TOPIC: Official Statement on Treasure Enhancers

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: You could just say they aren't PYP-able, and only come randomly in packs

I think that would defeat the main reason Jeff continues to print new UR TE tokens, in that they bring in a lot of revenue True Dungeon needs.

For years and years and years, Henwy and I have argued that more and more treasure enhancers (among other things) was unsustainable. Yes, it is easy money initially but there are consequences and it would eventually result in a reckoning.

Henwy's favorite phrase was "robbing Peter to pay Paul." Now it looks like Peter has come back to collect his due and boy does he look pissed!

Only Jeff knows what the party cards at TDC look like. However, I can imagine that maybe there were just few too many "18's across the board." There is a critical point where if enough key people have 10 CoA's, then just about every party will end up with max treasure and no one really needs their own treasure enhancers any more since there are enough to be borrowed.

Probably all true. But then this wasn't your typical GenCon crowd either. I'm sure the CoA per capita was through the roof, relatively speaking.

Matt wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: Ive seen multiple mentions of ghosting on this thread, and i would like to request that it not be outright banned. If it needs some limitation, i suggest either a treasure cap on ghosts (perhaps 10 max) or limit each player to only one ghost can get treasue.

I personally like the one ghost per person option because then we avoid the question/argument of what the cap should be and the difficulty of administering it. But i also realize the one ghost per person rule is perfect for me...so more input is welcome.

For me, there have been two scenarios i have ghosted a ticket:
1. 5 person run. Each person has two tickets so you can have a small party. The ghost treasue helps mitigate the $100+ price of doing this.
2. Our group has all 10 tickets but is missing a person (often due to cancellation). I would prefer to find someone for this ticket, but we need someone who agrees with our already selected difficulty and classes. If we dont find a person, we ghost the ticket to avoid a random walk-on that could ruin our plans.

Pardon me if i'm late digging through this but is ghosting part of the overall problem to be solved? A quick read just looks like the rehash of treasure enhancer arguments we go through every token design cycle.

I understand if greed tokens need to be carried through the dungeon, at this point go with epilogue room and understand that they need to shown and inspected regardless if individuals carry their own or a party boss shows the 10 set. Long as they're shown in epilogue why does it matter if 1 or 10 people carry urtes'?

If we do checks in epilogue then don't bother in coaching, it saves already busy staff a precious few seconds per player. Limiting access to epilogue room should be enough to limit token hand offs.

Ghosting came up because people were speculating that it will be more popular. For people who used to loan TE to everyone they run with to get lots of treasure, might be uncomfortable handing out TE so instead buy up extra tickets and ghost for treasure.

Also, it looks like a couple people have talked about a general loot cap after my last post, so let me clarify: i meant strictly a ghost loot cap. So, if the ghost loot cap is 10, and i buy 3 tickets for just me, if my typical loot number is 17; i will get 17 + 10 + 10 (for my ticket + ghost + ghost).

Kirk Bauer wrote: Secondly, I was going to do this year what I did last year. I was going to find 9 complete strangers who have never played TD. I was going to buy all of their tickets and they were going to run for free. They would get the same 3 treasure pulls they would have normally received, and I was going to keep the rest to cover the cost of the run. I think this was a great way to introduce new players to TD (two from last year are hooked). With this change I likely won't be doing this again.

Yes, with TD now going to Origins for the first time I was going to buy out 6 runs (2 per day) and take 54 people on it for free so they could experience it and hopefully build a local player base - the treasure would offset the ticket cost. Unfortunately, I don't want to take the risk so that plan is shelved.

Ed

So ignoring the debate about whether or not it is OK to lend treasure-enhancers to strangers (I see pros and cons to that behavior), I really keep coming back to the rule "you must carry your own treasure tokens through the dungeon". I believe that is going to be ineffective at best and create conflict between volunteers and guests at worst.

The coaches are usually pretty busy. How are they going to monitor tokens being moved between players? The coach sees somebody hand something to somebody out of the corner of his eye. Does he stop and ask to see what the item was? Perhaps it was a token, perhaps it was some cash, or something else? Who knows if it was even a treasure-enhancer. Assuming the coach sees the treasure-enhancer change hands, what does he do? Say "Sorry, you can't give him that token, you need to hold onto it, now hand it back." What if the players don't cooperate with this request? What if they hand it back and then as soon as the coach leaves, or on the way to the training room, they just pass it back anyways?

