D&D General Adventure League (AL) still supported?

[aco175]

I went to my local convention yesterday and found out that the big, multi-table epic was cancelled for Saturday night. There was some discussion about Wizards not sending it to them or the person at Wizards not sending. There was some other people talking about changes at Wizards and how AL is not funneling into sales of the books and things might be phasing out.

I did notice the room with 8-10 tables of AL games was not full for each session like in years past. I do not know if this was from less interest or less slots being posted so people wanting to play could not get a table and it is a chicken/egg thing. The epic slot had no other D&D events being played by AL and I think only a couple other D&D or spin-offs for that slot.

We ended up playing a pick-up game I ran for the people that still showed up and it went fine, but IO do not know if other people have heard rumors or something more?

 

[billd91]

I'm finding it hard to find anything official out there - that said, they have updated statements/rules for the latest FR and Eberron books, so I don't think it's completely phased out.
What I do know is that Gamehole Con started up their own organized play program called Wardens of the Eastern Marches because support for Adventurer's League was winding down at the source and they wanted to have a replacement on hand for the 2025 con. (They did, I participated, and it was well done.)

So, in the long term, I don't know what's going on. In the sort term, it sounds like something is changing or winding down or in some other kind of transitional state.

 

[The Firebird]

It has been a while since I was at the FLGS where I ran AL. But my impression is they are still running. I think it is being pushed less actively by wizards; afaik, they haven't published any AL specific content in years. So folks are either running the old content (the "season 1, 2" etc mods) or running fan-made dungeon craft mods.

There was some talk of wizards starting a Living Greyhawk program for organized play, which I think was meant to focus on conventions rather than weekly games, and which would run alongside AL. But it's been several months since I am up to date, and I might be wrong or they may have changed plans.

 

[pedr]

Adventurers League still exists.

New adventures are community-created via the Dungeoncraft programme, with quite tight restrictions on available rewards, use of resources for monsters etc, or by the Premier Organiser conventions which are still interested in creating for AL.

As is basically always the case with D&D Organised Play programmes the communication structures are terrible, with lots of people trying their best within systems that change and personnel with ever changing responsibilities combined by various factors that publicly-traded companies and big corporations have to consider which aren’t always evident outside the company. The D&D Discord is the place for current information, including (posted a few days ago) a new work-around to the fact that the system for getting support for conventions in the form of permission to run restricted Epic events seems to have broken. It’s not at all ideal, but for now AL seems to be for those who want Adventurers League for its own sake - including some of the Premier Organisers: Polyhedral Adventures and Greasy Snitches still seem to be active.

Because AL has a number of baked-in structural challenges (including all of the various adventures and characters created I’ve the last 11 years, and the presumption that every D&D release will have a place in AL) WotC is launching a new campaign which should support convention play better. Legends of Greyhawk has been running its first/pilot year since Gen Con 2025 and is being designed by people who run big D&D events at conventions. Once it is more widely available and widely known, this may prove a better product to offer at conventions, though obviously that won’t please people who like the freedom and flexibility of AL, adventuring in the Realms, or playing their very high level AL characters. It’ll be a lot better for newcomers though. AL is now probably as old as Living Greyhawk was when it finished, and with much less control over the power creep which makes experienced players with characters they’ve carefully planned able to have a significant advantage over new AL players.

I’ve heard rumours of a new store-based programme too. If the return of Chris Tulach to an Organised Play role results in the return of something like D&D Encounters that will be really interesting.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I went to my local convention yesterday and found out that the big, multi-table epic was cancelled for Saturday night. There was some discussion about Wizards not sending it to them or the person at Wizards not sending. There was some other people talking about changes at Wizards and how AL is not funneling into sales of the books and things might be phasing out.

I did notice the room with 8-10 tables of AL games was not full for each session like in years past. I do not know if this was from less interest or less slots being posted so people wanting to play could not get a table and it is a chicken/egg thing. The epic slot had no other D&D events being played by AL and I think only a couple other D&D or spin-offs for that slot.

We ended up playing a pick-up game I ran for the people that still showed up and it went fine, but IO do not know if other people have heard rumors or something more?

Legends of Greyhawk has been introduced, which is a little like AL, if AL was run by some of the grognards who hate D&D5.5 who post here.
However AL is still going strong and there are no plans to change that as far as I'm aware. I can't see why AL doesn't funnel into sales: it seems to be a major factor in bringing new players into the hobby.

The AL organisation in my city is doing fine, if perennially starved for DMs: There are five games running this week under its organisation.

 

[aco175]

There was some talk of wizards starting a Living Greyhawk program for organized play, which I think was meant to focus on conventions rather than weekly games, and which would run alongside AL. But it's been several months since I am up to date, and I might be wrong or they may have changed plans.

There was 2 events for the new Greyhawk 'AL'. We played in both of them and it was basically AL with very minor changes. I did not notice anything except the treasure at the end and how one levels slower. I think the adventures were from last years Gencon debut of the program.

I did look at the program website for Grayhawk and it looked like there was more adventures to buy and regions under other people's control to make more adventures. There weas not a lot of clear directions on how to play or organize things, but it is new and I guess it will get better.