SCAG Thread

[Inconnunom]

Hyperbole. Utter nonsense and hyperbole.

You do realize that AL is a minority in the Dnd5E community? The book retains practical purpose for AL DMs and players (to familiarize themselves with the setting), for non-AL players, for book reviewers, for those who have impulse-control issues and "must have it ASAP", and for AL-optimizers who wish to start tinkering with the new mechanics ahead of the official announcement (whatever it may entail). The fact that the book is not yet legal for AL might result in a small % of players choosing not to purchase the book until it is AL-legal (maybe 1/20 players at a guess).

At my store alone, there were no less than three AL players who purchased the book during last evenings Expeditions session (out of 8 players), one of which usually buys his books on Amazon. I expect another 10-20 books will be purchased tonight during Encounters (out of ~60 players). While I cannot speak to the total number of sales since Friday, I did briefly mention this oft-mentioned argument to the staff in an effort to gauge whether it's lack of inclusion in AL was affecting their sales..... They looked at me as if I had grown a third eye, and clearly indicated that SCAG sales have been steady, as expected

Oh you got me! All those conversations I had with people at my own stores. Including the 4 weekly Wednesday AL tables. All made up!

You are right that all the books were still sold out, but only 2 people from the AL group bought them. 6 said they likely won't buy them. 5 said they would buy them from the store if they were legal. 14 said they would buy the book from amazon if it ends up becoming legal to save money.

The store ordered 16 and only received 8. They likely could've sold many many more books if the supply and demand were there.

 

[skerritthegreen]

The Admins have plans to announce the disposition of the SCAG no later than November 3rd (2016).

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Oh you got me! All those conversations I had with people at my own stores. Including the 4 weekly Wednesday AL people. All made up!

You are right that all the books were still sold out, but only 2 people from the AL group bought them. 6 said they likely won't buy them. 5 said they would buy them from the store if they were legal. 14 said they would buy the book from amazon if it ends up becoming legal to save money.

The store ordered 16 and only received 8. They likely could've sold many many more books if the supply and demand were there.

Oh, no, the sky is falling!

Meanwhile half my table at last Saturday's Expedition game had to have their noses pried out of the book (which they had just bought from the host store) to play Sword of Selfalril and it had been out for a day.

 

[kalani]

I am not going to discount your experience. Each individual store will have a different makeup of players, however given your small sample size - it is highly likely you are experiencing selection bias. You also cannot ignore the influence that the A-type personalities, DMs, and coordinators within your sample group have on each individuals decision whether to purchase the product. With a much larger sample size, and less direct involvement between the disparate groups, you would see a more clear picture.

In my situation, I can only gauge my responses on the ~60+ AL players who I see each week (and another 30 odd transient AL players), and the feedback I receive from store reps, and other gamers (including yourself). I am well aware, that I personally influence the overall atmosphere of AL at my store (and foster an inclusive and up-beat environment), which I know results in an increased desire to support the program (and buy product).

I am also keenly aware that other Store Coordinators also color the perceptions of AL in their respective stores, and that in stores with a more negative-view of AL (largely influenced by those who run the program), the AL players in that location are less inclined to purchase product.

With that being said however, I have no influence over the numerous non-AL groups which also purchase products at my store - but based on the feedback from the store reps I got yesterday, I suspect they have purchased quite a few already (my store tends to order in 30-60 copies at a time).

 

[Ainulindalion]

I'm not sure I agree with all of those, but Ainulindalion since you have the timeline and responsibilities down, I would ask how should the Admins fix the perceived problem, noting of course that we are still not employees and have no power to get product early, change release dates or make announcements on things we don't control?

I don't think the Admins can fix the issues that I perceive. I don't understand how people don't see what I think is perfectly obvious, but I'm willing to admit that their thinking it likely different from my own and leads them to different conclusions that I can't understand any more than than they can understand me and mine.

If you notice, the first three steps in my time line all start with something WotC does - the core problem lies there, not with the Admins.

Important: When I say 'solved' in the suggestions below, perhaps 'mitigated' is a better word. But solved is easier to type.

