AL VS LFR of 4th and why I'm so disappointed

[Pauper]

Heh, so 'it would be nice if AL did this' results in a 'we are actually doing that' response.

You guys are way too damn subtle about being awesome.

*files knowledge away for when it's time to fill out critical event surveys at GenCon*

--
Pauper

 

[aarduini]

The Expeditions modules were set in the Moonsea, but AL was more than just Expeditions. Encounters and the hard-cover modules are all AL-legal and have been set in the Sword Coast, in the Underdark, and will now be set in Ravenloft for the next season. Likewise, season 4 is being set in Ravenloft rather than in the Moonsea. So basically this complaint is being addressed.

The hardback mods are part of AL yes, but I am addressing what was expeditions here. I do understand that this name has been retired and organized play has taken on a whole new direction, so maybe my concerns are addressed in this manner. Hopefully they will put the AL stamp on more third party mods with good ratings in GM guild and we'll get adventures with different stories in different regions. That is my hope.

Maybe you don't, but when my paladin was roaming through Phlan looking for people to save and came across Ellison Berenguer, the fact that he had 'Favor of Ellison Berenguer' from a prior module felt very significant to me. Other story awards have had similar connections between modules. If you're not feeling immersed, perhaps you're just not making an effort?

Did you favor have an affect on the outcome of the encounter. What if you didn't have the favor. There needs to be more of this type of stuff. Believe me when I tell you that I make the effort.

I think you're exaggerating the exclusivity of cons. I can't find any hard numbers, but at GenCon last year there were about 80 tables reserved for Expeditions play with about another 20 cycling through the season 2 and season 3 intro modules (DDEX 2-1 and DDEX 3-1); it wouldn't surprise me if over 2000 different people played some AL at GenCon 2015. If this represents 'less than 1%' of the total AL population, that means there are over 200,000 unique, regular AL players residing in WotC's RPGA/DCI database, and that seems a bit much.

i don't thin I'm exaggerating at all. There are probably close to 200 AL players if not more in the Bay Area alone, and that is just one metropolitan area. AL is world wide. Not all that play AL are in the system.

I get that your point is that some things should be more accessible, but that goal stands in direct opposition to the goal of providing experiences at a big, destination convention that you can't get at your local con or home store. Why travel 1500 miles to play the same four adventures you can play at the FLGS in three weeks? Having big, con-exclusive events makes the cons more special, and AL is helping support smaller cons by providing them opportunities for adventure premiers and DDAO invites -- if your con invites Skerrit to run his goat-themed adventure, that's not one every other con will have access to. Congrats! You just got your own con-exclusive event.

You just pinpointed the biggest issue I have with the way things are done. Why ask us to travel 1500 miles for DND!?. Why are we catering to these megacons? They don't need our patronage. A con is a con is a con. The big cons have their own attractions. People who go to Gen Con don't do it just because they get to play an epic. The local cons are the ones that need the attention and support. Why should skerrit's adventure warrant him being flown out? Did it rate 5 stars on GM's guild. No it didn't because no one's played it yet. Gen Con should have stuff like a very popular epic being run by the guy who wrote it. That would be an exclusive worthy of Gen Con. The local cons would just have to setting with their local coordinators running the epic. This whole process just smells of an attempt at building an elitist culture, and DnD does not need that!

Some are. Frankly, I stopped being interested when she disappeared after DDEX 1-3. The chance to play in the 'who really is Elisande' module doesn't hold much draw for me, and that's fine. Not everybody is equally as interested in every story. The real question is, are there enough stories so that most folks who are interested in a story get to play it? People who want that opportunity can petition their local con organizer to invite Skerrit to run his mod and find out. And there's even been a suggestion (not official, but a suggestion) that particularly popular DDAO mods might be eventually publicly released -- there's an article on the D&D AL Organizers site asking that question right now. So again, all this is being addressed.

Once again, who is Skerrit that flying him out is tied to being able to play a mod that you are not even sure is good? You are not interested, but I am. Others may or may not be. The issue is that the story was hijacked and held hostage unless special privileges are given to an admin. I know that sounds harsh, but that is the impression I and others I talk to have about this process.

Edit: I was irritated re-reading this after posting it, and after thinking about it for a bit, it finally hit me -- what's so 'flavorful' about a genasi Eldritch Knight with Greenflame Blade that it can't be captured with a half-elf or dwarf Eldritch Knight with Greenflame Blade? Or with a genasi Eldritch Knight with some other cantrip? It sounds to me like you're using the language of the role-player to try to justify munchkinism, which is a) something munchkins have been doing for years -- see 'Stormwind Fallacy' -- and b) manipulative and wrong. So while I can't say you're wrong about most of what you've written, I will say you're wrong about this.

The fact that you don't know the answer to that question means you are not much into the lore. Calimsham and Memmnon are very Genasi heavy regions that were once ruled by Djinn and Efreeties. Green flame blade is fire and booming blade is thunder. These match the fire Genasi and Air Genasi concepts. Why would I use a half-elf? LFR expanded on this region a lot and it is still fresh in my mind. Its a flavor option I can't use because of blanketed rules.

Once again, I'm not saying don't restrict. I'm saying don't restrict so broadly. Find the problem and then act. Don't act on something that MIGHT be a problem without ever analyzing it.

If the method is so easy, what is it? Let us know how such a process should work, for no money and for few volunteer-hours, and I'm sure the admins will implement it. Seriously. Having a course of free, high-quality AL material that they don't have to spend half their lives watchdogging would be a huge benefit to them. So please, share.

