This, exactly this. The season 1-3 adventures are super cool, let's not penalize people who want to run them, especially now that they've become more easily accessible via DMs Guild.
DM rewards for running Adventurer's League - what are your thoughts?
- Thread starter Scorpienne
- Start date
This, exactly this. The season 1-3 adventures are super cool, let's not penalize people who want to run them, especially now that they've become more easily accessible via DMs Guild.
Sad that it is unlikely, and nigh on insulting to the DMs. A simple fix has been suggested in this thread regarding a line in the S4 guide....I'm confident word will get around to any DMs that don't notice.
As to the possibility of needing InDesign to make changes.....well I have a graphic artist friend with InDesign that is willing to make the insignificantly minor changes to the S1 through S3 files. Access to the original fiies makes it easy, without them the PDF could still be edited easily enough if he has the matching font, and is still doable without....remember we're talking less than a line being changed.
Greg, please pm me if y'all would like the assist.
Tyranthraxus
Explorer
Ive been in other Living Campaigns and the one thing that has always glared out to me is how often 'locked in' past Scenarios rulings have been. I wont name the campagin but in one of the scenarios the exp and gold rewards were wildly off target (by a large magnitude).
Players knew it, Dms knew it and 99 percent of the Campaign staff knew it. Yet because it was in play and 'published' they never fixed it and the error became part of the campaign. I dont remember the exact wording but it came down to 'Thats a scenario in the past, we are only concentrating on the great future of the campaign'. A lot of the feedback came down to 'Oh the DM/players wont know if they are using the correct version of the scenario so its best not to change it to 'That Author is no longer with the campaign.. we dont actually have any ability to go and change what he wrote'. (It was a great Living Campaign other than that.. but sadly now lost to the mists of time)
Cept look at that comment logically. In an organised campaign nothing is ever truly in the past. Unless a scenario is retired and no longer available to play, its still a current scenario and very much the present.
In regards Rooneg to your comment, I dont consider it a 'penalty' at all. I simply view it from the angle of standardisation. I dont see the need personally (and keep in mind all the comments Im making here are my personal comments: Im more than willing to go with what the Admins state) to state dm rewards in both the Players Guide (Guide to the Campaign if you prefer) AND in the Scenario.
Lets look at it a different way. When you run a part of one of the former Encounters modules you get 300 exp /150 gold for Tier 1-4 areas. You lets say now get 200 exp/100 gold for a Tier 1-4 Scenario.
The proviso here being you get 100 extra exp for running a part of a module which might take you 12 hours or more to finish or it might take you 2 (and thus less time that the 4 hour Tier 1-4 scenario)
What I would like to see is a standard set across ALL AL 'product'. If you run a Tier 1-4 part of a module you get ... 300/150. If you run a Tier 1-4 scenario you get , 300/150.
If you run a Tier 5-10 part of a module you get 800/400, if you run a Tier 5-10 scenario, you get 800/400.
(You might ask what about the 2 hour scenarios or the 5 1 hour scenarios or the 8 hour scenarios. Yes they do provide .. issues but also easily resolvable within the Guide document)
Players knew it, Dms knew it and 99 percent of the Campaign staff knew it. Yet because it was in play and 'published' they never fixed it and the error became part of the campaign. I dont remember the exact wording but it came down to 'Thats a scenario in the past, we are only concentrating on the great future of the campaign'. A lot of the feedback came down to 'Oh the DM/players wont know if they are using the correct version of the scenario so its best not to change it to 'That Author is no longer with the campaign.. we dont actually have any ability to go and change what he wrote'. (It was a great Living Campaign other than that.. but sadly now lost to the mists of time)
Cept look at that comment logically. In an organised campaign nothing is ever truly in the past. Unless a scenario is retired and no longer available to play, its still a current scenario and very much the present.
In regards Rooneg to your comment, I dont consider it a 'penalty' at all. I simply view it from the angle of standardisation. I dont see the need personally (and keep in mind all the comments Im making here are my personal comments: Im more than willing to go with what the Admins state) to state dm rewards in both the Players Guide (Guide to the Campaign if you prefer) AND in the Scenario.
Lets look at it a different way. When you run a part of one of the former Encounters modules you get 300 exp /150 gold for Tier 1-4 areas. You lets say now get 200 exp/100 gold for a Tier 1-4 Scenario.
The proviso here being you get 100 extra exp for running a part of a module which might take you 12 hours or more to finish or it might take you 2 (and thus less time that the 4 hour Tier 1-4 scenario)
What I would like to see is a standard set across ALL AL 'product'. If you run a Tier 1-4 part of a module you get ... 300/150. If you run a Tier 1-4 scenario you get , 300/150.
If you run a Tier 5-10 part of a module you get 800/400, if you run a Tier 5-10 scenario, you get 800/400.
(You might ask what about the 2 hour scenarios or the 5 1 hour scenarios or the 8 hour scenarios. Yes they do provide .. issues but also easily resolvable within the Guide document)
kalani
First Post
The DM rewards in particular are undergoing considerable revision for Season 4 - the specifics of which are not yet available. What I can tell you is that the admins and campaign staff have heard the concerns/criticisms/feedback/suggestions, and that the issue has been discussed at length among the entire campaign staff.
