Changes or No Changes

[Mirtek]

Personally, I am inclined to think that characters who become trapped in Ravenloft would be unable to play other AL adventures until they find an escape. To that end however, we should make at least 2 escape opportunities for characters (one in tier 2, and another in tier 3).

What if character play them out of order? No more S4 adventures if you played the escape adventure first with your 5th level PC, since entering another one means you won't be able to make T3 and never get out.

Also plenty of people don't have multiple high level characters, they'd rather skip S4 entirely rather than risk not be able to play the next time they show up and only S1 and S3 are currently run.

How is it that we're ok with characters jumping from one time and place in the forgotten realms to another time and place in the forgotten realms (sometimes going back in time,

Indeed. Must be kind of strange for my character, who spend his is T1 hopping between Phlan and Mulmaster when he was always told what terrible fate had befallen Phlan during his time in Mulmaster, but all was fine when he left and all still was fine whenever he returned to Phlan (except for the usual small issues solvable by a party of 3-7 specialists).

 

[Scorpienne]

120 comments in a day. Clearly people are excited at the possibility:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3069-It-s-Beginning-To-Look-A-Lot-Like-RAVENLOFT

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Scorpienne: Keep in mind that a lot of the people posting there, may not neccessarily be Ravenloft fans (which even at the height of its popularity, was never a big seller/ hugely popular). People are more likely thinking 'Because X came out, that means Y has a chance!'. Its a form of Wish fufillment. Then you have the people who are Anti -FR and they are simply there to go 'Yeah Ravenloft!'.

I think Expeditions will stay in the Moonsea next season, I just expect the Mists to rise every so often. And lets be honest... Moonsea is full of mists and fog anyway.. who would notice?

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

I think that character portability needs to remain a pillar of the AL ruleset, regardless of the setting. Remember that at the very core of the AL, it's still based on a set of houserules. We're simply playing by WotC houserules. Our ruleset simply needs to work for our style of play.

I think that one assumption that everyone seems to get wrong is the notion that the default 5e campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms. If you read between the lines of all published materials, you'll see that the true default campaign setting is the Multiverse itself. We've simply only seen adventures that take place in Faerun. Why else would books like the PHB and SCAG contain passages about adapting material to other settings, even though no official 5e products take place in said settings?

I have a hunch that the grand plan for 5e is similar to the world-building done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Everything is connected. We simply haven't seen it all unfold around us yet.

As for what I would like to see change, that's simple. Since the current rate of Expeditions production is forcing older content to be replayed to accommodate more tiers with the same amount of Expeditions per season, perhaps that should be a priority target for change. I've personally reached the point where I have to remember which PCs of my long-standing players have already done which older adventures when scheduling games to accommodate my newer players because I've run out of new T1 material to run. Scheduling and prepping Expeditions was far easier in S1 & S2 because the playing field was more even. As the amount of tiers supported by Expeditions grows, so too must the overall number of Expeditions.

I fear that when T4 Expeditions become a reality, we're going to end up with a season with no more than 4 Expeditions for a given tier over the 5-7 months of play. At such a point, I wouldn't be surprised to see both player and DM burnout reach critical mass. There needs to be at least 4 hours of T1 material released each month to account for the new players who just discovered AL that month. This season has been the worst one for me to run from an organizer perspective. The person who's suffered the most madness this season out of everyone at my FLGS is me. Not one of my characters, but me as a person. The only reason that I keep running AL is that I enjoy the community that I've brought together at my FLGS. If it wasn't for them, I would've immediately quit running games when I first saw how big of a cluster this season's schedule was.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Locally we have single tables Z.H. Darkstar. I mainly run Tier 1-4 tables and have just started to run Season 1 again as Ive currently run out of 1-4's. I dont mind too much though. Its all new to them really, and my goal is eventually to be able to put a Tier 5-10 down and have a full table sign up (sometihng Im getting close to but am not quite at yet). Ive managed to get another dm at one of my stores who runs a game every 2 months and Im happy just for that. Its in fact this weekend.. we should have two tables of 4.

I do realise that some people play up to 4 times a week (even 3 seems a bit much) and yeah they are gonna find out quickly they will go through stuff quick.

 

[Mirtek]

I think that one assumption that everyone seems to get wrong is the notion that the default 5e campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms. If you read between the lines of all published materials, you'll see that the true default campaign setting is the Multiverse itself.

You don't have to read between the lines, they flat out said that.

However to quote Batman, it's not what we say that matters but what we do.

I have a hunch that the grand plan for 5e is similar to the world-building done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Everything is connected.

Everything always was connected since 1e.

The whole turning D&D into MCU is more their grand dream than any realistic plan, as they just lack the funding to realize it.

So pulling as much as they can into the FR is the next best thing and the only Option within their budget.

As for what I would like to see change, that's simple. Since the current rate of Expeditions production is forcing older content to be replayed to accommodate more tiers with the same amount of Expeditions per season, perhaps that should be a priority target for change.

like the later LFR modules. Exzellent idea. Any mod playable from 1-10, characters in a party must been weithin 4 levels if each other.

Only Problem might be that the differences in fragility are higher in 5e at the lower levels than they were in 4e. With it's 30hp level 1 characters in 4e able to survive a hit in a level 5 adventure while level 1 characters in 5e would be instakilled by the first fireball even if they make the save

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I have always believed that Encounters should be divorced from AL all together.

This allows Wizards to do a season of Ravenloft, Eberron, Dragon Lance or Greyhawk etc without it effecting AL play. If they wanted to they could provide certs to the stores in the kit when the season is ordered that allows a player to create a character for AL with X exps, X gold etc.

 

[Pauper]

I'll simply point out that there was an adventure in Living Forgotten Realms where you could be 'locked out' of play -- our group referred to it as 'Escape from Tentacle Island' -- and during it, one character could volunteer to remain behind on the island so that one of the clerics of Selune could escape. That character received a story award that basically said 'you can't play this character until you participate with another character in adventure X, where you rescue this character'.

I thought it was interesting, and made for a legitimate character choice -- I think if the 'lock-out' option was presented in this manner, it would be a lot less controversial, as the decision would be made in-character rather than by the player simply by participating in the adventure.

--
Pauper

 

[Pauper]

Another option would be to have a 'Ravenloft season' in which characters that participate in a Season X adventure would be limited to play only Season X adventures until such time as they encounter an 'escape' option. I think that would be interesting as well, and would have limited impact on many groups, as my impression is that most stores play the adventures in season-specific blocks (playing most if not all of the Season 2 Expeditions mods before moving on to Season 3, for instance).

This might make things challenging for groups that don't follow the seasons pretty strictly, or for players who are used to moving from venue to venue where different seasons may be in play, but those folks still have plenty of non-current season material to work with, so any disruption might be minimal.

--
Pauper

 

[Mirtek]

I'll simply point out that there was an adventure in Living Forgotten Realms where you could be 'locked out' of play -- our group referred to it as 'Escape from Tentacle Island' -- and during it, one character could volunteer to remain behind on the island so that one of the clerics of Selune could escape. That character received a story award that basically said 'you can't play this character until you participate with another character in adventure X, where you rescue this character'.

That's not how I recall this story award. IIRC you could immediately continue to play this character and just had to assume that you spend some time in captivity until you were rescued.

You could also play the actual rescue mission to learn "this is how it happened", but the character was available without being required to ever play it.

, as my impression is that most stores play the adventures in season-specific blocks (playing most if not all of the Season 2 Expeditions mods before moving on to Season 3, for instance).

Then there are still the players who only play at one store, but don't attend every single week. Those have no other content if the store runs a S4 block and risk missing the exit if they can only make it every third week or so