Exclusive Adventures for DnDAL

skerritthegreen said:

We would like a minimum number of tables to be run (usually 10, though we lower that number for non-US cons), it cannot be geographically/temporal close to some place else that ran the epic, and your con has to have a good reputation (for example if your con has been caught doing naughty things, we are not rewarding you with an epic).

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The "geographically/temporally close" thing will likely lock me out of epics forever, since the big local con for me that does all the epics is one that's run by people who, quite frankly, have made it clear that people like me aren't going to be made to feel safe or welcome there.

do you mind us asking what about "people like you" are not welcome at this con?

It'll start an argument if I do. The people who run said con are really, really both popular and polarizing among gamers. I'll PM.

your PM indicates that you are in the Puget Sound area. I plan on organizing the AL events at ECCC and Pax West in 2016. I'm hoping to get an Epic at at least one of those. Maybe even and Admin for one of these exclusive adventures. I want to publicly say that "people like you" will be fully welcomed in those DnD AL events. WotC has made some efforts to make DnD as inclusive as possible. AL is following suit. And I fully support that. If you can manage a pass, come introduce yourself.

Dracoprimus said:

your PM indicates that you are in the Puget Sound area. I plan on organizing the AL events at ECCC and Pax West in 2016. I'm hoping to get an Epic at at least one of those. Maybe even and Admin for one of these exclusive adventures. I want to publicly say that "people like you" will be fully welcomed in those DnD AL events. WotC has made some efforts to make DnD as inclusive as possible. AL is following suit. And I fully support that. If you can manage a pass, come introduce yourself.

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WotC and AL have been great on inclusion.

I realize that I'm super late to this thread, but just to toss in my two cents...

I am fine with exclusivity on a temporary basis. If it helps pay the bills and generates more concept overall, that's great!

What I'm less comfortable with is the "you'll never experience this unless you travel to a con." Great for mid-western US players, less great for everyone else.

I'd say make everything exclusive legal a year after release, which is about two seasons later. So if the lucky few got to play a Cleric of Kelemvor (Death Domain, anyway) in Season 1, now everyone can play one in Season 3. Release the epics to convention staff two seasons later. And so on.

A lot of media already works this way. HBO gets certain movies before the networks can show them. Some Hollywood people got to see Star Wars before the rest of us. And so on. But that doesn't matter that much because I'll get access to that content eventually. It would be nice if the AL did the same thing - otherwise there really will be a "pay to play" aspect, and that's a shame.

0) I live in Ft Wayne, so I can easily afford WF - no travel or hotel bills! - plus pick one of Origins / Gen Con but not both (due to lower-paying job).
I am also an 'unindicted co-conspirator' of Ashes of Athas: Every year I would dump about a suitcase full of printed-up ideas on Alphastream for the group to use / modify / ignore as they saw fit. (They were nice to me: my character's name showed up in one adventure ... as a typo ! )

1) Is this a good/bad idea? Be specific. Be polite. Provide reasons.

I like it. D&D is not exactly adding new module authors over time; some people who clearly have 'love of the game' putting out new adventures is a long-term necessity. Start with Admins and expand to RC / LC later if 'proof of concept' pans out. I shudder to think what would happen if 'being an AL DM' is the only qualification to write a module: I happen to be certain that I am an awesome author and won't even need a proofreader much less an editor or scenario-balancer; somebody else trying to read my Adventure Notes may well disagree.

2) How likely are you to invite an Admin who can bring this adventure to your event, assuming there is some cost? (Admins are basically volunteers and we are not being paid to even write this adventure. We are doing it to give out more content and because we want to give you value if you bring us out. That said, we can't afford to pay to fly all over the country to come to your con. None of us are wealthy.)

Having an Admin over to a FLGS would BE an event. With good marketing, an Admin might even be able to make M:tG give us the run of the building. For one evening. Can we podcast or closed-circuit the gameplay so folks stuck outside can at least listen in? The cost can become affordable if spread out over enough people. I can chip in $5 with a lot of other people doing same; I cannot cover air fare (or Greyhound Bus) by myself.

3) How likely does this make you want to come to a convention or store that has one of these adventures at their event?

Store: VERY. Convention: not so much. Call me spoiled (see point (0) above) and poverty-conscious.

4) Assuming we eventually retired the adventure and released it to the public, what is the right timeline for that? (Note its not tied to a season and writing them for free is not something we have tons of time for, so think in terms of multiples of years.)

If an adventure is tied to a specific Season, it should 'go public' when the next Season starts. If an adventure is 'evergreen', then after a year-to-two, or when the Admin in question has run it say at 20 different Events, or when he has another adventure ready to go.

Thanks for the feedback thus far, folks - it's incredibly helpful.

We're aware that people are craving more content (this is no surprise), but I also wanted to take a moment to say that there are some regional conventions that have reached out to several of the admins and asked for our attendance. As these plans become finalized we'll certainly be announcing and discussing those events through our Facebook group and here. I'm actually working on a February appearance a couple weeks after Winter Fantasy; those details are forthcoming (and admittedly in the wee developing stages right now).

Also -- the admin team feels strongly about developing local stores, just like our RCs and LCs. To that end, I've issued a challenge to the LCs in my local area: if your primary store is within comfortable driving distance (about 50 miles), and you have 4 DMs that have run 3 sessions each in recent history I will come to your store and run a table of my specific adventure for those DMs. Not all the admins are doing this exactly, but we'll continue to look for ways to boost attendance at FLGS locations!

Thanks for the updates on information.

I hope that we can get a detailed report of how all these Admin scenarios go at WF. Both feedback from those running them and those playing in them . Sadly Feedback from these Conventions is normally indicated that might happen but Due to X being run somewhere else for some reason its put off and forgotten at the later date.

Tyranthraxus, what kind of feedback are looking for (to post here)?