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TOPIC: Pouches of gold

Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #1

If there is going to be opportunities to buy items in the first part of module 3, I would like to buy pouches of gold at the registration booth at a set rate. For example, a pouch containing 200 gp for $5. A price guide for items would also be handy.

This way I would be able to buy the items that I need rather than buying a random group of tokens. My party ended up with lots of tokens that were good for the Magic User and not much for anyone other class.

Be seeing you,

Oxmix

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #2

If there is going to be opportunities to buy items in the first part of module 3, I would like to buy pouches of gold at the registration booth at a set rate. For example, a pouch containing 200 gp for $5. A price guide for items would also be handy.


True Dungeon can't impartially set a value on individual tokens. However, I expect that in the coming months, there will be an "unofficial" economy established and values determined. As more tokens enter the mix, the values will stabilize. In fact, Raven has already posted an unofficial price guide .

Tim
True Heroes Watcher/PH
1st Dungeon Master
Yarrrrr! - Pirate Ninja

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #3

I think that there may well be oppurtunities to buy things in the third module. I would also note that I could only use magic items to trade for magic items. That being said, it is pretty easy to figure out how much you would get from the "average" pouch with some statistics assuming perfectly normal distribution. I understand the reality is that you would probably have to take the one away that you picked from the rest of the choices, but then it becomes way too complicated to do on the back of an envelope and doesn't alter the result that much anyway.
If I remember correctly, the "average" pack has 7 normal, one rare, and one randomly distributed normal, rare, or ultra-rare. This would net you an average of about 39 gp per pouch.

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #4

but then it becomes way too complicated to do on the back of an envelope


You have palms. :smt083

Tim
True Heroes Watcher/PH
1st Dungeon Master
Yarrrrr! - Pirate Ninja

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #5

Tim, you've mentioned problems with setting up an exchange rate before, mentioning illegalities. Could you be more specific as to what these are?

In any case, I don't think that it's a problem to charge for a random set of stuff. This is no different than purchasing baseball cards, or CCG cards. Yes it's random, but that's known when you purchase. Given that there's no other way to get into the economy (except for picking up the few tokens as you play or for EXP), people will buy them, and Tim's informal economy will form. Already is on Ebay.


What you're looking for, Oxmix, is a staff store that both buys and sells. This way, your random magic user items could be sold to purchase other things. This is important for various reasons, not the least of which is that if there's not at least one substantive agency buying and selling using gold as the medium of exchange, then gold is going to lose all value. Basically, the shop sets up the gold...um...Magic Item standard for gold.

The problem so far has been that, apparently, the shop has been setting the exchange rates such that gold is very devalued, because of a shortage they had with magic items, and made possible because they were a monopoly. This is very unfortunate, because it's already established a precedent where gold - though only as common as many magic items - is worth much less than any magic item. This means that gold tokens have become worth far less than magic, making bag distribution very random in value.

The shop coulf fix this by changing their exchange rates, but I think the reason for the rates was, again, to try to make sure that magic was not all bought up by a few people, and so that no group had tons of magic that they wanted going into the dungeon. So, until they get a better supply, and just learn to put up with lots of magic items if people want them (this is going to be the case in the future anyhow), gold will be pretty valueless.

Unless they can come up with some other in-game use for gold. Any thoughts?

It occurs to me that they could sell titles to players that would go up in cost with each additional rank. The idea being to "honor" those players who most supported TD. Hmmm.

Gold Title
200 - Sir
500 - Lord
1000 - Baron
2000 - Earl
5000 - Marquis
10000 - Duke
20000 - King

Sure it wouldn't have an effect in the dungeon, but there could be roleplaying around it, and the staff would know to treat these folks extra nice. Just a thought.

Further, there could be other LARPish things going on in the world at large for which gold could be used. There could be a newsletter that goes out with the names of influential lords and ladies that do things like build castles, bribe nations into war, etc, etc.

I dunno, I'd burn gold on things like this - would you?

In any case, there's the question of what the staff should do with gold that comes in. Should it go out as treasure again? Or be taken out of the economy?

Mike

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #6

I think that any extra gold should be taken out of the economy. It is now pretty hard to do anything with your gold. The last thing I would want is to only find gold when wandering through the dungeon. This is probably where the gold would get recycled to.
I also think that gold should only be used to buy common items. Plenty of them are useful. For those with rare or ultra-rare gold/gems, maybe they could be used to purchase a rare item.
I like the idea that people should not be able to purchase ultra-rare items without trading in another ultra-rare. That way, the ultra-rare items remain something special.

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #7

Tim, you've mentioned problems with setting up an exchange rate before, mentioning illegalities. Could you be more specific as to what these are?

In any case, I don't think that it's a problem to charge for a random set of stuff. This is no different than purchasing baseball cards, or CCG cards.


The problem is with a company establishing a value for the secondary market value for their own product.

For instance: Topps doesn't tell you what a Micky Mantle card is worth. Wizards of the Coast doesn't tell you what a Black Lotus is worth.

I am not a lawyer, but I have had the concepts explained to me in the past.

It's fine for non-staff users like Raven to create their own price guide, but True Adventures can't.

The problem so far has been that, apparently, the shop has been setting the exchange rates such that gold is very devalued, because of a shortage they had with magic items, and made possible because they were a monopoly.


The major problem here was that there wasn't any time to set up a large staff trade post in the tavern due to the speed with which parties were wisked through. Raven was a great help to his when she was able to come in and act as the trader. Every response I've heard from the TA staff indicates that a more comprehensive and accessible trading post will be available in the future.

