Adventurers League LC Introduction

[Brynnan]

Greetings everyone.

I am the newly-appointed Local Coordinator for Fantasy Grounds for the Adventure League Online Region. I officially represent the AL Organization on the FG Forums. If you have any questions about AL or official Wizard's of the Coast modules, feel free to let me know.

I just posted some information in the Adventurers League board (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?95-D-amp-D-Adventurer-s-League-Games) here about the new Season 5 coming up as well as a bit about Fantasy Ground modules for upcoming adventures. Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions.

[damned]

Vedui Brynnan!

[Nylanfs]

Yes, Welcome!

[Aldente]

Welcome! Might be able to get back into AL this coming season. Here's to hoping my schedule allows! :)

[Brynnan]

Welcome! Might be able to get back into AL this coming season. Here's to hoping my schedule allows! :)

I'm thrilled to death about the new season. While Dragons are my favorite, (and I wasn't back into D&D for Season 1), Giants are next. I'm going to love it. I just don't know what class to play. I'd hate to recap my wizard for the hundredth time, but I do really like squirming, burning giants...

But if you can't find a game between the FG calendar and the AL Quest of the Week schedules, then you just need to quit your job. Them's crazy hours.

[Galach]

Greetings everyone.

I am the newly-appointed Local Coordinator for Fantasy Grounds for the Adventure League Online Region. I officially represent the AL Organization on the FG Forums. If you have any questions about AL or official Wizard's of the Coast modules, feel free to let me know.

Well, welcome aboard!

And lucky me, because I now have someone to ask some questions.

I am planning to start participating on Organized Play again, using Fantasy Grounds for that. I am no stranger to OP, since I DMed the entire Mark of Heroes and Xen’drik Expeditions back on the days of Eberron 3.5.

I saw that the format of play changed a bit: somethings for better, others not as much, but that is life. Fortunately, now we can DM and play the official adventures through Fantasy Grounds.

I am now in the possession of the material needed to play, I have an Ultimate License of Fantasy Grounds so anyone can play, I checked my DCI number and it is ok (I had even remembered my password) and OBS Studio is up and running, linked to both my YouTube and Twitch accounts…

And, with the new season kicking in, and a sudden interest on Fantasy Grounds among Brazilian players, I think this would be a great time to start to promote both AL and FG around here, now I just need to know: how can I get the adventures?

[Brynnan]

In the upcoming Season 5 that starts August 26th, hopefully most of the PDFs of the adventures will have FG mods released along side. So when you buy the Adventure you get both. (Previously US$2.99-US$3.99. I haven't heard of a price change, but we'll wait and see.) The previous 4 seasons worth of Adventures, some 60 total, will probably all be converted and updated with .mod files. About a dozen or so are already available. You can see the list on DMsGuild (https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?test_epoch=0&filters=0_0_0_0_0_0_45545_0).

[Galach]

Well, just for the sake of clarifying things: so now do I need to buy the adventures? Aren't they free for DM's anymore?

[timdog88]

Yes, since the dms guild opened, the authors are only paid by their royalties from sales, so everyone has to purchase the adventures.

[Brynnan]

Well, just for the sake of clarifying things: so now do I need to buy the adventures? Aren't they free for DM's anymore?

Season 4 was released on DMsGuild as well as for stores download, but starting with Season 5, it my understanding that adventures will only be released on DMsGuild. If you play in a Local Game Store, you can always ask them if they will pay for them, but that's up to them.

[Galach]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

Since I am from the time when DMs got a printed adventure, transparent spell templates, printed maps and a bunch o miniatures as reward for DMing official adventures, I just thought it was weird to pay to make merchandising for WotC products.

[JohnD]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

Since I am from the time when DMs got a printed adventure, transparent spell templates, printed maps and a bunch o miniatures as reward for DMing official adventures, I just thought it was weird to pay to make merchandising for WotC products.
Welcome to the future! :p

[Myrdin Potter]

You pay for adventures that you get to keep and run and they include VTT files as well. And if you report everything using your DCI number you can earn rewards.

