The Angry GM on D&D Encounters

[skerritthegreen]

Seriously, though, this does make me more curious to see what is going to be announced.

Hopefully you can be patient for a few more months. (or you have significant money to subscribe to my bribeletter/newsletter!)

 

[Pauper]

The whole point behind Organized Play is the idea that you can participate in it wherever you are. You can grab your character from your home in New York, where you play AL with friends in your local game store, and then be able to sit down at another game store when you're on a two-day stopover in Chicago or something, or a convention you visit, or when you're out visiting the inlaws in Seattle.

I agree with this -- portability is the key behind an Organized Play campaign.

And the only way that works is by having consistent rules. Not necessarily ad-hoc rulings mind you, which are always going to pop up and vary from DM to DM. But consistent rules are the heartbeat of any Organized Play campaign.

And with this, we diverge. After all, the #1 unwritten rule of Adventurers League (and to an extent, any Organized Play program) is this: Expect Table Variation.

Table variation doesn't just come from ad-hoc rulings; it comes from the fact that two people can look at the exact same sentence and come away with very different interpretations of what that sentence means. It comes from the fact that translations are almost never perfect, so AL in Germany or Costa Rica has subtle differences from AL in the United States.

As far as the rules for how AL is organized, then I'll reluctantly agree with your point -- the organizers do want those rules, contained mainly in the ALPG and in the Organizer's Page FAQ, to be as consistent as possible. But the D&D rules? AL has no Sage, and the official D&D Sage, Jeremy Crawford, is not considered official for AL.

That's because 'consistency of play' has never meant 'every table has exactly the same experience'; that's not possible even with the most draconian top-down organization, because the game includes dice (to use the most brain-dead example). If you leave your game in Ohio to play one in New York City, you may not find everything they do to be the same as your old game did, but if you're willing to roll with it, you'll find you can still have a good time, and if everybody approaches the game from a standpoint of wanting to have fun and not wanting to get too bogged down in the minutia of which rule applies when and how, it's pretty likely you will all have a good time. That's ultimately the goal, but it requires players to go along with the method. And that method is not really compatible with certain play-styles: heavy optimization, for instance, which relies on a specific, consistent set of game rule interpretations, doesn't transport well without a consensus on those consistent game rule interpretations.

Frankly, I think the 'storyline season' concept is an innovative, interesting alternative to having someone from the top review every new rules source and figure out which is OK and which is abusive, knowing in advance that one set of eyes will never find as much stuff as all the eyes playing the game will. It means you don't need to publish and maintain lists like this, as an example.

--
Pauper

 

[Pauper]

Hopefully you can be patient for a few more months. (or you have significant money to subscribe to my bribeletter/newsletter!)

Well, I do plan to be at GameHole Con, which I believe is in your neck of the woods. Perhaps a copy of your bribe... er, *news*letter might be available there? ; )

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Pauper

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Well, I do plan to be at GameHole Con, which I believe is in your neck of the woods. Perhaps a copy of your bribe... er, *news*letter might be available there? ; )

--
Pauper

Make sure to pack your Endless Tankard.

 

[skerritthegreen]

Well, I do plan to be at GameHole Con, which I believe is in your neck of the woods. Perhaps a copy of your bribe... er, *news*letter might be available there? ; )

Sadly I have not been invited to Gamehole and so while its less than an hour away from my house, I currently have no plans to attend. My current lack of employment makes it cost prohibitive. I will be at DCV16 in Milwaukee the weekend before Gamehole however.

 

[Pauper]

Sorry to hear it. Best of luck with the job search!

 

[Raddu]

I'm not entirely sure. I do know that it would be clear, concise, and rely heavily on FAQs and establishing a shared vocabulary.

To understand what you mean, can you point out some things that are unclear and not concise? What type of shared vocabulary?

They're in that business already. When they banned house rules and required that everything follow the written adventures, season guides, and PHB, with very limited DMG material, they got themselves into the business of making sure the rules are standard - the the game is played basically the same way in Melbourne, Buffalo, and Tacoma. That means defining what that way is, and communicating it to players and DMs.

Our rules are spelled out pretty clearly in the D&D AL PG. Aside from that we use regular the D&D rules. When there is a questions about the regular D&D rules, we do not make rulings and either allow the D&D team to rule on them or allow DMs the lattitude to rule how they want at their table.

 

[Raddu]

Some exceptionally frustrated DMs express well written and poignant disapproval. Post gets locked and nobody can say anything about it anymore.

From what I understand the cut threads and comments were about running games outside of AL rules. Since it's an AL group we keep threads and topics on AL. If people want to play non-AL games, that's totally cool, but we don't want to confuse people with off topic comments.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Exactly what Raddu says above. Im in a lot of facebook groups. If Im reading something in say 'AL Discussion' then it damn well needs to be about AL. I have no interest in reading what someone is doing in their home game with Warforged and Birdmen when I know the game cant possibly be AL. Its hard enough when we get people self promoting their gaming blogs by acting as a person interested in this 'new blog they just found' or when people post links to conventions with no information at all in the original post on where and when the convention actually is.

Im not a a huge fan of FAQs. Often times they are hard to find, and far too easy to rely on. (what I mean here that its generally easier for a campaign to update the FAQ and hope dms refer to it, than it is to actually update the scenario in question to immediately clear things up) I do however understand why they are necessary.

 

[Inconnunom]

From what I understand the cut threads and comments were about running games outside of AL rules. Since it's an AL group we keep threads and topics on AL. If people want to play non-AL games, that's totally cool, but we don't want to confuse people with off topic comments.

That is fine for you to think that, but that was not the case. Either way, that is not the point of my post. My post was about how quickly a situation arose (blank certs) and AL officials did not handle it well. You may disagree, but an increasing amount players/DMs feel that there is a big gap in coordination between WotC, AL, and the players/DMs. Greg Marks had already done an admirable job responding to and tying off the end of that conversation.

Ironically, by snipping a small piece of what I had written, you are starting to go off on a tangent which might end up confusing people.