Winter Fantasy 2016 and D&D AL

[Steve_MND]

Challenge level is similar. When campaigns have tried to escalate challenge and keep up with strong tables, they still fall short. Worse, they create an arms race. And, consistently, the strongest tables cry foul when they get TPKed. An arms race is very hurtful to a campaign, turning new players away. New players are the lifeline of any campaign and as vital as the dedicated players who help bring them in. My recommendation to any author is this: don't ever compete with strong tables and never try to design for the current metagame.

This is true of any campaign, and in fact, of most any multi-player game, whether it be tabletop RPG, online MMO, or TCG. More than one of those has met its slow inevitable downfall by catering to the extremes of the bell curve, one end or the other.

 

[Eltab]

In my experience (which admittedly has a data set of one point), it is hopeless to try to run Rise of Tiamat as an AL-legal campaign. The character advancement mechanisms employed, do not take each other into account.

 

[Coredump]

I appreciate your ability to quote in with various font sizes and colors, and to provide very long quotes..... but your post still does not completely support your earlier claims.

However, DMs should not create new encounters to try to make up the experience deficit,

1) This quote is *explicitly* answering how to deal with the XP deficit in RoT. And it says you should not just make up more encounters simply to compensate for that XP deficit. This, however, is a far cry from the very broad, very all-encompassing declarations you keep making. You cannot take a specific example, and claim it is an all encompassing general rule.
Especially when there is conflicting information that *is* presented in more general terms.
From 'DMing and DM Empowerment':
Under 'Adding Encounters:'
"Be very careful when adding encounters. "
"If you add encounters..."
"When you add encounters..."

See, *very* different statements than the one you keep proclaiming as an absolute truth.....

Now, it also provides a restriction...
"Add only those encounters that the characters actually trigger..."

But even that provides a decent amount of leeway. And it doesn't conflict with the RoT answer since that answer deals with disallowing encounters for the sole purpose of bumping XP.... which means they were not triggered by the PCs.



As for the second issue.... You can't quote *my* source and then pretend like it means you are right. Even better, you added another source that also disagrees with you....

First, DMs running Rise of Tiamat in the D&D Adventurers League should use the rules presented under the heading “Building Combat Encounters” in the Dungeon Master’s Basic Rules (pp. 56-58 in version 0.3) or under the heading “Creating a Combat Encounter” in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (pp. 81 to 85) to adjust foes to make them appropriate for the characters’ levels.

Looking over those pages.... no where does it mention only ever adding more of the exact same creature. So one could follow that FAQ, read those pages, and be allowed to add various creatures of the appropriate CR.... it never mentions the restrictions you keep insisting upon.

But lets keep going...

DMing and DM Empowerment

Adding and Subtracting Foes:
Do add or subtract foes of the same type......
Don’t add foes of a different type.....
Different types of foes ....​

As I have said to you before, and you continually ignore.... these restrictions are based on using the same TYPE of creature, not using only more of the exact same creature. In DnD, 'Type' is a term with a specific meaning.... particularly in relation to describing creatures. You, however, keep posting the quote that explicity says 'same type', but also keep insisting it must only be more of the exact same creature....

Further...

. D&D Expeditions explicitly states which monsters can be added or subtracted for each encounter, however, D&D Encounters/Casual Games are a bit looser and rely on the DM to modify the encounters per the guidelines in the Dungeon Master’s Guide on encounter building.

This tells us 2 things.....
1) Expeditions already does this. They do *not* rely on only adding more/less of the same, they often add *different* creatures that are of the same *type*. Just like the article suggests.
2) Encounters and Casual games are even 'looser' and tend to fall back to the same guidelines we discussed above.

But regardless.... the restriction is based on creature *type*, something you seem to keep glossing over.

 

[Coredump]

AL trusts it's dms to follow the rules as have been stated. Kalani's post above should be all you need to know in that regard.

I agree, AL trusts its DMs to follow the rules.... the actual rules. Not the rules that other people decide should be the rules.

There is a group of people within the AL that really really want a very tight centralized control of rules and DMs. Even as far as saying it is illegal to buy a 6 person tent or winter clothes while playing AL. From everything I have seen and read, the Admins have given a lot of trust and empowerment to the DMs; and I commend them for it. I am just continually astonished how many non-admins keep trying to take away that trust and force their personal views as 'the rules'.