Preemptive Topic Split - GS

Wraith

Newbie
In order to not clutter the poll, I will move this to its own thread.

One question here, which I would love the owners and logisticians to weigh in on.

How is the goblin stamp system as it stands now different from outright selling blankets and items for cash, and would you condone taking away the trappings and just posting outright price lists if it ensured cash donations to your chapter?
 
Re: Preemptive Topuc Split - GS

because GS can be earned in more ways than just donating materials, props, and money. They can be earned by donating time as well. Some people do not have the time to donate so they spend money. The game requires these funds and donations to operate, so why not reward those who offer them?
 
Re: Preemptive Topuc Split - GS

and to add to what Dom said, GS are not just used for blanketing.. I use mine for production, coin, etc.

I think "removing the trappings" (which is an odd way to phrase this IMO) would be a big mistake.
 
I don't think either of you really grasped the question. The object isn't to remove compensation for helping the chapter out. The theory is to stop pretending that 'be all you can't be' is relevant when we are offering in-game advantage for out of game money, and run the business of funding chapters as either pure donations or as an up-front commercial transaction.

Consider it like any charitable donation. If you want the 'Friends of IPTV' reward package for supporting your local public television station, you pledge $x for the year. We do the same thing with blankets and pay-no-play already, under the guise of goblin stamps. What I am suggesting is that we stop concealing it behind the GS system and simply be up front about it.

This has the benefit of putting chapters in a position to, rather than having donations trickle in, run a 'pledge drive' of sorts in the offseason and generate an immediate larger working budget in exchange for a yearly/monthly/periodic set of blankets or the outright purchase of item tags.
 
Wraith said:
I don't think either of you really grasped the question. The object isn't to remove compensation for helping the chapter out. The theory is to stop pretending that 'be all you can't be' is relevant when we are offering in-game advantage for out of game money, and run the business of funding chapters as either pure donations or as an up-front commercial transaction.

Then you run the risk of losing that player base that gives up time to the chapters for compensation.
 
Nothing about it stops chapters from compensating volunteers. It does, however, put the chapter in a position to compensate people with things that do not effect scaling, such as discounted events, without cutting into operating funds.

It also sets up chapters to have enough money on hand to hire talent that they don't have available in their playerbase, as well as bulk-purchasing things like latex weapon reps, cast prosthetics, and other things that are beyond the skills of 99% of the playerbase to create for donation.
 
what you're propsing would only work if the game was profitable... but it isn't. as far as i know, no chapter makes any kind of profit at all. GS work because chapters can't afford to reward people with dicounted games or hire "outside" talent. We are a volenteer organisation, and I don't think that's ever going to change. The game just doesn't have the kind of mass appeal it would need to break free from that.
 
Chapters already receive monetary donations, sometimes quite large ones. They run "pledge drives" for packets, makeup, claws, masks or whatever else they need instead of for cash. The benefit of the goblin stamp system is that it provides a standard system to compensate people for a wide variety of services that is easily internally tracked. Spent six hours cleaning up the site? 150 gobbies. Made 300 packets? 150 gobbies. Donated $50? 150 gobbies. 3 long claw reps? 150 gobbies.

If people only ever donated cash it would generate more work for staff members who must then spend that money on their own time. No thanks to that. I'd rather be given 200 alchemy packets already made than the amount of cash to buy that much orange cloth bird seed and rubber bands. I'd rather get the made packets than twice that much cash, because I have a busy real life and don't have the time, space or frankly inclination to make packets.

The goblin stamp system is flexible and concrete, reasonably simple and we're already using it. Stating that it's concealing anything and insinuating that's all it does strikes me as deeply cynical.
 
I think the way you phrased the questions is heavily weighted, clearly you feel the current system is basically "selling experience" and to some degree you are right. Even before I has an owner I had massive piles of goblins in a couple of chapters, and many players are able to maintain large stockpiles in multiple places, often for a minimal investment of time or energy if you 'work the system right' I personally would rather see strict limits placed on how many blankets a CHARACTER can receive for events not physically attended, although a player may have as many blankets as they want spread amongst alts etc. (something like a single non-attended event per month blanketed) But it's not likely to happen, and generally those people who blanket heavily (I'm included in this) tend to be players that add a lot to the game, in and out, as they understand that being in an in game jerk and driving players away will spoil their fun.