Same thing in the epilogue room. You'll need at least two volunteers with one of them pretty much watching the party and doing nothing else to make sure nobody is passing tokens around. But what if you do see somebody pass a token? What does the volunteer do? Say "Excuse me sir, I need to inspect the token you just handed to the guy next to you". The player says "Oh, it was just a weapon I borrowed from him.". Volunteer: "OK, I just need to see it to confirm please."

It just sounds messy. Some players will get upset at some volunteers, especially when the policy is new. And it adds new workload and responsibilities for the volunteers. And the risk of more negative encounters for everybody involved. And for the players who understand the system, they will just exchange the tokens in the hallways between rooms, making the rule ineffective.

My guess is in reality neither the coach nor the epilogue staff will be able to police this with any amount of accuracy. Even if they see something they probably won't call the player out unless they are certain it was a treasure-enhancer. In the coach room it might end up being a "remember you have to carry your own treasure enhancers" with a wink and nod.

And I believe that rules that aren't enforced or (in this case) are unenforceable are worse than no rules at all.

My proposal is to keep the other rules but don't bother with the "you must carry your own treasure-enhancer through the whole dungeon". But *do* have the rule that you must have each treasure-enhancer in front of you for the coach, removed from any container. And you must have each treasure-enhancer it your hand to give to the epilogue room volunteer. Accept that we can't control any more than that, even if we should. We still solve the problem of treasure-enhancers not being on the run. We can also instruct coaches to watch for any sort of wheeling and dealing in the coaching room for the lending of any sort of tokens and discourage the behavior.

In the future, when the system turns out to work well and players know about it, we can just skip the coaching step completely for treasure-enhancers. I think it is redundant. You *must* control access to the epilogue room to make sure the tokens were on the run, and if you do that, then you don't need to do anything in the coaching room.

Kirk Bauer wrote: So ignoring the debate about whether or not it is OK to lend treasure-enhancers to strangers (I see pros and cons to that behavior), I really keep coming back to the rule "you must carry your own treasure tokens through the dungeon". I believe that is going to be ineffective at best and create conflict between volunteers and guests at worst.

The coaches are usually pretty busy. How are they going to monitor tokens being moved between players? The coach sees somebody hand something to somebody out of the corner of his eye. Does he stop and ask to see what the item was? Perhaps it was a token, perhaps it was some cash, or something else? Who knows if it was even a treasure-enhancer. Assuming the coach sees the treasure-enhancer change hands, what does he do? Say "Sorry, you can't give him that token, you need to hold onto it, now hand it back." What if the players don't cooperate with this request? What if they hand it back and then as soon as the coach leaves, or on the way to the training room, they just pass it back anyways?

Same thing in the epilogue room. You'll need at least two volunteers with one of them pretty much watching the party and doing nothing else to make sure nobody is passing tokens around. But what if you do see somebody pass a token? What does the volunteer do? Say "Excuse me sir, I need to inspect the token you just handed to the guy next to you". The player says "Oh, it was just a weapon I borrowed from him.". Volunteer: "OK, I just need to see it to confirm please."

It just sounds messy. Some players will get upset at some volunteers, especially when the policy is new. And it adds new workload and responsibilities for the volunteers. And the risk of more negative encounters for everybody involved. And for the players who understand the system, they will just exchange the tokens in the hallways between rooms, making the rule ineffective.

My guess is in reality neither the coach nor the epilogue staff will be able to police this with any amount of accuracy. Even if they see something they probably won't call the player out unless they are certain it was a treasure-enhancer. In the coach room it might end up being a "remember you have to carry your own treasure enhancers" with a wink and nod.

And I believe that rules that aren't enforced or (in this case) are unenforceable are worse than no rules at all.

My proposal is to keep the other rules but don't bother with the "you must carry your own treasure-enhancer through the whole dungeon". But *do* have the rule that you must have each treasure-enhancer in front of you for the coach, removed from any container. And you must have each treasure-enhancer it your hand to give to the epilogue room volunteer. Accept that we can't control any more than that, even if we should. We still solve the problem of treasure-enhancers not being on the run. We can also instruct coaches to watch for any sort of wheeling and dealing in the coaching room for the lending of any sort of tokens and discourage the behavior.

