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[ArlenFrostlockes]

just discussed this upcoming season and the difficulties this has presented. The tables in collusion with the DM's have come to an agreement. Wed Nights will be for the launch event leading into the book adventure, Saturdays, we as a whole group, will pool our money together to purchase the 14 episodes that will be available and run it like expeditions. We have decided that it would unfair and kinda selfish to expect our DM's to purchase all the adventures themselves. It means rolling separate characters for wed and sat, but heck, all of us have at least 4-5 different builds available anyway for when a new player shows up and we have to play t-1 adventures.

Though this does bring up an interesting potential issue, Seeing as this next season is themed and pretty pigeonholed and specific, I can forsee a lot of frustration as we get into the individual adventure packs, having to start from the begining everytime a new player shows up or having to tell a player who misses a couple of sessions that he is not lvl appropriate to continue on with everyone else.

 

[ArlenFrostlockes]

it would mean quite a few characters can potentially be locked in the plane and unable to partake in anything else.

 

[CapnZapp]

it would mean quite a few characters can potentially be locked in the plane and unable to partake in anything else.

I believe that is the point, yes.

If you could leave whenever you wanted, it wouldn't be so spooky...

 

[ArlenFrostlockes]

I believe that is the point, yes.

If you could leave whenever you wanted, it wouldn't be so spooky...

yeah - but I can see the frustration of having to roll throwaway characters everytime a new player shows up. That can be a turnoff to core players who show up every week.

 

[Steve_MND]

it would mean quite a few characters can potentially be locked in the plane and unable to partake in anything else.

Until we hear otherwise, our group is planning on just making characters explicitly for the individual Ravenloft offerings, and that's all -- they are essentially all throwaway characters until/if they get out, which is really going to be dependent on who we can get together for a table each week. And there is no way any of us are even thinking about bringing in any of our existing AL characters for this, for just that reason. None of us are willing to risk a character we've put months of work into only to not be able to use them again because we can't get a table running of the correct APL/scenario/situation.

This has all been discussed previously, however. We also are planning on severely curtailing our AL gaming in Season 4, because of the distinct reduction in replayability with the Season 4 stuff due to the 'locked' nature.

 

[Pauper]

Until we hear otherwise, our group is planning on just making characters explicitly for the individual Ravenloft offerings, and that's all...

Sounds like mission accomplished, then, in the sense that AL has always recommended playing through storyline seasons with a single character to maximize the engagement that character has with the story. Things like the benefits of Cloaks membership was a fairly subtle way to recommend this, but I'm glad to see the admins are willing to take a less subtle approach as well.

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Pauper

 

[Steve_MND]

Sounds like mission accomplished, then, in the sense that AL has always recommended playing through storyline seasons with a single character to maximize the engagement that character has with the story. Things like the benefits of Cloaks membership was a fairly subtle way to recommend this, but I'm glad to see the admins are willing to take a less subtle approach as well.

I fear you may have missed my concern, but no matter. We'll have to see how things develop in Season 5, as it looks like Season 4's going to be largely a hiatus season for our local store/gaming group compared to seasons prior.

 

[Pauper]

I fear you may have missed my concern, but no matter.

Maybe -- sounds like your store liked to run lots of different events, benefiting players with a stable of characters who could then swap out from table to table depending on which table needed what character or what magic item might drop from the module on a given table. That's not a 'wrong' way to play -- there really isn't a 'wrong' way to play in that sense -- but it's not the style of play the storyline seasons were designed to support.

The store I'm playing at isn't going to be doing much Season 4 this next few months, but for precisely the opposite reason -- the table I'm playing on just finished DDEX 2-1, and we'll be running the whole of Season 2 and Season 3, with the order slightly shuffled to allow us to play all of Season 2 with a single character, then start again for Season 3. At two hours of available play per week, we might not get to Season 4 until the calendar rolls around to the Season 6 launch. The advantage of doing it this way is that we really get to 'dig in' to the story of each season; the disadvantage is that the character I'm playing at the store is not the character I'll likely be playing at GenCon or GameholeCon.

As with any compromise, it's a question of what you find more important.

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Pauper

 

[Mirtek]

The advantage of doing it this way is that we really get to 'dig in' to the story of each season; the disadvantage is that the character I'm playing at the store is not the character I'll likely be playing at GenCon or GameholeCon.

The main advantage is that it's your free choice how you want to experience these seasons, rather than some stupid new season rule trying to force you to experience the season as intended and preventing any way of you maybe having bad wrong fun by having the choice how you go about it

 

[Pauper]

The main advantage is that it's your free choice how you want to experience these seasons, rather than some stupid new season rule trying to force you to experience the season as intended and preventing any way of you maybe having bad wrong fun by having the choice how you go about it

It's not a rule, it's just a recommendation.

Still, feel glad that you get that 'free choice'. Not everybody does. One nice thing about home play being AL legal is that it opens up that choice for more people, as long as they have a DM who is willing to run the mods they want to play. It used to be that, if you only had one store in travelling distance and they ran two tables, one of which was doing the hardcover adventure and the other running a smattering of Season 2 modules, your options were pretty limited, not because of some "rule", but because you can't play what people aren't running.

Also, you seem to have missed the part where I explicitly said "there really isn't a wrong way to play in that sense". If you're not invested in the story and just want to play a campaign game, that's cool. The admins and WotC go to some effort to make sure there's an interesting story in each storyline season, though, so it makes sense that they'd want people to be aware of that.

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Pauper