Learn about D&D organized play options

[exile]

While I did really like what we did with Ashes across three years, I also could see gamers benefiting from a side campaign that runs for just one calendar year. For example, a 2015-only Eberron campaign with deep story, 9 adventures total releasing in chapters of 3, available first at cons and then for stores, at the end of the year sold through DnDClassics. It could serve three purposes: give an option to gamers who want something else or who want more, provide a taste of a different setting, and leave behind playable content that supports that setting for the edition.

I like the sounds of this.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I am less troubled by the supposed paucity of Expeditions style adventures than I am feeling that I must play Encounters every week to be fully invested in the storyline. I would actually love to play Encounters every week, but unfortunately my job and geographic location just don't allow for it.

Yeah. It sounds like they are allowing people to play through the Tyranny of Dragons adventures or the adventure from the Starter Set as home play and still take their character afterwards and play Expeditions with it.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how that is going to work. I hear that Tyranny of Dragons, if you play both of them take you to 15th level. There won't be any adventures for that level until next year sometime. I guess they are counting on those adventures taking 6+ months to complete for most people.

 

[Alphastream]

They did say you can go back-and-forth between them. So, you could play some of HotDQ and then play Expeditions and then play the rest of HotDQ. Or, you could just play the published adventures and you would level out of the other types of play.

Think of it as having many more options than current Encounters/LFR (where you basically only had an on-ramp from Encounters to LFR a couple of times). Don't think of it as 100% flexibility to play all the programs in any order. That would be really hard for a campaign to manage (a nightmare to schedule everything releasing in chunks by level across all play or it would have had to be all low level play).

Also worth noting that seasons aren't all that long. You could run the published adventures and have a lot of play - most home play groups could have trouble actually playing all of that content by the time the next one comes out. You could just play Expeditions, and then your Moonsea PC is seeing the different storylines that take place over time. You can mix and match, but probably then end up retiring PCs and have to play partial content in each. Or, you can make multiple characters and enjoy all of it.

My guess is the program is primarily aiming at the following:
- Make it easy for gamers to enter the world of D&D by offering approachable content of various types
- Make it easy for gamers in one type of play to learn about the others and try the others out. Let gamers easily figure out which types of play fit their needs best.
- Release themed seasons to create excitement, draw new players, and refresh the possibilities for new or casual PCs.
- Secondarily, a player can choose to go really deep and play through everything, but that isn't the primary goal.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

They did say you can go back-and-forth between them. So, you could play some of HotDQ and then play Expeditions and then play the rest of HotDQ. Or, you could just play the published adventures and you would level out of the other types of play.

Yeah, I'm just wondering exactly how this works. You get together with your group to Homeplay HoTDQ and then someone decides to run a couple Expeditions adventures on Saturday. You show back up for your home group the next Friday and suddenly you are a level higher and have acquired a magic item.

It worked alright in LG and such because the only adventures you were allowed to play were other LG adventures. So there was a definitely ending point where your character was assumed to wander off and do other things.

I can imagine a home game getting a little out of hand if one PC can outlevel the content they are in by gaining levels in between sessions.

 

[Thaumaturge]

It worked alright in LG and such because the only adventures you were allowed to play were other LG adventures. So there was a definitely ending point where your character was assumed to wander off and do other things.

Kobold Press's stance on this is:

While the episodic structure makes it easy for DMs to trace the campaign’s humble beginnings to its epic conclusion, within those episodes is a level of flexibility and freedom for DMs and players that places this among the great D&D campaigns.

I get the feeling the adventures are constructed to make that pacing less jarring.

I still share your concerns about some people at the table out-leveling others. But the game is supposed to allow for varied level parties. I'll see if this is actually a problem at my table.

I do appreciate that I can DM the homeplay HoTDQ, track our progress, and then go to a convention with a character leveled up as though I'd played. That's a nice touch.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Boarstorm]

New article up on Wizards.

Includes a log sheet and a ToD character sheet, including the ever-elusive second page.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Nice logsheet! Also new character sheet is sexy!! I will definitly try to run an public event online for anyone who wants to participate...#ChooseYourFaction

 

[exile]

I suspect I will have one character for home play of ToD and another for when I can travel to play Expeditions.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Chris Tulach said:
You can modify your character however you’d like until 5th level. Let’s say you create a character and later on, you don’t like it. Or you use a pre-generated character, but later want to make your own. No worries – you can change details about your character (race, class, background, spells, other features, etc.) after you gain a level anytime until 5th level. You retain your current level and all rewards (treasure and magic items) earned for your character, regardless of any changes made. (One exception – if you change your faction, you lose any renown with that faction and start at zero with the new faction.)

This i find a bit weird. I think i preferred LFR retrain rules where you could not change your race, class or background. I understand that it's less realism in favor of more fflexibility, but i am concerned some people will abuse it and constantly redo their character so they can be always optimal for the adventure at hand like how people adjusted odd stats in LFR for exemple, but to an even greater magnitude.

What do you guys think of AL retrain rules?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

What do you guys think of AL retrain rules?

I kinda wish it was something a little more restrictive. Like you were allowed to change once before level 5, not as many times as you want.

I know someone who used to show up with a different character nearly every session for LG(despite the rules that you couldn't do that) with an excuse about how his character just didn't interest him and he wanted to try something else. Since it wasn't a big deal, everyone let him get away with it, but there are still jokes to this day about how his character was different every time we saw him.

I know new people would like a chance to try out the game without losing xp, so I certainly wouldn't want to take the ability to retrain away entirely but I think putting a restriction on it would at least make people think about it before changing.