WotC has ended support for Living Forgotten Realms (and the RPGA, too)

[WolfStar76]

[EDIT]
Because it's been asked later in this thread - I'm speaking (at least in this thread) as an LFR Admin. Pronouns like "we" and "us" should be taken as such.

Any and all mistakes I make, however, are wholly my own.

To which you respond:

You say this, notwithstanding the fact they pulled the plug on LFR in June of 2010, have released no new material for LFR since then.

Hi! I'm an LFR Admin, and while I've only had time to skim this thread since someone brought it to my attention, this was the statement that jumped out at me the strongest.

We've actually released content just this year - there were problems and we've restructured a bit, so things haven't been (and won't be) the fast-and-furious "adventure a week" pace we've held in the past, but so far this year we've released:

Two adventures for Elturgard, our first Epic-level adventure, and the Roots of Corruption adventure - for both Heroic and for Paragon tier play.

We also hosted a Battle Interactive at DDXP (ADCP3-1) - and available for play at other large conventions.

Our campiagn documentation has been updated to version 2.0 almost a month ago as well.

So, to say that we're not releasing anything is quite the misnomer. We've released content, and we're working on more content for the coming months (and conventions like Origins and GenCon) ahead.

You can see our latest releases on Living Forgotten Realms.
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As for conventions choosing not to track RPGA #s - LFR is no longer part of the WotC Sanctioning system, as the focus for that system is now on WPN (Store Organized Play). As there's no separate DM or Player Rewards program - there's no need to collect tracking numbers.

We do, however, ask that groups report their play results for new adventures on Living Forgotten Realms as we'll be using that data to help drive future adventures within a given story area.

I'll keep an eye on this thread, and steer more of the LFR Admins this way as well to help answer questions.

By far and large, what I'd like to let everyone know is that, while the campaign is being driven by the community now - we DO still have resources available at WotC that we can rely on as needed. We're not held closely in-hand, which has it's ups (more story/adventure freedom) and downs (the loss of DM/Player Rewards).

All in all, I think we see this as a positive thing, however, as its giving us a chance to affect a lot of the changes our player base was asking for.

I'll be around on and off for a couple days to help answer questions as best I can.

[EDIT to Add]
I almost forgot - there's still an active LFR community, and most of my fellow admins keep a closer eye on discussions going on over at the WotC LFR Community Site. You can find that at http://community.wizards.com/LFR .

 

[TerraDave]

I am not sure if it is tragedy or farce, but the 4E "course correction" has bee something to watch.

 

[Janx]

D&D Encounters began its fourth season, March of the Phantom Brigade, last week. Again, I get the feeling you may be speaking from a place of rather incomplete knowledge, here.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the organized play convention programs they run. PAXEast (just on the horizon) ought to have a number of interesting events run by WotC.

You keep saying Season. Other people say Year.

Assuming Nagol's facts are correct, for Encounters to be in Season 4, a season is NOT a year, but a fraction of a year.

Therefore, speaking in Seasons is not functionally useful in comparison to the rest of the conversation on how long Encounters has been running.

Since LFR is not really dead, but simply not WotC sponsored, that's the news that negates the OP's original notice.

Anything else is just bickering about what one person prefers versus another

 

[JohnduBois]

You keep saying Season. Other people say Year.

Assuming Nagol's facts are correct, for Encounters to be in Season 4, a season is NOT a year, but a fraction of a year.

Therefore, speaking in Seasons is not functionally useful in comparison to the rest of the conversation on how long Encounters has been running.

Since LFR is not really dead, but simply not WotC sponsored, that's the news that negates the OP's original notice.

Anything else is just bickering about what one person prefers versus another

I don't know that it's entirely accurate to say that Living Forgotten Realms is no longer "WotC sponsored". The campaign does still receive a significant amount of support from Wizards of the Coast, not the least of which is distribution for convention-only content and a broader license than other organized play-style campaigns using Wizards intellectual property; for example, Living Forgotten Realms adventures can be played more or less anywhere, but Ashes of Athas adventures can only be played at specific conventions.
I think probably the better phrase is to say that LFR is no longer controlled by WotC.