Based on what I have seen of the proposed changes, I expect that most DMs will be pleasantly surprised. In fact, I expect that the changes to the DM rewards system will see a huge increase in the number of players willing to DM
Based on what I have seen of the proposed changes, I expect that most DMs will be pleasantly surprised. In fact, I expect that the changes to the DM rewards system will see a huge increase in the number of players willing to DM
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This is precisely what I'd like to see. There's no fundamentally different amount of effort that goes into running a season 1 4 hour level 1-4 adventure relative to a season 3 4 hour level 1-4 adventure. It's about the same prep time and it's exactly the same game time. The rewards should be the same. If there's some season where the prep time is anticipated to be radically different or something then sure, make an exception, but that seems super unlikely to occur.
Currently, because the rewards were written into the adventures and they vary over the various seasons there's an effective penalty to the DM for agreeing to run some adventures vs others. That's unfortunate, because some of the ones that give out fewer rewards are cool adventures. Is that difference enough to keep me from running them? No, but it's still annoying.
Anyway, I think we're in violent agreement here ;-)
skerritthegreen
Explorer
Sure, if that was the fix we were planning to make, it would be quite simple.
As for the files and edits we hope to make, its not even that we have issues making the changes. We don't physically own the files. We have requested them and that is working through channels. WOTC is discussing how updates should be made: Should they go back to the authors to make changes (since they are now getting $ from the DMs Guild and changing them without their say is kinda questionable but might mean some authors choose not to update)? Should the Admins do it gratis without any pay outside of their normal position? Should WOTC find someway to pay some one (which might mean waiting for a new budget cycle)? Should we just throw it out to some volunteers like you suggest (and make them sign some sort of documents about destroying all copies afterward and not posting to the internet and some how potentially making them liable to the author if they do)? Turns out it not quite as easy as Yeah, just let me open a file and alter a line of text, resave, and we're good.
With respect to DM awards, this isn't going to be text provided by the module author, so I'm not sure why the author would have any 'skin in the game', so to speak. You'd basically be changing a block of text that WotC handed to the author as boilerplate and said 'include this in the module'. If the author couldn't have refused to include the text in the module in the first place, I don't see where they can legitimately refuse to update the text if asked by WotC (who still technically own the modules, even if they're letting the author use the DMs Guild to monetize their work on the module).
These concerns I'll accept as making things more complicated -- 'I have a buddy with a copy of InDesign' isn't a workable process.
--
Pauper
Z. H. Darkstar
Explorer
I think that are far simpler solution would be to remove the DM reward section from all modules and have a table in the ALPG that has a standardized set of DM rewards based on tier and adventure length. That way you don't have to worry about updating X amount of documents each time the rules change, just the ALPG.
The suggestion that I sent in, was for all mods to give a consistent 'credit' value. (Either per adventure, or per adventure 'hour')
The value of each 'credit' would depend on the PC you assign it to.
So.... DMing a 4 hour Tier 1 would be the same as a 4hour Tier 2. But if you applied those credits to a level 3 PC, you would get (using arbitrary numbers) 300XP per credit, if you applied it to a Level 8 PC, you could get 2,000XP, and for a Level 13 PC would get 5,000 XP. (Same could be done for gp.)
We will see... and hopefully they will help. IME and IMO I don't think any dearth of DMs has to do with the rewards. I think that is used as an excuse more than an actual underlying cause. Unless the rewards start getting really crazy..... I don't think they will be enough to get someone to DM that already wasn't willing to.Based on what I have seen of the proposed changes, I expect that most DMs will be pleasantly surprised. In fact, I expect that the changes to the DM rewards system will see a huge increase in the number of players willing to DM
But.... I am drawing from a somewhat limited pool of information, so maybe it will be more useful in other places....
Z. H. Darkstar
Explorer
Coredump, I think that your credit idea is a little too confusing in practice. Keeping a degree of standardization regarding the amount of rewards that each adventure is worth will reduce the potential for abuse by min/max when you cash in your credit.
My suggestion is a bit more consistent and futureproof. Assume that X, Y, and Z are equal to the rewards for a 4 hour adventure of Tiers 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The table would then look something like this
T1 2 hours = X/2
T1 4 hours = X
T1 8 hours = X*2
T2 2 hours = Y/2
T2 4 hours = Y
T2 8 hours = Y*2
T3 2 hours = Z/2
T3 4 hours = Z
T3 8 hours = Z*2
The only adventures that would need a separate reward calculated are the X-1 5-part modules and the individual parts of hardcover and Launch Event adventures.
By putting it all in the ALPG, you end up accomplishing two things. First, you've made it easier for DMs to calculate their total DM rewards by putting it all in a central location. Second, you're now forcing DMs to refer to the ALPG more often, which will subconsciously make them more familiar with its contents. If I have to continuously pass by the starting lifestyle table and the FAQ before reaching the DM rewards table; I'm more likely to retain that info, thus enabling me to recall it without having to look it up.
My suggestion is a bit more consistent and futureproof. Assume that X, Y, and Z are equal to the rewards for a 4 hour adventure of Tiers 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The table would then look something like this
T1 2 hours = X/2
T1 4 hours = X
T1 8 hours = X*2
T2 2 hours = Y/2
T2 4 hours = Y
T2 8 hours = Y*2
T3 2 hours = Z/2
T3 4 hours = Z
T3 8 hours = Z*2
The only adventures that would need a separate reward calculated are the X-1 5-part modules and the individual parts of hardcover and Launch Event adventures.
By putting it all in the ALPG, you end up accomplishing two things. First, you've made it easier for DMs to calculate their total DM rewards by putting it all in a central location. Second, you're now forcing DMs to refer to the ALPG more often, which will subconsciously make them more familiar with its contents. If I have to continuously pass by the starting lifestyle table and the FAQ before reaching the DM rewards table; I'm more likely to retain that info, thus enabling me to recall it without having to look it up.
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