Philosophical approaches of PFS and Adventurer's League

[frupton]

I like Adventurer's League but my only gripe is that it doesn't allow D&D Expeditions for private play (home/online), only in-stores and convention play.

This makes it harder to run online pick-up games on an evening (4-5 hours) like LFR or PFS and rely on bigger published adventures only that the DM has to run only part of, which IMO doesn't give the same satisfying experience than a self-contained 4-hours adventures give.

I hope Dungeon magazines will publish short adventures legal for AL private play if D&D Expeditions doesn't change its model.

You can play Expeditions as a pickup game as long as you're willing to play at a local store and they have table space. It's admittedly a bit more work than putting together a pickup game at home. But frankly the Expeditions program is designed to help support public play, i.e. primarily at brick-and-mortar stores.

If the local stores are full (such as on Friday nights with Magic players), we've found that they're frequently willing to support D&D play offsite at some other public place. We often have Expeditions at a Denny's or at a cafe, sanctioned by a local store that simply doesn't have room for us, and we collect up everyone's DCI numbers so the store can report the play in the Wizards event reporter.

You can easily find pickup games online at alonlinetools[dot]net (can't post links yet) which is the main D&DAL online site. You can also find groups in The Moonsea Pub Facebook group, which is also a place where online D&DAL players hang out and organize games.

As for not allowing private play, that's not strictly true. It's up to your connection with your store - if they want to give you the season password, you can download and play games at home or where-ever you want to. AL also has a casual play or similarly-worded statement that allows your playing of published material (HotDQ, OotA, PotA, etc) to count toward AL, you just have to log it on your log sheets.

Hope this helps!

It is my understanding that it's not appropriate for stores to be giving out the download password to folks to run home games.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Id like to go back to the article in question.

Now i understand it was written before Online play started to really crank it up, and before FG2 got their official licensing agreement with WOTC.

One of the biggest... and probably THE BIG difference for me is the amount of source material each OP campaign has. Lets be honest, Paizo's Pathfinder probably now has more book bloat than any previous edition of D&D. 3e has a lot via the OGL but its all 3rd party stuff and not produced by Paizo as Paizo has for its product.

The sheer amount of source material becomes daunting.. there are 30 + base classes a character can start in at level 1. Goodness knows how many spells, feats, weapons and so on. However PFS also has the Core mode which probably is not as popular yet, is there so newer players in particular arnt caught in the sourcebook arms race.

 

[Markh3rd]

PFS is legal to play at home and at the store. All my local stores host a PFS night and have players to play. Many having to ask for more GM's to fit all the players in. At Gencon PFS was huge. Especially the special events.


It's my opinion that WOTC should treat expeditions like PFS scenarios. Legal in store and at home. Just to promote the game in as many avenues as possible. AL can be held on a different night and be store and online only. This gives the store two nights if they wish for gamers to come join them. Sell expedition adventures online and people will gladly pay for them to run either in stores or at home.


If it works well for PFS I don't see why WOTC resists it so hard. I have friends who actually like 5E better than PF as a system. But due to Paizo having a better organized society play they prefer it over D&D. If D&D was better organized they would gladly play it more.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Mark: I think thats a selling point for both OP campaigns: That they are NOT the same and not really run the same way either. It gives people 2 distinct choices and those distinct choices might be unpalatable for whatever reason the player determines but they are just that.. 2 choices. I dont want two OP campaigns that strive to replicate each others: thats not only boring.. but samey. I like the fact that I have to play Expeditions in stores (not that my place is really big enough to offer a full table gaming experience). It means that we get to interact with people we might not normally and that AL strives to avoid the CLique mentality that home games can generate.

EDIT:

A Good example to me is the use of Meta Factions/ Organisations within the game. Im YET to see an OP which does this right. I first started playing in Living Arcanis years ago which had them (and I actually played this by accident having signed up for the wrong game. They felt part of the setting /campaign). Then Of course I was playing LG which didnt have them (outside I guess of meta orgs which were not really the same thing). Then of course we had LFR, and the PFS that does have them (but honestly Im not sure how well they incorporate in there either). Finally we have AL that also has them , and Im still yet to be convinced they are an integral part of AL.

I cant speak for the Admins, but to me a lot of the time it feels like

'We need Factions for players. They are awesome! We can have players working for the Quakers or the Illuminati. Imagine what schemes they can get up to !'

'Why? Arnt all the players supposed to be working for the same cause?'

