Greetings,

I'm working with my FLGS on having an X-Wing tournament where the entry fee is donated canned goods, and players can donate additional cans to receive one-time-use bonuses during their matches. My question though, is what sort of bonuses should these be? I have heard that in other food bank tournaments for other games, you could buy re-rolls for X amount of canned goods, however there is already a great deal of ways to get re-rolls already.

Some initial ideas I had:

Extra points for your list (no more than 10)

Re-usable one-time use upgrade cards (Crackshot, Glitterstim, etc)

Cross-faction lists (Would probably need to require a substantial donation, as this could become super-broken, lol)

A side-board (max 33(?) point ship that can be swapped in the list after pairing is announced)

And obviously raffle tickets for an end of the day drawing.

Anyways, I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions?

Thanks!

If the canned food is meant for stray kitties, the idea is good.

I would say if its a FFG based summer prize tournament have it be Raffle tickets, otherwise its "donate to win" (which i guess is a win-win?) but if its a casual i can see the side board being a fun thing to have.

extra shield tokens?

We did a escalation tournament that allowed you to buy extra points in your list with donated food as well as buy one "Cheat" where you could get "donate tokens" from the amount you bought extra to the entry amount, to place one token on any ship of any kind at the start of combat. So you could put a "donate token" on a enemy soontir to "donate" him a stress, or "donate" your corran an evade when he needs it.

The meanest was when I "donated" a cloaking token to an enemy ship that had a range 1 attack on my HWK. Luckily it was a fun game an no one got angry with said rules.

you should also accept donations outside the form of actual canned goods. I've heard from plenty of food banks that canned goods are probably the least effective donation they can get. They usually need other foods, like bread and fresh vegetables for example, but then again at the same time, money is the best donation because they get special deals as food banks and get stretch a dollar MUCH further than you can, PLUS they can buy exactly what they are lacking at the moment.

Anyhow enough of that. As to bonuses, they could gain shields. Any ship can gain shields and that is probably the easiest way to do it. Or maybe ONE free action?

Or invent some new mechanics - Maybe a secondary weapon called "Asteroid Destroyer" which blows up asteroids, or "Shield Shooter" which attacks friendly ships, and if it hits they gain a shield.

Could do some kind of crazy bonus where if you donate 100 bucks you gain a permanent attack die for the day.

you should also accept donations outside the form of actual canned goods. I've heard from plenty of food banks that canned goods are probably the least effective donation they can get. They usually need other foods, like bread and fresh vegetables for example, but then again at the same time, money is the best donation because they get special deals as food banks and get stretch a dollar MUCH further than you can, PLUS they can buy exactly what they are lacking at the moment.

Anyhow enough of that. As to bonuses, they could gain shields. Any ship can gain shields and that is probably the easiest way to do it. Or maybe ONE free action?

Or invent some new mechanics - Maybe a secondary weapon called "Asteroid Destroyer" which blows up asteroids, or "Shield Shooter" which attacks friendly ships, and if it hits they gain a shield.

Could do some kind of crazy bonus where if you donate 100 bucks you gain a permanent attack die for the day.

Everyone is giving fantastic ideas! I will definitely be reaching out to the local food bank to get a better understanding of what all they would prefer. Straight cash could definitely be collected too.

There is an unwritten rule where I play that if you buy something the store owner takes 10 damage. I've seen him lose MTG games because of it...

Two ideas:

First one: For each can/item the player donates, the player receives a free focus token. At any point in any game of the tournament, the player can simply reach out and put one of those focus tokens on a ship, up to a max of once per ship per turn. No action or anything is needed to place that Focus. This pool of tokens does not refresh after a game, it must last you for the entire tourney. Bring lots of food, and enjoy your Jedi-like reflexes.

Second idea: For each item you bring, the point value of your fleet is reduced by one for the purposes of determining initiative. (Bring a 100-point fleet, and ten food items? When the time comes to check initiative, your fleet is only counted as 90 points.)

You could also charge a small entry fee of say $5, as well as a donation of 1 food item or more. For every extra item, use the focus token ability Weirdo suggested. Super simple and it encourages people to bring lots of items. Plus you can take some of the money from the entry fee and give the winner a coffee mug or a hat (or just a hug) and give the rest to the food bank.

edit: And people say I'm heartless.

I've only participated in events like this for WarMachine, but I'd imagine that it would work out pretty well for x-wing too.

- Have a bunch of tickets to hand out as currency (each can and/or dollar gets you a ticket). Try and discourage people from getting a bunch of tiny, cheap cans of stuff. One guy showed up with a bunch of mini franks in small cans that were super cheap. Kinda misses the point. I'd suggest standard size cans, or cost at least $0.75.

- Have a pre-posted menu of effects that can be purchased with tickets. Some of them should be powerful and expensive.

- As people buy items from the menu in games, they rip up the tickets to pay for it.

- Have a prize for the person with the most tickets left over at the end of the day.

Here'd be my suggestions:

1 ticket

- After you perform an action, perform a free action. You may do this multiple times per ship, the cost goes up by 1 ticket per free action per ship.

2 tickets

- At the start of combat, add a focus or evade token to a ship.

- At the end of combat, remove a stress from a ship.

3 tickets

- At the start of combat, acquire a target lock.

- When you reveal your dial, change the speed of the maneuver by 1 to another maneuver legal for that ship.

- At the end of combat, add a stress to an unstressed ship.

5 tickets

- At the end of combat, add a stress to an already stressed ship.

10 tickets

- At the start of combat, add a cloak token to any ship that doesn't already have one.

Pay to win is completely acceptable in a charity event. As a matter of fact I think it should be encouraged in that format.

I like the "donate token" idea, especially if you could "donate" Extra Munitions tokens. My idea was going to just be additional uses of munitions

Also like the sideboard idea

I've only participated in events like this for WarMachine, but I'd imagine that it would work out pretty well for x-wing too.- Have a bunch of tickets to hand out as currency (each can and/or dollar gets you a ticket). Try and discourage people from getting a bunch of tiny, cheap cans of stuff. One guy showed up with a bunch of mini franks in small cans that were super cheap. Kinda misses the point. I'd suggest standard size cans, or cost at least $0.75.- Have a pre-posted menu of effects that can be purchased with tickets. Some of them should be powerful and expensive.- As people buy items from the menu in games, they rip up the tickets to pay for it.- Have a prize for the person with the most tickets left over at the end of the day.Here'd be my suggestions: 1 ticket - After you perform an action, perform a free action. You may do this multiple times per ship, the cost goes up by 1 ticket per free action per ship. 2 tickets - At the start of combat, add a focus or evade token to a ship.- At the end of combat, remove a stress from a ship. 3 tickets - At the start of combat, acquire a target lock.- When you reveal your dial, change the speed of the maneuver by 1 to another maneuver legal for that ship.- At the end of combat, add a stress to an unstressed ship. 5 tickets - At the end of combat, add a stress to an already stressed ship. 10 tickets - At the start of combat, add a cloak token to any ship that doesn't already have one.

You could bring a scale and assign points per Lb for items under 5 lbs?

I like the idea of flipping a critical card face down - like Chewie's pilot ability, or re-rolling a single die like Palpatine when you doate ever such a number of canned goods/other products/money. That you have some sort of number for the whole tournament based on the donations, and then when you use them up you are out.

I like this a lot. Sounds super fun, and ultra helpful. You could also separate donation categories into one time buff types. Loaf of bread: shield token, Bag of veggies: focus chip, Box of spaghetti/crackers/stuffing: evade chip. Again, a donation charity tourney is a great idea, I love it, and will bring it up with my flgs.

Cheers!