TOPIC: Should Ghosting be allowed at GENCON?

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Raven wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: But, maybe that could be solved by training for the volunteers, and maybe signage like putting on all sides of the initial box something like "Initial 3 Token Pulls" and the other box would have "Treasure Enhance Tokens Pulls" or something.

Now that there aren't treasure stamps, this would actually be really easy to implement:

Each player gets a baggie with 3 treasure tokens in it with their XP sticker and completion token.

The mix for the stuff that goes in their bags could be different.

Or, make it even simpler: Every player pulls 3 tokens from the Treasure box as they collect their completion lot - No Treasure chips involved. Just 3 pulls. The volunteer handing out XP codes and completion tokens doesn't even need to look at the party card.

Then anyone who has TE's receives Treasure Chips (equal to the number of bonus Chips they are entitled to) and leaves the Epilogue room. They go to a centrally located Treasure Draw box, and pull their bonus loot there, from a box which may or may not be as rich as the Epilogue mix.

This prevents newbies from accidentally pulling from the wrong box, and it means token-heavy players aren't going to be clogging up the line at the XP desk doing their dozens of pulls.

+x, where "x" is equal to my quota of "+1" for the rest of the year.

I don't like rules. They're just things for gamers to figure out a way around. It's what we do. But do this, and you don't need to change any rules at all.

One possible complication of something like this is that Jeff at times has let people use Treasure Coins for things other than Token Draws. They have been able to be used in the past for loot (buttons, mugs, etc), and I think events in the storyscape area. If Jeff were to want to do that again, those initial 3 pulls would need to be in the form of Treasure Coins so players without TE tokens would have the ability to spend their Treasure Coins on those items instead of Treasure Pulls.

Raven wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: But, maybe that could be solved by training for the volunteers, and maybe signage like putting on all sides of the initial box something like "Initial 3 Token Pulls" and the other box would have "Treasure Enhance Tokens Pulls" or something.

Now that there aren't treasure stamps, this would actually be really easy to implement:

Each player gets a baggie with 3 treasure tokens in it with their XP sticker and completion token.

The mix for the stuff that goes in their bags could be different.

Or, make it even simpler: Every player pulls 3 tokens from the Treasure box as they collect their completion lot - No Treasure chips involved. Just 3 pulls. The volunteer handing out XP codes and completion tokens doesn't even need to look at the party card.

Then anyone who has TE's approaches a Second volunteer, and receives Treasure Chips (equal to the number of bonus Chips they are entitled to) and leaves the Epilogue room. They go to a centrally located Treasure Draw box, and pull their bonus loot there, from a box which may or may not be as rich as the Epilogue mix.

This prevents newbies from accidentally pulling from the wrong box, and it means token-heavy players aren't going to be clogging up the line at the XP desk doing their dozens of pulls.

I like the idea of separating the automatic 3 pulls - let's call those Quest Completion tokens- and the bonus treasure from TEs. This gives Jeff the option of adjusting the treasure quality and gives newbies a good chance of getting decent items without having to water things down.

But having multiple different treasure boxes means someone will mix them up. I think the idea of having the 3 QC draws in a premade package (felt bags zip-tied probably) means an almost zero chance of mixup. And you don't get people throwing tokens into the box getting commons in the mix. And it will be very fast for checkout.

Raven wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: +x, where "x" is equal to my quota of "+1" for the rest of the year.

Sorry - I'm not following. Could you explain what you mean by quota for the rest of the year?

I don't like rules. They're just things for gamers to figure out a way around. It's what we do. But do this, and you don't need to change any rules at all.

True.
Basically, this solution is admitting defeat: It's saying the TE problem is not going to be solved with other restrictions, and just going straight to watering down the loot mix. But doing it in a way which doesn't hurt the newbies as much (hopefully).

Raven, I agree, I'd rather not go down this road because it is admitting defeat and saying no other solution will work. Perhaps the requirement for people to carry their tokens themselves, maybe a Ghost loot ban, maybe something else would solve the problem enough so that this isn't necessary. But, if we do have to admit defeat, this might be a good final option.

Regarding the "+X", I think Brad's just saying he agrees with it so strongly that he'd give it as many "+1"'s as he might use in an entire year of forum use. Kind of Like "+ Infinity".

Lodestone (KH) wrote:

Raven wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: But, maybe that could be solved by training for the volunteers, and maybe signage like putting on all sides of the initial box something like "Initial 3 Token Pulls" and the other box would have "Treasure Enhance Tokens Pulls" or something.

Now that there aren't treasure stamps, this would actually be really easy to implement:

Each player gets a baggie with 3 treasure tokens in it with their XP sticker and completion token.

The mix for the stuff that goes in their bags could be different.

Or, make it even simpler: Every player pulls 3 tokens from the Treasure box as they collect their completion lot - No Treasure chips involved. Just 3 pulls. The volunteer handing out XP codes and completion tokens doesn't even need to look at the party card.

Then anyone who has TE's approaches a Second volunteer, and receives Treasure Chips (equal to the number of bonus Chips they are entitled to) and leaves the Epilogue room. They go to a centrally located Treasure Draw box, and pull their bonus loot there, from a box which may or may not be as rich as the Epilogue mix.

This prevents newbies from accidentally pulling from the wrong box, and it means token-heavy players aren't going to be clogging up the line at the XP desk doing their dozens of pulls.

