TOPIC: Unfortunate Token Predator News

Hawk Fingle wrote:

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: Hawk,
I think I was the coach. It happened last year at gen con.
I didn't know the buyer or seller. But what happened was a newbie had pulled a legendary.
Then someone I had not seen before ( plus I am bad with names and faces, if people can't tell by my puzzled look when the approach me). The vet( I had to assume) offered the newbie $100 for a legendary he had pulled. The newbie was going to take it.
I stepped in and said that that token was worth over 1k and he could get a lot more else where. The buyer was pissed at me by the look on his face. If you know me, I could care less.
So after that. I started putting into my coaches speech a rough( I mean very rough) approximate value for tokens. I do not want it to become a price guide or anything like
That.


I told druegar about it. He asked me to write up what I say. Then we are trying to add it to the coaches ( if they have time...lots to do in there). Or maybe the assistant coaches could do that in the room.

For the record. I didn't ask. I took it upon myself to add it to the coaching room first.
I don't know if it will happen but I am trying

I also passed it on to the true dungeon 101 group for the newbies.

It wasn't you, Laz. This was a different coach, and there were no similar announcements made for any of the runs prior to that last run on Friday. This coach said that the announcement was due to new players being ripped off at Origins and TPTB gave new instructions to coaches to make the announcement ahead of time going forward.

Good on you for speaking up and ruining that predator's attempt. That sort of thing makes me so mad so fast.

I was coaching. Nobody said it to me.
When I was training the coaches, I told the gen con story. Maybe they got tired and switched cons etc. who knows. Anyway I try to give a token summary to newbies( if time allows)

I will 100% stand up and say that I saw something similar happen. I will not name the people involved, they can say something if they want.

I ran with a 1/2 PUG of all new players at GenCon. I offered to CoA the other group to increase their loot, and said I would be happy to split the increase in treasure with them to off set the cost of my tokens, but i would loan them anyways. Everyone agreed, everything was good .. and I made sure everyone had a blast, didn't feel left out, and enjoyed themselves. [Something I try to do with every PUG i run with .. even if they don't want to split loot.]

At the end of the run, a family of three (mom dad and younger son) thanked me, and said they had a lot of fun. They were ahead of us in the treasure line, and the mom pulled two UR. (goggles, and something else.) I told her that two of those tokens were good ones, and she got really lucky. She turned around and said they might not play next year, and asked if I wanted them. For a split second .. I won't lie .. I thought about it .. but I told her 'no, we made a deal, I got my share of the treasure, and those are yours. You should keep them in case you DO ever play again. If you don't want them, you can sell them on eBay and easily get $90 or $100 each."

As they were walking off, she was relaying to her husband that they could sell them on ebay. I watched a guy's ears perk up, he offered to buy both of them .. for $40.00. The mom looked over her shoulder at me, as she told him 'no thanks'. I ran into them later at the auction house during the charity auction, and she thanked me for telling her what they were worth .. because she wouldn't have known she was getting taken advantage of. They actually said they were going to keep them, and try to play again this year.

Like Laz .. I can't begin to explain how irritated I was. I didn't intervene .. because everyone has a right to make offers to people. And in this case, it wasn't an orange token. But it was clearly someone trying to take advantage of new player for their own gain. I've made it part of my intro to new players that some tokens can be worth a lot of money, purple, orange, dark blue ones .. and I would be happy to talk to them about anything they might pull as treasure .. *OR* find someone else to talk to them if they were more comfortable with that.

I don't *NEED* the tokens. I need new players to come back to TD to keep it around and to keep tokens WORTH something. I'm happy to be the a$$h0l3 that speaks up in the future when someone is getting in the way of that.

Please do name names or whomever will just keep doing it. You don't need to tell the forum if you don't want to. Relay the name to Jeff. Let him decide but don't just sit on it, because they will do it again and again if they only negative is they didn't get to take advantage of one person.

jedibcg wrote: Please do name names or whomever will just keep doing it. You don't need to tell the forum if you don't want to. Relay the name to Jeff. Let him decide but don't just sit on it, because they will do it again and again if they only negative is they didn't get to take advantage of one person.

Agreed. And possibly consider privately telling a few of us bigger dealers so we can help watch out for the person. I know it borders on gossip, but many times we are in a better position to help.

Every time this title is in the top of Recent Topics I think something like this:



Copyright Druegar

I Have been guilty of asking people what they pull, as I like to live vicariously through their experience. That being said, I do not offer money/trade for anything and I do my best to alert them as to the potential value of their loot.

I would also ask that you relay to TPTB any information regarding identities of anyone trying to 'scam' players.

balthasar wrote: I Have been guilty of asking people what they pull, as I like to live vicariously through their experience. That being said, I do not offer money/trade for anything and I do my best to alert them as to the potential value of their loot.

I would also ask that you relay to TPTB any information regarding identities of anyone trying to 'scam' players.

To put everyone's mind to rest :

The people I didn't want to name were the players, not the person trying to buy their tokens. They have joined the forums .. not my business to involve new players in a conversation that they might like to avoid.

I will point the person out to Jeff or Chad or someone working the front this year if I see them at GenCon pulling this crap. Or I'll just take video and post it. If I'm feeling particularly grouchy, I'll walk over and whistle at the token and say 'You pulled that ?! Wow! That is worth like $100! You are so lucky! All I got was these .. ' and walk away.

