokens, maybe less (because there's always lots in a 10 pack they can't use) thinking "Oh no, this is all the gear I have!!?". Even when you tell them not to worry about it I know they still do. Cracking packs is super fun and so is filling the mat. Give the newbies a few more ten packs so they can fill this bad boy and feel more comfortable having more of their slots filled out. And now my late night rambling is done..