Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5156017" data-attributes="member: 20741">In Defence of Random PackagingOk. Now, I hate random packaging as much as anybody, but I do have to admit that sometimes, it really does serve my purposes.I'm currently GMing Star Wars:SE set in the Old Republic (awesome system for Star Wars, btw) and so that's been the thrust of my mini mania for the past three months or so. In that time, I've picked up two complete sets of the earliest mini lines, and about 600 or so others. And I have bought probably 10 or so KotOR boosters at retail. Last night, I found a link to a cheap mini source and I went to town on a shopping spree. There were TONS of cheap commons and uncommons on this website and I stocked up, big time. Admittedly, Star Wars perhaps suits the repurposing of minis far more easily than does D&D, but the point is - I grabbed encounter after encounter after encounter. 10 or 15 of the same common and uncommon minis here there and everywhere. This was the third time I had done this when buying minis for Star Wars - so I was really filling in the gaps with my purchases.By the time I was done, I had dropped about $150 and bought 350 minis. Add in shipping at $50 (I'm in Canada and it was a big package of minis =  higher shipping cost), and I was in for about $200.  At just north of 50 cents a piece for a CRAP LOAD of minis that I wanted in numbers that make them highly usable in play - that's a price for a product that just can't be beat. Moreover, for those of you who have looked at WotC's Star Wars mnis and compared them to DDM  -  you'll have to agree the for the most part, Lucas' Licensing's power to reject minis for sale by WotC that do not meet Lucas quality requirements has meant that SW minis are of significantly higher quality than most of the D&D minis are, overall. So, would that shopping spree have been possible in a world of specific non-random packaged minis? No. I have to admit - it wouldn't be. I bought 90% of the 600 or so DDMs that I have by the case. In comparison, I have bought more than 90% of the 1,000 SW minis that I have by the lot on ebay - or as singles online. And I've still paid less for the SW minis because of random packaging. Part of this benefit is that SW common minis seem to sell  for a helluva lot cheaper than DDMs (many are 10 to 25 cents a piece!) but whatever the case, I do have to say that sometimes this method of retailing and distribution in the primary market has served me well when purchasing in the secondary market. Seems only fair to acknowledge the good with the bad.</blockquote>

Verification