Are stores dropping D&D Encounters for Lair Assault?

[OnlineDM]

Here's a weird one. My friendly local game store has been running D&D Encounters since its introduction, every season. I ran a table all summer long for the Dark Legacy of Evard season and had a good time, with a good number of players. I know that I personally channeled at least three players into buying books after their introduction to D&D via Encounters. So, it seems like it's been a pretty successful program for the store.

I was surprised, then, when the store owner said on Monday that he was originally planning not to run Encounters this season because he would run Lair Assault instead. He hadn't pre-ordered any of the Neverwinter D&D Encounters materials and only decided to run it when the players at the last week of Dark Legacy of Evard were upset that there wouldn't be any more Encounters.

He didn't tell his DMs about this, either - he had even previously discussed plans with me about how to organize the DM corps for this current season. So, it sounds like he just went a little nuts and screwed up. He's now ordered the materials, but they won't arrive until next Monday, so we'll be running two encounters next week.

Has anyone else heard of this - a store deciding to run Lair Assault INSTEAD of Encounters? It seemed bizarre to me (as I discussed here), since they seem to be aimed at totally different groups of players. Encounters is for new players or casual players while Lair Assault is for serious optimizers.

 

[Pentius]

Well, I don't live closer to my FLGS than an hour's drive, so I don't hear much. But I was in there a few days ago, and they invited me to join Encounters, which sounds as if they are not dropping it.

 

[Kantru]

Running Both

We are running both. I can see if there is a space crunch, where stores might feel the need to pick one or the other.

The store owner and I feel that Encounters and Lair Assault are intended for different segments of the gaming community, and the overlap will be minimal.

 

[whearp]

We're going to run lair assaults bi-weekly on Friday evenings. There is no need to have it get in the way of the already-successful encounters group.

 

[OnlineDM]

This is good to hear. I think the owner of my FLGS just made a bad decision and isn't part of a trend.

 

[Vael]

I don't know if the local FLGS has decided to do Lair Assault. How many sessions is it? What's the cut-off date for registering? There is some conflict, with other gaming events going on.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I REALLY wish I had a FLGS running Lair Assault. Never really minded missing Encounters.

Unfortunately my nearest FLGS is 8,000 miles away at least.

 

[Kantru]

The Scheduling Deadline for Lair Assault is Sept 15, the Season runs through the end of November. I scheduled 8 for September, and based on actual player signups, will decide how many to schedule for October and November. The need to forecast 10 weeks in advance is a bit of a concern. I do not want to predict too few, and not have DM support, nor do I want to predict too many, and end up cancelling them.

There is a lot of local excitement. The LFR group is going to run some of the sessions.

The event is a 1 shot, 4 hour event. I think. Something like 90% of all attempts will be a TPK. Players can try again as many times as they like. DM's have guidelines for modifying the series of encounters between attempts to keep the players on their toes.

Forgot to add: The event is not on a fixed day, so the stores are welcome to schedule the sessions whenever it fits their calendar.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

My FLGS seems to actually be stocking less D&D lately. Seems like they haven't brought in anything new, or even replenished what's been sold out, in almost two months.

The owner seems to prefer Pathfinder. I hear him do a little whisper to himself of "yay Pathfinder" (one that I think he thinks is quiet enough that nobody hears him) every time I come in and buy one of the books. Perhaps he's biased.

The games being run there don't seem to have changed much on the other hand.

 

[corwyn77]

The Scheduling Deadline for Lair Assault is Sept 15, the Season runs through the end of November. I scheduled 8 for September, and based on actual player signups, will decide how many to schedule for October and November. The need to forecast 10 weeks in advance is a bit of a concern. I do not want to predict too few, and not have DM support, nor do I want to predict too many, and end up cancelling them.

There is a lot of local excitement. The LFR group is going to run some of the sessions.

Forgot to add: The event is not on a fixed day, so the stores are welcome to schedule the sessions whenever it fits their calendar.

I've gotten around the unpredictability by running the first one with friends pooled from various groups who are more interested in the character creation/tactical aspects of the game and planning a specific day. After that I'll see what other interest is drummed up by word of mouth through that and my encounters groups.

As someone said above I don't think there will be much overlap at all. I'm already TPK'ing some of these sessions without the encounters being designed to be cut-throat. A few players are interested but I think they'll be frustrated so I want to see the adventures before I encourage them too much.