[Galach]

You pay for adventures that you get to keep and run and they include VTT files as well. And if you report everything using your DCI number you can earn rewards.

Well, I may be bitching here, but let’s consider some things:

AL adventure average playing time – 2 hours.
AL adventure average price – US$ 3,00
Average Number of AL adventures per season – 10
Does it include handouts, illustrations and maps? Sometimes, usually hand drawn, two-colors, area maps.
Do you earn “rewards” on AL for running/playing them? Yes.
Total investment – roughly US$ 30,00 per 20 hours of play (US$ 1,5/hour)

Official Campaign Module average playing time – 20 hours (based on Out of the Abyss or Curse of Strhad)
Official Campaign Module average price – Us$ 35,00
Does it include handouts, illustrations and maps? Yes, modules are usually fully featured with professionally created illustrations, handouts and maps (sometimes even battle maps).
Do you earn “rewards” on AL for running/playing them? Yes.
Total investment – roughly US$ 35,00 per 20 hours of play (US$ 1,75/hour)

And unless I am very wrong, the rewards for DMing an official campaign or an AL module are the same – and I do not see earning “extra down time” as a big reward.

Now, I agreed that the adventure designers need to be paid for their work – after all, there are great adventures out there. What I do not agree with is this new model, were GMs need to pay to promote WotC merchandising’s and products.

Especially because the whole basis of AL (as was the case with it’s predecessor, RPGA), is to promote WotC material and bring back revenue to the company.

In my personal experience, I know that the paperwork and sometimes, troublesome players in this kind of game can be deal breakers, and that was why they received rewards. In making the DM’s pay for the adventures, If anything, WotC is demotivating them to take on this role – it is much more simple to buy an adventure, DM it for anyone you want, and don’t giving a second thought on the trouble of accepting and enforcing the AL program rules.

[Seya]

The rewards aren't worth the effort to run AL on fantasy grounds.

[Galach]

The rewards aren't worth the effort to run AL on fantasy grounds.

In a store would be even worse. Since you will need to leave your home, spending money in transportation and maybe in drinks and snacks, risking to have 6 troublesome players on your gaming table (back on Xen'drik Expeditions, I had to DM Well of Woe to a group of eight teenagers ranging from 11 to 16, all from the same family, each one struggling to be more important than the other - quite an experience, that game)... to get extra downtime days? No thanks.

It is much more easier to participate as a player, get some fun and no paperwork.

Anyway, thank you all for the replies. Now I know I won't make my comeback to organized play and why.

[LordEntrails]

I can't disagree. I ran AL games for about a year way back when. I was travelling every week to the same place at the time and it was nice that I could just show up to the store in a town I didn't really know and have a group to play with. But, if I would have had to pay for the priveledge? Yea, wouldn't have happened :(

Maybe if they charged less and the rewards were significant. But not as it's structured now, unfortunately.

[Nylanfs]

Also note that I don't believe that DMsG has regional pricing, which will seriously screw people in Brazil and others that have similar economic issues.

[Myrdin Potter]

To each their own. $3 for 3 hours of entertainment spread between 5-7 people doesn't seem like much to me. Less than a beer at a bar or a cup of coffee. There does not seem to be an extra charge for the VTT files as well, so you even save time converting yourself. I would probably not be interested in going to any of the local stores to play. There does not seem to be a requirement that each DM buy the module themselves, so it appears that a store could buy one copy for the DM's that run the game at their store.

The whole program - AL and the PFS - are marketing efforts by the respective companies to provide a scheduled activity for their stores. If you do not have an established group then it seems fine. If you do have an established group and you are playing the Wotc modules anyways, a little bit of paperwork and *poof* they are AL games.

[Galach]

Also note that I don't believe that DMsG has regional pricing, which will seriously screw people in Brazil and others that have similar economic issues.


