The Angry GM on D&D Encounters

[Steve_MND]

My concern is more over the larger issue that WoTC/Hasbro is decentralizing stuff because they don't want to have to deal with it personally, and by doing that the way they are doing so, they are making it harder for people to follow stuff because stuff is being floated around to so many little places here and there as opposed to all being in a single location.

And yes, we're discussing this here, because we aren't given any other real option. But this isn't anything 'official,' nor are the AL discussions that might be happening on another two dozen other fan-run message boards out there that I'm sure have seen people wandering to.

And heck, even the Official WotC Boards weren't 'official' in the way I feel they should have been (because of the way the AL was set up), but at least it had the (perhaps misapplied) ring of 'professionalism' due to it being the site run by the actual company. A company spreading it's customer service rep out to a couple dozen poorly-referenced and scattered third-party site shows a certain corporate attitude. Mind you, I shouldn't be surprised at this point (WotC has always been, shall we say, less than exceptional when it comes to its internet presence), but it's just showing a continuation of a line of behavior by the company that I personally do not think is in the best interests of anyone involved -- the company, the players, the game or the League.

And, perhaps ironically, that pulls this supposed off-topic derailment back on topic, because, like the original Angry rant also discussed, it is referring to a larger issue of how the company doesn't seem to know how to properly present themselves and interact with their customers -- cutting costs, stripping options, farming stuff out to third-party sources to let them handle it instead, etc.

 

[Pauper]

And, perhaps ironically, that pulls this supposed off-topic derailment back on topic, because, like the original Angry rant also discussed, it is referring to a larger issue of how the company doesn't seem to know how to properly present themselves and interact with their customers -- cutting costs, stripping options, farming stuff out to third-party sources to let them handle it instead, etc.

There's the rub -- you think that WotC is still a company that makes and sells a role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. To Hasbro, though, WotC is an organization that exists to manage and monetize the Dungeons and Dragons brand. In that sense, what they're doing makes perfect sense -- other people make things that make use of the brand, and WotC gets paid for that use. This also explains why some folks at WotC seem much more interested in movies and computer games than in the next RPG book or the current lore of the Forgotten Realms.

We can argue as to whether WotC *should* be run this way, and whether it's good for either the game or the 'brand' for them to manage it this way, though I'm not sure we'd disagree all that much.

--
Pauper

 

[Steve_MND]

There's the rub -- you think that WotC is still a company that makes and sells a role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons. To Hasbro, though, WotC is an organization that exists to manage and monetize the Dungeons and Dragons brand. In that sense, what they're doing makes perfect sense -- other people make things that make use of the brand, and WotC gets paid for that use. This also explains why some folks at WotC seem much more interested in movies and computer games than in the next RPG book or the current lore of the Forgotten Realms.

Oh, don't get me wrong -- I don't for a minute think that Hasbro sees D&D as anything other than a revenue stream. But that's also why I mentioned that I don't think their current approach is the best for anyone -- the players, the game, or the company. D&D (both the game and the brand) is a totally different type of product than plastic pony dolls, E-Z-bake ovens and family-friendly board games, and as a result, it can't be managed and promoted and monetized the same way. I get the feeling that they still haven't quite figured that out yet.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I'm actually kind of done excusing the AL staff for the problems with Adventurer's League. The problems do lie mainly on the WotC/contracted adventurer developer side, but the AL staff - on Facebook, on the WotC forums, and here - have a single habit that makes the issues Adventurer's League's issues far, far worse.

They never actually listen. Every time - every single time - I see people talk about problems with AL's organizational structure and content, be it adventure design, the fact that the hardcovers aren't actually well-suited for drop-in drop-out play, the complete failure of coordination with content developers that's led to the SCAG being banned from the season its own marketing copy says it's being published for, the fact that the people who actually sit in stores and run games don't understand how the structure works... the response of AL's organizational structure has been a combination of simply deleting posts (which has happened a few times that I've seen on Facebook) and saying that the problem lies on the individual store/GM level and that AL has no need to do anything about it.

Adventurer's League is a mess. I've played at multiple stores in multiple cities, and no one who's been running games has actually understood the entirety of how the system works. Information is disseminated poorly, the adventures themselves are badly suited to the format in which they are being run, there are absolutely ridiculous, needless restrictions on both how characters are built and how they are played (why ban the Elemental Evil companion from being used with a Rage of Demons character when there are absolutely no possible rules interactions between tiny variants on backgrounds in the RoD material and a few dozen spells in the Elemental Evil stuff)... and every time any of that, at all, is talked about, individual GMs and players and stores are blamed when the fault lies squarely in the way Adventurer's League is structured.

