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I was brand new in Virginia with no gamer friends and I traveled too often to have a normal once-per-week campaign. Organized play saved my gaming life and I made incredible friendships. Despite moving to the other side of the country I still meet up with my old organized play friends every year...

Hi Daern! I'm the author for the adventure and very glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks! I ran the classic Temple of Elemental Evil several times and I always felt the elemental nodes were a bit too much like "regular caves with temperature control and themed monsters". Even the 5E adventure...

I'm pretty unhappy to learn that a case, which previously was meant to provide 1 of each rare ("but we can't guarantee due to production issues") now has been stealth-changed to being 4-5 rares short! I am 5 rares short, the same list as above but also missing the Grell. That's a ton of rares...

Are those the quotes you are all talking about? Geez. The first one is pretty clear - not a direct influence as a reaction to a market trend or what people are playing. The second quote is funny, because someone added "OSR Movement" to the quote! What he's saying is the same thing I'm saying -...

One consideration could be a "tier bump" reward. If you run x tables, you can tier bump any 1 PC once. That can help the situation Merric described, which I've experienced, where DMing lots of intro tables starts to set you back in terms of having XP for keeping a character at the level of your...

I think that as our hobby evolves, the more generous the DM rewards, the better. DMs should feel taken care of and special. Full XP and gold seems good, but I would go further. I think we can give the DM a pick of any consumable or magic item that they do not already have, the first time they...

Nice to see this come together so soon. My thanks to everyone!

WotC has announced they are closing down their Forums. They are doing the same for Magic. They say they will focus on social media for communication. The good news: this thread is now part of EN World's new Adventurer's League forum! Also, there is an organized play chat on Twitter today (Sep...

The current format is a fairly big change from the previous format. In part this is an attempt to provide the adventure as more of a sandbox that encourages the DM to tweak. I think the most consistent criticism is that the DM has to do a lot of prep with the current adventures... often the...

WotC has never tried to differentiate D&D from Pathfinder. It isn't remotely a goal. WotC's focus is on entertainment overall - competing with movies, video games, etc. instead of any one publisher. There isn't enough money in the industry, even if you put D&D and Pathfinder together (if your...

In a game of "where things came from" we will end up back at D&D (or war games). :-) Any good designer is constantly looking at other games, both new and old. This isn't exclusive to 5E, nor was WotC's 5E influence exclusive to OSR or narrowly focused on OSR. The design team had been playing a...

Any company that is happy with what it creates and its business is successful. No issue there. I think the reprints had to do with the sense among a very large part of the fan base (far larger than the OSR portion of the fan base) that WotC had decided to only look forward. The editions had...

I'm not sure if we are disagreeing about anything? That huge market disparity is exactly why I don't buy into the article's premise that OSR was a big influence on 5E. There isn't a business reason to emulate a "movement" of that small a size. Realistically, the idea of wanting to adjust the...

We played it in 4 hours at Gen Con with a huge amount of role-playing, so it should be possible. We were a table of 7 - perhaps that made combats faster if the DM didn't adjust, though I really don't know if he did. One thing I often do is play with hit points and damage. I might shave off some...

I really enjoyed reading this article, but I disagree strongly with the idea that OSR was anything sizeable or the idea that it influenced 5E in any significant way. The market share for OSR is tiny. A lot of it is free, none of the companies are anywhere close to being mid-tier companies in the...

I hear you, Exile! Along the lines of feedback, the latest survey asks questions about organized play and, specifically, Gen Con and how important it is to see official support for organized play there. It is a very quick survey. This is a survey you should not miss! Click here to see the...

There isn't much the program can do about bad stores. Bad stores come in many flavors and shapes, but if they don't work for you then you either have to deal with that or find another option. The published printed adventures can be run anywhere in an unofficial home play capacity and your...

I just finished listening to the Misdirected Mark podcast, where author Shawn Merwin discusses Harried in Hillsfar. Good listen with useful information. Also of interest to organizers is the Recounting Encounters podcast, where they discuss store play and convention play.

Harried in Hillsfar ran at Gen Con and at PAX and had great reviews. As with the previous intros, they provide a varied experience in a format that is comfortable for new and casual players. They run together as a story, which is very cool, though there is information for running them...

No big announcements were to be expected. Volunteers ran tabletop in a nearby hotel. Members of WotC's D&D team came by and signed books and hung out with fans. Acquisitions, Inc. ran and was inspirational to many, as always. D&D's Sword Coast game had a very cool booth and tons of people...