Put me down as 'cautiously optimistic'; I think Steve_MND makes good points.
All of these adventures are being written specifically for this OP campaign. The authors and organizers are sending outlines to the admins, who edit/adjust them and then approve. The adventures are also sent to the admins who read/comment/approve or reject them. They are not separate, we just getting more people helping with putting out additional content
But are the admins going to be able to handle overseeing the additional content? i say this because the quality of editing in the existing modules has been criticized, and I'm sad to say that there still seems to be failings along these lines in Season 4: for example, DDAL 04-05 clearly had an encounter removed in playtesting, but a reference to that encounter in the subsequent encounter was not removed, nor were the monsters from that encounter removed from the Monster/NPC Statistics appendix. As another example, Aya Glenmiir, a recurring NPC from prior seasons, is referred to as both a female and a male in different portions of the text of DDAL 04-01.
I'm not the sort of consumer who appreciates bland food as long as it's served in huge portions -- I'd prefer less content, but for that content to be polished, professional content.
Also, the Moonsea adventure by BMG are actually to help firm up a cohesive story, which is why they are all trilogies and will often include special events that where the actions of the PCs affect the release of a later trilogy.
I think this definitely illustrates one of Steve_MND's concerns -- after all, we're playing the AL content (what used to be called Expeditions) because of the focus on the Moonsea. If the Moonsea adventures being handled by Baldman's authors are taking up that focus, then what is happening with the AL content being generated currently?
I'd actually be more confident in this if it were precisely the other way around -- if the AL admin-only adventures and other AL-produced content remained focused on the Moonsea, and the third-party content focused on other areas or aspects of D&D. I understand that, because the third parties don't have the same access to WotC that the admin staff does, they can't be as 'in the loop' to prepare for the next major product shift, but handing off the Moonsea adventures to other authors opens up the possibility of changes in tone and similar 'authorly' modifications that may not seem significant to editors, but get caught at the game table. Simply put, will the Baldman Moonsea modules feel like AL modules?
Also, with the main AL story possibly drifting off into a 'setting of the month' flavor (I don't think it's a coincidence that some very Ebberon-themed stuff got released in Unearthed Arcana recently), doesn't that work against the idea that an OP campaign is supposed to be portable? I mean, the factions are largely irrelevant in the current season, and that makes sense given the setting, but will they suddenly become relevant if half the Moonsea finds itself heading to Athas in a later season?
I think a big part of what made previous OP campaigns so successful is that they executed on their themes to the point where, while they might not have drawn in a large population of players, the players they did draw were motivated and committed to the concept. Their reward was not the volume of experience, but the depth of experience available. I fear that something intangible will be lost by promoting a 'mile wide and three inches deep' experience, where players have a plethora of passable content rather than a small amount of outstanding content.
That's just me, though, and maybe Steve_MND. It seems significant that it's the thoughtful players who seem concerned, rather than just relentlessly asking for 'moar content'.
--
Pauper
But in my mind, that doesn't play into it. As soon as you, as an organization, start charging people for the services you provide, the excuse of 'but it's volunteers' goes right out the window.* It's up to you, as the person whose name is on the business card (in this case, literally), to make sure you have the correct people you need doing the correct things you need done at the correct times, or else your reputation will suffer because of their mistakes. You can have the best of intentions, but without the acumen to follow through with it, intentions don't make up for it at the end of the day.
