TOPIC: "Ghosting" a run for Treasure - Changed at GenCon?

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Neither of those solutions fixes the Zombie retainer issue.

and

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: There's very little difference between what I do and Building a Zombie Retainer run.
I don't honestly think there's a way to differentiate to a point where one can be allowed and the other punished.

Aside from the amusement value of seeing your argue with yourself (even if it's just to prove a point) .. I agree completely.

There's really no way we can solve the "Zombie Retainer" issue. If there's a live body on the run, we have to treat them like a player, not question their intent, nor question the motives of the person organizing the run.

The best we can do is to address the issue of "No Player Present" Retainers, and the overall value of Treasure.

Cavor wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:
It's been suggested multiple times. It's one of the solutions to the *buying out runs purely to farm treasure* but I'm not sure if it would open up more dungeon runs or just result in larger quantities of treasure being distributed.

Hopefully, Both.

That assumes that people are buying tickets purely for the treasure pulls. While it's completely possible (and to a smaller point likely) most of the runs I see where tickets are ghosted are done for other reasons.


I prefer a 6 man run to a 10 man run. So we buy a 10 man, get a solid 6 people and I ghost the final 4 tickets. I use CoA tokens and Synergy tokens on them to compensate the additional $216 cost for those tickets in order to have a run at the fullness level my team wants to have.

I'd love to attempt a solo nightmare dungeon one year. It's crazy expensive and I run Wizard (spellcaster) so it's not likely I will try it. But if I did I'm ghosting those other 9 spaces for the experience of the run, not the focus of the treasure.

I ran a 3 man at WYC last year, at the time of our run we figured out the other 7 remaining tickets were unsold. We had the CoA to cover the other spots so the group decided to buy out the rest of the run and do it 3 man. It was a blast! Definitely my favorite run that entire convention. I would do it again in a heartbeat.


None of those situations are treasure chip farming focused, all of them happen.

Raven wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Neither of those solutions fixes the Zombie retainer issue.

and

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: There's very little difference between what I do and Building a Zombie Retainer run.
I don't honestly think there's a way to differentiate to a point where one can be allowed and the other punished.

Aside from the amusement value of seeing your argue with yourself (even if it's just to prove a point) .. I agree completely.

There's really no way we can solve the "Zombie Retainer" issue. If there's a live body on the run, we have to treat them like a player, not question their intent, nor question the motives of the person organizing the run.

The best we can do is to address the issue of "No Player Present" Retainers, and the overall value of Treasure.

Well to be fair I'm not arguing with myself there

I don't think there IS a fix to the Zombie Retainer issue.
There IS a fix to the No Player Present Retainer issue.
But I question if fixing the Ghost Retainer issue would be good for TD or if it would pressure people into bringing Zombies with who are unwelcome.

If I WANT to run a 6 person group with 4 ghosts SPECIFICALLY because I find 6 people is a better number to experience TD with than 10 should I lose value on those tickets that are being ghosted? I paid full price for them, I took the time to buy the run to get them and to organize the run I'm doing. Why should I be penalized for it?


There's definitely a line that needs to be drawn in the sand somewhere. I just wonder what that number is.


Double Down runs are fairly common. Heck it's a term people use on the forums and it's just accepted you know what it is.

Doesn't seem like a double down run should be penalized?

1/2/3 man runs are done. They seem to be specifically done for the challenge. If I ever embark on a solo run (at GenCon) I think I would be OK with getting less treasure in that run? Maybe?

I've never done a Solo Nightmare run, I probably won't attempt one myself. My views on that might differ if it were on the table for me to do.

I guess I am arguing with myself now

Cavor wrote: True Dungeon is a game played at a game convention. The only sane goal is for the maximum number of people to have fun. Anything that reduces this should be discouraged. Anyone that buys a TD ticket and turns it in should have the opportunity to get treasure and run rewards.

Here are the changes I would make given everything I read in this thread:

1. Fill all groups to 10 players if anyone wants to play (wait list, etc.)
2. Allow ghosting/retainer if no player wants the slot
3. Allow the purchasing of unsold slots/runs including rewards except xp.
4. Sell 20 treasure tokens for 60$ to anyone that wants to buy

If you were to move to this system, when filling established groups with the waitlist, the newbies players need to:

1. Accept the difficulty level decided by the other players
2. Accept the class selection choices decided by the other players

So it would be "we have 2 slots open for a Nightmare run where the Bard, Dwarf Fighter, and both Wizards are still available."

