TOPIC: +5 Final Transmute Recipes

Steel and hide allow newbies their early transmute options, steel was my first at GenCon 6 years ago now. And they force old hats to trade with newbies giving us the materials we need and the newbies equipment that is useful in the Dungeon.

Consumables like munition, inks and parchement force questions, and that’s not a bad thing.

A glut should be avoided and so if the recipes do not double down on one resource too hard (and the monk isn’t required to help get resources for the mage, he thinks I’m a rogue I’m sure of it) your average 1k buyer can with a few trades make relics every other year. (How the heck am I making so many relics, the math doesn’t add ........) Is a relic every 2k order the bar Jeff wants, or does he want it to be more every 1k order, or 4K order. (Token enhancers and a full group of folks that all give me their tokens! I have awesome friends! One relic a year feels so good. I should do a 2k order to get more steel next year.) Oh and steel and hide might help with token sales since they are the only source other than moar runs.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Harlax wrote: Jedi's tracking sheet shows that about .77 percent of pulls at Origins and about .99 percent of pulls at GenCon were trade goods. While I'd welcome more Steel and Hide in the box, I don't know that it would change things all that much given how infrequent a trade good pull seems to be.

The percentage of the trade goods that are hide and steel, plus the percentage of trade goods in the treasure mix, would both probably have to be increased.

And none of that will help if bits remain the bottleneck. Well just end up with eight gluts instead of three

So really, a recipie should look like this:

Lute of Fury
6× Alchemist’s Ink
5× Alchemist’s Parchment
1× Aragonite
20× Darkwood Plank
2× Dwarven Steel
1× Elven Bismuth
1× Golden Fleece
3× Minotaur Hide
10× Mystic Silk
1× Oil of Enchantment
10× Philosopher’s Stone
5,000 GP in Reserve bars

--OR--

1× Alchemist’s Ink
1× Alchemist’s Parchment
1× Aragonite
1× Darkwood Plank
1× Dwarven Steel
1× Elven Bismuth
1× Minotaur Hide
1× Mystic Silk
1× Oil of Enchantment
1× Philosopher’s Stone
5,000 GP in Reserve bars
125 of any trade good.

Ian Lee wrote: a lot of gamers I know locally have never heard of it until I talk about it.

Do these same people go to the conventions where TD is played?

Ian Lee wrote: The disbursement of information for casual players is actually pretty terrible.

This is a perennial issue. We can't make people come to the forums. We can't make them read posters or handouts in the coaching rooms. We know for certain that people don't read descriptions for events--which is why we don't have dedicated Nightmare runs anymore. What marketing vector(s) would you recommend? That's not snark, I'm genuinely interested in hearing folks' ideas.

Ian Lee wrote: Make [transmuting] not challenging.

I'm of the mindset that it's okay to have both challenging recipes for tokenholic veterans and easy recipes for newbies. Why do you feel it's problematic to have both?

Druegar wrote:

Ian Lee wrote: a lot of gamers I know locally have never heard of it until I talk about it.

Do these same people go to the conventions where TD is played?

Ian Lee wrote: The disbursement of information for casual players is actually pretty terrible.

This is a perennial issue. We can't make people come to the forums. We can't make them read posters or handouts in the coaching rooms. We know for certain that people don't read descriptions for events--which is why we don't have dedicated Nightmare runs anymore. What marketing vector(s) would you recommend? That's not snark, I'm genuinely interested in hearing folks' ideas.

Ian Lee wrote: Make [transmuting] not challenging.

I'm of the mindset that it's okay to have both challenging recipes for tokenholic veterans and easy recipes for newbies. Why do you feel it's problematic to have both?

The only thing I can think of is on the XP code cards handed out at epilogue. But I'd say that real estate is more valuable for promoting volunteering and future events.

I thought having the trade good code on the tokens this year might have prompted some questions in coaching - "What is this MS thing at the top of the token?" But I didn't get a single question about that in 4 days of coaching.

Harlax wrote:

Druegar wrote:

Ian Lee wrote: a lot of gamers I know locally have never heard of it until I talk about it.

Do these same people go to the conventions where TD is played?

Ian Lee wrote: The disbursement of information for casual players is actually pretty terrible.

This is a perennial issue. We can't make people come to the forums. We can't make them read posters or handouts in the coaching rooms. We know for certain that people don't read descriptions for events--which is why we don't have dedicated Nightmare runs anymore. What marketing vector(s) would you recommend? That's not snark, I'm genuinely interested in hearing folks' ideas.

Ian Lee wrote: Make [transmuting] not challenging.

I'm of the mindset that it's okay to have both challenging recipes for tokenholic veterans and easy recipes for newbies. Why do you feel it's problematic to have both?

