TOPIC: 2009 Common Tokens -- Feedback please!

. . . and what will we do if/when we start delineating between blunt weapons as opposed to bladed weapons?  Add more symbols?<br /><br />I don't mean to be a downer, but if that trend kept up we would eventually end up with extremely crowded tokens.

short vs long, metal vs wood, what else can we add? =D

holy vs infernal, fire vs ice vs electric...  I'm sure we could go on all day.

<br />. . . and what will we do if/when we start delineating between blunt weapons as opposed to bladed weapons?  Add more symbols?<br /><br />I don't mean to be a downer, but if that trend kept up we would eventually end up with extremely crowded tokens.<br />

<br /><br />No need to delineate between blunt and piercing and slashing.  One symbol can cover all melee weapons and one symbol can cover all missile weapons.  As long as it is mentioned in the rules then it is covered.  I seriously doubt that there are going to be any players who will look at their Heavy Mace token, see a small bladed weapon symbol at the top, and will think that the mace is a bladed weapon.

Even if you did need to differentiate it could be easily done by background color.<br />Put a small circle of color behind the symbol.<br /><br />For instance Red circle behind for sword symbol for bladed, Green circle for blunt.<br />So if you needed to add that aspect it could done.<br />

That's a wonderful idea DD except for those who are colour blind!

I recall going over some of these options when the chippies were being born...the only thing that panned out was the 1 vs 2 hands...<br /><br />I'd be surprised if Jeff went with more symbols and color systems, but it would be sort of like him to change his mind.  (nuttin but luv JM, nuttin but luv!)

I think that with the original idea of the darkwood bows being both melee and missile weapons now would be a good time to incorporate a simple melee symbol and a simple missile symbol.  I don't think there is any need to make any different ones for blunt weapons or for slashing weapons or anything like that, and there isn't really a need to make them colored (I just did that for contrast).  This would not only clear up some things for some weapons but would allow for the darkwood bows to be as cool as they were intended to be.

Trying to make the game more faceted and, in a sense, cooler is a great motive.  The thing is True Dungeon can avoid all symbols on tokens and put things into the token guide.  Yes, this forces players to learn more and remember more (coaches too for that matter!) but this allows for changes and that flexibility might be what Jeff is looking to keep.  Or it could simply be an aesthetics thing and he does not like clutter.<br /><br />I don't see any harm in Melee vs Ranged symbols (I think I asked Jeff or Dave to consider it for the first printing of chippies...) but then do you stop there, what about slash/pierce/smash symbols...personally, that category is more important to me vs M/R.  I think it is more game impacting since certain weapon types potentially do limited or no damage vs certain monsters...and that has a much bigger game impact then M/R in my opinion.<br />

My concern about tracking things like blunt/pierce is this will slow combat, and take away from the KISS principle that makes TD work.

Additional complexity is probably inevitable as the game matures, but you sure have it right about attention to those kinds of complexities being a time sync. As the complexities are added, it would seem that rebalancing and establishment of tools that improve efficiency will need to occur concomittantly.

If we're going to add things like immunities and damage resistance to elemental damage or weapon type, then we need an easy reference for DMs. We've already had monsters that take no damage from lightning and were actually healed by it. That's fine when the dm's just have to pay attention to a handful of spells but what about now that we're adding elemental damage to melee weapons and range weapon. At some point, you need an easy way to discern all the crap that might affect the damage at a glance. The DM should be able to look down at the token and know immediately if it has fire damage attached to it or whatever.