They are for a dungeon LARP called True Dungeon, that gets played at GenCon and other places. Basically, you are the character and get challenged by riddles and memory games, and so on and so forth, based on a "script" that usually has variations based on the selected difficulty. Having the tokens lets use use items and things in the game to help when you need it, just like they would in a non-LARP version. I hear it can be quite fun, though I have never played. Oh, and some of the tokens are one-shot unique things, or rare, or whatever (that is, they don't make many of them -- just like you would not expect every PC to have a longsword +5, you don't see that in the LARP version, either.)

That probably depends on the specific game. But, I imagine most could be used in the future. I know characters get XP and whatnot and "advance" so its not unlikely that "loot" would carry over with it.

Mars wrote:Are tokens from previous years usable in the current year?  Or do you have to buy new tokens every year?

Just checking because it seems like some people collect old tokens.

They are good from year to year and many tokens are retired.  These are collectable to a small group of people.  

I have play True Dungeon for 5 years now at Gencon and have aquired a few hundred of these tokens through my tickets (10 or so given for each ticket) and finding them in True Dungeon itself as treasure.  Some of the tokens (the purple ones) are really rare; in years past only 6 copies of each purple have been released.  Also the tokens released in the first few years were wooden and not the plastic they are now.

Just for the record True Dungeon is a blast and the tokens help equip your character just like buying stuff from the players handbook.  It is very cool and these tokens add quite a bit to the overall True Dungeon experince.

Grug Greyskin wrote:Where do these tokens come from initially?

Players get a bag of 10 tokens with each True Dungeon ticket. They can (and do) buy more tokens in bulk from True Dungeon LLC.  Players also earn tokens as "treasure" in the events. Tokens remain active from year to year, but as someone else said, there are "retired" tokens that aren't produced anymore.

It's pretty much the same racket as collectble card games -- there are common, uncommon, and rare tokens; the rarer the token, the better the special effect, and hard-core players buy hundreds of tokens because they want the rare tokens, and/or want a complete set.

There are players who show up at events with hundreds of tokens and equip entire parties. Token sales probably do quite a bit to subsidize the events.

Holy Shnikees! We are in the wrong racket, lol.  Already sold out of all but the Ultra Rare 2009 tokens and it's still over 100 days until Gen Con.  I guess they do have events throughout the year though (based in Carbondale IL  IIRC so they're not terribly far away).