Exclusive Adventures for DnDAL

[skerritthegreen]

I want to talk about exclusive adventures.

So the DnDAL has Epics (usually big battle interactives) which are somewhat exclusive. While you can only play them at conventions, we have been widely opening up which cons can get them so they get better worldwide coverage and we've also been trying to get some replay out of them at various big cons. Since its been announced in Baldman Games last e-mailer (go here to subscribe: http://baldmangames.com/stay-in-touch/), I want to mention the latest addition to our campaign, but also ask some questions.

We (the Admins and WOTC) want to encourage conventions and even stores to invite Admins, RCs, and LCs to their games so we can meet you, share promo goodies, and generally help build community. So some of the things we've done to help increase the value of having a campaign staffer show up were special certs, the various limited promo goodies like dice or buttons, and also Fai Chen's Fantastical Faire (trading post).

For Winter Fantasy we are experimenting with another idea: Admin exclusive adventures. These are adventures written by one of the six Admins, and can only be run by the person that wrote them. They are very special and unique experiences. They are not specifically tied to a season's theme and are more "evergreen." The level spread, treasure, xp, plot, etc... are all up to that Admin. They are generally four hours in length. At the moment only the six Admins can do this, but if it works, we might spread it to RCs, LCs, or maybe even DMs that prove themselves in some manner. Note this is a trial balloon and we have no specific timeline as to how soon you could do this yourself. We are going to try the idea with the Admins at WF and then talk about how it went.

So my questions:

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

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.)

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

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.)

 

[darjr]

1. Great Idea!
2. I'm trying, I really am.
3. Very.
4. Two years.

 

[kalani]

1) It is a fantastic idea! It will help to make conventions feel more exclusive and special, while at the same time elevating the importance of the campaign staff within the league by giving players access to new things exclusive to those individuals.

In respect to opening this option up to RCs/LCs:
Providing there is clear guidelines or an approval process for the adventures, this could be a novel approach at increasing the importance of RCs/LCs in the league. I am cautiously optimistic however, as there is a chance that some campaign staff might go a little overboard with the items, treasure, XP, especially if they get a little too enthusiastic and forget to reign themselves in.

In respect to opening this option up to DMs
I think that this would cheapen the concept, and would result in a high chance of disrupting game balance.

2) I would most definitely bring an admin to an event in my area, providing it was sufficiently large enough to cover their travel costs (as being in Canada makes it that much harder to get you guys out here, but nowhere near as bad as it would be to try and bring one of you guys out to a con in Australia or the UK).

3) I would definitely want to participate in such an adventure with my PCs. As an LC, I would also get a kick out of writing such an adventure and running it for others (assuming that option goes ahead in the future)

4) I believe that the timeline should be no sooner than 1-2 seasons from when the admin first runs the adventure, after which a premier (and regional premiers) can be offered (I recommend 2 seasons min). In respect to RC/LC adventures, these should get a regional premier in their region before being released elsewhere.

 

[transplantasian]

1) I love the idea! It would really add a special touch to conventions in which the Admins participate. As an RC, I would love to participate in this as well.
2) Very likely. As soon as the announcement was made about the D&D eXPerience at Winter Fantasy, one of the organizers of the local Los Angeles Strategicon conventions and I immediately started talking about working up a budget for inviting an AL Admin to one of 2016's events.
3) Very likely, if local or within a couple hours' drive.
4) I'd say two to three years.

Thanks for the insight on this exciting, new development, Greg!

 

[Anthraxus]

1) I really like it! I'm actually running a small, local convenion(Falls Con, Dec 11-13th- look for it on Warhorn!), and something like this would be a great draw.
2) Admin would be cool, but I've already talked the nearest RC to come out for Fei-Chen. LC would be cool, too.
3) Very, and as I said- as a convention organizer, this would be a nice thing to help draw interest.
4) 2 years, maybe?

 

[AsmodeusLore]

1) It's a double-edged sword. On one hand, you get people who are dedicated to playing every adventure to come to different conventions. On the other hand, you make people feel left out who can't come to these conventions.
2) I run a convention. I'll bring you in this year, if you want. How does Sept 9-11 sound to you? Talk to Cindy Moore, your NorthEast Regional Coordinator for details. Hotel and Gas Money are on us.
3) It makes me want to come to the conventions a little more, but I have other restrictions which mean that no matter how much I want to go, I simply can't.
4) Years? I hope no more than two years. I was thinking a single year would be fine.