Back to your original question, stripping away the pretense as you suggest would do a few things, first it would likely disappoint many of our extremely dedicated volunteers that can't afford straight up cash donations. These folks spend hours on logistics, show up to work days, craft inexpensive but high effort props. Since our strategy isn't restrict our game to those that can afford to pay higher prices, we simply have a smaller pool of disposable cash to pull donations from. But since it's the goal of all owners to run an inclusive game we take steps to keep prices low and do it for the love of the game, not profits.

If we simply sold blankets for goblins (or cash), then it would discourage people from being involved on a non-local basis and we'd probably see less traveling and more abuse of the system. Ultimately this has always been a sticky issue for owners, because while we have some great folks that would donated locally without promised rewards, there simply aren't enough of those people (generally) to fulfill all the components it takes to run a game over the long haul, and when you are looking at having someone volunteer to spend a couple hours each week working on logistics for example asking to do it "because it has to be done" makes it very difficult to find volunteers that are willing to put up with some of the crap you catch working on logistics.
 
Robb Graves said:
what you're propsing would only work if the game was profitable... but it isn't. as far as i know, no chapter makes any kind of profit at all. GS work because chapters can't afford to reward people with dicounted games or hire "outside" talent. We are a volenteer organisation, and I don't think that's ever going to change. The game just doesn't have the kind of mass appeal it would need to break free from that.

Robb,

I actually pocket tens of thousands each year, and yet still fail to hire the outside talent that would catapult this game into mainstream success due to three overwhelming drives: 1) simple greed, 2) a general loathing for my staff and players, and 3) the need to obscure my dastardly intentions with the labyrinthian fog of the goblin stamp system, for which I hold an obstinate and intractable love.

Well, until now, since the jig is up. So yeah, just start cutting me some checks and I'll send you that 40th level character you were asking about. Man, you're gonna make my pathetic working class players, trying "be all they can't be," look like a joke. I can't wait. Oh, btw, if you know anyone I could hire to make me a few thousand spell packets, that would be awesome.

Thanks!
 
Another problem you run into by taking cash donations and then "hiring" help rather than just having people volunteer their services are price wars. The chapter owners are undoubtedly going to look for whoever can give them the cheapest bid on the job and the people who can't really afford to work for the lowest price get passed over even if they do better work because it comes down to each chapter balancing a checkbook rather than just accepting donations and giving out "fake currency"
 
Deadlands said:
Robb,

I actually pocket tens of thousands each year, and yet still fail to hire the outside talent that would catapult this game into mainstream success due to three overwhelming drives: 1) simple greed, 2) a general loathing for my staff and players, and 3) the need to obscure my dastardly intentions with the labyrinthian fog of the goblin stamp system, for which I hold an obstinate and intractable love.

Well, until now, since the jig is up. So yeah, just start cutting me some checks and I'll send you that 40th level character you were asking about. Man, you're gonna make my pathetic working class players, trying "be all they can't be," look like a joke. I can't wait. Oh, btw, if you know anyone I could hire to make me a few thousand spell packets, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

Although I know that you were kidding, I don't find much in this post do actually disagree with. If there was a chapter that I really liked what they were doing and I attended there, I wouldn't have an issue writing a check for a grand to them to advance my character either XP wise or even plot wise (I got my barony the old fashion way, I BOUGHT it.). And as for hiring people, I did that in my game. What's wrong with price wars? It happens ALL the time in games - who can make my costume the cheapest for me? What armor is most point effects and less costly, etc.

Someone just recently posted on a LARP weapon construction mailing group (where people who make weapons chat about techniques and so on) that they wanted a staff and figured they should just ask there for it. I lost the bid as I couldn't do the work they wanted for the price others will willing to charge for it. No big whoop as that's the way things go. However, I felt contacting a group like that could cause rifts due to the 'feeding frenzy' that happens.

As it stands now there are more than one chapter out there that actually DO offer straight money to gobbie buys (usually around $1=3 gobbies). Add in a pay no play (which to me is like paying a professor for your grade or your boss a promotion) and "Be all you CANT be" becomes "Be all you CAN afford".

It's an imperfect system - but in a game system where you need to level up to do more and take more points of damage to even feel effective in a game, the incentive of power leveling is a big one.
 
That's really my point, right there. We already do all these things. Why not capitalize on it to get games more resources to work with?

I've already seen something of a 'reverse price war' on these very forums, with players shopping around to see which chapter will give them the greatest gobbie response for their donations.
 
i think you are not thinking globally about the player base. this just seems like one more example of someone thinking "the people on this board represent all of the players" when the truth is far from that. what might work well for you, might not work at all for the hundreds of other players accross the US (and Canada)

if you want to donate straight cash to a chapter.. i really don't know any chapter that is going to trun that away... but we HAVE to have something to be able to offer a player who stays late to clean a kitchen, or donates 100 spell packets.. I guess... what is it? you're not happy with the rewards your chapters have offered for straight cash??

