Today we’ve released the D&D Adventurer’s League Players Guide. It has all the information you need to get started playing in D&D Organized Play.
The D&D Adventurers League Player’s Guide is a comprehensive guide to all the rules used for official games. In addition to player-focused rules, it contains important information for Dungeon Masters and organizers. It contains special rules for playing Dungeons & Dragons in the official campaign. When there are differences between the rules and guidelines here and in other sources, the rules here take precedence for D&D Adventurers League play. This guide is divided up into three parts:
- Part 1 is about creating and advancing a character. It covers what rules are allowed for characters and how to advance characters after playing adventures.
- Part 2 is about the campaign structure for the D&D Adventurers League. It covers the different play programs, what kinds of adventures are available, and special rules for running and organizing D&D Adventurers League events.
- Part 3 contains resources and other information that you might find handy. It also contains a list of frequently asked questions.
D&D Adventurers League Player’s Guide (Version 1.0)
D&D Adventurers League Player’s Guide V1.0 (Printer Friendly)
I really like a lot of these rules! They seem like they'll make for a great environment to play in, without some of the shenanigans that plagued Living Forgotten Realms. A couple of things that struck me as odd:
- I'm nervous about how Permanent Magic Item Distribution will work in public play. Getting a bunch of strangers to agree on how to distribute something that provides a mechanical advantage, but also might have RP implications seems like it will cause conflict, frustration and hurt feelings. I'd love to hear a bit more about the thought process behind this and how the admins think it will work in practice. It seems like taking a magic item should, at the least, require the player to sacrifice other rewards (e.g. you get an item or a cut of the gold from the adventure, not both).
- The factions feel a little flat. I'd love if they had the same ideal/bond/flaw descriptions that PCs do. I'm disappointed they are designed around class lines.
- Part of the fun of LFR was that we became very attached to our characters; they were our companions for years. Is that not going to be the case with Adventurers League? LFR would not have been very fun if, in order to get access to items from the Adventurer's Vault (which fixed balance issues and added a lot of depth) required us to throw away hundreds of hours of play time.
- Rules updates aren't really mentioned. I know that I stopped playing LFR regularly once a rules update made my primary character not work. I hope you guys are thinking about how to avoid that, even if some rules elements become problematic (the 4E PHB version of Come And Get It comes to mind).
Very impressive initial document -- there's a lot here to like:
- The campaign allows evil-curious players a chance to be Lawful Evil (as long as they belong to one of two out of the five possible factions), but also makes clear that purposely interfering with other players or the game as a whole (what the kids call 'trolling') is disruptive behavior that isn't welcome in Organized Play.
- The concept of 'downtime' as a way to pursue individual goals and explain what a character is doing between adventures is a great idea -- even more so since you have the ability to cash in downtime to level up if you fall behind your friends as they crest the first or second tier. It also gives an impact to the 5E lifestyle rules, since you pay your lifestyle costs while spending downtime (which means that daily lifestyle costs are actually more useful than weekly or monthly costs).
- There have been a few questions on the boards regarding the distinction between home play and store play -- the Guide explains the distinction admirably.
- The 'Advice to DMs' section is something I wish had existed in the LFR documentation -- though some of it is very similar to LFR, there are enough specific differences (specifying, for instance, that a DM can ask for a re-roll of a die roll that is not obvious to the table) that DMs should feel much more confident that the organizers support DMs who try to keep play fun for everyone at the table.
- The DM Rewards are very solid; many groups were doing similar DM rewards during LFR, but to have a codified process so that everyone gets an equivalent benefit rather than leaving it ad-hoc based on region/area/store is a great improvement. It also specifically recognizes that many Adventurers League DMs are also going to be players and rewards those committed DMs.
- I'm also a fan of the Code of Conduct section; the DCI makes its expectations of player and judge behavior known, so why not D&D Organized Play?
There's a lot to like in here, and I'm more excited than I can remember to get in and take part in this campaign.
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Pauper
Regarding faction/class alignments, I agree it's a little weird. Obviously you aren't tied to that, but it made me uncomfortable reading it. Espescially the way some of the classes were shoe-horned in, like the Lord's Alliance "commonly" attracting sorcerers. I'm not sure why my wild mage would tie itself to a faction that espouses order and civilization... 
Rils wrote:
Will players have the freedom to customize backgrounds for their characters (Basic Rules p36)? If so, how will that mesh with a character's starting lifesytle?
You may, and it doesn't change anything. The customizing rules lt you substitute in a feature, item, prof. etc... from a different background into the on you chose to try to fit your concept best. You still have that background you chose, even if one of the pieces of it is customized to you.
As a side note, off the top of my head the only optional rules in the PHB/Basic rules the DnDAL use are: 1) no rolling stats and 2) a few Alignment restrictions. Also note that you cannot choose the Death domain unless you somehow get access to it.
Probably should be 'the only rules in the PHB/Basic Rules that the DnDAL *doesn't* use' are rolling stats and the Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil alignments. Lawful Evil is restricted, as is the Death domain (currently it is not publicly known how to 'unlock' the Death domain).
It should also be noted that the only optional rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide in use in DnDAL are the 'playing on a grid' rules. (Which means, to address a long-running joke in Living Forgotten Realms, that warforged are not legal in Adventurers League.)
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Pauper
RCanine wrote:
Looking for clarification on character rebuilding and when the lock goes on. Are you able to rebuild when at the end of an adventure that would level you from 4th to 5th level, but not from 5th onward? Or is rebuilding locked as soon as you have enough xp for 5th level? (IE last chance to rebuild would be after the last adventure before gaining enough xp for 5th level)
AH_Iceman wrote:
Jay_Ibero_911 wrote: