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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alphastream" data-source="post: 6313448" data-attributes="member: 11365">It is important to always consider the alternatives.With Ashes of Athas, we published only 9 adventures a year with an entirely linear progression. The adventure and PC level was locked in, increasing as play progressed. If you came in late, you either had to find a group to catch up or you started at a higher level and began the experience at that point. For much of the time we had no home play. There were pluses and minuses. With LFR, you had many adventures of different levels (though just low level at first). Being of different level was supported, but the adventure release schedule and lack of common level for the player base meant you tended to have many PCs of different levels. It created a lot of confusion as to what the narrative was for the campaign. With LFR and especially LG you had reward programs that at various times really had an incentive to play a lot, including at home. Players in LG that played at home and at conventions were stronger than those that did not. That was a big problem for new and casual players. There were also incentives to travel and to attend conventions/premieres. In LG there were strong benefits from playing convention specials - a source of constant criticism for those that could not afford to attend. LG had fewer PCs per player and a stronger narrative, but a very strong sense of entitlement for established players that pushed out new players.What AL seems to be doing is to provide different channels of play, with some incentives to be in multiple streams. But, it isn't clear whether you can jump across the streams. It may be that your home play track is really the equivalent of ordering 15 levels worth of LFR or LG adventures (which would be 45 or more adventures in some cases) via playing the two printed adventures. That's not bad, really. If you have a store in your area, then you get even more play. (Though, again, it isn't clear if you can jump back-and-forth across the tracks)I doubt that. I suspect that the adventures are being written to handle only people that are playing at Gen Con. It is possible you might not be able to play through the Starter Set and still play. We just don't know, but I expect the baseline is that you are a new PC at Gen Con and play some of the Gen Con content by the time the Epic begins.Keep in mind that WotC is a business and does need to make a profit. They spend more than $6 million on organized play a year (and spent $2M in the 90's). We keep hearing from everyone that stores are vital. That means they really need to have incentives in place for store play.And, we should also keep in mind that every edition has seen pretty drastic adjustments in the organized play program's incentives for store vs convention vs home play. AL is currently turning incentives for convention play back on, while turning the dial on home play down. We should expect the dials will be adjusted over time, as they always have.</blockquote>

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