Advice on Whether or Not to Join Encounters

[Saracenus]

Dude I am sorry that your Encounters organizer is blowing it.

If you are ever in Portland, OR come down to Guardian Games and we will make room for you at one of our 7 tables.

Thanks,

 

[OnlineDM]

That makes me wonder... [MENTION=59411]Pour[/MENTION], could you at least tell us what part of the country / world you're in? I gather that you don't want to name your town because you don't want to irritate the game store and DMs in question, but I'm curious about the state or region. I wonder if there are certain pockets of crappy DM-ness.

 

[S'mon]

Well that didn't go so great...

When I went in to talk to the organizer, my Encounters DM and one of the players were there. The player eagerly asked me if I would be joining them tomorrow night, which I said I wouldn't be...

You should have sucked it up and played one more session, thus giving you a chance to give your email to the other players and arrange to run a game for them. Now they'll probably be lost to the hobby.

 

[GameDoc]

That makes me wonder... @Pour , could you at least tell us what part of the country / world you're in? I gather that you don't want to name your town because you don't want to irritate the game store and DMs in question, but I'm curious about the state or region. I wonder if there are certain pockets of crappy DM-ness.

That's an interesting question, but how would you get additional information to determine if there are "hot beds" of particularly good or bad DMing.

I think it would be cool if Wizards did some "exit polliing" of Encounters participants, rating the store environment and the DM. Wizards can then give feedback to stores on what areas they are getting high marks and what areas need improvement.

If there are areas where organized play aren't going so well, I would not be surprised to see it in small towns. The smaller gaming community means you have a smaller pool of organizers and DMs to draw from, so if one of them is a dud, you're more likely to get stuck with them. Wizards could offer a little help there too. I know I've watched the owner of my home shop spend three days trying to track down his WotC rep - just trying to get him to reply to a voicemail - to get information on organized play, supplies, etc. He feels like he's a low priority due the small retail volume.

Encounters has been a great experience, but that may be becasue I am the DM

 

[Pour]

You should have sucked it up and played one more session, thus giving you a chance to give your email to the other players and arrange to run a game for them. Now they'll probably be lost to the hobby.

I know that was my original plan, but I was just hired as a first year elementary school teacher, and once school starts I know I won't be able to make every week. That really leads into an important difference between how I imagine Encounters runs in other stores (a sort of rolling admission, come each week if you can, a certain amount of people leaving or staying and everything being very relaxed) and the shop nearest me, which advocates groups staying together for the whole season, and actually pushes player achievements as part of a competitive scoring between tables, the prize being like a $1000 dollars or $1500 store credit at the end of the 13 weeks for the ones with the most points.

It's another huge turn off for me, honestly, but I thought if I ever DMed there I'd kind of glaze over that part and foster a more meaningful experience instead of one dude with a checklist making sure we hit three damage types on an enemy, or held a longer-than-needed conversation with a minor NPC, etc.

I think I've also come to learn that I don't particularly like or want to spend time with every person attracted to this hobby. There are a lot of hardcore people with very set notions about everything... and some of them smell funny.

Have they been lost to the hobby? I hope not, but maybe. I don't think they're really experiencing the game as I've understood all these years, though, and it's sad, but I'm just not in the position to readily change it. If I see them in the future, though, I will extend an invite to a home game.

And for the record I didn't expect the guy to be there and then confiscate the sheets lol. That was kind of the last straw for me.

And I really don't want to knock the state I'm in, cause I bet there are dozens of other shops that do things right, and I know there are great home games, but I guess it wouldn't be hard to backtrack my earlier posts and find out I'm from New Jersey.

 

[OnlineDM]

Wow... I've never heard of a store making D&D Encounters into a competition! That seems completely antithetical to the whole point of the program - being welcoming to new players. That's a bummer.

In that case, I wouldn't want to play Encounters at that store either, regardless of the DM quality.

And I'm sure it's not a New Jersey thing; I was just idly curious. I'm sure GameDoc is right in that it would be really hard to figure out if there are "great DM" regions and "lousy DM" regions.

I do expect there to be some clustering of DM and player quality, though, since people learn from the folks they play with. If you learn to DM from awesome DMs, you'll probably be pretty good, too, and vice versa with awful DMs. But I doubt if that's a statewide phenomenon - it's probably tied more to towns and individual stores.

 

[S'mon]

how I imagine Encounters runs in other stores (a sort of rolling admission, come each week if you can, a certain amount of people leaving or staying and everything being very relaxed)

Yes, that's how I thought it was supposed to work.

They're really going to give the 'winners' $1000? I wonder how they can afford that. New Jersey seems to be a strange place.

I think I've also come to learn that I don't particularly like or want to spend time with every person attracted to this hobby. There are a lot of hardcore people with very set notions about everything... and some of them smell funny.

If you've only just learned that, you've either not been playing long, or had a very sheltered experience previously!

I must say though, I've had a much easier experience with 4e D&D than I used to have with 3e. For some reason 3e seemed to really attract the obnoxious personalities, and I had to kick so many out of my 3e game at the D&D Meetup, it got quite tiring. I've never had to kick anyone out of my 4e games.

 

[Pour]

Yes, that's how I thought it was supposed to work.

They're really going to give the 'winners' $1000? I wonder how they can afford that. New Jersey seems to be a strange place.

$1000 to split between the party of 4-6, depending. And they charge every player $5 for Game Day and $10 for each session of Encounters, so I imagine some of the money just gets put into a pot for the ultimate winners. Granted, that also gets you 2 slices of pizza and a soda a session, but there is obvious leftover. Come to think, not sure that's quite up to Encounters protocol, either.

As for just figuring it out, I've admittedly DMed mostly online for the last 10 years (which had its share of weirdos and jerks, but it's so much easier to deal with them via computer), and only in the last 4 years or so really pursued tabletop games live. Tabletop games were exclusively family, friends or friends of friends, so personalities really weren't an issue. Going to a store, though, and encountering some of these mutants has been an eye opener.

 

[SpydersWebbing]

$1000 to split between the party of 4-6, depending. And they charge every player $5 for Game Day and $10 for each session of Encounters, so I imagine some of the money just gets put into a pot for the ultimate winners. Granted, that also gets you 2 slices of pizza and a soda a session, but there is obvious leftover. Come to think, not sure that's quite up to Encounters protocol, either.

As for just figuring it out, I've admittedly DMed mostly online for the last 10 years (which had its share of weirdos and jerks, but it's so much easier to deal with them via computer), and only in the last 4 years or so really pursued tabletop games live. Tabletop games were exclusively family, friends or friends of friends, so personalities really weren't an issue. Going to a store, though, and encountering some of these mutants has been an eye opener.

Hey, watch it dude. You're giving the mutants and trolls a bad name there

 

[OnlineDM]

$1000 to split between the party of 4-6, depending. And they charge every player $5 for Game Day and $10 for each session of Encounters, so I imagine some of the money just gets put into a pot for the ultimate winners. Granted, that also gets you 2 slices of pizza and a soda a session, but there is obvious leftover. Come to think, not sure that's quite up to Encounters protocol, either.

I'm not an event organizer, but no, I don't think that's copacetic. Encounters is intended to be free to players, from my understanding. This store is probably not doing what they're supposed to be doing in this regard. It's up to you whether you want to reach out to Wizards of the Coast of not, but I don't think this is what they want stores doing with the free Encounters materials they provide.