TOPIC: Pay-to-Win?

Druegar wrote:

Do you have to pay (for additional tokens) to win (overcome all obstacles) on Normal or Non-Lethal mode?

I'm sorry, I disagree, and I have a situation to back this belief up.
This is my 2014 example. By the way, I don't feel it's necessarily BAD that some things are pay to win, but this is my story.

A group of us encountered Medusa, a room 6. We all attacked her of course, and the DM rolled a bunch of times. 6 of us were told we were petrified. I didn't know what it meant at the time, so that was okay. One of us had a mirror item, which was required to avoid this, I gathered.
Combat ended.
I asked the DM, "So now I'm not petrified and can play the next room?"
Answer: "Do you have anti-petrification tokens?"
Us: ".....no....?"
DM: "Then you're done."
Us: "oh."
So having specific (rare) tokens was required, was the message. I got to slide once and my game ended there.

Now I realize it can happen: bad luck happens, bad luck or something that the DM petrified all of us. But we had no recovery, so it felt like we were being told we had to buy tokens or this happens. So I feel that cases like that boost the 'I must have more tokens to get to play all the rooms' aspect.

Druegar wrote: Will spending a fortune on tokens get you laid? Send pix and we'll talk.

Says the guy who has a pic of his rod in his profile

I do not think it is pay-to-win. Pay to collect, 100%!!! But that is a different topic.

Most of us have done green runs, nekked runs, etc... I do not think that you have to pay-to-win, pay to enjoy and have fun with good people!

Sharkley (Zack) wrote: I'm sorry, I disagree, and I have a situation to back this belief up.
This is my 2014 example.

I disagree, have facts to back that up, and feel no compulsion to apologize.

• Scroll Stone to Flesh was re-printed in 2014. You could have received one in your free bag. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have succeeded on your petrification save. It was only DC 10 on Normal mode.
• You could have worn a Medallion of Greyhawk . It was an older token, but it was craftable without spending money on extra tokens. (I'll grant you, this one is a stretch, I'm just saying it's possible.)
• You could have equipped a Figurine of Power Scarab if found in your free bag. It gives a +3 to any save. It's not a guarantee, but it would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have equipped a Minor Ring of Fortitude if found in your free bag. It gives a +2 to Fort saves and would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.

Furthermore, you have not defined what "win" means.

Raven wrote: Says the guy who has a pic of his rod in his profile

I have a picture of A rod in my profile. I never said it was mine. But I also never said it wasn't mine...

Druegar wrote:

Sharkley (Zack) wrote: I'm sorry, I disagree, and I have a situation to back this belief up.
This is my 2014 example.

I disagree, have facts to back that up, and feel no compulsion to apologize.

• Scroll Stone to Flesh was re-printed in 2014. You could have received one in your free bag. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have succeeded on your petrification save. It was only DC 10 on Normal mode.
• You could have worn a Medallion of Greyhawk . It was an older token, but it was craftable without spending money on extra tokens. (I'll grant you, this one is a stretch, I'm just saying it's possible.)
• You could have equipped a Figurine of Power Scarab if found in your free bag. It gives a +3 to any save. It's not a guarantee, but it would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have equipped a Minor Ring of Fortitude if found in your free bag. It gives a +2 to Fort saves and would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.

Furthermore, you have not defined what "win" means.

I believe (though I don't have the module in front of me) you could slide blind. Walk up to the table with your eyes closed slide against her. I am pretty sure that we did that on one of our sealed runs. Sliding was awful but no one was turned to stone. Again this might have just been the DM allowed it. It was a gorgon or Medusa most adventures know not to look at one.

Druegar wrote:

Raven wrote: Says the guy who has a pic of his rod in his profile

I have a picture of A rod in my profile. I never said it was mine. But I also never said it wasn't mine...

Oh, but, I mean, it's all rainbow-coloured, and magical, and after the stories I'd heard... and I just kind of assumed. My bad.

(unless it really *is* your rod? Then, um... Your(e) good?)

Druegar wrote:

Sharkley (Zack) wrote: I'm sorry, I disagree, and I have a situation to back this belief up.
This is my 2014 example.

I disagree, have facts to back that up, and feel no compulsion to apologize.

• Scroll Stone to Flesh was re-printed in 2014. You could have received one in your free bag. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have succeeded on your petrification save. It was only DC 10 on Normal mode.
• You could have worn a Medallion of Greyhawk . It was an older token, but it was craftable without spending money on extra tokens. (I'll grant you, this one is a stretch, I'm just saying it's possible.)
• You could have equipped a Figurine of Power Scarab if found in your free bag. It gives a +3 to any save. It's not a guarantee, but it would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.
• You could have equipped a Minor Ring of Fortitude if found in your free bag. It gives a +2 to Fort saves and would have improved your odds. You did not have to pay to get one.

