Once a year I participate in a live-action D&D-like game. (It's not a
LARP though.) Part of the fun involves the use and collection of tokens which can aid a player within the game. Most tokens represent items your character wears and/or uses like armor & weapons. Tokens come in four rarities: common, uncommon, rare, and ultra-rare. The rarer the token, the greater its relative power/usefulness. The full set of tokens changes every year and are never sold again (though there are after-market opportunities, such as eBay.) Tokens come in packs of 10 and cost a dollar per pack. Each pack has 7 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare. However, 1% of the token packs contain one ultra-rare in place of a common. Some ultra-rare tokens form sets. If all the items in a set are used an additional bonus is granted.
I have a budget of $100 to spend on tokens. The company that runs the game/sells the tokens has a special deal. If you buy 25 packs, you get an extra 5 packs free and your choice of an ultra-rare. (You might get an additional UR by random chance in the packs.) If you buy 100 packs, you get 20 free packs, four URs of your choice, and a special ultra-rare (one might call it an ultra-ultra-rare) that is only available via this offer. This UUR is part of a seven-year set that, when complete four years from now, will be über-powerful. I have the first two parts of this set. (FYI, it's called The Rod of Seven Parts, a famous D&D artifact.)
Each year there are 20 different URs. This year there are three which are part of three different sets that I "need" to complete. (I have all the other parts of the sets.) There are three other URs that are way freakin' cool that I also covet, not to mention segment three of the Ro7P.
After this year's tokens are shipped in April (we're in the pre-order phase right now), tokens will start showing up on eBay. Current-year URs generally sell for $10-$20 (since for $25 you can pick what you want and get a bunch of less commons to boot.) Previous year's UR prices are a lot more volatile and often go for more money, depending on usefulness. Ro7P segments have also been seen on eBay and while they too range in price, tend to be spendy.
So here's my dilemma. Do I:
- Blow my entire budget on the 100 pack offer, select four URs, guarantee myself segment three of the Ro7P, but miss out on the other two URs that I want. (but very likely get at least one random UR which I may be able to trade for one I want)
- Buy 25 packs, pick one UR and hope I can get the other six tokens I want on eBay.
- Buy 50 packs, pick two URs and hope I can get the other five tokens I want on eBay.
- Buy 75 packs, pick three URs and hope I can get the other four tokens I want on eBay.
- Don't pre-order anything and hope I get really lucky on eBay.