TOPIC: Discussion of Class Selection Process

I think the main point that new players need to be aware of is that there is a chance that a Level 3 + player may want to play the class they have selected. Fortunately I have never seen a dispute over class selection, but I can just imagine if I wanted a specific class on my first run (based on the 10 tokens I have) and some other player wondered in later and told me he was going to play that class because he was level 3. I would be really put off - my first reaction being "So what if you're level 3 - I also paid $80 for my ticket and I was here first".

Knowing the rules beforehand would at least help me to understand that this is a possibility - which doesn't make me less annoyed that it happened, but it does help lessen my antagonism towards the player that did it - knowing that the rules allow him to do that.

Cliff wrote: I think the main point that new players need to be aware of is that there is a chance that a Level 3 + player may want to play the class they have selected. Fortunately I have never seen a dispute over class selection, but I can just imagine if I wanted a specific class on my first run (based on the 10 tokens I have) and some other player wondered in later and told me he was going to play that class because he was level 3. I would be really put off - my first reaction being "So what if you're level 3 - I also paid $80 for my ticket and I was here first".

Knowing the rules beforehand would at least help me to understand that this is a possibility - which doesn't make me less annoyed that it happened, but it does help lessen my antagonism towards the player that did it - knowing that the rules allow him to do that.

I've only had the conflict come up on 2 runs.

My 3rd or 4th TD run, (Gen Con 2016) my party was the first ones in the training room, so we grabbed our preferred cards (I took paladin). We had swapped tokens within our group and while I had a bunch of junk, I was at least in the general idea of Paladin tokens. Before the Coach recorded anything, a vet came in and bumped me out of paladin. I wasn't hugely put out by the idea, as I was cool with trying cleric. After the Coach had recorded my stats as cleric, another vet came in and tried to bump me out of cleric. The Coach said no, because he had already recorded my card. I was thankful, because non of my tokens were useful for the classes that were left.

I guess this is a long way of saying, whatever rule is setup, it shouldn't let a <lvl 3 get bumped repeatedly out of classes.

jon wrote: At origins while coaching I let the new players know about the qr video link. I didn’t explain class selection though.

How would you explain class selection ?

I think the most important parts are:

A. It's not first come first served, there are no 'dibbs' - everyone has to agree on a class selection, those who don't agree roll off some way.

B. Returning players who track their XP and are level 3 or higher get priority selection in the event of a dispute.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm not sure it's necessary to make everyone roll dies. It might be that all the classes are set except for two people wanting a single class - perhaps just a die roll between those two would settle things.

No that's the point that Kurt Reznor / Kent and I are arguing against. Just because you lose a die roll for your first preference class doesn't mean you should get stuck with all the leftovers.

Why not? If you're not willing to work it out like adults and are instead forcing a die roll, why shouldn't you risk having to pick from the leftovers instead of negatively impacting the whole rest of the party that did work things out like adults? Maybe having a disincentive to the die roll is exactly what some people need to work things out without the die roll.

My concern is making everyone reroll might change several other already finished lines of the party card/create new arguments.

The rules proposal I posted makes it so once the dmcoach starts filling out a line that class must be played by that player.

Frankly that should be the rule no matter what else is decided, along with a requirement that the coach won’t start filling in a card prior to the ticketed start time. (perhaps coaches could look the other way at their discretion).

I might be misunderstanding then. The way I read your suggestion, players 1-9 can come in, pick classes, start getting recorded. Then someone could roll in and pull rank triggering a group reprioritization (so that the person having rank pulled on them isn't stuck picking from just whats left). Wouldn't that necessitate at least one other player (who may have already had their class recorded) switching? (unless of course the person having rank pulled on them picks one of the unused classes)?

If I'm understanding correctly (which granted I might not be?), that seems like it might be a huge incentive to try and get the coach to record you first to lock in your class selection (which could be another argument waiting to happen since who gets recorded first is almost entirely arbitrary at present)

Picc wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm not sure it's necessary to make everyone roll dies. It might be that all the classes are set except for two people wanting a single class - perhaps just a die roll between those two would settle things.

No that's the point that Kurt Reznor / Kent and I are arguing against. Just because you lose a die roll for your first preference class doesn't mean you should get stuck with all the leftovers.

Why not? If you're not willing to work it out like adults and are instead forcing a die roll, why shouldn't you risk having to pick from the leftovers instead of negatively impacting the whole rest of the party that did work things out like adults? Maybe having a disincentive to the die roll is exactly what some people need to work things out without the die roll.

My concern is making everyone reroll might change several other already finished lines of the party card/create new arguments.

The rules proposal I posted makes it so once the dmcoach starts filling out a line that class must be played by that player.

Frankly that should be the rule no matter what else is decided, along with a requirement that the coach won’t start filling in a card prior to the ticketed start time. (perhaps coaches could look the other way at their discretion).

