Scratch Ticket Stats Revisited

[Frostmarrow]

A few years ago I suggested Wizards ought to sell ability score cards in the form of scratch tickets to D&D players. Scratch ticket stats could on the one hand increase revenue and on the other hand provide players with fair and interesting stats without inflation, with official approval and ready for comparison. Random official stats would also make it a little more interesting to create builds.

Needless to say this suggestion wasn't very popular. I would guess this lack of enthusiasm for the idea was due to it being regarded as a blatant money grab.

Now, I'm still intrigued by the idea and I therefore suggest these scratch tickets are released as promos for free at GenCon and Winter Fantasy, for example. The cost of production is next to nothing and it's sure to create some buzz within the community.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This remains a solution in search of a problem.

 

[tlantl]

I have a sure fire method for generating random numbers, they're called dice.

I'm sure I can do much better than if I were to use any other system. Official random numbers would never go higher than the highest number on an array, in fact I'd go so far as to say that all those cards would do is rearrange the array numbers in some random pattern.

If not, then we'd have the same problem as with actually rolling dice; envy, jealousy, and disappointment unless everyone gets the same numbers to use. This being the reason that arrays exist in the first place as far as I can tell.

 

[B.T.]

I don't understand get it. I'm supposed to pay to get my ability scores? This makes no sense with point buy and dice rolling. Also, if a player ever showed up at my table with a scratch-off card full of 18s and told me I had to let him play because it was an OFFICIAL WOTC PRODUCT, I'd make him play with all 8s for a session just to spite him.

 

[nightwalker450]

I like this idea, because I understand where it's coming from.

These allow for players to create characters away from the GM. With dice there's no record of them being actual rolls without the GM witnessing it. If these could be dirt cheap no more than 25 cents a piece, or able to buy 100 for $10.

But its possible then you'd have a player who just keep buying tickets until he got a good stat array. You can look at it as yay more money for producer, or you can put serial numbers on them and GMs could hand them out (and record serial numbers). I'm not that paranoid, but someone might be...

Or the other option of scratch tickets with 36 numbers on them.. Numbers generated using 4d6 drop lowest (for probability curve). Then the player just scratches off 6 boxes and presto stats. Again someone could buy more cards, but it would be less promising, since they could still mess up the scratch.

Interesting idea for a tool, that would be especially useful for official play. Then official play could use scratch cards to create characters instead of having to use arrays.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't understand why a player would want to pay WotC to be entitled to play with high ability scores, when it is so much easier to pay the DM (i.e. me).

 

[nightwalker450]

I don't understand why a player would want to pay WotC to be entitled to play with high ability scores, when it is so much easier to pay the DM (i.e. me).

Some DM's aren't as open to bribery as others... Also some DM's are more costly than WotC.

And it wouldn't be something for all games, but it'd be interesting to know if there'd be enough of a market to keep something like this going.
-- I'm half tempted to try and figure out how difficult this would be to produce, since it seems rather straight forward.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

I feel that it is my duty as a D&D player to shoot this down as hard as possible lest WOTC gets the idea that we want such a thing.

Absolutely not. This isn't a good idea and the only entity to get any sort of benefit from this arrangement is WotC. No thanks.

 

[Scribble]

I wouldn't have an issue with it... I could see some people having fun with it, but I probably wouldn't use it.

My attitude is cheaters gonna cheat no matter what... It's just a game so whatever.

 

[keterys]

Such a thing could potentially make sense under fairly unique circumstances.

For example, let's say there was an exhibition game running at a big con like Gen Con. High activity, high chance of death, lots of crazy delving.

And the scratch ticket proceeds / ticket sales all went towards the Gary Gygax memorial fund, or something similar.

Mind you, you might be able to make money on it on the latter alone. Get a gaming charity (Child's Play would also work) to issue them. Tell DMs they should let you use the stats. Make it random, but expect people will buy 10-20 to get a good character. For a good cause.