It needs to stop.

 

[skerritthegreen]

Thank you for your constructive suggestions. We'll talk about them as we work on some of the major changes we are in the process of implementing for the DnDAL.

 

[Steve_MND]

I think ultimately the real problems lie almost squarely and completely in the way the AL is set up. Namely, that everything that is of critical import to running an Organized Play campaign is not being handled by the people with boots on the ground.

The AL Coordinators have remarked before that they cannot make changes to the governing documents -- best they can do is ask WotC to make the change, and hope it shows up in the next version. They cannot provide official errata or rulings to be used in the campaign. Again, best they can hope for is to make the request and hope they see it happen down the line.

Which again, ties into the whole ongoing theme some of us have been commenting on, in that WotC/Hasbro seems to want to hand-off stuff to other people to handle, but not give them the tools to do the job properly. They want an AL out there to drum up support for the game and the brand, but they don't want to pay people to handle it in-house. So they hand it over to a bunch of volunteers to handle. However, at the same time, WotC has an important brand to handle, and so don't want any actual changes to be able to be made by the volunteer staff (since it might unknowingly contradict or interfere with a movie deal, or an upcoming Neverwinter MMO patch, or a new paperback coming out), so they keep the people they are entrusting to run the campaign out of the actual loop when it comes to implementing those needed changes.

I'm not sure, but I strongly suspect most of the volunteers at the administrative level of AL are just as exasperated as we are at the oddly-disparate division of labor/authority in the Campaign, but of course can't express it openly to the general public, because, well, that's not how you handle things in a professional environment.

And while I appreciate Skerrit's comments regarding upcoming major changes to the AL, I am cynical enough about stuff like this to actually believe in any sort of substantial change. I will of course be pleasantly surprised if any real changes manifest (as I was when 3-1 was singularly made playable outside the auspices of a game store), but I am in no way actually expecting it, as they claim.

 

[skerritthegreen]

And while I appreciate Skerrit's comments regarding upcoming major changes to the AL, I am cynical enough about stuff like this to actually believe in any sort of substantial change. I will of course be pleasantly surprised if any real changes manifest (as I was when 3-1 was singularly made playable outside the auspices of a game store), but I am in no way actually expecting it, as they claim.

Also please remember the speed at which we make changes. We generally do not make changes during a season. Season 3 is largely done for us, so its unlikely you will see the really large charges this season, though some of the smaller ones might occur or at least get explained. We are currently working on season 4. That means we MIGHT be allowed to get the changes in for that season. If it takes much longer, you might not see the really large changes until season 5.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Also please remember the speed at which we make changes. We generally do not make changes during a season. Season 3 is largely done for us, so its unlikely you will see the really large charges this season, though some of the smaller ones might occur or at least get explained. We are currently working on season 4. That means we MIGHT be allowed to get the changes in for that season. If it takes much longer, you might not see the really large changes until season 5.

The biggest changes that are needed aren't in the rules - though Ao knows that the rules also need a huge overhaul. It's in the structure of AL and how information is passed from WorC to AL to players and DMs. That shouldn't require waiting for a new season to start to implement - and if it takes a full year, I am quite certain that I at least will be sufficiently fed up to have given up entirely on AL, which means it won't help me.

 

[skerritthegreen]

As was said when the campaign started, the rules for the campaign will only change at the beginning of each season. In past campaigns, campaign documentation was changed frequently and it lead to significant confusion as people used old versions of the rules to justify a ruling, or had illegal PCs since they didn't know a new document was uploaded. It is for that reason that the DnDAL decided there would be a specific date for rule changes (the start of each season; twice a year).

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

As was said when the campaign started, the rules for the campaign will only change at the beginning of each season. In past campaigns, campaign documentation was changed frequently and it lead to significant confusion as people used old versions of the rules to justify a ruling, or had illegal PCs since they didn't know a new document was uploaded. It is for that reason that the DnDAL decided there would be a specific date for rule changes (the start of each season; twice a year).

... When I say that the big thing I want to see change is how communication happens rather than the specific rules, and the answer I get is that the rules can't be changed except in specific windows, my faith that communication can or will be improved takes a marked downturn.