SCAG Thread

[Tia Nadiezja]

Sorry to hear that you feel that way - but I know that you're not alone in that sentiment.

Suffice it to say that it's an ongoing conversation between us, the players/DMs, and the team in the office. If you have specific thoughts on it, drop me a line on Facebook or at community@dndadventurersleague.org.

Back on the SCAG track, though... bladesingers, man, bladesingers. I remember wanting to play them SO badly back in second edition... and then third edition (even though to make what I thought was a solid build required like 4 stinkin' books)... fourth had an interesting take.

Looks like I'm making a new character soon. Dex + Int to Armor Class? OK!

An iconic character of mine I've been trying to get the story of told since the early days of 3e is a girl named Kaywin Myrdrivar. She is subject to much misfortune, most of it involving campaigns getting cut off two sessions in so her story never really gets started, much less finished.

But here's who she is.

Kaywin is a human girl, an orphan (in homebrew settings, the last of a civilization wiped out by a plague). She is also subject of a prophecy held by a small but powerful group of elves, who believe she is the herald of some doom for the elvish races.

The cult sends a bladesinger to kill her. His name is Sylan Lon, and he is a believer in the prophecy and sworn to do anything necessary to protect the elves. So he goes to hunt down this child, so her fate is never realized.

But Sylan is also a person, and when he finds his target he is surprised to realize that what he sees is not a doom but a child. He can't bring himself to kill her, or to abandon her to the next assassin who will surely come.

So he kidnaps her. Takes her away with him. He has already violated his oath, and knows his life will be forfeit, so he does the one thing he thinks will give her even a chance to survive - he teaches her. He trains her in the Bladesong, in violation of every rule there is.

Eventually, when the girl is a teenager, the cult's assassins do find them. Kaywin and Sylan are separated in the ensuing fighting, and Kaywin is convinced her master and foster father is dead. She disguises herself as a boy, and goes to make her way in the world, always knowing still that she is being hunted.

Yes, I love Bladesingers. I preordered the book because I want to read it, but WotC likely could have gotten me to spend the asking price for a one-page pamphlet with the Bladesinger subclass on the front and the word "BLADESING!" in Comic Sans on the back.

Lest one think I am consumed utterly by negative feelings... I talk and complain and agitate because I love this game, it has given me more happy memories than any othet hobby or vocation or activity I have ever partaken in, and I want to see it stay great and be a great avenue for others to build memories with too.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Let's share memories of the game elements in the new book.

 

[StinkyEttin]

I... wow. Okay, I am feeling exceptionally cynical about AL lately. I am sorry. I very much hope that the announcement of AL's rule on SCAG reduces that.

But as long as you're expecting people to spend hundreds of dollars to go to conventions to get certs and access to some adventures, you're aggressively going to fail to convince me that "avoiding pay to win" is an active goal of AL administration.

I'd much rather see "support your FLGS to win" than "buy a plane ticket and weekend con pass to win."

We don't expect people to attend cons to get certs. We expect people to attend cons to play the game. Certs are anything but pay-to-win.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

We don't expect people to attend cons to get certs. We expect people to attend cons to play the game. Certs are anything but pay-to-win.

Dismissiveness toward player concerns is central to my current cynicism about AL. It would do wonders for my overall sense of optimism about the direction organized play is going if attitudes from admins more closely resembled Mr. Paul Revere Guy (sorry, on Tapatalk and I would have to discard the post I'm writing to look up your username) and less like this.

 

[StinkyEttin]

I totally do the Paul Revere thing, too. Ask anyone!

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I totally do the Paul Revere thing, too. Ask anyone!

One lantern if by seasonal origin, two if by evergreen coreness?

 

[StinkyEttin]

It's almost as if...::gasp::...we don't live to intentionally annoy our playerbase! I'm not 100% sure on what is going to be released and I couldn't speak on it if I did, but rest assured that we realize that people want to use the materials in the book; despite what the doomsayers want you (and they themselves) to believe.

That aside, you're confusing simple disagreement for dismissiveness. It's fun, hip, and easy to imagine the Admins and Wizards as sitting around a table all conspiring and devising new ways to make the players miserable. Let me go on the record and state that that isn't the case. Wizards produced a product that you can play wholly for free. We administer a program that, again, you can play wholly for free. If it inspires you to go buy the book, awesome! If not, awesome! Bottom line is we just want folks to play and have fun doing it.