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The method is already created with 4th edition my-realms. just make the magic item disbursement be one step behind what published mods put out. I disagree with you that my realms caused magic item farming in 4e. They were very restricted. I never played a my realm for the magic item. A my-realms mod is just a way for local games to make their organized play experience better. They were never meant to be as good as published mods.

Again, I can't tell you you're wrong -- if you're bored, you're bored.

Based on your comments, though, I suspect you'll be a lot less bored starting in season 4, especially if you can take off the rose-colored glasses about how awesome LFR used to be.

--
Pauper

My statement about being bored was to express my desire for more diverse and complete content. By complete I mean storylines I can finish WITHOUT having to travel 2000 miles.

 

[Cascade]

You just pinpointed the biggest issue I have with the way things are done. Why ask us to travel 1500 miles for DND!?. Why are we catering to these megacons? They don't need our patronage. A con is a con is a con. The big cons have their own attractions. People who go to Gen Con don't do it just because they get to play an epic.

Actually, myself and the group I travel with would not attend WF, Origins or Gencon if it wasn't for special events.
(We've been attending Gencon since the Milwaukee days - and well, ... Spy Bar)

 

[aarduini]

Actually, myself and the group I travel with would not attend WF, Origins or Gencon if it wasn't for special events.
(We've been attending Gencon since the Milwaukee days - and well, ... Spy Bar)

Where do you travel from? How much is the cost to go to those cons? Also, I'm not saying they shouldn't have epics. I'm just saying they should be the only ones to have epics.

 

[skerritthegreen]

Where do you travel from? How much is the cost to go to those cons? Also, I'm not saying they shouldn't have epics. I'm just saying they should be the only ones to have epics.

Please note my early response your comments. They are not the only ones with Epics. Any convention that meets some very minimal requirements may host an Epic. This was changed back at the end of Season 2. I know of two local conventions in my area that are running an epic in the next few months.

 

[Cascade]

Where do you travel from? How much is the cost to go to those cons? Also, I'm not saying they shouldn't have epics. I'm just saying they should be the only ones to have epics.

I'm about a 6 hour drive from WF and Gencon - usually $500 each once everything is divided up.
Gencon in Milwaukee was 11 hours but cost less.
When WF was in New Jersey, that was 7 hours.

Is it worth a few special events: yep
I'll do both the AL and PFS specials.

 

[kalani]

To add to what Skerrit (Greg Marks) said: Any convention which can host a minimum of 10-15 AL tables (70-105 characters + DMs) can apply for an epic at their event.

 

[Inxanity]

That's actually built into the critical events. We ask you put unusual, heroic, funny things that happened at your table in response to one of the questions. That question is almost always left blank by those that answer, though some of the side references in adventures are referring to those comments.

Woo, one of the few! Clearly, I need to be writing more about Picklebeard's attempts to Persuade people with free pickles. Between him and our Wild Sorcerer who's gotten at least 6 Unicorn summons out of his surges, much shenanigans have been had.

 

[Steve_MND]

I note that your actions have changed things. For example in season one, the actions of the players caused the pact between Phlan and the fey of the Quivering Forest to be broken. Its only because of this that Vorgansharax was able to invade. You did that. Then in season two, actions of the players in critical events caused the city of Mulmaster (whom the people have Phlan had gone to for aid) to eject the Phlanites, forcing them to seek shelter in Hillsfar/Elventree. Here there have been more successes. So many in fact, that there is a chance to retake Phlan (because of the critical events summaries the few of you that filled out the online forms filled in). Indeed, some surprises in Epic4 may or may not happen based on the last of the critical events we are gathering now. Again, you did that.

Are any of these actually detailed anywhere as being the results of the summaries? I ask, because I've not seen anything along those lines. Sure, we get some season recaps here and there, and some veiled references to previous mods are seen in some mods, but in most of those I've seen so far, they are somewhat opaque and it's difficult to see them as 'this is something that occurred because the players did something' versus 'this is what we had planned all along for this storyline.'

Also, regarding the low amount of critical event summaries -- you guys need to see if you can possibly extend the dates available for reporting some of these mods. By the time they make it out to the stores for availability, many of them only have a month or less on which to report, in which case getting a table together in that short time frame is often tricky for us smaller locales. Heck, I remember a pair of mods that by the time they became available for store play, they had a grand total of two days left to report in. I believe they were extended a bit after the fact, but no official notification of that went out that I was aware of, and we only stumbled across that fact because I was wandering around the website and noticed that they were still there a couple days after the mod said they would be viable.

Maybe I'm way out of the loop here, but the fact that apparently so many large-scale decisions have actually come about as a result of the 'official reports' is rather a bit of a shock, as I had seen little to no evidence of that so far. Having the storyline develop as a result of player actions is amazing, but if we never know about those consequences, it's as if it didn't happen.

 

[tila]

I've been very critical of the AL admins way of doing things. I find a lot of people agree with me and others don't, and then there are those that just want to be contrary. I'm going to express my reasons in a different way by comparing my experience with both RPGA systems.

This has been a huge misconception from the very beginning. Content is not the sole decision of the Admins. WotC gave the Adventurers League Expeditions the Moonsea area. That is what we have to work with. There is no veering from that. Admins have no control of Storylines. Those are dependent on the hard cover product that WotC releases. This is the price we pay, in order for the content to be canon. As someone who is ALL ABOUT the lore AND an author, that is so much more important to me than being able to go anywhere I want. None of what happened in LFR is canon. None. So the Battle Interactive in which we saved Mystra was only true at the tables there. WotC, through the novels, dictated how it actually happened.

So your critique is directed at the wrong people, concerning all of this actually. Because the admins have to OK everything that is done with WotC. Well...they have HAD to. The next season starts a more autonomous Admin staff. Let's see what happens.