Now, I think a few of the problems could be solved by stickied (or whatever it's called on Facebook to keep things at the top) informational posts to the major DDAL groups.

I think there are a number of problems that could be solved by actually explaining what the various moving pieces of AL actually do on a regular/daily basis through an article on the AL website (and a general website reorganization, but that could just be me hating the current web design).

I think a number of problems could be solved by immediately handing some form of something to work on to people who offer to help (do monsters need to be typed up that got left out of the playtest version? Things like that.) Or explain why they can't actually help.

Come up with new responses to people that sound less dismissive. I don't have any suggestions - those of you who have interacted with me on the forums and on Facebook know I'm not tactful, it isn't my skill set, and I'm extremely snarky, which wouldn't improve matters.

Explain why you chose an option when you issue a ruling (on something like the random magic items in OotA, or the summoning rules). I haven't seen any of those which didn't have discussion previous to the ruling without other provided options. This will help people to understand the decision making process and understand the concerns which you are attempting to address.

 

[kalani]

Unfortunately, as with any organization - not everything which is discussed is transparent to the public, nor should it be. One thing I will state for the record, is that the AL team is very passionate, and that the vast majority of us are also players. Not only that, but we are each expected to DM at least one adventure/month and so are also keenly aware of the situation "on the ground" so to speak.

 

[Pauper]

You do realize that AL is a minority in the Dnd5E community?

This is fairly disingenuous.

For starters, the argument shares something of the same sentiment as Tia's 'why do you all spend so much energy on GenCon when only a fraction of a fraction of all D&D players are there' (paraphrased) argument. The implication is that, because the number involved is small when compared to the universe of D&D players, that number isn't relevant.

Except it totally is -- not only is more D&D played at GenCon than is likely played in any other single location over any other four-day period in the world, it's an opportunity to interact with thousands upon thousands of gamers in one place and thus more than worthy of attention. Likewise, the Adventurers League is the single largest 5th Edition D&D campaign in the world -- by many orders of magnitude. What happens in AL is significant, for it will touch more players than a change to any other individual campaign or even group of campaigns.

More importantly, AL -- through its Encounters program -- is meant to be a gateway for new players to join the D&D community. Those players will take the things they learn playing Encounters and expect those things to apply to their non-AL games, or they'll want some explanation as to why those things are different. AL sets the expectation that new 5th Edition players have of their games -- and that's not insignificant.

Now, in the campaign's defense, it is as unrealistic to expect that the Adventurers League will have an official statement of the legality of a new rules source before the rules source is generally available as it is unrealistic to expect the DM of a home game to immediately rule on the allowability of the same rules source as soon as one of her players gets ahold of a copy, regardless of whether or not the DM has even seen it. To me, it makes more sense for the AL admins to take their time deciding on the legality of new rules sources -- a DM running her own home game can pretty easily decide on the spot to ban something that looks broken in play, while a massive shared-world game doesn't have that level of flexibility. I get that such an approach is going to upset the Veruca Salts of our game who want to play with all the new toys NOW, but the role of the admins is to make the best choices for the campaign as a whole, not for any specific subset of its players.

We'll wait and see what the actual announcement next week ends up looking like, but I for one would not be disappointed if it simply boiled down to 'setting information in the first two-thirds of the book is immediately usable (with the exception of the Arcane domain); rules information in the last third of the book is legal for Season 4 characters and will be noted as such in the next revision of the Adventurers League Player's Guide'.

--
Pauper

 

[StinkyEttin]

We'll wait and see what the actual announcement next week ends up looking like, but I for one would not be disappointed if it simply boiled down to 'setting information in the first two-thirds of the book is immediately usable (with the exception of the Arcane domain); rules information in the last third of the book is legal for Season 4 characters and will be noted as such in the next revision of the Adventurers League Player's Guide'.

I think you would be alone in that sentiment. Hehe.

 

[Pauper]

I think you would be alone in that sentiment. Hehe.

You may be right.
I may be crazy.
But it just may be a lunatic that the campaign needs.

--
Pauper

 

[warfteiner]

Oh great, now *that's* in my head.