 

[frupton]

1) Like. Should help make the case for various conventions to invite you guys. If it's well received at early locations like Winter Fantasy, you may want to find a way to expand it to at least some of the RCs, as the flight costs may be a challenge for conventions in some areas that aren't all that close to an existing admin. It should still be a draw to invite the Admins even if some RCs also get the privilege. ("Next con, can we play Claire's Adventure? Where would we have to fly her from...?") How much to expand it (RCs? LCs?) becomes a question about the tradeoff between accessibility and adventure quality / "specialness". It's good to keep them somewhat special, but "six of you in the entire world" may be overly special. I hope it does well at Winter Fantasy.

2) Yeah, pretty damn likely. Am already scheming to figure out how to get some of you guys here to SoCal. (Did I mention, it's much warmer here in February than in Fort Wayne?)

3) "Meet the Admins" should be a decent draw. Perhaps some day people will learn who Travis Woodall is. Not that that needs to be mandatory. The other key here though will be adventure quality. I do encourage you guys to make sure to invest enough time in the adventure design so that it's "sufficiently cool." So that people come away saying "That awesome guy Greg Marks ran this really cool adventure for us" rather than just "That awesome guy Greg Marks ran an adventure for us."

4) Each Admin might retire theirs at the point when they have the time to write a new one. So for example you could retire DDEX ALAN-01 and release it for public play at the point when DDEX ALAN-02 is ready for release. They don't all have to be at the same time.

 

[jelmore]

I think having Admins be able to write and run their own adventures is a fantastic perk!

I would be a bit leery of having LCs write and run their own adventures and have them be AL-legal because there's some potential for abuse there. As a Local Coordinator, what I'd love to see would be a selection of "evergreen" adventures that are LC- and RC- only; they could even be updated conversions of classic adventures.

Running my own stuff would be cool, but being able to say "Running The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" would be fun, too.

 

[Steve_MND]

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

I rather like the idea. More variety is almost always better.

2) How likely are you to invite an Admin who can bring this adventure to your event, assuming there is some cost?

Entirely depends on the Admin and/or author in question. I know of at least one Admin I would invite in a heartbeat, and do my best to provide travel expenses, etc. to get him here, as I'm very familiar with their work and am quite pleased with it in the past. Other Admins, it's really variable, as I'm not that familiar with them.

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

Again, as before, it entirely depends on the author in question. There are some modules and authors we're familiar with that we would happily travel a long distance to go to, and other we'd be just as likely to do so to avoid. Just that fact that they are written/presented by a specific 'class' of people involved with the campaign doesn't mean much to me, personally.

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.)

I think that should be up to the author themselves. If they wrote a module that can fit in anywhere, they really like running, and people seem to like, then I see no reason to 'open it up to the public' in any particularly restrictive timeframe. It would also depend on how many of these they would be writing/handling each year. if each one only writes one every year or two, best to keep that in circulation for as long as possible. If they are writing one every other month or something, tho, it might be worthwhile to rotate them out a little quicker so as to keep things moving.

I also like this idea for what it could lead to: it might help pave the way for the possibility of being able to allow certain vetted authors to write and present their own modules down the road (altho we'd want to have far more restrictive guidelines on rewards, etc. than the Admins of course would have to deal with). One of the things I liked in LG was the possibility of being able to write special missions for players (albeit with a lot of coordinator-level hoop-jumping), because if there is one thing a Living Campaign is NOT, it is personalized. In 5e, several of the Backgrounds (and even made-up backstories) that work well in a home campaign are completely useless in a Living Campaign. If we had the option for certain vetted authors to write up and run 'special missions' like this, some of these important RP elements that are sadly ignored in the context of a shared world could see some actual screentime for their players.

 

[DocSharpe]

It's an interesting way to try this out without opening a Pandora's Box.

But,

• Inviting the admins to LGS seems like it would only work for larger stores, not ones which can only get one table worth of players. Especially considering most LGS are mom/pop establishments which aren't going to be able to afford airfare.
• I'm concerned that on the night the admin shows up, there's going to be FAR more than 7 players waiting for space.
• This sounds like a HUGE time sync for admins...especially considering all the "they're just volunteers" respnses that normally apply.

What might be an interesting compromise is to have RC and LC recommend specific DMs who can be "trained" by the Admin to run the module as it's intended. Sort of a Train the Trainer approach.