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: I agree that it's unlikely that someone will buy $10k to start a farming operation.

But someone who accumulated TEs over a few years, especially if they outfit entire groups, or even just a few family members, may find they got over half way there without even trying.

That's what happened to me. I got two HoPs. I got four RoR as PYP. I got 10 CoGF (so we'd always get 4 chips) when they were PYP. I made two CoAs. I got 8 AoTF as PYP. I got more rings, making another CoA... blah blah blah. So cash-wise, I got to 158 chips for well less than $5k over four years. I'm sure many longer-term players got to 170 for even less.

The new Nuggets will get me over 170 for much less than finishing off seven CoAs, but that's gravy. I don't have to get to max to make a profit under the current situation with what I have already.

I only say all this to say, don't take too much comfort in the thought that $10k is too big a nut to crack.

Absolutely true.

But you are a forum member, you enjoy the game, you understand the URTE situation and the state of the treasure *cave* we live in.

It's not likely that you're going to turn your current token into a money making scheme and start buying out runs to escalate your own profits at the detriment of TD.

Ah, appealing to the Angels of my better nature.

Here's the thing. For the last three years I've been saying on the forums that we would get to this point, and for three years I was told I was being stupid or paranoid, lets just keep raising the loot cap without limit. It'll all be fine. People made fun of my Chicken Little concerns and made up cute names like "tokenpocalypse" (or was it tokengeddon? I forgot) for the doom that would never come.

The sky didn't fall, but there are obvious cracks in it.

And now, just as I give up and decide to join the "damn the torpedos" crowd, Raven and others are raising the same concerns, not as some future event but something they see happening right now.

And I hear people justifying their type of farming as "ok," but if I do it and am honest about why, then I'm a bad person.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to that.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Raven wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Neither of those solutions fixes the Zombie retainer issue.

and

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: There's very little difference between what I do and Building a Zombie Retainer run.
I don't honestly think there's a way to differentiate to a point where one can be allowed and the other punished.

Aside from the amusement value of seeing your argue with yourself (even if it's just to prove a point) .. I agree completely.

There's really no way we can solve the "Zombie Retainer" issue. If there's a live body on the run, we have to treat them like a player, not question their intent, nor question the motives of the person organizing the run.

The best we can do is to address the issue of "No Player Present" Retainers, and the overall value of Treasure.

Well to be fair I'm not arguing with myself there

I don't think there IS a fix to the Zombie Retainer issue.
There IS a fix to the No Player Present Retainer issue.
But I question if fixing the Ghost Retainer issue would be good for TD or if it would pressure people into bringing Zombies with who are unwelcome.

Well, the "fix" for both would be to sufficiently disincentivize such extra runs by increasing the price of tickets, decreasing the amount of rewards or treasure tokens, or diluting the mix of treasure.

The whole point that several forumites (like Brad) are trying to make is that more treasure enhancers (like the proposed Ioun Stone Nugget) increase the amount of rewards or treasure tokens which exacerbates this problem.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Cavor wrote:

Not everyone WANTS to have 10 players in their group.
Many people buy full runs to double down (10 tickets, 5 players) as it's seen (accurately) as a more enjoyable experience
MANY runs end up with 1-2 players missing the run and current TD rules state that a single player can overrule the rest of the party on raising the difficulty on the run, potentially costing 8-9 players XP and completion tokens.

I realize that some people want to exclude others from gaming, but this in direct violation of Gencon's gaming rules. The fact that TD allows this is amazing. For filling the slot from the wait list I would make the added person agree to run at the level agreed upon by the main ticket holders. If no one is available or willing to run at that level, allow ghosting.

Let me give you an example: If I was DMing a D&D module with 6 slots and 4 players showed up with 6 six tickets and said they wanted to only run 4 with several people waiting to use generics, and then they got mad when I allowed 2 more people to join, I would honestly think to myself, these people are a-holes. Why is TD different?

Why should my purchase of an unsold run not grant me exp? If I run the run I should get EXP for it?

Anyone actually running should get XP, ghosts should not. I assumed the person buying the run for the loot would not actually run it.

D&D is $6 a run TD is $54

I've BEEN one of the 4 people at a 6 person table of D&D before when we were forced to add 2 players. Sometimes it's great, other times it's TERRIBLE when the new players don't work with the existing group dynamics.

Completely aside it's what cost my D&D team the semi finals round at the final D&D Open a few years back. We got forced to accept 2 new players in the tournament, one of whom had never played D&D before. We pre-fill our full D&D team when possible now.

