GameMastery Item Packs

[Simplicity]

So I picked up one of the GameMastery Item Packs (#1) the other day. 54 cards showing various magic items. A good buy, I thought (only 10 bucks or so). But I noticed that the future item packs have gone the way of randomization... $4 packs, containing 11 items each (out of a total of 110 items) IIRC.

Great. Just what I wanted to do as a DM. Actually find the Rod of Seven Parts before I can put it in my game.

While I'm a fan of the randomized pre-painted plastic, and even randomized card games... Randomized RPG helper cards annoys me. Really, really annoys me. I recognize that a $20 pack of cards with items on them probably won't sell well. But I find it hard to imagine that people are going to dish out too much money toward these packs... Maybe I'm wrong.

Are they expecting people to try to collect all of the "foil" card items? Why? Because the art is cool and you can't use a generic "staff" when you really want a "Staff"? The item names are all generic so that they can be used for Staffs of the Magi or something... What exactly does a foil card encompass?

Then again, maybe they're just "nudge, nudge" cards...

DM: You find a generic sword.
Paladin Player: Hey... Why does it have the words "Holy Vengence is mine!" inscribed on it?
DM: Figure it out.

 

[Treebore]

This was addressed in the publishers press release forum, when they announced this product was coming out.

 

[Nailom]

This was addressed in the publishers press release forum, when they announced this product was coming out.

Is there still a link?

 

[Simplicity]

Yeah, I searched that forum, but I could find nothing. Perhaps it was lost in the DB dump.
Not that I typically ever go to the Press Releases forum anyways.

 

[cthulhu_duck]

This was addressed in the publishers press release forum, when they announced this product was coming out.

Any chance of a summary or recollection of the discussion?

 

[Treebore]

Deck Description

They pretty much just gave this link and links to the expansion packs. I remember they said this isn't designed to be a collectable game. If I am remembering correctly there are no rarities, except maybe the foil cards. I don't remember for sure. I couldn't find a Q&A over at Paizo, but if you go to their messageboards you'll probably get good responses.

I just remember I would be willing to buy the Starter Deck's but I wasn't going to buy the expansions, but I don't remember why I had made those decisions. I think it was just because of how overpriced the expansions are. 12 cards for $4.00. Same kind of reason I quit playing CCG's all together.

 

[Ruined]

At Paizo, they've mentioned that they may try selling individual cards from the expansions once they hit. Their Technical Director Vic Wertz said this (in a response):

Is there a place on the paizo.com site where we can buy the individual cards?
Not for the fixed starter set cards, no. We plan on trying that sort of thing for the cards in the boosters shortly after we release the first booster packs.

-Vic.

And there's a good post from Vic in this thread, quoting something from their Art Director:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/gameMastery/itemPackUpdates

 

[el-remmen]

I think they're kinda cheesy.

 

[ssampier]

Looks like a neat idea, but I'm not digging the "randomization factor". If selling a complete set was out of the question, why not sell sets, such as Set I (contains A-F), Set II (G-Z), etc?

 

[Treebore]

OK, I just read the thread and it looked like my memory was reasonably accurate. The cards are not going to be common, uncommon, rare, or whatever. The only kind of difference is that more common items will be found more often, for example potion bottles versus a card for plate mail. Potion bottles are more common than Plate Mail so you will see potion cards more often. The foil card is meant to be for magic items, and they appear to be cards that you fill in what they are.

So you will apparently get one foil cared per booster, but they aren't a specific item