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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alphastream" data-source="post: 6419597" data-attributes="member: 11365">I know this very well, because most of my friends have that same constraint. Which is why Encounters won't work for them... but everything else does. Adventurers League has tons of flexibility:- Home play? Run Hoard and Rise. You can play any day of the week. Sure, getting a group together can be hard. In that case...- Store play? Play Encounters on Wednesdays. Because it is a stated day, at most stores it will do wonders for drawing players together. Encounters is seeing tons of play with the current season, breaking records at many stores (one of our 5+ stores running Encounters is seeing 60 players at just that one location!).- Want the benefit of a store, but Wednesday won't work for you? Schedule Expeditions adventures any day of the week for public play. - No store in your area? Contact WotC support and request Expeditions (or the Starter Set) for a public location. Just make sure you advertise the game so that anyone can come join. As a person with a "collect everything" personality, I can understand. I like having complete flexibility too and I want to be able to play everything. But, that's just not realistic for 99% of gamers. You are still getting a full 20 levels of home play and you can with very little work break Hoard and Rise into home play sessions. If you string Expeditions adventures together, they too will end up feeling like a campaign (less linear, but still a combination of missions you take around evolving and developing campaign plot arcs). There really isn't a huge difference. WotC isn't in competition with Pathfinder. WotC is in competition with entertainment. As the biggest brand there is, WotC has the ability to reach out beyond the hobby's current members and bring in more gamers. That's where the focus is and should be. Programs like Encounters can work fine for an established D&D gamer, but they are specifically built to bring in the new and casual gamer and give them an easy way to connect to D&D and become a customer. The best part is, that customer can then become a customer of the hobby. They can buy D&D, Pathfinder, Numenera, FIASCO, and hopefully try all of the great games our hobby offers. Just as we see WotC staff join Pathfinder, Pathfinder staff join WotC, freelancers work with both, and all of them hang out together as friends, gamers can and should play both brands. Any separation and edition wars are a silly mental exercise. Life is richer when we play more games and play different kinds of games. I'm a big fan of D&D, of WotC, and of their organized play program. But, I'm also a huge admirer of what Pathfinder Society does. They are different, but are both great programs. They can both continue to grow in size at the same time, because the market can continue to grow. There is absolutely nothing wrong (in fact, it's awesome) with a player or DM who wants to take one thing from one organized play program and wants to take a different thing from another organized play program. As an example, I really enjoyed playing Legend of the Five Rings' program for all of the heavy RP and no-combat diplomacy missions. I liked the very different feel. I liked that I could order adventures and play them anywhere. At the same time I was also playing Living Forgotten Realms and Living Arcanis. Through all of that, WotC still earned plenty of my money. I don't understand that at all. If they want to play 5E, they can. If they want to be part of an organized play structure, see their faction grow, share their exploits online, and play great adventures officially, they can. If they want to play in a public location and do Expeditions, they can... but it does require that public focus because hobby growth is important. There is some good data on that, but none of it public. If you keep in mind how important it is to bring in new players... that's why Expeditions requires public locations. If you see the fantastic results Friday Night Magic has had, and if you see how Encounters has been the most successful store program ever in the history of RPGs, that's why the programs work the way they do.I'm not opposed to that, and I'm sure they considered it. But, I also do believe that delays have a very different incentive from exclusivity and "public only". Going back to you and all of your 5E friends that want to see 5E grow. If you truly feel that way, then find a public location (school, library, coffee shop, etc.) and run whatever you like (homebrew adventures, Expeditions, Hoard) and help grow the hobby. Bring in new players and DMs. Grow the player base in your area. It's a great feeling.</blockquote>

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