*Had 2 random players at the D&D All Access the last two years, each time had 1 great new player and 1 player who caused friction in the group*


10 players is the current group cap on TD, it used to be smaller (8? 6?) but was increased when demand for tickets pushed for it. There was no room for more dungeons and no time to build extra runs so the number per run increased.

When I host players I control the run. It's my tickets, my money, my tokens and it's people I know, people who get along.

When we get to a puzzle that needs solved we can work together to solve it. It's pretty awesome actually.

Before I started pre-building my groups I used to PUG runs. It was a nightmare.

10 people in the room, I know 3 including myself. The other 7 are small groups like mine.
When we get to a puzzle everyone starts talking, then yelling, fighting.
Halfway through testing a solution, one group member decides they know better than you do and start undoing your solution with out saying anything. You lose the puzzle, there was no chance to figure out if your potential solution would have worked. The puzzle didn't beat you, infighting did. It's a HUGE negative experience, both of my fellow players talked about quitting TD after that run, I started hosting instead.

That is a big part of why I would GREATLY prefer to ghost a player over having a random waitlister.
That's also assuming I own the missing ticket. If it's open in the system or not physically in my hand that's another matter all together.

My only advice would be, try to find a few more players that you get along with and bring them along. Excluding new people because of past problems is bad. I've only had 2 bad experiences in TD in all my years of running, and they both were with experienced groups.

In the first year I played TD, I was the first to arrive and was looking over the cards when a guy walked in and snatched all the cards literally right out of my hand without saying anything, sorted through them and said you can play the monk, our group is already set. That run was fun, lol.

The second was i had a single ticket and several people on this forum that I won't name, were in a group of 9 and they had one other player that couldn't get in the run because I had the 10th ticket. They berated me until I agreed to drop out. Probably the best choice anyway.

So yea it might be best if we kept you guys away from the general public, lol. I've never had any problems running with randoms.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: I agree that it's unlikely that someone will buy $10k to start a farming operation.

But someone who accumulated TEs over a few years, especially if they outfit entire groups, or even just a few family members, may find they got over half way there without even trying.

That's what happened to me. I got two HoPs. I got four RoR as PYP. I got 10 CoGF (so we'd always get 4 chips) when they were PYP. I made two CoAs. I got 8 AoTF as PYP. I got more rings, making another CoA... blah blah blah. So cash-wise, I got to 158 chips for well less than $5k over four years. I'm sure many longer-term players got to 170 for even less.

The new Nuggets will get me over 170 for much less than finishing off seven CoAs, but that's gravy. I don't have to get to max to make a profit under the current situation with what I have already.

I only say all this to say, don't take too much comfort in the thought that $10k is too big a nut to crack.

Absolutely true.

But you are a forum member, you enjoy the game, you understand the URTE situation and the state of the treasure *cave* we live in.

It's not likely that you're going to turn your current token into a money making scheme and start buying out runs to escalate your own profits at the detriment of TD.

Ah, appealing to the Angels of my better nature.

Here's the thing. For the last three years I've been saying on the forums that we would get to this point, and for three years I was told I was being stupid or paranoid, lets just keep raising the loot cap without limit. It'll all be fine. People made fun of my Chicken Little concerns and made up cute names like "tokenpocalypse" (or was it tokengeddon? I forgot) for the doom that would never come.

The sky didn't fall, but there are obvious cracks in it.

And now, just as I give up and decide to join the "damn the torpedos" crowd, Raven and others are raising the same concerns, not as some future event but something they see happening right now.

And I hear people justifying their type of farming as "ok," but if I do it and am honest about why, then I'm a bad person.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to that.

I've been here too, I've been listening to you make your predictions and shared your concerns.

I've also understood that we are all dragons and we like our treasure. TEUR tokens are a sad inevitability, once the HoP was printed more were inevitable.

The concern becomes balancing fixes that are put in place so that they affect everyone equally.
If a fix penalizes a person who buys a full run but has 1 player not show up but that same fix doesn't apply to a player who buys a full run and has everyone show up to the run it's going to end up causing a lot of grief in the playerbase.

Cavor wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Cavor wrote:

Not everyone WANTS to have 10 players in their group.
Many people buy full runs to double down (10 tickets, 5 players) as it's seen (accurately) as a more enjoyable experience
MANY runs end up with 1-2 players missing the run and current TD rules state that a single player can overrule the rest of the party on raising the difficulty on the run, potentially costing 8-9 players XP and completion tokens.

