DMs to pay for D&D Encounter materials?

Morrus · Jun 19, 2013

I've seen various reports around the web (such as this one) that D&D Encounters is changing soon in that DMs will no longer receive the adventures for free. This apparently starts in August with Murder in Baldur's Gate which will cost volunteer DMs $34.95.

darjr · Jun 19, 2013

I'm not sure what to do about this one. How many here that are running encounters are going to pick this up?

Morrus · Jun 19, 2013

I've not got an Encounters store near me, so it's not something that'd ever affect me (and so I'm a bit uninformed on the whole thing) but I can't imagine the hosting store would object to paying for the adventure? It strikes me that in practice this would end up as a non-issue, unless there are other factors in play.

kitsune9 · Jun 19, 2013

This is kind of like, "We'll publish adventures that people buy and then play in our tournament games." Given the material that they will provide for the module, I think it's okay.

thepriz · Jun 19, 2013

I don't know much about D&D encounters but Pathfinder Society Scenarios are $3.99 each and there are 2 released a month. If this is a one shot adventure that you are supposed to play in one sitting, I would thing this too high.

darjr · Jun 19, 2013

How many sessions are encounters? They are supposed to be two hours vs the four so it would need to be about 18 sessions? I think mine have run about 8 or 9?

darjr · Jun 19, 2013

Oh and there is still a lot of stuff in the kit.

2 copies of the short introductory adventure

2 packs of non-player character cards for the DM

20 exclusive player maps

20 exclusive Murder in Baldur’s Gate d20s

the Jester · Jun 19, 2013

There's no FLGS near me running Encounters anymore, but when there was, the quality of the adventures was generally very poor.

Even a good adventure designed for the Encounters format wouldn't be worth paying for, IMHO, especially as there's no way to look at it and evaluate its value first. But all of that is based on the first couple of seasons' worth; I hear that it has gotten better since.

I thought the whole point of D&D Encounters was to attract new players. It seems to me that asking dms to pay for the advertising they're doing for WotC for free is going to alienate some of them. I realize that the Encounters material costs money to produce, but I have misgivings about the future of the program if they're going to start asking the dms volunteering their time to pay to play. (Why not just run something homebrewed instead, if your itch to run the game is so strong and Encounters is your only option?)

Blackwarder · Jun 19, 2013

Considering that the nearest LFGS to me is 267 miles by a boat I'm happy that I'll be able to participate in the first s underling adventure, I would have DM in a store for the play aids though.

Warder

darjr · Jun 19, 2013

the Jester said:
There's no FLGS near me running Encounters anymore, but when there was, the quality of the adventures was generally very poor.

Even a good adventure designed for the Encounters format wouldn't be worth paying for, IMHO, especially as there's no way to look at it and evaluate its value first. But all of that is based on the first couple of seasons' worth; I hear that it has gotten better since.

I thought the whole point of D&D Encounters was to attract new players. It seems to me that asking dms to pay for the advertising they're doing for WotC for free is going to alienate some of them. I realize that the Encounters material costs money to produce, but I have misgivings about the future of the program if they're going to start asking the dms volunteering their time to pay to play. (Why not just run something homebrewed instead, if your itch to run the game is so strong and Encounters is your only option?)

The season I started with was fantastic, "Against the Cult of Chaos". I don't have issues paying for adventures, I run Pathfinder Society, but it's more than I expected and all at once. I imagine others are struggling with justifying the purchase. I think I'll do it this first go around and see how it is.