I'm not comfortable saying 'it was so-and-so' a year later .. in a thread that is a little worked up. If it *were* someone who was active in the forums, it would then become a he-said-he-said situation. I don't need that kind of noise in a game that is supposed to be relaxing for me. I certainly don't need grief if such a person were to decide to come up and 'converse' with me at GenCon, when I'm trying to relax with my kid and my friends. No thanks.

The long and short of it is : I have been involved in the gaming industry for a *long* time. There are always people who will 'trade heavy' in their favor, be it tokens, magic cards, dragon dice, or just used games. I've seen this same kind of person at every convention I worked, at every trade show I went to, and every product line has them. Just like I used to tell people who pulled revised dual lands that they were a hot card, I tell people who pull good tokens they are good tokens. That is really the most constructive way to solve this as a problem. Every year there will be new people who do this, because like it or not, tokens have an actual monetary value [be it real or perceived.]

Truthfully .. 'value' is the core of this conversation. To one person, me lets say .. a CoA is worth $1200-$1300. To many (many!) others .. they are worth $400,$500,$600,or $700. I know this, because my inbox has some 15 or 20 messages from people asking to buy the one I have up for trade for these amounts.

The only difference is that I'm not a new player (even if I have historically not been very active on the forums) So I know when to just say 'I'll have to pass on that offer." My course of action moving forwards is simply to educate the new players I play with about possible token values. Or at least tell them to check ebay or do a google search before taking cash from someone.

Does that make me more Lawful-Evil? or Neutral-Good?

Steve wrote:

balthasar wrote: I Have been guilty of asking people what they pull, as I like to live vicariously through their experience. That being said, I do not offer money/trade for anything and I do my best to alert them as to the potential value of their loot.

I would also ask that you relay to TPTB any information regarding identities of anyone trying to 'scam' players.

To put everyone's mind to rest :

The people I didn't want to name were the players, not the person trying to buy their tokens. They have joined the forums .. not my business to involve new players in a conversation that they might like to avoid.

I will point the person out to Jeff or Chad or someone working the front this year if I see them at GenCon pulling this crap. Or I'll just take video and post it. If I'm feeling particularly grouchy, I'll walk over and whistle at the token and say 'You pulled that ?! Wow! That is worth like $100! You are so lucky! All I got was these .. ' and walk away.

I'm not comfortable saying 'it was so-and-so' a year later .. in a thread that is a little worked up. If it *were* someone who was active in the forums, it would then become a he-said-he-said situation. I don't need that kind of noise in a game that is supposed to be relaxing for me. I certainly don't need grief if such a person were to decide to come up and 'converse' with me at GenCon, when I'm trying to relax with my kid and my friends. No thanks.

The long and short of it is : I have been involved in the gaming industry for a *long* time. There are always people who will 'trade heavy' in their favor, be it tokens, magic cards, dragon dice, or just used games. I've seen this same kind of person at every convention I worked, at every trade show I went to, and every product line has them. Just like I used to tell people who pulled revised dual lands that they were a hot card, I tell people who pull good tokens they are good tokens. That is really the most constructive way to solve this as a problem. Every year there will be new people who do this, because like it or not, tokens have an actual monetary value [be it real or perceived.]

Truthfully .. 'value' is the core of this conversation. To one person, me lets say .. a CoA is worth $1200-$1300. To many (many!) others .. they are worth $400,$500,$600,or $700. I know this, because my inbox has some 15 or 20 messages from people asking to buy the one I have up for trade for these amounts.

The only difference is that I'm not a new player (even if I have historically not been very active on the forums) So I know when to just say 'I'll have to pass on that offer." My course of action moving forwards is simply to educate the new players I play with about possible token values. Or at least tell them to check ebay or do a google search before taking cash from someone.

Does that make me more Lawful-Evil? or Neutral-Good?

Definitely neutral good imo.

There is nothing evil about your points. Not being accosted when you are with your family is a perfectly valid reason for not disclosing everything publicly here. Alerting TPTB is a good thing to do.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

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HEY! Druekie Monster is many things, but he is not a token predator! He only eats his own cookie tokens.

Druegar wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

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HEY! Druekie Monster is many things, but he is not a token predator! He only eats his own cookie tokens.

Lol, OK - withdrawn.

I ran three runs and had newbies on each run. I made sure they knew that they had a slim chance of pulling tokens that could be worth a lot of money. I did warn them that, "While the True Dungeon community is full of great people, predators always come out when money is involved. Be sure to get a second opinion if someone instantly offers you cash for a token you pull."

Unfortunately it is the nature of some people to try and profit on the ignorance of others.

Aside form that, I know at least 7 new people from my runs want to play TD again!

cdsmith wrote: I ran three runs and had newbies on each run. I made sure they knew that they had a slim chance of pulling tokens that could be worth a lot of money. I did warn them that, "While the True Dungeon community is full of great people, predators always come out when money is involved. Be sure to get a second opinion if someone instantly offers you cash for a token you pull."

Unfortunately it is the nature of some people to try and profit on the ignorance of others.

Aside form that, I know at least 7 new people from my runs want to play TD again!

You did awesome feeling newbies on your runs about tokens. Thank you