I realize that some people want to exclude others from gaming, but this in direct violation of Gencon's gaming rules. The fact that TD allows this is amazing. For filling the slot from the wait list I would make the added person agree to run at the level agreed upon by the main ticket holders. If no one is available or willing to run at that level, allow ghosting.

Let me give you an example: If I was DMing a D&D module with 6 slots and 4 players showed up with 6 six tickets and said they wanted to only run 4 with several people waiting to use generics, and then they got mad when I allowed 2 more people to join, I would honestly think to myself, these people are a-holes. Why is TD different?

Why should my purchase of an unsold run not grant me exp? If I run the run I should get EXP for it?

Anyone actually running should get XP, ghosts should not. I assumed the person buying the run for the loot would not actually run it.

D&D is $6 a run TD is $54

I've BEEN one of the 4 people at a 6 person table of D&D before when we were forced to add 2 players. Sometimes it's great, other times it's TERRIBLE when the new players don't work with the existing group dynamics.

Completely aside it's what cost my D&D team the semi finals round at the final D&D Open a few years back. We got forced to accept 2 new players in the tournament, one of whom had never played D&D before. We pre-fill our full D&D team when possible now.

*Had 2 random players at the D&D All Access the last two years, each time had 1 great new player and 1 player who caused friction in the group*


10 players is the current group cap on TD, it used to be smaller (8? 6?) but was increased when demand for tickets pushed for it. There was no room for more dungeons and no time to build extra runs so the number per run increased.

When I host players I control the run. It's my tickets, my money, my tokens and it's people I know, people who get along.

When we get to a puzzle that needs solved we can work together to solve it. It's pretty awesome actually.

Before I started pre-building my groups I used to PUG runs. It was a nightmare.

10 people in the room, I know 3 including myself. The other 7 are small groups like mine.
When we get to a puzzle everyone starts talking, then yelling, fighting.
Halfway through testing a solution, one group member decides they know better than you do and start undoing your solution with out saying anything. You lose the puzzle, there was no chance to figure out if your potential solution would have worked. The puzzle didn't beat you, infighting did. It's a HUGE negative experience, both of my fellow players talked about quitting TD after that run, I started hosting instead.

That is a big part of why I would GREATLY prefer to ghost a player over having a random waitlister.
That's also assuming I own the missing ticket. If it's open in the system or not physically in my hand that's another matter all together.

My only advice would be, try to find a few more players that you get along with and bring them along. Excluding new people because of past problems is bad. I've only had 2 bad experiences in TD in all my years of running, and they both were with experienced groups.

In the first year I played TD, I was the first to arrive and was looking over the cards when a guy walked in and snatched all the cards literally right out of my hand without saying anything, sorted through them and said you can play the monk, our group is already set. That run was fun, lol.

The second was i had a single ticket and several people on this forum that I won't name, were in a group of 9 and they had one other player that couldn't get in the run because I had the 10th ticket. They berated me until I agreed to drop out. Probably the best choice anyway.

So yea it might be best if we kept you guys away from the general public, lol. I've never had any problems running with randoms.

If I want to run a team of 6 and not include other players because it gives me the best play experience I should not be penalized for buying all 10 tickets and only bringing 6 people.

If I buy a run of 10 people and 2 of my party members end up sick with food poisoning Saturday night and miss the Sunday morning run I should not be penalized. I should also not be required to fill those spaces with people my group of 8 players do not know if we do not want to.

*and yes, I did have 2 people miss a run because of food poisoning from the food trucks 2 years ago. It was horrible and they felt awful about missing the run*

Brad Mortensen wrote: I agree that it's unlikely that someone will buy $10k to start a farming operation.

But someone who accumulated TEs over a few years, especially if they outfit entire groups, or even just a few family members, may find they got over half way there without even trying.

That's what happened to me. I got two HoPs. I got four RoR as PYP. I got 10 CoGF (so we'd always get 4 chips) when they were PYP. I made two CoAs. I got 8 AoTF as PYP. I got more rings, making another CoA... blah blah blah. So cash-wise, I got to 158 chips for well less than $5k over four years. I'm sure many longer-term players got to 170 for even less.

The new Nuggets will get me over 170 for much less than finishing off seven CoAs, but that's gravy. I don't have to get to max to make a profit under the current situation with what I have already.

I only say all this to say, don't take too much comfort in the thought that $10k is too big a nut to crack.