I ran HQ Logistics for over 2 years and in that time, i saw players donate anything from furniture, to costuming, to labor, to straight cash to earn GS, or to just help out... hell in our database I have seen people who donate all the time and don't ever use thier gobbies.. not even to blanket...

your suggestion to change an already working system to... what? i don't even know, you haven't outlined anything that i can refer to other than you want to be able to buy a higher level character and do away with all the "trappings" of the dreaded GS system...

I don't get it. If a chapter wants to take your monitary donation to hire outside carpenters or laborers... what is stopping them from doing it?
 
It amuses me to no end how threads here are assumed to be personal experiences. Strangely enough, I have never donated cash to a chapter, or pay-no-played an event. I'll re-quote the question at hand, to see if we can stop derailing into personal attacks on my own experiences :

Wraith said:
How is the goblin stamp system as it stands now different from outright selling blankets and items for cash, and would you condone taking away the trappings and just posting outright price lists if it ensured cash donations to your chapter?
 
Robb Graves said:
I ran HQ Logistics for over 2 years and in that time, i saw players donate anything from furniture, to costuming, to labor, to straight cash to earn GS, or to just help out... hell in our database I have seen people who donate all the time and don't ever use thier gobbies.. not even to blanket...

This isn't an issue as far as I see it, and in fact I believe such rewards are fine for that local chapter. However, and this is even from my own work, why should I, a player who plays extensively on the West Coast, be allowed to advance my character further via gobbies because of a donation I made to a chapter on the east coast?

I am actually thinking globally quite literally on this topic. When a local player sees another character advancing much quicker than his and he's told that it is due to donations that character's player has made to a chapter a thousand miles away - well that just seems wrong in my book. And I have even been that guy getting gobbie blankets from a thousand miles away.

I also think that some of the intentions here are to suggest to stop tip toeing around the whole 'if I have money to burn, I can make my character more powerful' aspect of gobbies and simply put into place such things as "Give us your current level in $50's and we'll add another level to your character".
 
markusdark said:
Robb Graves said:
I ran HQ Logistics for over 2 years and in that time, i saw players donate anything from furniture, to costuming, to labor, to straight cash to earn GS, or to just help out... hell in our database I have seen people who donate all the time and don't ever use thier gobbies.. not even to blanket...

This isn't an issue as far as I see it, and in fact I believe such rewards are fine for that local chapter. However, and this is even from my own work, why should I, a player who plays extensively on the West Coast, be allowed to advance my character further via gobbies because of a donation I made to a chapter on the east coast?

I am actually thinking globally quite literally on this topic. When a local player sees another character advancing much quicker than his and he's told that it is due to donations that character's player has made to a chapter a thousand miles away - well that just seems wrong in my book. And I have even been that guy getting gobbie blankets from a thousand miles away.


It doesn't seem wrong at all in mine. As I said before, this is a volenteer organisation. If someone from Cali wants to give HQ a $20.00 donation so that they can blanket our event... both that player and our chapter benefit.

does it add to level creep? absolutely... but that's not really the topic onf conversation here.
 
Wraith said:
It amuses me to no end how threads here are assumed to be personal experiences. Strangely enough, I have never donated cash to a chapter, or pay-no-played an event. I'll re-quote the question at hand, to see if we can stop derailing into personal attacks on my own experiences :

Wraith said:
How is the goblin stamp system as it stands now different from outright selling blankets and items for cash, and would you condone taking away the trappings and just posting outright price lists if it ensured cash donations to your chapter?

again we will go with what people have said a few times now....most Chapters would rather have a donation of packets and pre-made reps then cash...its faster for them...the Chapter staff would not have to spend the time to make them themselves.
I have donated cash to chapters, for a few reasons...a) they asked for it, so they could buy a large ticket item( Pavillion tents, trailers), b) I didnt have any reps to donate or the time to make any....

there is nothing wrong with the base GS policy....
 
Wraith said:
How is the goblin stamp system as it stands now different from outright selling blankets and items for cash?

we've already answered this.

Wraith said:
and would you condone taking away the trappings and just posting outright price lists if it ensured cash donations to your chapter?

no, for the reasons we stated answering the first part of your question.
 
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