Tim
True Heroes Watcher/PH
1st Dungeon Master
Yarrrrr! - Pirate Ninja

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #8

It occurs to me that they could sell titles to players that would go up in cost with each additional rank. The idea being to "honor" those players who most supported TD. Hmmm.

Gold Title
200 - Sir
500 - Lord
1000 - Baron
2000 - Earl
5000 - Marquis
10000 - Duke
20000 - King

Sure it wouldn't have an effect in the dungeon, but there could be roleplaying around it, and the staff would know to treat these folks extra nice. Just a thought.



Buying titles, hmmmm... well it isn't as if it hasn't been done for real :D .

Seriously I like the idea, or some similar vein.

Dave
You should know better than to pick up a duck in a dungeon....

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #9

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It occurs to me that they could sell titles to players that would go up in cost with each additional rank. The idea being to "honor" those players who most supported TD. Hmmm.

Gold Title
200 - Sir
500 - Lord
1000 - Baron
2000 - Earl
5000 - Marquis
10000 - Duke
20000 - King


I don't know if those are the values I would attatch to each title, but I think the concept is great!

Heh - I wanna be "Lord Raven" now!
"THERE WILL NEVER BE A TOKEN EQUAL TO A GOOD BRAIN!"- Smakdown

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #10

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It's fine for non-staff users like Raven to create their own price guide, but True Adventures can't.


Yeah... tho as a note, my price guide doesn't touch on Real currency. It's a strictly in-game economy thing, and TD could publish their own "price list" for their merchants to use. In fact, I'd be surprised if they don't... their merchants (assuming they have their own NPC trader set up in the tavern or wherever) will need a price guide for their buying and selling. Otherwise different actors will charge completely different rates for stuff, and it won't be fair to players.

You're right, though: a company can't really say "Our Ultra-Rare blahblahblah is worth $100 dollars"
"THERE WILL NEVER BE A TOKEN EQUAL TO A GOOD BRAIN!"- Smakdown

Check out these awesome resources:
Cranston's Character Generator for iDevices or Android
Amorgen's Excel Character Generator
And the ever-useful Token DataBase , expertly maintained by Druegar.

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #11

After all the replies, I wanted to make the comment that I should have made in the first place:

I don't like CCGs and the treasure tokens remind me of what was in the back of my mind when Magic came out:

The person that spends the most money has an unfair advantage.

I liked True Dungeon and will play again next year, but I am not going to spend my gaming money on a pouch of random collectible tokens.

I was hoping that my suggestion would help make a True Dungeon economy and not encourage people to buy tokens on eBay for real money.

Oxmix

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Pouches of gold 19 years 6 months ago #12

I'm still not seeing what the illegality is, Tim. For instance, an antiques dealer can sell antiques for whatever they like, and then people resell them for different prices. Basically, I'm not seeing how it is that they can't sell their products any way they like.

Perhaps it's because it makes buying random bags gambling? OTOH, if you made the exchange rates based on commonality then you'd always be getting the same value in the random bags.

Of course this leads to the price fixing problem, however. Some commons are going to be worth more in-dungeon than others, so they'd all sell out, while others wouldn't be purchased at all. Is this a securities issue? Is it like issuing bonds, and then messing with the price to profit? Is that where the illegality lies. (Any lawyers out there who could explain?)

Don't get me wrong, I think that a barter economy only is more stable, and more interesting in some ways. Again, the problem is with the gold, however.

I liked True Dungeon and will play again next year, but I am not going to spend my gaming money on a pouch of random collectible tokens.

The nice thing about how it works is that none of this requires at all that you buy any. The tokens may make it easier to get through the dungeon, but it's certainly not impossible to make it without them. Nor are any of the other suggested benefits neccessary to play.

Does it give them an "unfair" advantage? Well, yes, if you're directly comparing end performances of differing parties. What I'm sure will happen is that some people will start playing "pure" runs where they go in with no tokens. Because otherwise there's no really good way to judge player ability from one to the other. In any case, there are so many odd factors already (just think about different GMs) that even then it'll be hard to call any run a completely fair comparison. So, I think for the most part you're really up against yourself in TD. And to that extent, you can handicap yourself without bias with regard to tokens.

Just tell people who made it all the way through that you did the same thing sans tokens, as a way to one up them if that's what you're looking for. The key thing here is that nobody has a worse time because somebody else used tokens.

I was hoping that my suggestion would help make a True Dungeon economy and not encourage people to buy tokens on eBay for real money.


If you want to pay more to support TD, Tokens just gives you a fun way to do it. What eBay is doing is ensuring that there will be people at GenCon next year that will be there to sell tokens for cash - precisely what you asked for. You will be able to buy tokens next year at fixed prices from profiteers. You might not like the prices, but they'll be market value.


Raven, yeah, I'm seeing that gold to magic price guide for the "TA Store" as a necessity in some ways. Again, to support the value of the gold. In fact, I'm tempted to start hoarding gold in the hope that it's value will be boosted by such an exchange rate in the future (he said, hoping to undo any damage done to gold values with his last statement about it).

That said, it becomes tantamount to giving real dollar prices. If a bag of random tokens costs $9 and gives 39 gold on average, and the converted value of the other tokens is, on average 200 gold, then you have an approximate gold to dollar conversion rate right there. It's meaningless, until you can exchange tokens for other tokens at fixed rates. Once that happens, then you have an approximate correllation between actual currency, and the cost of any particular item. Not sure if that falls under Tim's area of being problematic, or not.

Mike

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