 

[mudbunny]

WotC does offer support to LFR, as well as the Ashes of Athas campaign:

I believe that they have blanket permission to use 4E IP and trade dress. Granted, the AoA campaign is restricted on when and where it can be played.

(Note that this is my understanding. I am not an LFR nor an AoA administrator, nor am I involved with either program. It is what I understand from chatting with [MENTION=59244]WolfStar76[/MENTION])

 

[Dannager]

You keep saying Season. Other people say Year.

Assuming Nagol's facts are correct, for Encounters to be in Season 4, a season is NOT a year, but a fraction of a year.

Therefore, speaking in Seasons is not functionally useful in comparison to the rest of the conversation on how long Encounters has been running.

I keep saying season because season is the unit of time that Encounters determines its iterations by. I originally used it in the context of "season after season, WotC improves and invests more in the program", which makes perfect sense because every new season (not year) is the perfect point for them to make changes to the program.

 

[Dannager]

I get the feeling this is meant as snark, but you don't actually explain what you mean well enough and so I find myself wondering why you think that comparing LFR to PS is hilarious. Care to explain?

I thought it was funny because he quipped that corporate support for Pathfinder Society is going up while corporate support for LFR is going down. Well of course corporate support for Pathfinder Society is going up. Paizo charges $4 for each Pathfinder Society adventure PDF. It's part of their business model. LFR is free to run and free to play in - it always has been - and is no more a part of WotC's revenue stream than any other part of their free organized play programs.

 

[Wicht]

I thought it was funny because he quipped that corporate support for Pathfinder Society is going up while corporate support for LFR is going down. Well of course corporate support for Pathfinder Society is going up. Paizo charges $4 for each Pathfinder Society adventure PDF. It's part of their business model. LFR is free to run and free to play in - it always has been - and is no more a part of WotC's revenue stream than any other part of their free organized play programs.

I'm not sure how much a part of Paizo's revenue stream the Pathfinder Society is. Your statement that one is "free to run and free to play in," while suggesting the other is not, is a bit misleading. While Paizo does sell the scenarios, the society itself is free to play in, and free to join. There is no entry fee. I also know that out of the six or seven scenarios I own, I have only paid for two of them. The others were provided gratis for agreeing to run scenarios at Origins. And there's some other nice perks you can get for running the games. I think Paizo looks at the Society more as an advertising arm of the business than it does a revenue arm.

 

[Dannager]

I'm not sure how much a part of Paizo's revenue stream the Pathfinder Society is. Your statement that one is "free to run and free to play in," while suggesting the other is not, is a bit misleading.

The point I was trying to make is that one is totally free, and the other makes the organizer pay.

The others were provided gratis for agreeing to run scenarios at Origins. And there's some other nice perks you can get for running the games.

Well, right, they usually make it worth your while to run events at cons. Whenever I judge RPGA tables at a con I walk away with free books.

I think Paizo looks at the Society more as an advertising arm of the business than it does a revenue arm.

That may well be the case, I don't know if they generate anything like a profit off selling their scenarios.

That said, that's not really the point. I'm sure that WotC would also have had more corporate support for LFR had they charged DMs for the adventures, but they don't.

I'm not saying that charging for the scenarios is a bad thing. $4 is a pittance, and if it keeps adventure quality high it's a great thing. But pointing out a disparity in levels of support between the two programs while neglecting to mention some of the very significant differences between the two strikes me as a little disingenuous - it's trying to lead the reader to conclude, on their own, that WotC is loosening their ties to LFR because they just don't care about it, or something, when in fact it's probably for a whole host of different reasons that the reader won't even consider because they weren't given all the info.

 

[Dannager]

Oh, and Steel_Wind? You should be ashamed of yourself for this thread.

Admin here. Dannager, we have no tolerance for cross-board criticism. If you wish to discuss a thread from the Paizo boards with Steel_Wind, please post there about it, not here. If we start dragging in disagreements from other boards over to EN World, next thing you know we have fist fights, chaos, and dogs and cats living together in sin. You wouldn't want that, would you? Think of the poor little confused children!

Thanks. ~ Piratecat