Agreed, there are plenty of people right now that are able and clearly willing to do token farming with ghost players, and it sounds like many already are. I think it will have a major impact as soon as GHC if rules restricting it aren't put in place before GHC

Cavor wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Cavor wrote:

Not everyone WANTS to have 10 players in their group.
Many people buy full runs to double down (10 tickets, 5 players) as it's seen (accurately) as a more enjoyable experience
MANY runs end up with 1-2 players missing the run and current TD rules state that a single player can overrule the rest of the party on raising the difficulty on the run, potentially costing 8-9 players XP and completion tokens.

I realize that some people want to exclude others from gaming, but this in direct violation of Gencon's gaming rules. The fact that TD allows this is amazing. For filling the slot from the wait list I would make the added person agree to run at the level agreed upon by the main ticket holders. If no one is available or willing to run at that level, allow ghosting.

Let me give you an example: If I was DMing a D&D module with 6 slots and 4 players showed up with 6 six tickets and said they wanted to only run 4 with several people waiting to use generics, and then they got mad when I allowed 2 more people to join, I would honestly think to myself, these people are a-holes. Why is TD different?

Why should my purchase of an unsold run not grant me exp? If I run the run I should get EXP for it?

Anyone actually running should get XP, ghosts should not. I assumed the person buying the run for the loot would not actually run it.

D&D is $6 a run TD is $54

I've BEEN one of the 4 people at a 6 person table of D&D before when we were forced to add 2 players. Sometimes it's great, other times it's TERRIBLE when the new players don't work with the existing group dynamics.

Completely aside it's what cost my D&D team the semi finals round at the final D&D Open a few years back. We got forced to accept 2 new players in the tournament, one of whom had never played D&D before. We pre-fill our full D&D team when possible now.

*Had 2 random players at the D&D All Access the last two years, each time had 1 great new player and 1 player who caused friction in the group*


10 players is the current group cap on TD, it used to be smaller (8? 6?) but was increased when demand for tickets pushed for it. There was no room for more dungeons and no time to build extra runs so the number per run increased.

When I host players I control the run. It's my tickets, my money, my tokens and it's people I know, people who get along.

When we get to a puzzle that needs solved we can work together to solve it. It's pretty awesome actually.

Before I started pre-building my groups I used to PUG runs. It was a nightmare.

10 people in the room, I know 3 including myself. The other 7 are small groups like mine.
When we get to a puzzle everyone starts talking, then yelling, fighting.
Halfway through testing a solution, one group member decides they know better than you do and start undoing your solution with out saying anything. You lose the puzzle, there was no chance to figure out if your potential solution would have worked. The puzzle didn't beat you, infighting did. It's a HUGE negative experience, both of my fellow players talked about quitting TD after that run, I started hosting instead.

That is a big part of why I would GREATLY prefer to ghost a player over having a random waitlister.
That's also assuming I own the missing ticket. If it's open in the system or not physically in my hand that's another matter all together.

My only advice would be, try to find a few more players that you get along with and bring them along. Excluding new people because of past problems is bad. I've only had 2 bad experiences in TD in all my years of running, and they both were with experienced groups.

In the first year I played TD, I was the first to arrive and was looking over the cards when a guy walked in and snatched all the cards literally right out of my hand without saying anything, sorted through them and said you can play the monk, our group is already set. That run was fun, lol.

The second was i had a single ticket and several people on this forum that I won't name, were in a group of 9 and they had one other player that couldn't get in the run because I had the 10th ticket. They berated me until I agreed to drop out. Probably the best choice anyway.

So yea it might be best if we kept you guys away from the general public, lol. I've never had any problems running with randoms.

My worst experiences have been in PUGs.

Having said that, the people in your examples were problematic.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:
If I want to run a team of 6 and not include other players because it gives me the best play experience I should not be penalized for buying all 10 tickets and only bringing 6 people.

If I buy a run of 10 people and 2 of my party members end up sick with food poisoning Saturday night and miss the Sunday morning run I should not be penalized. I should also not be required to fill those spaces with people my group of 8 players do not know if we do not want to.

*and yes, I did have 2 people miss a run because of food poisoning from the food trucks 2 years ago. It was horrible and they felt awful about missing the run*

Ok, I'm curious now, why do you feel that adding other players to your group makes you "penalized"? I know several of you feel this way, I am just amazed by it, because it is contrary to the entire spirit of Gencon.

Also, why do people feel that others getting treasure hurts you? TD tokens are worth exactly zero, they are chits for a role playing game. We buy them to support TD.