I like the idea of separating the automatic 3 pulls - let's call those Quest Completion tokens- and the bonus treasure from TEs. This gives Jeff the option of adjusting the treasure quality and gives newbies a good chance of getting decent items without having to water things down.

But having multiple different treasure boxes means someone will mix them up. I think the idea of having the 3 QC draws in a premade package (felt bags zip-tied probably) means an almost zero chance of mixup. And you don't get people throwing tokens into the box getting commons in the mix. And it will be very fast for checkout.

Heck - if that is the approach, why not forget the final room entirely, and include the random 3 pulls in the initial 10 packs. That way if someone gets something awesome, they can use it in that first Dungeon.

Raven wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: +x, where "x" is equal to my quota of "+1" for the rest of the year.

Sorry - I'm not following. Could you explain what you mean by quota for the rest of the year?

We're only allowed one "+1" a month, aren't we?

Sorry, it was just a stupid joke. I was just trying to say I liked your post. A lot.

Mike Steele wrote: Heck - if that is the approach, why not forget the final room entirely, and include the random 3 pulls in the initial 10 packs. That way if someone gets something awesome, they can use it in that first Dungeon.

People like to draw their loot, and it feels like a reward at the end. At the beginning would make it meh.

Personally, I think we admitted defeat when we decided the only way to grow the game was to add more TEs. After that, it was just a question of how do we mitigate the consequences.

Also, CoGF made it worse. That was the first token to reward you (materially) for sharing your tokens. CoA just dialed it up to eleven.

But, you know, spilled milk under the dam.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Heck - if that is the approach, why not forget the final room entirely, and include the random 3 pulls in the initial 10 packs. That way if someone gets something awesome, they can use it in that first Dungeon.

People like to draw their loot, and it feels like a reward at the end. At the beginning would make it meh.

Personally, I think we admitted defeat when we decided the only way to grow the game was to add more TEs. After that, it was just a question of how do we mitigate the consequences.

Also, CoGF made it worse. That was the first token to reward you (materially) for sharing your tokens. CoA just dialed it up to eleven.

But, you know, spilled milk under the dam.

Brad, you have a good point, I think players would like the option to draw those initial 3 Treasure Tokens themselves instead of getting them in a bag.

Raven wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: But, maybe that could be solved by training for the volunteers, and maybe signage like putting on all sides of the initial box something like "Initial 3 Token Pulls" and the other box would have "Treasure Enhance Tokens Pulls" or something.

Now that there aren't treasure stamps, this would actually be really easy to implement:

Each player gets a baggie with 3 treasure tokens in it with their XP sticker and completion token.

The mix for the stuff that goes in their bags could be different.

Or, make it even simpler: Every player pulls 3 tokens from the Treasure box as they collect their completion lot - No Treasure chips involved. Just 3 pulls. The volunteer handing out XP codes and completion tokens doesn't even need to look at the party card.

Then anyone who has TE's approaches a Second volunteer, and receives Treasure Chips (equal to the number of bonus Chips they are entitled to) and leaves the Epilogue room. They go to a centrally located Treasure Draw box, and pull their bonus loot there, from a box which may or may not be as rich as the Epilogue mix.

This prevents newbies from accidentally pulling from the wrong box, and it means token-heavy players aren't going to be clogging up the line at the XP desk doing their dozens of pulls.

+Infinity to what Raven suggests. This is a great solution.

Raven wrote:

Joshua Long wrote: If that would become the case then the proceeds would be split equally amongst all that would want to ghost it.

Split equally?

What if I'm a newbie and have no TE's but Joe has 2 CoAs? Does he have to share his CoA loot "equally" with me? Or do I get 3 chips and he gets the rest? That has the ptential to really piss off a lot of new players.

And what if neither of us have TEs? How do you split 3 treasure pulls?

How do you split the 10-pack at the beginning between 3 people who all want to ghost the slot?

It sounds like a fair plan, but it's not really workable in practice.

(BTW, Josh - I hope you don't take my comments as a personal attack: Your idea/question is a valid one! It gets brought up every time Ghosting is discussed. But every time, it also gets put down because there's too many complications to it. Still, we're brainstorming, so please feel free to keep throwing your ideas into the ring)

I suppose there is a very complicated scenario were ghost slots could be fought for with a maximum system.

So, I would echo another suggestion that was mentioned earlier where a person can only have one ghost. (This would result in up to 5 ghosts in a party, one per real person.)

Though based on the TDC experience it seems like just removing ghosting completely could be on the table. (If we are going for the simplest solution this is the one I could see happening...)

The question Jeff will have to ask himself. "Is if ghosting is banned, is Jeff okay with A con not having all the runs sold out. "

That could happen

Joshua Long wrote:
Though based on the TDC experience it seems like just removing ghosting completely could be on the table. (If we are going for the simplest solution this is the one I could see happening...)

Ghosting was banned at TDC, IMO, because of limited tickets and artificially low price compared to the loot. (Approx average of $80 in loot vs $25-28 ticket price.) If tickets hadn't been rationed, they'd have sold out to farmers in hours.

GenCon tickets are priced much higher, so the pain of an unsold ticket is higher, both to players who get stiffed and to TDA. Plus there's a much higher supply, so there's a real chance of unsold tickets there.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: The question Jeff will have to ask himself. "Is if ghosting is banned, is Jeff okay with A con not having all the runs sold out. "

That could happen

Maybe at a smaller con, but I think GENCON would still quickly sell out. It seems like demand is much higher than supply.