Well, I wasn’t even planning to reach on this topic because we will pay overwhelming taxes on other transactions too, but certainly this is an issue.


To each their own. $3 for 3 hours of entertainment spread between 5-7 people doesn't seem like much to me. Less than a beer at a bar or a cup of coffee. There does not seem to be an extra charge for the VTT files as well, so you even save time converting yourself. I would probably not be interested in going to any of the local stores to play. There does not seem to be a requirement that each DM buy the module themselves, so it appears that a store could buy one copy for the DM's that run the game at their store.

The whole program - AL and the PFS - are marketing efforts by the respective companies to provide a scheduled activity for their stores. If you do not have an established group then it seems fine. If you do have an established group and you are playing the Wotc modules anyways, a little bit of paperwork and *poof* they are AL games.

Well, I do not know how the AL players think around the world, but taking my own experience on account, people will pay to purchase an adventure played in their own groups, where they will certainly share de files with each other, but rarely will agree to pay to buy an adventure that they will not put their hands on because of legal issues that will need to be enforced by the DM.

And, again, taking in account my own experience (and being generous in my guess), 80% of the potential players will never buy an adventure – they will not buy anything they do not think is essential to their characters.

Sadly, this kind of players approach is well known, so much that even FG made avaliable class packs for D&D 5th ed, instead of forcing the purchase of the whole PHB (as it would normally be necessary with a physical copy), probing this public to buy at least what they need to play their own characters, since they would never buy the full book.

[Myrdin Potter]

I have been DMing since the first AD&D hardbacks came out. The DM always puts out the most money. When I started using FG to start playing (which means DMing for me), I bought the Ultimate license. Now 4/6 of the players have bought the standard license but I am the only one that bought all the books and I paid for the adventures. It is no different than when I was a teenager when I started with the books ....

The store can print the file and hand it to the people who are DMing if it wants to. And collect it back if you wanted to be "pure" on copyright. If the local store isn't willing to support AL to the amount of $3 or so per week, then they are not putting much effort into it.

[Brynnan]

I don't really see the issue buying the adventure for $3-4? I mean, I seem to recall that's around the same price that adventures have sold for for 30 years.

[Talyn]

Greetings everyone.

I am the newly-appointed Local Coordinator for Fantasy Grounds for the Adventure League Online Region. I officially represent the AL Organization on the FG Forums. If you have any questions about AL or official Wizard's of the Coast modules, feel free to let me know.


I'm a few days late, but welcome aboard! :) I've played a little bit of Pathfinder Society and really hoping to try Adventure League if I can manage to find a starter game running (online or IRL) when I have a day off. Hasn't happened yet, but I remain optimistic LOL!

But it's great to have an actual LC for Fantasy Grounds, hope you enjoy our growing community.

[Brynnan]

I'm a few days late, but welcome aboard! :) I've played a little bit of Pathfinder Society and really hoping to try Adventure League if I can manage to find a starter game running (online or IRL) when I have a day off. Hasn't happened yet, but I remain optimistic LOL!

But it's great to have an actual LC for Fantasy Grounds, hope you enjoy our growing community.

The new Season starts Friday and most games will begin at Level 1. So look for games on ALOnlineTools (https://www.alonlinetools.net) for A Great Upheaval starting Friday.

The same will be said for material plane stores also. Some stores will start as early as Friday, but some may not really get going until September 6th. Ask at your store.

[Myrdin Potter]

Are the new adventures going to be sold online soon?

[Brynnan]

Are the new adventures going to be sold online soon?

The FG Mod for the hardcover, Storm King's Thunder, was made available on both the FG website and Steam within the last hour or so. It is not yet available on DMsGuild, but I'm guessing tomorrow.

The episode modules don't start coming out until September 6th. Hopefully the FG Mods for them will be available at release. Although may not be. Some authors may be less "online savvy" than others.