#5 : Leveling Up
With the release of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Wizards of the Coast introduced the Adventurers League, a new Organized Play format. With this new format they introduced the first Story Origin – Tyranny of Dragons.
Tyranny of Dragons is the Story Origin currently in play (8/1/14 – 2/28/15).
Encounters – A weekly ongoing adventure campaign starting with Hoard of the Dragon Queen and continuing with Rise of Tiamat. Both of these adventures are available for purchase and can be run at home. Stores were provided the first 4 Episodes of Hoard of the Dragon Queen for free.
Expeditions – One-off adventures running alongside the main storyline that can be played, start to finish, in one 4hr session. These adventures are first premiered at conventions and then are made available to run in stores only.
Each adventure is broken up into four tiers of play.
First Tier : Level 1-4
Second Tier : Level 5-10
Third Tier : Level 11-16
Fourth Tier : Level 17-20
The Player’s Guide states that in order to participate, a player must have a character of the appropriate level to play. Pregenerated Characters are provided for first level characters.
Including “new” PCs into higher tiers play is not advised by the Adventurers League and for good reasons. I highly recommend reading Art Severance’s Article, especially the chapter “There are No High-Level Pregenerated Characters by Design.”
The problem I continue to have is turning players away. As a growing store with many active events, there is never enough space or hours in the week to run everything we would like to. Trying to accommodate every Tier of play each session is not a realistic solution.
In previous articles I have talked about how inclusion is extremely important to building a community. I have also gone into detail of how we run our events.
I often feel like we are forging a new path somewhere between home play and convention play in a way that has not yet been explored. In this article I will attempt to answer some of my own questions as I am still working out solutions to situations as they present themselves
Dear Master, Dungeon Master,
(questions I have asked myself)
Why did you decide to run both adventures of Tyranny of Dragons in 28 weeks for Encounters?
It is definitely a lot of material to get through in 28 weeks, but my regular customers were excited to finally get the opportunity to advance a character beyond 8th Level. I think it worked out well for Tyranny of Dragons because this is the first adventure with the new edition of the rules and everyone wanted to really test it out and see what 5th Edition has to offer.
Would you do it again?
I don’t think so. I am not sure how the adventures will be written or if the guidelines will be updated in any way for next season, but if it is reflective of what we have seen so far, I will likely spend more time with each Episode. I would like players to spend more sessions playing a level before leveling up. Right now we are completing an Episode every session or two (playing 2.5 – 3 hours per session), next time I will try to stretch an Episode out, maybe completing each one in about 3 – 4 session of play.
What is your biggest struggle with running higher level Tier sessions in Encounters?
The problem I have is turning players away because they don’t have experience. New players learn through playing with experienced players. Having a full table of beginners it is very difficult, especially for a new DM.
Customers see a D&D event in the schedule and do not pay attention to Tiers and Level Caps when thinking about attending, especially new players who have no idea what that means. If I have 45 players all playing the same game and a new player shows up, I have to turn that player away.
At a convention, where there are games running all day, I could tell that person to come back in 10 or 20 minutes when the next Tier 1 game is firing. At the store, I have to tell that person to come back in 4 days for Expeditions (which isn’t the same), or wait until the next season of Encounters starts up in a couple of months. Unfortunately that person typically does not come back. If a player misses a few sessions they would rather stop playing than get left behind. Spending downtime to catch up doesn’t always work out.
Players work up the courage to join a game with a bunch of strangers. People join because they are either interested in trying D&D for the first time, playing in a one-off adventure, or want to join in an ongoing weekly campaign. Players gravitate towards the style of play they are interested in. Also players want to participate in an event that their friends (who probably convinced them to try it out) are participating in.
The next few articles I will keep you posted on more ideas for next season as this season comes to a close.
If you have questions you would like Master Dungeon Master to answer, you can ask them here.