The Angry GM on D&D Encounters

[Tyranthraxus]

Ive finally had a chance to read the original blog post.

I think he does have soem valid points in amongst the hyperbole.

Ive always felt that the Modules (the hardcovers) dont really fit with AL. They are obviously not written for AL and while many people can make it work for them in AL, quite a few dms might get confused and avoid it.

As noted we often get the 'the AL Admins dont have anything to do with the Modules so can only provide limited guidance'. Which is a problem there to be honest, as the players and dms are being asked to play and run these modules which were essentially shoehorned into AL and the AL Admin not given sufficient time to able to overview these before they are rushed into action. Now Im not saying here that the AL Admins are consulted when the writers are creating the module from the base, obviously that wouldnt work. What Im saying is explained below.

A Much better method, would actually be a 2 month 'gap' period. Over this time the Admins comb the core module, point out areas which will need a 'look' at , perhaps form a team that goes over specific chapters. If the module uses a milestone method and AL obviously does not , a document would be created which exactly and definitively comes from the top (at the moment we have multiple people giving similar views on where a module should be cut up to award dowtime, renown and so on. All very valid documents but nothing really 'official'. And that at the end of the day should be what is needed. An Official document so there is no ... leeway or variation here)

A Good example might be Hazirawn an oft talked about Sword from an earlier module which was Intelligent. The conversion document might say 'Replace Hazirawn with a +2 Greatsword' . Thats just one example but it removes the whole issue of the item which has AL rules implications with an item that really does not. It creates no ambiguity, but clearly defines the end result

THis is why I think 2 months from when All stores receive it (not from when the special premier stores do) would be best. You release the pdf 2 months (or a month but no less than that). As it is, the Module is feeling rushed into service.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not sure I agree with you.

Hello!

Since you apparently missed the end of my post, here it is again: ;-)

Best Regards,
Zapp ;-)

 

[SteveC]

Interesting to see this discussion here.

I pretty much agree with his comments on all counts. I played in the Encounters series when 5E first came out to teach myself the game and to meet some new players on my (then) new side of town. The sessions were awful.

If you're going to have a two-hour drop in session, you really need to do things completely differently from a standard campaign adventure. You have to allow for no continuity of players or characters and you need to have something that both finishes and is satisfying in a short time. I only played the first three seasons of Encounters (so a module and a half) but I found them to be poorly suited for what they were trying to accomplish.

Now I also agree as to the "whys": cost. You could create an Encounters appropriate adventure in the spirit of the current module adventure path to help with branding, but that would take time and money. Those are things WotC doesn't seem to have much of these days.

For a GOOD example of the Encounter format, I suggest looking at the 13th Age Organized Play adventures. These are TERRIFIC at running in the context of drop in/out players and use a "bus stop" method where you can do many different things during the session, but you're assumed to get to a specified place at the end, so that next week everyone can start at the same spot.

 

[Pauper]

I had to chuckle a bit here because reading the 'official' response from Kalani might suggest that Angry is just ranting about a program he doesn't really understand. The irony is that Angry is writing his rant from the perspective of someone running the program in a store (or what Adventurers League refers to as a 'store organizer'). His observations are likely to be exactly the same as any thoughtful DM who finds out about Adventurers League and convinces his local store owner to let him try running it to bring in more business.

(As an aside, it also points out why I've never been eager to get involved in the official structure of the Adventurers League -- when you join an organization, that organization becomes part of your 'tribe', and your perspective shifts. You may think you're still as critical and objective as you were before you joined, but, like Kalani, you tend to begin responding to criticism not based on the actual content of the criticism, but rather based on the degree you feel that criticism hurts your 'tribe'. You might even find yourself willing to misrepresent your critic's points to deflect what you feel is hurtful criticism, but is really just a good sharp whack with the truth-stick. Cases in point follow.)

There are several misconceptions here:

The encounters seasons do not end on a cliffhanger.

Angry doesn't say that every Encounters season ends on a cliffhanger -- he says:

"You might wonder what happens when you finish chapter three of the Out of the Abyss adventure. Well, it ends on a cliffhanger."

And it absolutely does. Kalani herself even says so:

At the end of each PDF, is a message saying that if the party wishes to continue the adventure they can purchase the full adventure and continue running it (either at home, or on Wednesdays as their "Encounters"). The confusion comes from the fact that these EXCERPTS do end on a cliffhanger, with the promise that the players can continue the adventure by purchasing the hardcover.