I might be misunderstanding then. The way I read your suggestion, players 1-9 can come in, pick classes, start getting recorded. Then someone could roll in and pull rank triggering a group reprioritization (so that the person having rank pulled on them isn't stuck picking from just whats left). Wouldn't that necessitate at least one other player (who may have already had their class recorded) switching? (unless of course the person having rank pulled on them picks one of the unused classes)?

If I'm understanding correctly (which granted I might not be?), that seems like it might be a huge incentive to try and get the coach to record you first to lock in your class selection (which could be another argument waiting to happen since who gets recorded first is almost entirely arbitrary at present)

Here is the misunderstanding and how both things are correct/work together:

Players 1-9 pick classes BUT CANNOT BE RECORDED ON THE PARTY CARD UNTIL START TIME. If the 10 player shows up before start time, they can pull rank and any number of players may end up changing classes, but no big deal for the coach because nothing is on the party card yet.
If player 10 shows up after start time, they pick from what is left...note: this is not the current rule, but seems to be what most of us agree is a good change.

kurtreznor wrote:

Picc wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm not sure it's necessary to make everyone roll dies. It might be that all the classes are set except for two people wanting a single class - perhaps just a die roll between those two would settle things.

No that's the point that Kurt Reznor / Kent and I are arguing against. Just because you lose a die roll for your first preference class doesn't mean you should get stuck with all the leftovers.

Why not? If you're not willing to work it out like adults and are instead forcing a die roll, why shouldn't you risk having to pick from the leftovers instead of negatively impacting the whole rest of the party that did work things out like adults? Maybe having a disincentive to the die roll is exactly what some people need to work things out without the die roll.

My concern is making everyone reroll might change several other already finished lines of the party card/create new arguments.

The rules proposal I posted makes it so once the dmcoach starts filling out a line that class must be played by that player.

Frankly that should be the rule no matter what else is decided, along with a requirement that the coach won’t start filling in a card prior to the ticketed start time. (perhaps coaches could look the other way at their discretion).

I might be misunderstanding then. The way I read your suggestion, players 1-9 can come in, pick classes, start getting recorded. Then someone could roll in and pull rank triggering a group reprioritization (so that the person having rank pulled on them isn't stuck picking from just whats left). Wouldn't that necessitate at least one other player (who may have already had their class recorded) switching? (unless of course the person having rank pulled on them picks one of the unused classes)?

If I'm understanding correctly (which granted I might not be?), that seems like it might be a huge incentive to try and get the coach to record you first to lock in your class selection (which could be another argument waiting to happen since who gets recorded first is almost entirely arbitrary at present)

Here is the misunderstanding and how both things are correct/work together:

Players 1-9 pick classes BUT CANNOT BE RECORDED ON THE PARTY CARD UNTIL START TIME. If the 10 player shows up before start time, they can pull rank and any number of players may end up changing classes, but no big deal for the coach because nothing is on the party card yet.
If player 10 shows up after start time, they pick from what is left...note: this is not the current rule, but seems to be what most of us agree is a good change.

One point I disagree with:
Depending on how early the veteran shows up It’s not a minor point if everyone switches after forcing a swap. Say the swap Only takes 3 minutes. Hopefully the experienced player is using a character creator or app but the player with the new character will likely want to re-tool their tokens trading back and forth with other players. So with 20 minutes left the coach has to be able to get each person in turn recorded while probably fielding questions from the new players.

It’s not impossible but it certainly makes the job a lot more difficult. IMHO not a minor point.

Bob Chasan wrote:

kurtreznor wrote:

Picc wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm not sure it's necessary to make everyone roll dies. It might be that all the classes are set except for two people wanting a single class - perhaps just a die roll between those two would settle things.

No that's the point that Kurt Reznor / Kent and I are arguing against. Just because you lose a die roll for your first preference class doesn't mean you should get stuck with all the leftovers.

Why not? If you're not willing to work it out like adults and are instead forcing a die roll, why shouldn't you risk having to pick from the leftovers instead of negatively impacting the whole rest of the party that did work things out like adults? Maybe having a disincentive to the die roll is exactly what some people need to work things out without the die roll.

My concern is making everyone reroll might change several other already finished lines of the party card/create new arguments.

The rules proposal I posted makes it so once the dmcoach starts filling out a line that class must be played by that player.

Frankly that should be the rule no matter what else is decided, along with a requirement that the coach won’t start filling in a card prior to the ticketed start time. (perhaps coaches could look the other way at their discretion).

I might be misunderstanding then. The way I read your suggestion, players 1-9 can come in, pick classes, start getting recorded. Then someone could roll in and pull rank triggering a group reprioritization (so that the person having rank pulled on them isn't stuck picking from just whats left). Wouldn't that necessitate at least one other player (who may have already had their class recorded) switching? (unless of course the person having rank pulled on them picks one of the unused classes)?

