TOPIC: New Official Ghosting Rule

Druegar wrote: This is my personal opinion.
I think if one buys less than all of the tickets for a run with the intent of ghosting some of those slots, one should at least be prepared for disappointment. If the folks who own the tickets you don't control don't want to run with ghosts, they ought not be forced to. I'm 100% fine with asking or convincing them to allow ghosts, but in the end, I don't think it's okay to force it on them.

I think TD ought to adopt a unanimous vote policy on ghosting, similar to how a unanimous vote is required to play on something other than Normal difficulty.

I think this one is better left to social pressure than official rules.

Consider scenarios like this:

* Player X buys 6 tickets for themselves and their friends Alice, Bob, Carl, Denise, and Ed.
* Carl no-shows.
* The other 4 players "don't want a ghost"

So... now what? We pull someone from the wait list and Player X (or Carl) just eats a $78 ticket and gets no treasure or token 10 pack?

Player X bought 6 tickets. Player X should have absolute say over who runs in those 6 slots. Player X should not be a jerk and ruin the dungeon by engineering their own "5 man run" by buying 6 tickets and ghosting 5 - but should not and can not are not the same thing.

Druegar wrote: This is my personal opinion.
I think if one buys less than all of the tickets for a run with the intent of ghosting some of those slots, one should at least be prepared for disappointment. If the folks who own the tickets you don't control don't want to run with ghosts, they ought not be forced to. I'm 100% fine with asking or convincing them to allow ghosts, but in the end, I don't think it's okay to force it on them.

I think TD ought to adopt a unanimous vote policy on ghosting, similar to how a unanimous vote is required to play on something other than Normal difficulty.

In theory I like that approach, but I still worry that the person that bought five tickets to Ghost with is going to apply intense pressure and guilt trips on the other four players to allow the Ghost players, especially if the person is going to be out the ticket prices. And the people still might get stuck playing with less than 10 people, if replacements can't be found for all of the Ghost players that are disallowed.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Druegar wrote: This is my personal opinion.
I think if one buys less than all of the tickets for a run with the intent of ghosting some of those slots, one should at least be prepared for disappointment. If the folks who own the tickets you don't control don't want to run with ghosts, they ought not be forced to. I'm 100% fine with asking or convincing them to allow ghosts, but in the end, I don't think it's okay to force it on them.

I think TD ought to adopt a unanimous vote policy on ghosting, similar to how a unanimous vote is required to play on something other than Normal difficulty.

I think this one is better left to social pressure than official rules.

Consider scenarios like this:

* Player X buys 6 tickets for themselves and their friends Alice, Bob, Carl, Denise, and Ed.
* Carl no-shows.
* The other 4 players "don't want a ghost"

So... now what? We pull someone from the wait list and Player X (or Carl) just eats a $78 ticket and gets no treasure or token 10 pack?

Player X bought 6 tickets. Player X should have absolute say over who runs in those 6 slots. Player X should not be a jerk and ruin the dungeon by engineering their own "5 man run" by buying 6 tickets and ghosting 5 - but should not and can not are not the same thing.

I think this can be covered by 'an AC can make exceptions in special cases'. In your case, i would hope the solution is to allow the ticket owner to ghost that ticket AND bring in a 10th player from the waitlist (if there is anyone). The key to my thoughts is that this should not be a normal thing, it is an exception to the rule and requires an AC. And since an AC is involved each time, they can watch for 'repeat exceptions'.

Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Speak up if you have ever ghosted and tell us specifically about a time where you didn't control the entire run. Throw in a bit of context as to how often you ghost.


As I said in the past, I've been ghosting since the party size went up from 8.
its happened to me once maybe twice tops.

valetutto wrote: Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Speak up if you have ever ghosted and tell us specifically about a time where you didn't control the entire run. Throw in a bit of context as to how often you ghost.


As I said in the past, I've been ghosting since the party size went up from 8.
its happened to me once maybe twice tops.

If anyone is farming this might come up for them. I doubt anyone is going to admit to farming. I have ghosted many times but as you said it has been when I controlled all tickets and someone (or someones) no showed on me. I have bought 40+ tickets since there have been 4 dungeons.

Only experience when 1 person had all 10 tickets.

My perspective on when runs are not sold out is that you do run with number of sold tickets or you can sell additional tickets to ghost. Possibly make it a last minute offer to buy remaining tickets 5 minutes before starting time.

valetutto wrote: Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Speak up if you have ever ghosted and tell us specifically about a time where you didn't control the entire run. Throw in a bit of context as to how often you ghost.


As I said in the past, I've been ghosting since the party size went up from 8.
its happened to me once maybe twice tops.

I ghosted a ticket once on a run where I only controlled 6 tickets and one of my players didn't show. Most where in favor of things being a little less crowded, the rest didn't seem to care one way or the other.

valetutto wrote: Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

I doubt it would ever be an issue at GenCon.

I doubt anyone in this discussion would make it a problem.

valetutto wrote: Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Speak up if you have ever ghosted and tell us specifically about a time where you didn't control the entire run. Throw in a bit of context as to how often you ghost.


As I said in the past, I've been ghosting since the party size went up from 8.
its happened to me once maybe twice tops.

It seems like now that ghosting is limited at all conventions to five Ghost players it might happen more often. If an individual wants to ghost five players, the easiest solution is to just buy six tickets and not worry about the other four tickets.

If I'm a newbie and buy 3 tickets for my other newbie friends then come to find that someone bought the other 6 with the intent of ghosting 5 people I might be a bit confused as I was expecting there to be 10 people in the group. Plus the "ghoster" is more then likely a vet that wants to run nightmare or hardcore. I can see this leading to a potential bad experience in the dungeon for the newbies.

I think we will find that the vast majority of people that ghost control most if not all of the run so the lone wolf with only 6 tickets is probably not a reality.

What might happen is someone bought all 10 tickets at gencon assuming they could ghost and will find out its now limited to 5.

Rob F wrote: If I'm a newbie and buy 3 tickets for my other newbie friends then come to find that someone bought the other 6 with the intent of ghosting 5 people I might be a bit confused as I was expecting there to be 10 people in the group. Plus the "ghoster" is more then likely a vet that wants to run nightmare or hardcore. I can see this leading to a potential bad experience in the dungeon for the newbies.

Difficulty take all folks agreeing so it doesnt whether vets are ghosting or not. if noobs wants normal then they get normal with or without ghosts.