The only thing I can think of is on the XP code cards handed out at epilogue. But I'd say that real estate is more valuable for promoting volunteering and future events.

I thought having the trade good code on the tokens this year might have prompted some questions in coaching - "What is this MS thing at the top of the token?" But I didn't get a single question about that in 4 days of coaching.

Plenty of real estate still left on the table. Literally. Why not tape the recipes to the tables in the coaching rooms (current year, obviously)? Highly visible, directly related to what they just pulled out of their packs, etc.

Harlax wrote:

Druegar wrote:

Ian Lee wrote: a lot of gamers I know locally have never heard of it until I talk about it.

Do these same people go to the conventions where TD is played?

Ian Lee wrote: The disbursement of information for casual players is actually pretty terrible.

This is a perennial issue. We can't make people come to the forums. We can't make them read posters or handouts in the coaching rooms. We know for certain that people don't read descriptions for events--which is why we don't have dedicated Nightmare runs anymore. What marketing vector(s) would you recommend? That's not snark, I'm genuinely interested in hearing folks' ideas.

Ian Lee wrote: Make [transmuting] not challenging.

I'm of the mindset that it's okay to have both challenging recipes for tokenholic veterans and easy recipes for newbies. Why do you feel it's problematic to have both?

The only thing I can think of is on the XP code cards handed out at epilogue. But I'd say that real estate is more valuable for promoting volunteering and future events.

I thought having the trade good code on the tokens this year might have prompted some questions in coaching - "What is this MS thing at the top of the token?" But I didn't get a single question about that in 4 days of coaching.

I didn't even see the trade good code until I got home and was trying to figure out how transmuting worked. Someone on the forums said, "look at the code at the top of the chip" and I was like, whoah.

Charm of Health was a very good beginner transmute example. The gold star to me though is still Boots of the Marauder, which per tokendb was:

Belt of Freedom
Minor Ring of Reflexes
Boots of the Raider
Charm of the Wealful Wind
plus ONLY ONE of the following:
Golem Spring
Genie Vapor
the equivalent of 250 GP


That was maybe the second year I ever ran TD, my first year back at Gencon in awhile. The first time I played TD ( '08 ) I used mostly borrowed tokens. I bought a few packs at gencon and a couple tokens from the dealers hall to compensate and ran with that this new year. I don't recall where I first saw the transmute recipe, but I realized that looked like a super useful token, and from the packs I bought from TD, I had most of the ingredients already! I think I was only missing Boots of the Raider, and it was clear that that was another rare token, not a "Whats a Mystic SIlk?) and It gave me a clear use for the Gold piece we had pulled from a pack as well. I was ridiculously excited to be able to transmute that, in one step, using tokens I had obtained through the normal course of Dungeoning. That spark has grown into a minor token-holic, and I still wear those boots ^_^.

This is why I don't like Trade goods in a lot of lower level facing transmutes. A new player can't easily see the path to that. Or its a 2 step process, even if i have the materials to make the Trade Goods, i need to wait to make them, then transmute again to get the actual token. I think there is a huge lure in transmuting if you can use the tokens immediately available at a con to make something new then and there.


As an aside I +1 the bottleneck at monster bits. That has put a damper on my excitement from the tokens next year. I couldn't get to gencon this year. I might be able to slip into gamehole con, but with a Wedding in a couple weeks I need to see where we are after all that in the budget. I initially wanted to try and stretch for the Bead and the treasure charm, but with so many bits now needed, I may end up quite limited.

MetaphoricDragon wrote: Charm of Health was a very good beginner transmute example. The gold star to me though is still Boots of the Marauder, which per tokendb was:

Belt of Freedom
Minor Ring of Reflexes
Boots of the Raider
Charm of the Wealful Wind
plus ONLY ONE of the following:
Golem Spring
Genie Vapor
the equivalent of 250 GP


That was maybe the second year I ever ran TD, my first year back at Gencon in awhile. The first time I played TD ( '08 ) I used mostly borrowed tokens. I bought a few packs at gencon and a couple tokens from the dealers hall to compensate and ran with that this new year. I don't recall where I first saw the transmute recipe, but I realized that looked like a super useful token, and from the packs I bought from TD, I had most of the ingredients already! I think I was only missing Boots of the Raider, and it was clear that that was another rare token, not a "Whats a Mystic SIlk?) and It gave me a clear use for the Gold piece we had pulled from a pack as well. I was ridiculously excited to be able to transmute that, in one step, using tokens I had obtained through the normal course of Dungeoning. That spark has grown into a minor token-holic, and I still wear those boots ^_^.

This is why I don't like Trade goods in a lot of lower level facing transmutes. A new player can't easily see the path to that. Or its a 2 step process, even if i have the materials to make the Trade Goods, i need to wait to make them, then transmute again to get the actual token. I think there is a huge lure in transmuting if you can use the tokens immediately available at a con to make something new then and there.