If I'm understanding correctly (which granted I might not be?), that seems like it might be a huge incentive to try and get the coach to record you first to lock in your class selection (which could be another argument waiting to happen since who gets recorded first is almost entirely arbitrary at present)

Here is the misunderstanding and how both things are correct/work together:

Players 1-9 pick classes BUT CANNOT BE RECORDED ON THE PARTY CARD UNTIL START TIME. If the 10 player shows up before start time, they can pull rank and any number of players may end up changing classes, but no big deal for the coach because nothing is on the party card yet.
If player 10 shows up after start time, they pick from what is left...note: this is not the current rule, but seems to be what most of us agree is a good change.

One point I disagree with:
Depending on how early the veteran shows up It’s not a minor point if everyone switches after forcing a swap. Say the swap Only takes 3 minutes. Hopefully the experienced player is using a character creator or app but the player with the new character will likely want to re-tool their tokens trading back and forth with other players. So with 20 minutes left the coach has to be able to get each person in turn recorded while probably fielding questions from the new players.

It’s not impossible but it certainly makes the job a lot more difficult. IMHO not a minor point.

Well, 24 minutes. If less than that, the person was late.
As for the actual point being made about the coach being rushed...unfortunately, they will have to deal with the situation in those very rare situations. Else, you are telling players that showing up on time isnt good enough. And then you have the battle of 'how early can you arrive'.

kurtreznor wrote:

Bob Chasan wrote:

kurtreznor wrote:

Picc wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Picc wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm not sure it's necessary to make everyone roll dies. It might be that all the classes are set except for two people wanting a single class - perhaps just a die roll between those two would settle things.

No that's the point that Kurt Reznor / Kent and I are arguing against. Just because you lose a die roll for your first preference class doesn't mean you should get stuck with all the leftovers.

Why not? If you're not willing to work it out like adults and are instead forcing a die roll, why shouldn't you risk having to pick from the leftovers instead of negatively impacting the whole rest of the party that did work things out like adults? Maybe having a disincentive to the die roll is exactly what some people need to work things out without the die roll.

My concern is making everyone reroll might change several other already finished lines of the party card/create new arguments.

The rules proposal I posted makes it so once the dmcoach starts filling out a line that class must be played by that player.

Frankly that should be the rule no matter what else is decided, along with a requirement that the coach won’t start filling in a card prior to the ticketed start time. (perhaps coaches could look the other way at their discretion).

I might be misunderstanding then. The way I read your suggestion, players 1-9 can come in, pick classes, start getting recorded. Then someone could roll in and pull rank triggering a group reprioritization (so that the person having rank pulled on them isn't stuck picking from just whats left). Wouldn't that necessitate at least one other player (who may have already had their class recorded) switching? (unless of course the person having rank pulled on them picks one of the unused classes)?

If I'm understanding correctly (which granted I might not be?), that seems like it might be a huge incentive to try and get the coach to record you first to lock in your class selection (which could be another argument waiting to happen since who gets recorded first is almost entirely arbitrary at present)

Here is the misunderstanding and how both things are correct/work together:

Players 1-9 pick classes BUT CANNOT BE RECORDED ON THE PARTY CARD UNTIL START TIME. If the 10 player shows up before start time, they can pull rank and any number of players may end up changing classes, but no big deal for the coach because nothing is on the party card yet.
If player 10 shows up after start time, they pick from what is left...note: this is not the current rule, but seems to be what most of us agree is a good change.

One point I disagree with:
Depending on how early the veteran shows up It’s not a minor point if everyone switches after forcing a swap. Say the swap Only takes 3 minutes. Hopefully the experienced player is using a character creator or app but the player with the new character will likely want to re-tool their tokens trading back and forth with other players. So with 20 minutes left the coach has to be able to get each person in turn recorded while probably fielding questions from the new players.

It’s not impossible but it certainly makes the job a lot more difficult. IMHO not a minor point.

Well, 24 minutes. If less than that, the person was late.
As for the actual point being made about the coach being rushed...unfortunately, they will have to deal with the situation in those very rare situations. Else, you are telling players that showing up on time isnt good enough. And then you have the battle of 'how early can you arrive'.

Not more than 30 minutes.

In my experience, the bigger challenge is not groups where there is a conflict over one class, but where the whole group has trouble deciding based on lack of experience. Usually those are fairly simple builds and those aren’t too bad to record.

I don’t see many “token dump” players any more. The ones with a big unsorted bag of tokens who dump them out and start sorting. And sometimes all but asking you to do their build for them.

Harlax wrote: I don’t see many “token dump” players any more. The ones with a big unsorted bag of tokens who dump them out and start sorting. And sometimes all but asking you to do their build for them.

I had one time where somebody arrived late, dumped a whole bag of tokens and asked me (coach) to make them a build while they ran some errands.

equip them with a dagger and say go.

jedibcg wrote: equip them with a dagger and say go.

Turkey leg.

Joke all you like but anything that ends with "and the coach will have to deal with it" isn't a good solution.

I also question who is going to know or enforce rules in the 6 minutes you can occupy the room before coach arrives with the dice needed for the roll off.

Not trying to be a pain, I just really dont see this working out as smoothly as everyone seems to think it will.