Interestingly, Kalani doesn't restrict herself to just talking about Out of the Abyss, implying that every DDEN PDF ends with a cliffhanger, which just makes Angry's point for him:

"But what does the Organized Play Guide suggest you do in your store when you finish the Encounters season? It very strongly suggests your GM buy the full version of Out of the Abyss to continue the fun.

That’s right. The first three chapters are free. Then it’ll cost your GM or your store $50. Or else you get to say to the players 'Sorry, guys, you don’t get to know how it comes out unless we can pool our cash and buy the book.'"

The DDEN adventures are intended to be the gateway program to the entire Adventurers League.

That seems to suggest that Encounters are intended for new and/or inexperienced D&D players, or at least players inexperienced with the Organized Play program. Strangely, this isn't in conflict with the mission of Encounters as Angry finds it:

"Now, I support the mission of the Encounters program. Give new and inexperienced players a chance to see D&D. Give them a regular play experience that allows them to transition to other games or just have some weekly fun for two hours. But that requires a pretty specific type of product."

Angry's point is that the product he's given doesn't fit the mission he's been given. It's as if Angry's colonel wanted Angry's squad to take an enemy machine-gun nest, but authorized only a toaster oven as equipment, because a toaster oven is what the colonel has access to.

Kalani's next point isn't wrong:

For want of better words, "Encounters night" simply means D&D Night for Everyone. You can run an Expedition on Wednesday nights - and it would still be called "Encounters". You can run a hardcover adventure on Wednesday night - and it will still be called Encounters (even if you have gone further in the story than the DDEN excerpt covers).

But how is an isolated store organizer supposed to know that? What should be happening is that the local coordinator, in a routine canvas of the stores in her local area, should happen upon this organizer with a problem -- we've got a core group of players who like playing the game, but are frustrated at having to re-start from level 1 every new season. The local coordinator should then respond, "Hey, sounds like you've got a perfect group to start D&D Expeditions! Here's how to coordinate with your store owner to get access to the Expeditions adventures; you can run a table of that right alongside your regular Encounters game for the casual and drop-in players you get on Wednesday night if you want!"

I'd be willing to bet, though, that Angry has no idea who his local coordinator is. I know I sure don't. I realize that AL doesn't want to burn out coordinators by requiring them to do more work than they're willing to sign up for, but this seems like a pretty fundamental function for AL to work. It shouldn't be something that's left to store organizers to figure out on their own, especially when WotC maintains a nice searchable public database of all the stores who report running D&D Encounters on their website. A local coordinator should, at least twice a month, visit a store in her region that's running Encounters just to 'check in'. Is the store ready to incorporate Expeditions? Do folks at the store plan to visit a convention and want to know how their characters port over for those games? Are folks hoping to get some Adventurers League running at their own local convention and need a little help getting pointed toward useful resources? Do they just need an extra DM for the night to incorporate a larger-than-normal turnout?

True story: I went to a game store in Milwaukee some months ago to get in some AL play. There were about a dozen people waiting to play, but no DMs showed up. If the LC had walked in the door and offered to take the half-dozen people who hadn't played before and run them through a couple of scenarios from one of the DDEX x-1 adventures, she'd have been the most popular person in the store.

Of course, the other advantage of not being inside the organization is that I can take whatever tone I choose -- Angry can go hyperbolic (though in this case, he's not nearly as hyperbolic as claimed; he spends pretty much the entire first half of the rant qualifying that he's a fan of WotC and D&D -- heck, he wouldn't be trying to organize AL if he wasn't!) and he doesn't have to worry about tarnishing the reputation of the organization he's representing, because he's only representing himself. Folks inside the AL need to take more care -- exaggerating or outright misrepresenting criticism suggests that not just the person responding but the whole organization takes criticism badly, or at least won't take it seriously.

And as to the criticism that WotC's direction with Encounters is cheap and/or lazy? The very fact that we're having this conversation on an ENWorld AL forum and not on WotC's own forums speaks to that point as well. It may not be entirely WotC's fault that Encounters is a program that looks like it's trying to get by on the cheap, especially when compared to the usually high-quality adventures offered by the other arms of the Adventurers League program, but at the very least they should own the criticism and either explain why things appear that way, or do something to change the underlying reality of an increasingly common perception.

--
Pauper

 

[skerritthegreen]

True story: I went to a game store in Milwaukee some months ago to get in some AL play. There were about a dozen people waiting to play, but no DMs showed up.

I would be very interested to know what store this was.

 

[Pauper]

I would be very interested to know what store this was.

It was the Board Game Barrister in Bayshore Town Center.

