DM rewards for running Adventurer's League - what are your thoughts?

[Scorpienne]

When talking about xp for DMing, what do people think is better? Some fraction of the adventure's max xp (less than half) but you get the xp every time you run an adventure? Or max xp, but you only ever get it once per adventure? The first (which is what we do) is meant to encourage DMing, especially at cons. The second might get players to DM a mod or two occasionally.
We have gone with the first (which we continue to tweak, lately adding gp) because we wanted to encourage people to DM more than once. I frequently run into problems with judges at local cons for PFS judges because they only get the judge xp the first they run an adventure, so they have no interest in more than one slot of the same adventure.

I far far far prefer a fraction of the XP every time. Otherwise people are NEVER going to run mods more than once. It's just human nature. As a convention coordinator, this is my worst nightmare.

What's the harm in DMs getting *full* XP and GP? Or at least a much higher percentage than half (say 90%)?

The outcome is that the DMs have ghost characters that have levels and gold, but not a single magic item, point of renown, or downtime day which makes them, on average, weaker than the characters that played those mods.

Paige

 

[skerritthegreen]

What's the harm in DMs getting *full* XP and GP? Or at least a much higher percentage than half (say 90%)?

In general we would like to avoid (or at least limit) people being able to start characters at very high levels and then join tables where they are both inherently weaker with no items and are unfamiliar with their characters many abilities.

 

[Scorpienne]

In general we would like to avoid (or at least limit) people being able to start characters at very high levels and then join tables where they are both inherently weaker with no items and are unfamiliar with their characters many abilities.

And that seems very fair. On the other hand, perhaps people who DM are familiar enough with rules to handle that sort of responsibility. There are certainly a lot of sides and a lot of different viewpoints.

There does seem to be *some* idea that DMs should get "more" but without a lot consensus on what that "more" should be.

Paige

 

[Alphastream]

One consideration could be a "tier bump" reward. If you run x tables, you can tier bump any 1 PC once. That can help the situation Merric described, which I've experienced, where DMing lots of intro tables starts to set you back in terms of having XP for keeping a character at the level of your friends that play often. A tier bump would be extremely useful when you suddenly realize you can't play that new adventure with your friends. A DM that earns the reward would have likely DMed enough to pull their weight at that higher tier, even if they haven't seen it, just because they would know the game well enough.

Another possibility is to remove DM XP entirely and just grant a credit towards leveling. Maybe, DM an adventure and gain 1 credit. Spend x credits to gain a level for 1 of your PCs. That way, it's DMing that matters irrespective of the level of the adventure you ran. The same could be true of gold, though that's trickier. Maybe, when you level your character, gain gold x, y, or z based on the tier of your new level? It could also work that way for magic items.

It could even be a level table. Each time you judge you gain 1 credit. Every x credits gets you a judge level and you level a character and gain gold based on PC tier. At certain judge levels, you can give any character an uncerted magic item of a certain rarity, based on tier.

 

[MerricB]

When talking about xp for DMing, what do people think is better? Some fraction of the adventure's max xp (less than half) but you get the xp every time you run an adventure? Or max xp, but you only ever get it once per adventure? The first (which is what we do) is meant to encourage DMing, especially at cons. The second might get players to DM a mod or two occasionally.

We have gone with the first (which we continue to tweak, lately adding gp) because we wanted to encourage people to DM more than once. I frequently run into problems with judges at local cons for PFS judges because they only get the judge xp the first they run an adventure, so they have no interest in more than one slot of the same adventure.

I don't mind the first at all, but the rewards at tier 2 and higher are badly out of whack with what the players are getting.

Consider...
DDEX3-2 gives the players 900-1200 XP, DM gets 200 XP (1/4.5 to 1/6)
DDEX3-3 gives the players 4500-6000 XP, DM gets 400 XP (1/11 to 1/15)
DDEX3-4 gives the players 17000-23000 XP, DM gets 1200 XP (1/14 to 1/19)

These are horrible percentages. Having to run an adventure *14 times* to gain the amount of XP a player would get is tremendously problematic. There are a few DMs that get to go to major cons and run the adventure a bunch of times, and thus get XP that way. I submit that isn't standard for a AL DM. (Even so, how many sessions do you actually run at GenCon and stay sane. 6?)

I have a feeling that if the DM award was 60% of the player reward, you then have a fantastic incentive to run the adventure more than once, but not at a level that penalizes you for just running it once, nor be overly generous for running it several times. (Most of the adventures run multiple times are likely to be level 1-4 in any case).

I would prefer that to full XP for only running it once.

Let me say that I'm very fortunate to be blessed with people happy to DM here (over our two DDAL nights, we have 9 active DMs), and we support them with complimentary product (funded by a coin donation each week from the players). The XP awards are just something that stick out to me as something that seems a bit awry.

Cheers!

 

[darjr]

Early access: I was thinking more along the lines of the kind of story elements that the future holds. Maybe a hint like 'Hey DMs, make sure you have these miniatures for next season'. Absolutely don't push things back, and I thank you for the hard work. It is VERY much appreciated.

Maps: I love the maps, getting them printed to one inch scale can be finicky. If I were to blow some of them up to that scale in PDF for easy printing, could those be made available somewhere?

Place to chat: we are blessed, but I was thinking of something official in the players guide, a pointer to a common place for DMs to meet on line.