In the future, when the system turns out to work well and players know about it, we can just skip the coaching step completely for treasure-enhancers. I think it is redundant. You *must* control access to the epilogue room to make sure the tokens were on the run, and if you do that, then you don't need to do anything in the coaching room.

As a
Coach. I do all other stats first.

At the end I ask to see all treasure tokens. That will count late arrivals etc.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: As a Coach. I do all other stats first.

At the end I ask to see all treasure tokens. That will count late arrivals etc.

^^ This. Definitely the best way of doing it. Usually just before the announcement that you can pack up your things now, we'll be heading to the Training room soon. Also time to go for your last rest-room break if needed.

Kirk Bauer wrote: And I believe that rules that aren't enforced or (in this case) are unenforceable are worse than no rules at all.

My proposal is to keep the other rules but don't bother with the "you must carry your own treasure-enhancer through the whole dungeon". But *do* have the rule that you must have each treasure-enhancer in front of you for the coach, removed from any container. And you must have each treasure-enhancer it your hand to give to the epilogue room volunteer. Accept that we can't control any more than that, even if we should. We still solve the problem of treasure-enhancers not being on the run. We can also instruct coaches to watch for any sort of wheeling and dealing in the coaching room for the lending of any sort of tokens and discourage the behavior.

^^ bold emphasis mine

It's obvious from how poorly the request to "please not lend out TEs, especially to groups you aren't on" has been respected (by some parties) that the people who are breaking the rules are gonna keep breaking the rules if they can get away with it.

If a rule is made such as "You must carry your own TEs with you through the Dungeon", then the people who are breaking rules will break it anyways, and collect after Training & redistribute before Epilogue. The only people who will obey it are the ones who were following the rules anyways, which means they'll be the ones who are taking the brunt of the risk with the new ruling, and are most likely going to lose a valuable TE at some point.

Here is the thing, for one I agree with Jeff that things got weird. I also agree that counterfeit tokens hurt everyone. We seem to be trying to shotgun multiple problems with one solution and we keep arguing what the problem should be. We get a vote with our wallets and make our opinion known. MasterEd for example won't be buying 6 runs at origins. In the end we have to respect Jeff decision because he is basing it on more info then we have. However finding a happy middle ground is going to take some time and I hope we work on that instead of getting bogged down.

Incognito wrote: Another thing is that you are going to *really* need to have trustworthy volunteers handling exit room.

All it takes is one unscrupulous volunteer with some sleight of hand skills, to steal real treasure enhancers and give people fakes in return.

IIRC, in the past, some positions, including epilogue room were sometimes seen as "easier" jobs ideal for less experienced volunteers (or those who need to sit down).

If we do not fully trust the epilogue volunteer, can we request that an AC come down and handle/verify our treasure enhancers instead?

Excuse me, please tell me that you're kidding with this statement. First, epilogue is not "easier". There's actually a certain amount of stress in epilogue. Second, you have to have excellent customer service skills to be in epilogue as you're the first person to see people when they come out of the dungeon and therefore are the first person to address any problems that the party had.

Raven wrote:

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: As a Coach. I do all other stats first.

At the end I ask to see all treasure tokens. That will count late arrivals etc.

^^ This. Definitely the best way of doing it. Usually just before the announcement that you can pack up your things now, we'll be heading to the Training room soon. Also time to go for your last rest-room break if needed.

Kirk Bauer wrote: And I believe that rules that aren't enforced or (in this case) are unenforceable are worse than no rules at all.

My proposal is to keep the other rules but don't bother with the "you must carry your own treasure-enhancer through the whole dungeon". But *do* have the rule that you must have each treasure-enhancer in front of you for the coach, removed from any container. And you must have each treasure-enhancer it your hand to give to the epilogue room volunteer. Accept that we can't control any more than that, even if we should. We still solve the problem of treasure-enhancers not being on the run. We can also instruct coaches to watch for any sort of wheeling and dealing in the coaching room for the lending of any sort of tokens and discourage the behavior.

^^ bold emphasis mine

It's obvious from how poorly the request to "please not lend out TEs, especially to groups you aren't on" has been respected (by some parties) that the people who are breaking the rules are gonna keep breaking the rules if they can get away with it.