I should also point out, in the interest of fairness, that the manager of the store was very apologetic and offered to open up the gaming area for open gaming (they normally charge for Expeditions, either in cash or in store credit via their loyalty card). I got the impression this was not a common occurrence. Indeed, when I and my girlfriend went back the following month, there were plenty of DMs available.

Still, a serendipitous visit from the LC would have worked wonders on that one weekend.

 

[kalani]

Here is my issue with your scenario - why didn't TWO of those dozen people offer to DM? Then the situation would have resolved with two tables of 5 players each. This is a major problem with the gaming industry - too many people who want to play, but not enough willing to step up and DM if the situation demands.

Sure, the game may have played a little rougher than normal (due to DMs having a lack of prep time), but they could have still winged it better, and everyone would have enjoyed themselves more than waiting for someone else to arrive/step up.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Kalani: Its entirely possible nobody there had a copy of the Module or anything else Expeditions wise. Its impossible to run a game if nobody actually has the resources on them to run the game.

And I agree it is a major problem with the gaming industry. Too many players, too few dms. However the module we are getting for Encounters are not helping. I dont think OOTS is particuarly great for a brand new dm. The party captured and having to work out how to escape is a great story entry point, but I think its one that experienced dms would be able to provide a better scope for a group than a new dm.

Id also point to some expeditions scenarios. In more than a few scenarios we have missing stat blocks. Things are referenced, but they are not there. The point of the Expeditions scenarios is that they are mostly self contained (bar of course spell caster opponents.. for which you need to read up on the spells). The issue here being what happens if a monster is missing?

You might for example as has been described already get to a store. THere are 12 players and no dms. You step forward to run a game and someone (lets say the shop owner) gives yoo 'The Trials of Manshoon'a Tier 1-4 scenario. After working out that yes everyone there can actually play (the cover says Tier 5-10 and that is a 2 hour game.. when In fact its a Tier 1-4 game that is 4 hours), you quickly rush through and finder that you need to replace a Bandit with a Thug. You soon learn that there are no stats for a Thug there or the hippogriff but you do have stats for a Bandit Captain), normally being a player you dont actually own a monster manual, nobody else there has one and the shop is all out currently.

So you basically decide to ignore the tiering within the game on your 7 player table (because too many people pleaded to play and even though you felt uncomforable with 7 players you feel you have to do so (also because the shop owner dosnt like players leaving angry/sad). You then proceed to run the game cold ,missing out on some key points because you missed them on your first readthrough with some points of the game not making sense to some of the players.

I would actually point out at this point in time that 'rushing' people into DM cold is NEVER ever a good thing. It can even put players off the game even if they know that the new dm never actually wanted to be the dm that day. Id actually say its far preferrable to just call off that game day and reschedule. (Yeah my example above was a worst case scenario but elements can and do happen)

Ive attempted to recuit locally for a long time as I generally wear the the hat of being the Local LC and DM. Ive had reasons like

'Oh I dont like to run modules/written scenarios. I want to make stuff up'
'I dont enjoy dming'
'I wouldnt know how to'
'I dont have the time'
'It costs too much to be a dm'
'I want to play with my friends'
'You are too restricted in what you can put in the adventure'

and variations on that. Ive finally got a new dm who is willing to run an Expeditions game. Its taken me since Jan of this year.and he is only going to be running a single game of Expeditions a Month.

We had 4 tables at the start of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Now there is my table of Princes of the Apocalypse. We simply lost all those players and dms from D&D to a combination of 'Its too hard to dm' to 'I dont enjoy this anymore'. If I was to stop running Princes, I havnt seen a single soul at my tables on Wed night who would step up to take over and I have asked on several occasions if anyone would consider dming a table even on an infrequent rarity.

 

[SteveC]

Here is my issue with your scenario - why didn't TWO of those dozen people offer to DM? Then the situation would have resolved with two tables of 5 players each. This is a major problem with the gaming industry - too many people who want to play, but not enough willing to step up and DM if the situation demands.

Sure, the game may have played a little rougher than normal (due to DMs having a lack of prep time), but they could have still winged it better, and everyone would have enjoyed themselves more than waiting for someone else to arrive/step up.

Perhaps it could be that these people were beginners to D&D and weren't comfortable running a game at all, let alone one with no prep and no adventure.

Expeditions is targeted to gamers who are new to the hobby, so perhaps that's who showed up.

 

[skerritthegreen]

Still, a serendipitous visit from the LC would have worked wonders on that one weekend.

I wonder if the store organizer notified the LC that the event was occurring. (As I am in SE WI) I know the LC for Milwaukee runs at different local gaming stores twice a week; which is not at all part of the job of being an LC. Its just something he does.