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MatteBlack wrote:

Is open to none actually a better situation?

Yes, in my opinion, open to none is a better situation than open only to those with promo or reward creation cards.

No one gets to play the race, cons are less promoted but, at least some guy doesn't get to play a race that I can't. Region, schedule, table composition, dice rolls and the order I played the mods in may cause me to have different accesses to items, metaorgs and etc. than another player but, rewarding the extra expense/effort of making it to and playing in a special event would be such an offense to balance?

If the race is playable, open it to all. The design phylosophy and reported DMG advice is to let the players try whatever they think is fun and use he existing rules to judge it. If there exist official rules for playing a race (which there are if a creation card is issued), let all have the choice to play it. If reules aren't released yet, or it's fealt that a race isn't balanced for play, don't allow it for anyone in the campaign.

PC actions in adventures can limit access to items, organizations, companions, etc., but should not affect the race or class of a new PC.

Cons can be promoted in other ways. Campaign participation can be rewarded with more generic cards, or ones that are just interesting fluff with no real game impact. Penaliziing new players (joined after a reward card run is over), or those who can't get to a con (financial difficulties, bad health, conflicting commitments, remote point of origin, etc.) is unfair (which I consider different from unbalancing). It's unfair if I get to play a human, an elf, or a gnome and you don't; it's unbalancing if I get to play a character with additional abilities at a given level that you don't.

I guess my point of view here is that the benefit of the cards grant to table variation without over populating a rare race and to the promotion of conventions far outweighs any possible frustration from the sense that another player may have been more fortunate than myself that can be overcome in a number of ways.

I have no repect for the over populating a rare race argument. PC races have no impact on racial rarity in a campaign, which is a concept for NPC and monster encounters only. U have no respect for the I hate to play at a table with PCs of race XYZ because the players will be annoying arguments, as they are an attempt to limit the fun of others based on personal predudice; the annoying players are likely to be annoying regardless of PC race; inherently annoying races should not be allowed at all if they stop enough others from having fun.

If a promo card with significant game impact is given out as a bonus to those who attend a con, or as a reward for past RPGA participation, then it should also be available for free or at a nominal charge (possibly marked as a reprint) by sending in to RPGA headquarters or WotC, or by download from the internet.

Tom Bollis

tombollis wrote:

Yes, in my opinion, open to none is a better situation than open only to those with promo or reward creation cards.

If the race is playable, open it to all. The design phylosophy and reported DMG advice is to let the players try whatever they think is fun and use he existing rules to judge it. If there exist official rules for playing a race (which there are if a creation card is issued), let all have the choice to play it. If reules aren't released yet, or it's fealt that a race isn't balanced for play, don't allow it for anyone in the campaign.

PC actions in adventures can limit access to items, organizations, companions, etc., but should not affect the race or class of a new PC.

Cons can be promoted in other ways. Campaign participation can be rewarded with more generic cards, or ones that are just interesting fluff with no real game impact. Penaliziing new players (joined after a reward card run is over), or those who can't get to a con (financial difficulties, bad health, conflicting commitments, remote point of origin, etc.) is unfair (which I consider different from unbalancing). It's unfair if I get to play a human, an elf, or a gnome and you don't; it's unbalancing if I get to play a character with additional abilities at a given level that you don't.

I have no repect for the over populating a rare race argument. PC races have no impact on racial rarity in a campaign, which is a concept for NPC and monster encounters only. U have no respect for the I hate to play at a table with PCs of race XYZ because the players will be annoying arguments, as they are an attempt to limit the fun of others based on personal predudice; the annoying players are likely to be annoying regardless of PC race; inherently annoying races should not be allowed at all if they stop enough others from having fun.

If a promo card with significant game impact is given out as a bonus to those who attend a con, or as a reward for past RPGA participation, then it should also be available for free or at a nominal charge (possibly marked as a reprint) by sending in to RPGA headquarters or WotC, or by download from the internet.

