LordEntrails
Hero
IMO, organized play suffers from one major flaw; the need to accommodate "competitive optimizers".
What I mean by this is gamers who feel the need to have the best character at the table, to reach some sort of 'endgame' where they/their character is the best/most powerful/optimized/awesome character possible.
Because of this, their have to be rules and standards for everything that impacts character power/development. This is why you can't just loot the magic items at the end of an adventure, because now every character that played in any given adventure could claim to have rolled/assigned/gifted the 'best' items from each module.
As soon as an endeavor has to be "fair", it means it has to remove a lot of the things that a game that is not worried about equality between characters coming from different backgrounds, adventures, and DMs just doesn't have to deal with.
Now, why are the written modules often so poor? Well, with anything of this nature its about the rewards for developing a product, or about the process of who gets to decide who gets to create the product, or the environment placed upon the creator. So, either writing the modules doesn't pay well (nope, they are usually some of the most sold items on the DMsGuild). The DDAL organizers are not very good at selecting the best writers (No idea on this one). Or the capable writers don't want to write something constrained by the rules of writing such an adventure. Regardless, it seems clear the quality of modules is the responsibility of the organized play organization/organizers.
As for DM/GM quality; Well, again is might be a reward thing; it might be a matter of event organizers not selecting/building/obtaining quality DM/GMs; or it might be the environment that people don't want to DM/GM a game in. And again, its the event organizers responsibility. I will say that the reward level is not sufficient for me to offer to run a game at a con. I'd much rather play or explore the con than commit to 12-20 hours of GMing in order to get a weekend pass or hotel room, and the overhead running an AL game certainly isn't worth the hassle for me.
I will say, I have no idea what the "reward" level is for an organized play organizer, or an event organizer, but I doubt either pays enough to make it more than a side job, or to hire someone will significant experience. I mean how many of these positions pay $50-70k for a full-time/permanent position? I've got no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if even events like SDCC or Gen Con have more than 2-3 full time staff (and the workload to do such an event must be horrendous).
These events rely upon the support of volunteers, and hence we have to expect volunteer quality, at least until we are willing to pay professional costs for professional products.
What I mean by this is gamers who feel the need to have the best character at the table, to reach some sort of 'endgame' where they/their character is the best/most powerful/optimized/awesome character possible.
Because of this, their have to be rules and standards for everything that impacts character power/development. This is why you can't just loot the magic items at the end of an adventure, because now every character that played in any given adventure could claim to have rolled/assigned/gifted the 'best' items from each module.
As soon as an endeavor has to be "fair", it means it has to remove a lot of the things that a game that is not worried about equality between characters coming from different backgrounds, adventures, and DMs just doesn't have to deal with.
Now, why are the written modules often so poor? Well, with anything of this nature its about the rewards for developing a product, or about the process of who gets to decide who gets to create the product, or the environment placed upon the creator. So, either writing the modules doesn't pay well (nope, they are usually some of the most sold items on the DMsGuild). The DDAL organizers are not very good at selecting the best writers (No idea on this one). Or the capable writers don't want to write something constrained by the rules of writing such an adventure. Regardless, it seems clear the quality of modules is the responsibility of the organized play organization/organizers.
As for DM/GM quality; Well, again is might be a reward thing; it might be a matter of event organizers not selecting/building/obtaining quality DM/GMs; or it might be the environment that people don't want to DM/GM a game in. And again, its the event organizers responsibility. I will say that the reward level is not sufficient for me to offer to run a game at a con. I'd much rather play or explore the con than commit to 12-20 hours of GMing in order to get a weekend pass or hotel room, and the overhead running an AL game certainly isn't worth the hassle for me.
I will say, I have no idea what the "reward" level is for an organized play organizer, or an event organizer, but I doubt either pays enough to make it more than a side job, or to hire someone will significant experience. I mean how many of these positions pay $50-70k for a full-time/permanent position? I've got no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if even events like SDCC or Gen Con have more than 2-3 full time staff (and the workload to do such an event must be horrendous).
These events rely upon the support of volunteers, and hence we have to expect volunteer quality, at least until we are willing to pay professional costs for professional products.