Furthermore, you have not defined what "win" means.

But - those are all tokens that, if you didn't happen to get one in your free pack (and the odds were against it), you would have to "pay" to get one, or be at a disadvantage. There are probably players turned to stone that didn't have any of those tokens, that saw players with one or more of those tokens recover with no harm, while they missed the rest of the Dungeon. That would certainly cement a "pay or play" mindset for those players.

I totally understand the "pay to play" point of view some people might have. Gamers are often competitive, they would often like to compete on the highest level, and would like to have as good a chance as others. Not all gamers of course, but certainly some percentage of them.

Even though you can certainly make a case that you have a chance of winning/surviving/etc with very few tokens, it is very hard to argue that someone with a ton of tokens doesn't have a better chance of winning/surviving/etc than someone with very few. In combat rooms, having +20 to hit and damage certainly gives you better odds of success than having +2 to hit and damage. In the Smoak Dungeons, having all the Darkrift damage reducing tokens made you MUCH more likely to survive retribution damage than if you didn't have them. This year, having the Ioun Stone in the final room kept you from taking a huge hit right off the bat. Even in puzzle rooms, having the right tokens gives the group a MUCH better chance to heal damage than a group without those tokens.

Druegar wrote:

Sharkley (Zack) wrote: I'm sorry, I disagree, and I have a situation to back this belief up.
This is my 2014 example.

I disagree, have facts to back that up, and feel no compulsion to apologize.
Furthermore, you have not defined what "win" means.

My personal feeling of 'win' was getting to participate in the whole dungeon. My question comes down to "Do I need to buy tokens for that to occur?"

It's my perception that a monster had an ability to petrify a whole party in two rounds, which could have been prevented by buying tokens.
I just don't think it's safe to say that 6 people in my party all should have had something in their free bags to have saved the group from that big of a problem. It was that none of us drew or had anything to save us. Bad luck? Sure. Buying those tokens would have meant continuation.

I admit this particular example is jaded because I didn't get to roll my save and the DM didn't check our saves on the card (so +save tokens wouldn't have done anything for me), so this is a little on the frustration-emotional end for me, but I'm sticking to that my perception, which may or may not be common, was that because I didn't draw any token to save me, I have to buy ones to save me. Or I'd be dead.

I mean, in this situation, where I didn't draw them, what could I do differently? Is my only option to buy?
(Edit: By the way, I love the eyes-closed idea, but doesn't help the 2 guys that got petrified for walking into the room , hehe )

Please take this as thoughtful only, I do want to understand and I'd like it if I'm wrong about this.

To recapture what was already stated, the definition of "win" is too vague and thus the argument cannot be validated. My best run has been a nightmare party wipe. It was EPIC!

We all had fun and are planning another run next year. 3 of the 7 members (that's right we played 3 travelers down) had never played TD or DnD prior. They had a pack of 10 and whatever leftovers I had (not much).

"Haters gonna hate"

I was on Zach's run. The GM was tired and didn't care. I had + 7 to my save, rolled a 5 and the GM said I was stone.

As far as Pay-to-win, absolutely if you want to improve your odds of surviving all 7 rooms. The examples provided earlier all were of moderate to very low chance of obtaining out of a pack or two. With Medusa with low saves (Remember, a new TD player may have a single token pack and nobody to loan her tokens) there was about a 20% chance every round of being turned to stone. If the entire party was this ill equipped, on average after only 4 rounds of combat over half the party is stone, on average. Go to 6 rounds maybe 2 or 3 are left. My group was above average, only 4 were stoned (two more succumbed to their wounds).

The dungeons are meant to be difficult to survive, and do not fool yourself in thinking a party of 10 with a single pack of tokens that everyone will survive a normal combat run, every time, especially with medusas and Mindflayers.

Disbeeleaf wrote: I can give you a perspective on this based on now eight straight years of playing TD. I know some others have played longer. In my opinion, there has been a steady increase in the emphasis on tokens as a means to an end in TD. The importance of tokens to success (defined as surviving to the end of the game) rather than cleverness and wits has become progressively greater over time. While it is none of my business how Jeff martin wants to structure TD, the focus on tokens, coincident with the unmistakable token power creep and associated cost, is the reason I believe rumors abound and entry level potential players see TD as "pay to win".

Do you think this focus on tokens and power creep has happened at the Normal difficulty? I agree at Nightmare it has clearly happened but it seems just as feasible to do a sealed pack run today as it was 5 years ago.