Tom Bollis

For most of these racial cards, the only real difference is essentially fluff. They are supposedly balanced against the other races and actually suffer penalty of having used a card slot to be those races. Mostly we are talking about the exclusivity cool factor of playing these races who operate on the fringes or shadows of the adventuring community. Their rarity is most of what they have to offer and seeing 3 at a table would often diminish their appeal.

Access to certain feats, powers and prestige classes will likely have a bigger impact on the character's effectiveness and these often hinge on out-of-game randomness(table composition, order of modules, APL) as in-character decisions. Ruling out racial cards because they are based on out-of-game activity is a sort of pointless dsitinction to make while other similar factors can have a large impact.

Certainly one man's nominal fee can be another's exorbitant expense. Last time I checked a set of the 3 LFR cards were $76.00. I expect this will be at the high end of the scale of what the going rate will be when compared with what I have seen other cards go for once they have been out a bit. Let's call it $25.00 per card. At one end of the scale,it's a piece a paper and at the other, it is opportunity to enhance every play experience with that character they may have taken an investment of 12+ hours and hundreds of dollars.

To me 25 bucks is reasonable if, that is a race I want to play and I heartily believe I could could have one for much less by the time I begin playing LFR whether through more timely purchase, trading my other reward cards or maybe even appealing to borrow it from a fortunate friend who might not be using it. I have the card that grants access to Snow Elves in LG that was one of 5 cards I bought for $12.00 shipped. It may not be an automatic online sale for a dollar plus shipping but, I feel we have our nominal fee method as it stands and we have also helped support DDXP and kept those races as cool exclusive additions to the campaign.

Probably, Tom and I still disagree. I doubt he is going to be swayed on this one but, I think his argument hinges more on semantics than actual campaign factors and realities. If you want to play a gnome once, it is probably a bad set-up but, if you are planning to play the character on a serious basis, it can be done through reasonable means and expense.

Dempster wrote:

I agree that we will always have con exclusives. It is a proven way for organizers to ensure attendance.

This is true.

Is it fair? No.

Is it fair that some people have time and money to travel to these events and others don't? No.

Oh well. Nobody said that everything in life has to be fair.

Frankly I don't understand those people that get upset because someone is getting a reward for something that they did that not everyone can do (get voted top roleplayer, win a raffle, attend a far away convention, whatever). I especially don't understand people who state that they would be happier if nobody got anything instead.

MatteBlack wrote:

Certainly one man's nominal fee can be another's exorbitant expense. Last time I checked a set of the 3 LFR cards were $76.00. I expect this will be at the high end of the scale of what the going rate will be when compared with what I have seen other cards go for once they have been out a bit. Let's call it $25.00 per card.

Maybe, but remember that the character creations cards in LG were mass-mailed out to 100s or even 1000s of RGPA players. I would expect there are a lot less of the DDXP cards out there, and people really had to work for them. Not that Wizards won't keep handing them out until they are gone - at Gencon one year I got a ton of special cards and even a free Fist of Emirikol just by walking past their booth. I kind of wonder how they will treat these cards though, as handing them out for nothing might make the people that spent their tokens for them upset.

Personally, I like having rare PC races out there even if it doesn't mean I have one myself. If everything is available to everyone, then nothing is rare or special. The only way you can get rare stuff yourself is to allow others to get stuff you can never have. In any event, there are lots more race creation cards sure to show up, as there are lots more races ready to play as PCs in the upcoming MM. I just hope they make the Kobold card VERY rare, or we will be infested with them.

Edit - I see that a set of three cards already sold for $99 this week on Ebay.

tombollis wrote:

I said "open to none is a better situation than open only to those with promo or reward creation cards", not that that I would be happier, and I specifically referred to creation cards, not to anything.

Haha.

Okay. I amend my statement to "I especially don't understand people who state that they would be happier if nobody got a reward creation card." instead.

What next? Those that don't get to play as often as other should level at the same rate to be fair to everyone?

It's a logical extension of your premise after all

tombollis wrote:

The LFR campaign should be promoting players having fun in their own ways, not creating elite players due to attendance at specific cons, frequency of play,...