'Sure, they can still do that but they can also plot and scheme with their faction'

'Oh okay, shove it in then'

Factions can have a place. PFS has it in a way I view as almost the political spectrum of a political party. In the case of no left/middle/ right we have Grand Lodge or Sovreign Court etc. That feels about as natural as Factions get to me.

 

[MerricB]

If it works well for PFS I don't see why WOTC resists it so hard.

It's worth noting that Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms did work that way - you could play them at home. Wizards have done it in the past, and Paizo took that method of doing the program (adding a DM-pays component) and ran with it.

The thing is that Paizo actually have a really bizarre relationship with stores. Wizards has given stores a bunch of content that can only be accessed through stores. Paizo mostly just want you to go to their website and buy stuff - get it cheaper, more regularly, and the only way to get PFS material. So, while there's in-store play, meanwhile Paizo are undercutting the stores.

Since the launch of D&D Encounters, Wizards have concentrated on making stores a place to get exclusive content.

My impression is that the DDAL program will continue to evolve and change as we go into the future, however.

Cheers!

 

[Creamsteak]

I find this subject incredibly interesting. I don't know enough about Paizo or 4e or 5e Wizard's attempts. Back in 3.0/3.5 I started Living EN World which was an attempt to create a community shared play-by-post game that spawned some other games back in the day.

If anyone fairly knowledgeable wants to share a bit on the subject I'm interested in learning more.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Creamsteak: I originally got into Living games because the guys I had grown up with and gamed with for many years had families and stopped gaming, slowly but surely. Which meant I was still a gamer, just without a gaming group. So I found Living Greyhawk, then Dragonstar , then Kalamar, then Arcanis, then Shadowrun and so on. Each appealed to me in a different way, and I met new gaming friends .. some of which I still know.. others which disappeared.

Some people are lucky and managed to keep their original gaming friends all the way through their life, but for those who live remotely or those that move for work, or those that move just cause they felt like it... Organised play is a godsend.

 

[Markh3rd]

It's worth noting that Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms did work that way - you could play them at home. Wizards have done it in the past, and Paizo took that method of doing the program (adding a DM-pays component) and ran with it.

The thing is that Paizo actually have a really bizarre relationship with stores. Wizards has given stores a bunch of content that can only be accessed through stores. Paizo mostly just want you to go to their website and buy stuff - get it cheaper, more regularly, and the only way to get PFS material. So, while there's in-store play, meanwhile Paizo are undercutting the stores.

Since the launch of D&D Encounters, Wizards have concentrated on making stores a place to get exclusive content.

My impression is that the DDAL program will continue to evolve and change as we go into the future, however.

Cheers!

I see what you mean about undercutting the store on most products, however, the store doesn't sell scenarios so that product is exclusive to paizo. Expeditions are the same way, but since WOTC has no subscription model then players must get their products from stores (online or brick). I don't see D&D expeditions being sold by WOTC via PDFs as hurting the stores.

So is the current AL model trying to avoid undercutting brick and mortar stores? Is this also why they don't sell current products via PDF and only sell out of print products?

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Markh3rd: We also dont know the ... ownership of the Scenarios. Pathfinder works on a system of they have a set number of authors who produce PFS scenarios. They occasionally get more but they have a stable.. stable of Authors. Ownership of the Scenarios rests with Paizo at the end of the day.

We dont know that AL works in the same way, due to the way the Admins are voluntary and are not employees of WOTC. The rights for the scenarios might rest with the authors or some other body, we have no way of determining that. It may mean that WOTC cannot sell the pdfs as it dosnt have the right to sell them.

THe Encounters Module? No problem.

 

[MerricB]

I see what you mean about undercutting the store on most products, however, the store doesn't sell scenarios so that product is exclusive to paizo. Expeditions are the same way, but since WOTC has no subscription model then players must get their products from stores (online or brick). I don't see D&D expeditions being sold by WOTC via PDFs as hurting the stores.

I think I've confused two things in my mind... I'll untangle them.

Paizo sell the PFS adventures in their webstore, and don't require players go to a store to play them.
Wizards release the DDAL adventures for free, but only to stores, and (generally) require players to go to a store to play them.

So is the current AL model trying to avoid undercutting brick and mortar stores? Is this also why they don't sell current products via PDF and only sell out of print products?

Yes. Very much so. Again and again in recent years, Wizards have shown how strongly they support B&M stores.

Cheers!