Have You played In An Official D&D Adventurer's League Event?

Never have. The WotC locator tool is useless - it shows over a dozen stores in my area that participate in Adventurer's League, but most of them actually don't. When I call to check, half of them haven't heard of it before, and the other half said they used to, but stopped a year ago or more. There is one store in the next town over that has an active running game, but it's a 45 minute drive away, and happens right in the middle of my workday. My normal gaming group once tried to run a home AL game, but we found the restrictions too restricting for no benefit.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I played in an AL game at a local game store for about a month ad a half during the Curse of Strahd era. The guy running the game was really good, theough the regular players were a mixed bag.

I ended up poaching my three favorites from the regulars to start my own campaign. It's easily my favorite group I've ever had. So I can thank AL for that.

 

[darjr]

I played in an AL game at a local game store for about a month ad a half during the Curse of Strahd era. The guy running the game was really good, theough the regular players were a mixed bag.

I ended up poaching my three favorites from the regulars to start my own campaign. It's easily my favorite group I've ever had. So I can thank AL for that.

That is in part what AL is for. Do they still do some AL?

I know that's happened a few times at the stores and conventions I've been a part of. Many of hose still make some AL events too.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Played at Conneticon last year, not the best gaming experience i ever had, but it was fun- we just took way too long for things.

 

[sunrisekid]

My local store has a wait list so long they stopped taking names :-( I would try it out if I could.

 

[77IM]

I was always skeptical -- even disdainful -- of organized play.

But two years ago, I was in a very dark place, and decided to try out the Wednesday night Encounters program, just for some light, no-obligation social contact.

The first couple of Wednesdays went very poorly. (Try gaming with a table full of 13-year-olds; it's not nearly as fun as you remember from back when you were 13. I activated "dad mode" and muddled through, but did not enjoy myself.)

But on the third try, I landed at a very good table. These people had been gaming together for a while, and it was a blast. I fit in well with this group and we arranged things so that I'd play at their table from then on.

I've been coming back ever since. I start DMing on January 4th.

 

[MechaPilot]

My local store has a wait list so long they stopped taking names :-( I would try it out if I could.

It sounds like your area has enough of a hobbyist community to support another store, or at least to have organized play scheduled for additional nights each week.

 

[WackyAnne]

For me, finding D&D organized play - right before 5E & AL launched - was a lifesaver. I'd spent a year and a half trying to find a playgroup, and all I could get was the occasional PFS game when a con or gameday came up. The summer of 2014 came, and I was invited into a home game of Pathfinder at the same time as I started playing D&D at my FLGS. I kept playing in that bi-weekly game of PF for a year, but because of the story and the people - I just grew to almost hate PF itself. But I've made many good friends in D&D AL as well, over the two years I've played (1-2 a week, continously). While there can be high turnover on our Monday nights when we run the shorter modules, we have very stable groups for the hardcovers we play on Wednesdays (and we play each of them all the way through each season, not many other groups manage that AFAIK). While I'd still love to play more homebrew and/or houseruled stuff, I'm very happy with AL overall. They've loosened up a lot of the restrictions with time, and so there's not much I want to do that I can't do in AL. And there's many people I'd want to still play with, even if for some reason I stopped participating in AL or at the FLGS.

 

[bergec]

Adventurers League is the same grab bag you get at cons. You have a 50-50 chance to land a bum GM or a problem player who makes the experience poor if not utterly miserable. Of course, you can get lucky and get a really great GM or inspired role-players. Weirdly, in my experience, it is kinda either-or. I haven't had a lot of average gaming experience at AL or in cons. Either the table sucks or it rocks. Not sure why that is. The weekly games are nice, particularly for folks who don't have a private gaming group, because you are dealing with the same folks (for the most part) every week. If you have a good table, you are set for the season. If not, you can drop out or try another venue or see if you can switch tables (the store coordinators are usually pretty accommodating if someone is not enjoying themselves).

Aside from the varying quality, the other thing which makes it less than ideal is that there can't really be a focus on continuity or character-building and it leans towards the combat-centric side of play. To really develop a character and a world, you need a steady group in home play. The AL setup, with players able to use their characters in any event that fits their tier and drop in and out of multi-session campaigns forces a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Personally, I only got involved in AL in the last couple years. My one-off experiences have been 50-50, as I've said above. I've been running Storm King's Thunder in-store since the end of August and my players are pretty great. We've had an awesome time.

My only other comment is that AL has a tendency towards unnecessary rules and limitations. They are getting better about it, but I wish they'd recognize that they aren't like the RPGA or Magic. This isn't competitive play, so they don't need to be quite so restrictive with the rulings. Also, silly things like the AL-wide house rule removing flying abilities from lower level characters is ridiculous. AL, if anywhere, should use the rules-as-written.

 

[Ace]

I've never even seen an event at any FLGS I frequented , ah actually it vaguely possible there was an adventurers league game at my FLGS , not sure. Apparently it was a thing for about a month or three before it went away.

 

[thzero]

I've never even seen an event at any FLGS I frequented , ah actually it vaguely possible there was an adventurers league game at my FLGS , not sure. Apparently it was a thing for about a month or three before it went away.

It doesn't have to be at a FLGS... you can do it pretty much anywhere. Around here, lucky I understand, there is at least three I know of at an FLGS, then a couple that general are hosted at restaurants.