As an aside I +1 the bottleneck at monster bits. That has put a damper on my excitement from the tokens next year. I couldn't get to gencon this year. I might be able to slip into gamehole con, but with a Wedding in a couple weeks I need to see where we are after all that in the budget. I initially wanted to try and stretch for the Bead and the treasure charm, but with so many bits now needed, I may end up quite limited.

Thanks for sharing that. I love Boots of the Marauder are and never realized that they were such an attainable transmute back in the day. I like that a group of ~3 players that run all 4 adventures together would have a decent shot of being able to trade into the missing pieces to make a transmute like that. It'd be great to see more transmutes like that and Charm of Health.

Arnold wrote:

MetaphoricDragon wrote: Charm of Health was a very good beginner transmute example. The gold star to me though is still Boots of the Marauder, which per tokendb was:

Belt of Freedom
Minor Ring of Reflexes
Boots of the Raider
Charm of the Wealful Wind
plus ONLY ONE of the following:
Golem Spring
Genie Vapor
the equivalent of 250 GP


That was maybe the second year I ever ran TD, my first year back at Gencon in awhile. The first time I played TD ( '08 ) I used mostly borrowed tokens. I bought a few packs at gencon and a couple tokens from the dealers hall to compensate and ran with that this new year. I don't recall where I first saw the transmute recipe, but I realized that looked like a super useful token, and from the packs I bought from TD, I had most of the ingredients already! I think I was only missing Boots of the Raider, and it was clear that that was another rare token, not a "Whats a Mystic SIlk?) and It gave me a clear use for the Gold piece we had pulled from a pack as well. I was ridiculously excited to be able to transmute that, in one step, using tokens I had obtained through the normal course of Dungeoning. That spark has grown into a minor token-holic, and I still wear those boots ^_^.

This is why I don't like Trade goods in a lot of lower level facing transmutes. A new player can't easily see the path to that. Or its a 2 step process, even if i have the materials to make the Trade Goods, i need to wait to make them, then transmute again to get the actual token. I think there is a huge lure in transmuting if you can use the tokens immediately available at a con to make something new then and there.


As an aside I +1 the bottleneck at monster bits. That has put a damper on my excitement from the tokens next year. I couldn't get to gencon this year. I might be able to slip into gamehole con, but with a Wedding in a couple weeks I need to see where we are after all that in the budget. I initially wanted to try and stretch for the Bead and the treasure charm, but with so many bits now needed, I may end up quite limited.

Thanks for sharing that. I love Boots of the Marauder are and never realized that they were such an attainable transmute back in the day. I like that a group of ~3 players that run all 4 adventures together would have a decent shot of being able to trade into the missing pieces to make a transmute like that. It'd be great to see more transmutes like that and Charm of Health.

I agree that it is easier to make a transmute if it doesn't require trade goods.

Whether or not that is the best solution to the issue is more up for debate. I also think there is something to be said for trying to trade for those items you need to make your first transmute, meeting other new players and veterans along the way.

I remember being a beginning player. When I did decide to start transmitting tokens I remember thinking how many years it would take before I could transmute enough to get the trade token that I needed. Albeit myself and one other person were the only two from our group that liked to play. It probably took 2 to 3 years for me to be able to accumulate the tokens that I needed to make my first transmute. And at that time True Dungeon was only at Gen Con so there weren’t as many opportunities to go to different conventions.

I’m just saying that it can seem daunting for new players to have to try to cumulate trade tokens.

Bob Chasan wrote: I remember being a beginning player. When I did decide to start transmitting tokens I remember thinking how many years it would take before I could transmute enough to get the trade token that I needed. Albeit myself and one other person were the only two from our group that liked to play. It probably took 2 to 3 years for me to be able to accumulate the tokens that I needed to make my first transmute. And at that time True Dungeon was only at Gen Con so there weren’t as many opportunities to go to different conventions.

I’m just saying that it can seem daunting for new players to have to try to cumulate trade tokens.

Maybe there could be alternate low-level recipes to let newbies bypass the trade good step, like: 1 Dwarven Steel or 25 common weapons, 1 Minotaur Hide or 25 common armor, or 1 Mystic Silk or 25 points of clothing.

Don’t do that at the 4-point Level or higher, of course. That would get too messy real quickly.

Based on the last few pages I kind of like the idea of TD basically offering a Catan style port. Nice and simple, when the port is open you physically walk in and trade 3 of any type 1 good for a single other type 1 trade good. If we identify a specific trade good that's over saturated in the market say planks TD could offer a 2 to 1 trade on that good specifically. Once we feel we have caused enough of a correction we just close the port.