Retiring old AL adventures -- good idea or the best idea?

[rczarnec]

DMs don't have to do any of that right now. I have yet to encounter a single DM who wasn't interested in running AL adventures because they didn't know the plotline of a previous season's adventures. Most people don't seem to care at all.

What prevents them from being reused now? Nothing says we can't have an adventure in season 6 that gives out a headband of intellect just because there was one in season 1. Similarly, retiring a season because of a problematic item doesn't get that item out of circulation. Plenty of people have already played that adventure. If something is bad enough to require removing it then it requires campaign level errata, in which case you can just errata the adventure.

And honestly, if you're worried about power creep your target should be the hardcovers, not the previous seasons of AL content. That's where the really broken magic items are.

Not only can they reuse treasures from previous adventures without retiring those adventures, they are doing so. The one example that I will use is the Bracers of Archery which were in a late season 3 adventure and an early season 5 adventure.

If the rationalization for retiring adventures is the power level of the items, then it would definitely be the hardcovers that should be looked at.

 

[Scorpienne]

Short version: No

Long version: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I agree with RulesJD here. I see your points for retiring them, but I do not feel that they outweigh the positives for retaining the old adventures in active play.

Paige

 

[Mirtek]

Sure, but just because some players can enjoy that sort of playstyle doesn't mean that the campaign should be organized so that only those players can enjoy it, from a narrative perspective.

So thread over and you'll stop your attempt to make AL that way? Also that sentence is everything that was wrong with S4 in a nutshell

 

[KahlessNestor]

My store plays twice a month and we still struggle sometimes for content. We didn't start until season 3, I think, so old seasons are still new to us. This doesn't even take into account that the entire Barovia season is essentially removed from play already because of the "locked in" rule. So that's 2 seasons removed.

Pathfinder Society is in its 8th season now. None of its mods or seasons have been retired. They havr none of the problems you seem to think AL has (I don't see them). In fact, many mods are classic. I will play ANYTHING with the Blackros in it!

If you want to play strictly in order and never look back, fine. Sucks to be the guy that missed that one week, but whatever. It's all about your fun.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[aramis erak]

Some of us dislike the season 3 & later adventures.

I'm currently running Hoard for a group of (largely) new players. For them, everything else is yet to come. For me, it's easier than anything else AL Legal since this is my third trip through.

 

[Scorpienne]

My store plays twice a month and we still struggle sometimes for content. We didn't start until season 3, I think, so old seasons are still new to us.

Definitely check out the Convention Created Content. It's DDAL legal, and has some really great mods. There's another maybe dozen or more mods there if you're looking for more content.

IT's under "Hottest Community D&D Adventurers League"
http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=45470_0_0_0_0_0_0_0

p

 

[Scorpienne]

Some of us dislike the season 3 & later adventures.

Have you tried Season 5? Feels a lot more like Season 1 & 2 to me.

p

 

[warfteiner]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but:

We are NOT looking to retire adventures at this time.

 

[jasper]

Pauper….Narrative Sense.. That is a major problem. Some people want to be the actors in a continuing story. But then get something like Firefly episode being played out of order. Other gamers know the module will not make narrative sense but want just to game. Since AL are for casual gamers the narrative/story gamers will have grit their teeth and just play when the story does not make sense.
“the con organizers should organize the schedule of their con to favor people who can only show up one day in preference to the folks who are showing up every day (and likely paying more to do so), especially if there are more of them?” Con bosses should do both. Track 1 tables for casual out of order gamers. Or gamers who want to game and chase down their favorite authors. Track 2 lays out the story gamers. Season 4 Adventure 1 tables beginning at 8 Am 9 am 10 am. Please see your schedule for latter modules.
To Sum up. No retirement. But yes please please reedit and adjust awards if necessary. Because new people are coming into the game. And some old farts (me want to play the seasons we missed).
Good idea. On the DM guild etc. Have write up aka previously on Dungeons and dragons for each season. Then have a suggested changes for each module for story dms.

 

[Pauper]

I've made my point and will conclude with this:

Though the AL admins have stated they have no plans at this time to retire older adventures, the only adventure they have declared as 'evergreen' (which is to say, not subject to retirement) is Lost Mine of Phandelver. They have not and will not say that they will never retire older adventures, because that option is important to the organization of the campaign.

The only argument that seems to be made for keeping the old adventures is that retiring them would 'take away options'. I don't see that three full seasons of AL outside of Season One, plus three hardcovers outside the two Season One hardcover adventures, plus convention content, plus Lost Mine adds up to 'not enough content'. As such the real argument seems to be that people would feel bad if they couldn't play certain adventures for AL rewards. While I understand that AL isn't in the business of making players feel bad, the reality is that the admins and authors do spend significant time developing narrative storylines, both within seasons and foreshadowed for future seasons, and while people may not care about them, the AL does use them in how it runs the campaign.

Nobody seems to have bothered to make what I consider the best argument for maintaining the old adventures -- distribution is simple now that AL has moved to the DMs Guild, and as long as the old adventures continue to sell, there's no reason to deprive their authors of income by retiring them. As long as the benefit to those authors exceeds the problems caused to the campaign by maintaining old, outdated content, keeping the old adventures in play makes sense.

But it is very likely the day will come when it no longer makes sense.

--
Pauper