Be interesting to see how long WOTC lets you poach their cons,
WotC, as an entity, doesn't care about cons, per se. They have vendors who organize their Organized Play events for them -- at most of the big cons, that vendor is Baldman Games, and at smaller cons, it's a local who may or may not have been part of the old 'coordinator' system. Baldman probably won't bother with a rival for their business (they did nothing at GenCon 2018 when
ConTessa ran a number of AL events in parallel with Baldman's own events), and smaller organizers likely won't have much ability to complain unless they already have an 'in' with con management, which is really a different issue.
Personally, I think the project, while well-intended, has failed to think through its organization and likely will never get fully off the ground. For example, they claim the organizing principle of their program is "[e]very DM is the God and controller of their own table and game," yet they include this bit in their call to DMs:
There is no dictator of Realms Reborn. All decisions and changes must be made by consensus of concerned active RR DMs. Some example of where rules could be changed is that you could call a discussion and vote to approve a new magic item you made up. If all the voting DMs approve that item, it is added to our wiki as another universally legal item. Then, and only then, any RR DM is bound to accept it into their table. (emphasis mine)
So on the one hand, there isn't a 'dictator' of Realms Reborn, but on the other hand, if it's in the wiki, then every Realms Reborn DM is obligated to allow it in their game. That kinda sounds like the wiki is the dictator to me.
Supposedly there's a 'DM Calls' log that allows you to break the rules, but there's no mechanism for enforcing that log except the idea that any DM can reject anything listed on the DM Calls log.
I applaud the designers for trying to emphasize DM freedom as a way of encouraging DMs to sign up for the program -- the number of available DMs is basically the bottleneck in any RPG Organized Play system -- but this seems like a hastily thought-out hack that's going to end up defaulting to AL norms as soon as anything truly controversial comes up. (As an example, they've already adopted 'PH+1' from AL as a core campaign rule.)
No need to hate on Realms Reborn -- they just need to take more inspiration from successful third-party OP campaigns like NASCRAG and Ashes of Athas. If they can do that, and create a successful organized play experience, that's nothing but good for players who find themselves disillusioned by the AL experience.
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Pauper