Thanks for the response! The AL has been a fantastic ride and it looks to only get better.

 

[discosoc]

The whole concept of AL just seems kind of poor to me. It's like taking all the long-term story building and companionship out of a campaign for the sake of regular games. It's like the difference between constantly dating new people and being in a long-term relationship.

 

[MerricB]

The whole concept of AL just seems kind of poor to me. It's like taking all the long-term story building and companionship out of a campaign for the sake of regular games. It's like the difference between constantly dating new people and being in a long-term relationship.

I think you might underestimate how long some of the AL groups stay together. Certainly, it allows short-term play, but I've got friends at my local store I've been playing with for several years now. Our play of Princes of the Apocalypse will be with (mostly) the same group for an entire year.

The AL is a tremendous way of meeting new players. I know a lot of groups have formed (and now play at home) based on meeting people through Organised Play. My own group is that way - I ran a session of Living Greyhawk at my FLGS of the day, and met a couple of people recently arrived from Sydney. They didn't continue with the Living Greyhawk campaign... but we formed the core of a home group that is still going over ten years later.

The ability to mix casual and dedicated players together is a key selling point of the AL for me. It helps keep people engaged with the game when they can't find long-term campaigns, and has the potential to give some really great long-term experiences as well as fun one-shot sessions.

(In the second session of Scourge of the Sword Coast - February 2014 - two players joined my table who had never played D&D before. They're still at my table 19 months later, having played through all of Scourge + Dead in Thay (one set of PCs), all of Hoard of the Dragon Queen + Rise of Tiamat (30 sessions), and have been playing Princes with me since March this year.)

Is OP for everyone? Not at all... but I find the current version to be very flexible in how I can approach it.

Cheers!

 

[Coreyartus]

There are a few DMs that get to go to major cons and run the adventure a bunch of times, and thus get XP that way. I submit that isn't standard for a AL DM. (Even so, how many sessions do you actually run at GenCon and stay sane. 6?)

I have a feeling that if the DM award was 60% of the player reward, you then have a fantastic incentive to run the adventure more than once, but not at a level that penalizes you for just running it once, nor be overly generous for running it several times. (Most of the adventures run multiple times are likely to be level 1-4 in any case).

I would prefer that to full XP for only running it once.

Let me say that I'm very fortunate to be blessed with people happy to DM here (over our two DDAL nights, we have 9 active DMs), and we support them with complimentary product (funded by a coin donation each week from the players). The XP awards are just something that stick out to me as something that seems a bit awry.

Cheers!

I agree with MerricB that the vast majority of AL DMs are not con DMs. For every DM actually DMing at a con in my particular area, there are 5 more that I know that don't. And it's a bigger disparity for player participation--even local cons. It seems a bit odd to be developing DM rewards around that particular gaming opportunity paradigm... I understand WotCs desire to put the emphasis of the OP on in-store experiences, so I'm puzzled by the worrying about excessive DM XP for running adventurers multiple times and using cons as the primary motivation.

It feels like the vast majority of AL participation is at the local store level, where DMs who have the opportunity might like to play with their friends. It seems ironic that their opportunities to do so with their potential PCs are curtailed because of convention play they're not interested in being involved in...

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Yeah, I like Conventions but Im not a Convention DM nor do I like how things in OP campaigns are slanted towards Convention play.im going to Pax Aus for the first time (basically because friends went 'go its cool!' They are certainly great for the hobby, but were I to attend a convention it honestly wouldnt likely be to game but to either run a game or check out all the other activities.

Fai Chen is a great thing. I love it. I may never get to participate in it but I think its great.

Ive been reading the replies so far on this topic of DM rewards.

A) I think we need to cut out this expectation of any 'physical' hold in your hand rewards beyond the Cert. The costs would be prohibitive (esp since this OP is an international OP.. look at the costs for sending stuff outside the USA and then re-evalutate your opinion on this)

B) To be honest, early access does not interest me.. at least not at this point in time. Like I have stated previously I run the Expeditions locally (there are no other Expeditions dms locally). So when I prep to run a scenario I read over the scenario several times, often eagerly reading how something has gone or something has changed, sometimes being surprised.. sometimes not. Its really all the 'early access' I need.

C) I think DM Rewards need to actually be taken OUT of scenarios. Its not needed. The current season guide already details this for Encounters, the information shouldnt need to be replicated in the scenario for the Expeditions. There is also no reason why the gold shouldnt retroactively be able to be applied to season 1, bar of course the confusion of it not being listed in the Scenario to begin with.

DM's however are fairly intelligent beings. One of our primary skills is .. improvisation. THe ability to adapt when characters do crazy things. I think we all should be able to know that we need to consult page X in the guide to be able to get our exp and gold.

One final thing which is probably a little off topic is:

Modification of older scenarios. Now I understand that AL resources are dedicated towards new scenarios. Im cool with that. However ( and probably in relation to my point above about gold in season 1 scenarios) that we need some of these older scenarios corrected. Im not saying we go to the point where Secrets of Sokol Keep now awards 900/1200 on the split instead of 600/900 as it does now.. Im more addressing the errors in stats blocks or location blocks or rewards and the like. Having a FAQ is great (assuming the majority of people know about it, but the primary resource for the dm is the scenario)