Which would be odd, since I believe it only goes to 10th level....
Season 4 Curse of Strahd and Adventurers League
Which would be odd, since I believe it only goes to 10th level....
CapnZapp
Legend
You're mixing two things.
You're taking about the order in with to play adventures set in the demiplane, and you're right, there's no rule that you must play them in order.
But you're responding to a discussion on playing other adventures once your character has played at least one in the demiplane. THIS is a hard no-no: once your character enters the demiplane he's stuck until he escapes through adventure. During this time, it is not allowed to play other adventures set outside the demiplane. This is what is a restriction and not merely a recommendation.
This is a bit of a straw man, though. In practice, I've never met anyone who enforces the rules to this degree—even at conventions. As an organizer, I certainly wouldn't kick someone out of my store because they played two S4 mods and then wanted to switch to something else. And the threat of audits is basically a joke—they're time consuming, and it's nearly impossible to verify every adventure a character's played.
It's important to remember that this is game, and the mandate is to prioritize fun over everything else.
skerritthegreen
Explorer
The AL is not the D&D police, we're not going to hunt you down and audit you. All that might happen is some DMs might just refuse to play with you later if they notice things odd. Cheaters are gonna cheat, its how they work. The community will police themselves. I think I am more concerned that if you have a player who wants to hop out and then come back, they might level out of the story and either will miss T1 adventures or more likely miss several of the T2 adventures. Also, since it is a tight story, if you play two or three, skip five, and then come back, you will likely be pretty confused as to what is going on.
I'd instead suggest you use the launch event, the starter set, season 1 through 3 expeditions and any other great content for these really casual players who one show up occasionally, or if you have someone who wants to play even more, have them make a second PC: one for season 4, one fore everything else.
Matthew Pittard on Facebook summed it up quite nicely "I think its a problem like The Madness has been or the Arcane issues of Mulmaster or the like. Its not really a problem unless you make it one."
I'd instead suggest you use the launch event, the starter set, season 1 through 3 expeditions and any other great content for these really casual players who one show up occasionally, or if you have someone who wants to play even more, have them make a second PC: one for season 4, one fore everything else.
Matthew Pittard on Facebook summed it up quite nicely "I think its a problem like The Madness has been or the Arcane issues of Mulmaster or the like. Its not really a problem unless you make it one."
But why not let the player have the choice of opting for less fun rather not playing at all.
have to disagree here, the concern if how players might opt for less enjoyment by playing only partly or out of order is akin to madness or arcane edict, the concern of people who'd like to play an occasional S4 not lose the chance when they could play the S1 mod wirh their faction mission the next week is more serious.
Some people don't want to cheat and prefer following the rules for same if following the rules and then the only Option is to not play
Then you will be playing Season 4 precisely as it is intended.
As a Ravenloft fan, I have to say that the 'weekend in Hell' style of adventuring that some folks used to say was the 'way to play Ravenloft' never really worked for me, as a player or DM. The best modules in the setting worked best for characters who'd been in Ravenloft for some time, or better yet were natives and had a reason to care about what transpired there. Popping in and out of the demiplane limits both the stories that can be told and limits the dramatic power of the demiplane itself.
Looking forward to seeing what's coming.
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Pauper
Possibly, but then it doesn't last long, since the hardback only goes to level 10.
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Pauper
In defense of the folks who aren't excited about the upcoming season, I will point out that, while the admins might find plotting a tight story across multiple modules to be a new and interesting challenge, that's precisely the style of play that Encounters has been running for years, even before 5th Edition. From the perspective of some portion of the player base, Season 4 is not going to seem 'new and exciting' -- it's going to seem like Encounters with the serial numbers filed off.
Some of us will give that a pass because it's Ravenloft, we love Ravenloft, and it makes sense for the setting. Others will give it a pass if the story is outstanding or the gameplay is compelling. Some will simply complain. In that sense, I'm not saying anything that isn't already obvious.
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Pauper
Some of us will give that a pass because it's Ravenloft, we love Ravenloft, and it makes sense for the setting. Others will give it a pass if the story is outstanding or the gameplay is compelling. Some will simply complain. In that sense, I'm not saying anything that isn't already obvious.
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Pauper
Steve_MND
First Post
Or, to put it another way, people who cheat are, well, still going to cheat, and the rules that have been added are really only going to inconvenience the non-cheaters. Which is a shame. AL is such a conflicting mess of rules and non-rules. You can't mix and match certain rules sets, but they won't make official rulings on game issues. They require you not to play certain mods until you've finished with others, but it is literally impossible to regulate it. It is so hard as it is sometimes to get new people running with AL, and then more stuff like this is just layered on. It's exhausting sometimes.
Which again, is a shame, because that means for virtually everyone but the one character you start with in the new Ravenloft mods, Season 4 of Adventurer's League is on pause, because if you bring an existing character into it, he's stuck in there until circumstances allow him to leave (unless you cheat, of course). Regardless of the issues on leveling, skipping around, pushing the boundaries, etc. that some people are using to defend this approach, I think that's a poor direction to be taking in an ongoing, established campaign with a storyline that people have already invested time and effort in with their various pre-existing characters.
As far as I see it, Madness as a campaign mechanic is great, but only if it's integral from the beginning. Similarly, some sort of weird Ravenloft mists/trapped thing is also great, but again, only if it's integral from the beginning. Splashing either into an already-established campaign that's not based around them is awkward, at best, and discouraging to players at worst.
I understand it from a "hey, WotC wants us to buy their books, so, hey, here's more stuff we are required to add to the AL for marketing," but that doesn't mean I agree with it, or agree with the way it looks to be implemented. We'll see how things shake out by March, I suppose.
skerritthegreen
Explorer
So you would argue for not innovating/doing anything new if its not something that was in the campaign since season 1 when the core books came out? Seems like things would get stale pretty fast.
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