Going to cons can be expensive. Players have to shell out hundreds of dollars to attend. Some do it out of the hopes of getting a certificate, but the majority doesn't. In my experience, those that don't expect a con cert typically don't leave disappointed. But just like it costs hundreds of dollars to attend for players, it also costs hundreds of dollars for the DMs, Admin, and staff to attend--myself included. Sure I might get comped a badge or a hotel room for DMing 24+ hours of D&D, but living on the west coast isn't easy on the wallet when most of the major conventions are in the Mid West.

Again, we just want you guys to have fun. If that means playing/DMing the game, great. But if that means painting us as dismissive villains who don't give a lick about the folks we work hard to placate, it sucks for us, but hey, everybody plays the game differently; as long as you're having fun photoshopping a black eye and blackened out tooth on my picture, knock yourself out, I guess.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

It's almost as if...::gasp::...we don't live to intentionally annoy our playerbase! I'm not 100% sure on what is going to be released and I couldn't speak on it if I did, but rest assured that we realize that people want to use the materials in the book; despite what the doomsayers want you (and they themselves) to believe.

That aside, you're confusing simple disagreement for dismissiveness. It's fun, hip, and easy to imagine the Admins and Wizards as sitting around a table all conspiring and devising new ways to make the players miserable. Let me go on the record and state that that isn't the case. Wizards produced a product that you can play wholly for free. We administer a program that, again, you can play wholly for free. If it inspires you to go buy the book, awesome! If not, awesome! Bottom line is we just want folks to play and have fun doing it.

Going to cons can be expensive. Players have to shell out hundreds of dollars to attend. Some do it out of the hopes of getting a certificate, but the majority doesn't. In my experience, those that don't expect a con cert typically don't leave disappointed. But just like it costs hundreds of dollars to attend for players, it also costs hundreds of dollars for the DMs, Admin, and staff to attend--myself included. Sure I might get comped a badge or a hotel room for DMing 24+ hours of D&D, but living on the west coast isn't easy on the wallet when most of the major conventions are in the Mid West.

Again, we just want you guys to have fun. If that means playing/DMing the game, great. But if that means painting us as dismissive villains who don't give a lick about the folks we work hard to placate, it sucks for us, but hey, everybody plays the game differently; as long as you're having fun photoshopping a black eye and blackened out tooth on my picture, knock yourself out, I guess.

You're kinda strawmanning me a bit, but I get the frustration. I'm very aware that AL staff works hard and is basically uncompensated. I'm not actually a fan of that - I think it would be both more just and more effective if AL were run by paid staff, because from a business perspective what y'all do is marketing.

I don't think you go to dark rooms and smoke cigars while plotting how to frustrate gamers. I think you - and WotC's people - honestly want to make the game and Organized Play as fun as possible.

I also think that AL staff exists in a bit of a bubble, one built on convention play and specific views of how tables actually work and of having too much information about the rules of AL and too little about how they are used at the table, that makes communication difficult.

I also think that there have been serious, systemic failures of design and rulemaking that have imposed needless and frustrating restrictions on how people play the game. My usual example of that is the season structure banning the Elemental Evil guide from being used on the same characters as the Rage of Demons backgrounds, in spite of bad interactions between those two sources literally being impossible.

I also think that even more serious failures of communication and coordination have happened between the playerbase, the AL staff, WotC's people, and the third party contractors that produce content for the game. The embodiement of this is us being told repeatedly that the SCAG would probably not be allowed during Season 3 even as the book's marketing copy specifically called out its usefulness with the Rage of Demons story content.

Finally, and this is where things come to land on AL staff, I have found that the vast bulk of the time that I bring up concerns, be it here or on Facebook, what I get is a quick dismissal of the very idea that problems could possibly exist at all.

I love this game. I want many, many people to come to love it and have their lives enriched by it as I have. I think AL - having regular, structured, portable games happening predictably at locations near their homes and online - is the best tool for making that happen.

So I want AL to work better.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I'm surprised to see things move forwards at such a clip for AL inclusion. I have been very impressed with the SCAG thus far in my reading. Like the other WOTC books I find it actually fun to read (not a very common experience for me with gaming books). The authors have provided a nice resource for players who are looking for context for their PCs. In particular I like the restraint that has been used in providing new game mechanics to the core for FR.

 

[warfteiner]

YES! The game has enough mechanics as-is -- the lore, the story, the themes... those are the toys with which we should be playing. It's part of 5th edition's central design philosophy: story first.

(it's not to say that I don't love me some psionics, or spell-less rangers, or any number of other things... but I'm here for the story, not to carry my duffel bag with 17 hardcovers to run/play a game)