Mike Mearls is polling about how much you'd pay for him to make you an AL legal custom subclass

[flametitan]

Oh, dear Lord - are there people honestly objecting to four special certs that will raise money to help real-life sick children, because they may cause problems for a small number of people playing in a game?

If you donated lots of money that helps sick children, I'd let you play Pun-Pun in a game.

I'm fine with "Send in a large enough donation, I'll put together a subclass for you." It's the AL cert part of it that rubbed me the wrong way.

That said, according to Skerritthegreen, it will be vetted by AL Admins, so that'll at least soften the blow a little.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Hmm, perhaps your understanding is incorrect.

I have played with a number of admins over the past years and at many big and small conventions. The Open play understanding is that any player can make a character within a set of rules and play with other people under the same rules. Campaign certification is a known exception; whether you get one from being first in line to buy a boat at a con, whether you buy a race on the DMs guild, whether you play a one time special event, whether your group approaches the campaign and asks to generate something unique, whether you play something that is so interesting, that the judge makes something special just for you...this is the current campaign. It has essentially evolved away from the old strict style of play where encounters are scripted and spells precast in a specific way (a-la old D&D open style).

I've seen many character specific "flavor" certs being generated at cons all over the country. I've seen one for a character to be Lawful evil and have no faction. I've seen one where the group spent resources (DT and gp) to make a park in Holtburg and the group got a special one page cert (even with their names on it). There are tons of things being generated that are effectively "not tracked".

The game rules are completely reliant on honesty. Games run on it and people expect it. For tables I run; if a player has something unusual, I'll ask him to describe the story behind it - especially from his character's perspective. If it seems reasonable...allow it, adjust the mod if I need to and move on and have fun.

I don't mind. It doesn't affect play (the judge can pretty much adjust anything).

That...sounds really, incredibly, illegal. I'm not doubting it happens, but none of that would fly at my table.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Oh, dear Lord - are there people honestly objecting to four special certs that will raise money to help real-life sick children, because they may cause problems for a small number of people playing in a game?

If you donated lots of money that helps sick children, I'd let you play Pun-Pun in a game.

So donate the money without the crass "personal sub-class". No one is stopping you. Or give out the subclass. But why should this be made to have anything to do with AL? No one has anything against sick children, and it's really terrible to suggest that they do if they object to this stunt.

 

[darjr]

[MENTION=17607]Pauper[/MENTION] if you are referring to the thing at Hasbro Con it was vetted by the AL Admins. One of them even made the cert.

This was a great idea and a bit of fun for charity. This kind of response makes me a sad panda.

"integrity of the AL" "Crass" Ruining AL? *sigh* I think I need to take a break from some of you.

 

[Eltab]

Oh, dear Lord - are there people honestly objecting to four special certs that will raise money to help real-life sick children,

Yes.

Raising money for sick children is not the problem.
Building a special personal niche in a group game - that is the problem.
Hiding behind "But I'm helping sick children!" is objectionable behavior - a form of moral manipulation.

 

[Cascade]

That...sounds really, incredibly, illegal. I'm not doubting it happens, but none of that would fly at my table.

Illegal? source?

I'm glad I don't play in your area...

 

[KahlessNestor]

Illegal? source?

I'm glad I don't play in your area...

If you're making up custom certs, then yes, that is against the rules.

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[Inxanity]

$500 to Chris Lindsay gets you a cert for a Feat or ASI. Pay to be more powerful! https://twitter.com/Onnatryx/status/910956704153534464

 

[Cascade]

If you're making up custom certs, then yes, that is against the rules.

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Still not seeing a source...

Seriously.
I spoke with Alan Patrick during this last Gencon about just this topic; can local judges make non mechanical, flavor oriented items / effect / favors for their players? His answer was a yes. Provided there was no mechanical in game affect. He recommended that if the group I gamed with wanted more than that to contact the admins and pitch their ideas for approval. I agree it seemed "odd" to get special treatment just because of certain judges. ..and so I asked if can I do the same kinda things.

The story: Alan ran our group through the Hulburg series. At the end he added a very flavorful item that affected people who had failed a save versus a last ditch suggestion spell by a bad guy. It really doesn't have any mechanical affect but we left with a non magic portion of an item that we couldn't let go. It was really cool and matched the story and how the game played out for our table. He adapted the adventure and the whole table had a great time. Why is that bad? Is it because another judge may not be that creative? Is it that bad because someone else 500 miles away doesn't play it that way? Is it that bad because this isn't an MMO where players compete to get more stuff playing the identical content?

I wish people would get off rules aspects and just enjoy the story.

Either way, run your tables how you like...expect table variation.

The game is changing. It's way more fluid, adaptable and dare I say more fun. It's not a video game run by a single group or developer. Enjoy the game, the story and stop worrying about what everyone else has...as the OP started the discussion.

There's almost 150 adventures plus more than 60 CCC events. There's a lot of stuff out there.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Still not seeing a source...

Seriously.
I spoke with Alan Patrick during this last Gencon about just this topic; can local judges make non mechanical, flavor oriented items / effect / favors for their players? His answer was a yes. Provided there was no mechanical in game affect. He recommended that if the group I gamed with wanted more than that to contact the admins and pitch their ideas for approval. I agree it seemed "odd" to get special treatment just because of certain judges. ..and so I asked if can I do the same kinda things.

The story: Alan ran our group through the Hulburg series. At the end he added a very flavorful item that affected people who had failed a save versus a last ditch suggestion spell by a bad guy. It really doesn't have any mechanical affect but we left with a non magic portion of an item that we couldn't let go. It was really cool and matched the story and how the game played out for our table. He adapted the adventure and the whole table had a great time. Why is that bad? Is it because another judge may not be that creative? Is it that bad because someone else 500 miles away doesn't play it that way? Is it that bad because this isn't an MMO where players compete to get more stuff playing the identical content?

I wish people would get off rules aspects and just enjoy the story.

Either way, run your tables how you like...expect table variation.

The game is changing. It's way more fluid, adaptable and dare I say more fun. It's not a video game run by a single group or developer. Enjoy the game, the story and stop worrying about what everyone else has...as the OP started the discussion.

There's almost 150 adventures plus more than 60 CCC events. There's a lot of stuff out there.

Funny, I don't see a source other than hearsay anecdotes from you, either. Where on my side, it's been pretty clear from campaign documents that you can't.

The problem comes when you try to take that crap to my table. Now I have to be the bad guy and say no, because I don't know that you're not making things up.

And the problem isn't just flyff. As U said, Crawford hands ot reroll boons just written on your character sheet. Abd now Mearls is handung out broken, untested whole subclasses. The strung of UA material doesn't make me hopeful at all that it won't be game breakingly unbalanced.

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