If a rule is made such as "You must carry your own TEs with you through the Dungeon", then the people who are breaking rules will break it anyways, and collect after Training & redistribute before Epilogue. The only people who will obey it are the ones who were following the rules anyways, which means they'll be the ones who are taking the brunt of the risk with the new ruling, and are most likely going to lose a valuable TE at some point.

Raven, for those that are intent on breaking the rules, I wonder if they will even bother to distribute the TE Tokens again prior to the Epilogue room. They may just carry them all in themselves and count on no real consequences. I figure if someone shows up in the Epilogue Room carrying all the groups TE Tokens, one of three basic things might happen:

1) The Volunteer will just let it slide and let everyone get their Treasure Coins (perhaps with a warning to distribute them next time),
2) The Volunteer will ask the person to distribute the TE Tokens to all the group members, and then count them and let everyone get their Treasure Coins.
3) The Volunteer will apply some sort of penalty, like forfeiting some or all of your Treasure Coins or being suspended from playing.

I'm guessing it will usually be option #1, maybe sometimes Option #2, and never Option #3. If it isn't Option #3, then there really isn't any forcing function to make them follow the rules.

They might not even distribute them in the Coaching Room, counting on the Volunteer to let it slide there. And if the volunteer in the Coaching Area does make them distribute the tokens, they will just collect them all again in the corridor prior to Room #1.

Like you said, it may be a case of those of us that follow the rules putting our TE tokens at risk of being lost, and not loaning to strangers, and those that are breaking the rules continue to break the rules, including this one.

bpsymington wrote: Wow - look at all these worms! Imagine how big the can was!

I don't have much of a problem with the policy as Jeff stated, but I understand the complications that will ensue. At least at GC they would usually have at least two volunteers for each epilogue room (if not more).

I feel I don't have much to say about this. I have a CoA and an IS:SN, but I only equip myself. As an AC with very limited time, I tend to do my runs with veteran players I know from the forums.

Thank you, Jeff, for being willing to listen to our concerns and take them into account.

Yes, there are multiple volunteers in the epilogue room but they each have sole responsibility for dealing with a party of players so they gain no help from having another volunteer in the Epilogue Room.

Kim Lindgren wrote:

bpsymington wrote: Wow - look at all these worms! Imagine how big the can was!

I don't have much of a problem with the policy as Jeff stated, but I understand the complications that will ensue. At least at GC they would usually have at least two volunteers for each epilogue room (if not more).

I feel I don't have much to say about this. I have a CoA and an IS:SN, but I only equip myself. As an AC with very limited time, I tend to do my runs with veteran players I know from the forums.

Thank you, Jeff, for being willing to listen to our concerns and take them into account.

Yes, there are multiple volunteers in the epilogue room but they each have sole responsibility for dealing with a party of players so they gain no help from having another volunteer in the Epilogue Room.

I give huge kudos and props to epilogue volunteers - they have to

1. collect lights, lanyards, clips, etc.
2. pass out buttons and XP stickers
3. pass out completion tokens
4. supervise treasure draws
5. maintain adequately supplied treasure boxes
6. be the first to hear complaints and problems

They don't get the glamour/attention coaches and DMs do, but they are every bit as vital to TDs success.

Digging through the forums, ran across this post, thought I'd just leave this here for us to reflect on:

Jeff Martin wrote: It is a truism that the only thing more trying than failure is success. It is really, really cool to see our little group project called Treasure Tokens doing so well. I guess people really like these things since the prices are so high. I just hope that all the Token Posts don't end up being about hard commerce. That would be kind of depressing. Remember when they were about the excitement of what people pulled -- and how cool people were to trade amongst themselves?

...

Anyway, if I can make this plea, please don't lose sight of the fun of collecting tokens or getting a cool token in the dungeon. If your first thought is "Cool! I found a Helm of Death and I can get $200 for that on Ebay", maybe you have lost sight of something that you used to know. I am a little sad about that eventuality, but I guess that is the price we all pay for making such a cool thing together.

This post is not direct at ANYONE -- rather at the general community and at a slight shift I can see coming. I see posts about the fun and trading of tokens going down, and the commerce posts going up. I just wish I was reading more of the former.

Please don't take offense at this. I felt it needed to be said. Just a little prod from your Dungeon Master...

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