I have been running Lost Mine of Phandelver on Wednesday at my FLGS for Encounters nights since mid-July. I’ve been running it as Adventurers League “compatible” for the players that were interested in AL-legal characters. Initially, this worked fine since my table was composed of players that have been playing at my FLGS for months and years with some level of consistency. I was able to have a relatively coherent storyline based on the published adventure and the player characters’ decisions and relationships. Then in mid-August with the lead up to and release of Hoard of the Dragon Queen our FLGS was inundated with new players, which is great for the store and for D&D, but was the death knell for any sort of story consistency and party cohesion since players were load balanced to other tables. Since this influx there has been a lot of churn with some players not returning and even more new players showing up.
This chaos highlights what I consider to be the single biggest flaw of the Encounters program. We’re supposed to be playing through a not entirely linear story over multiple sessions with groups of people that change from week to week. For the past few weeks I have had to open my game sessions with more railroading than the Transcontinental Railroad which I feel is a massive disservice to my players. Additionally, players are often confused as to what they’re doing and why because they are not invested in the adventure. I realize that this is not a new problem; I’ve been struggling with this from both sides of the screen for a couple years now but with the new organized play system and the new Tyranny of Dragons story-based adventures the situation is becoming silly when it really doesn’t need to.
A possible solution to this problem that I would like to see is for future Encounters seasons to be changed from traditional “freeform” campaigns such as Tyranny of Dragons into what I believe are called “delves”; short, self-contained adventures that people can drop into and finish within a single session. We know that Encounters are short games lasting 1-3 hours, depending on the group, and we know that players may need to jump from table to table. To me, it seems like delves are a much better fit for what is currently happening in the trenches.
I envision the system to work as follows: Wizards of the Coast creates or solicits a delve-style adventure and then distributes it as a PDF to the stores that are running the Encounter program in the same manner as how HotDQ was distributed. In keeping with the official, tournament-like nature of organized play this adventure will be assigned to a specific Wednesday. Then players and DMs sit down at any table, since party and story cohesion is no longer an issue, and play through the delve in the single session and at the end the DM announces the amount of XP, downtime, renown, etc that is published within the delve so that players can update their log sheets and level up over time to participate in higher level Expeditions and Epics without being confused as to exactly what they earn and when.
As for the content of the delves I would expect them to be handled much like a television show in that there is a “monster of the week” for the players to tackle but there is a greater storyline that ties everything up over the course of the entire season. An example may be a delve entitled “Ruins of Thundertree” in which the players investigate the ruins of Thundertree (in LMoP) and tackle the various threats that are found there but it is all tied into the greater ToD storyline with the inclusion of Cult of the Dragon members.
At the end of the Encounters season Wizards could then publish a collection of the delves similar to the 4e book Dungeon Delve (ISBN 978-0786951390) to allow players to revisit the adventures on their own time or for DMs to add to their campaigns.
I still want Wizards to publish campaigns like the books that comprise Tyranny of Dragons but I do not see them as a good fit for the Encounters program. They lead to confusing, railroaded silliness that turns players and DMs off of the program. With a change to an official “delve of the week” system these headaches will disappear and also provide a better fit for Adventurers League’s tournament style play.
tl;dr: Encounters is broken, here’s how to fix it.
Encounters isn't broken; Lost Mines of Phandelver isn't an Encounters compatible module.
Get a hold of DDEX1-01. It is what I believe you are looking for. Sadly, it will probably be the only adventure released in this format. But it contains five "mini-episodes" which are designed to be run in 1 hour slots. At the end of each episode, some xp and treasure may be awarded. At the end of all five, you have completed one full AL episode. The XP for that particular module is capped to allow for advancment to level 2 only, but don't let that stop you from using it for it's intended purpose: to get players interested in D&D and Adventure League!
When they first released Encounters, back in the 4th Edition days, it was designed as a way to get new players in the stores. 1 hour play slots at the store; the module was designed with that in mind and actually give stopping points. Those Encounters modules were only designed to get a character from level 1 to level 3 and then it would all start over. Most of those characters could not be imported into the living campaign of the time, Living Forgotten Realms. However, with the Adventure League, Encounters is *part* of the living campaign now, so those characters can be expected to continue and thrive in the AL world.
tl;dr - your fix is already in place (DDEX1-01), go get it. 
EDIT: Just an edit to say that I am not a mod or official for Adventures League.
Undrhil wrote:
Oraibi wrote:
What you describe is not a symptom of a broken Encounters program necessarily (which the word "fix" in the thread title implies). It's a result of irregular player attendance at events. We expect that to happen at conventions, which is what the Expeditions program is meant for -- short, self-contained adventures, designed to run over about 4 hours of play. Currently, the following modules are available through the Adventurer's Leage:
- DDEX1-1 Defiance in Phlan
- DDEX1-2 Secrets of Sokol Keep
- DDEX1-3 Shadows Over Moonsea.
They can be run at any public venue, and are AL-legal, so your character's experience and stuff moves with him/her to the next AL game.
Since module premieres are a draw for conventions (otherwise, why go?), there is a release schedule for the modules. The following modules will become available for AL play at stores on 9/22/14:
- DDEX1-4 Dues for the Dead
- DDEX1-5 The Courting of Fire
- DDEX1-6 The Scroll Thief
The following will become available on 10/20/14:
- DDEX1-7 Drums in the Marsh
- DDEX1-8 Tales Trees Tell
The following will become available on 11/17/14:
- DDEX1-9 Outlaws of the Iron Route
- DDEX1-10 Tyranny of Phlan
Again, these modules will be loosely related and are designed to fit into 4-hour slots, but most can be easily broken up into 2 or more 2-hour sessions. They span all types of play -- The Scroll Thief, for example, is a heavily investigative module, while others will be more combat-heavy. Many modules also include extra encounter ideas for DMs whose tables run short; you can use those to create additional 2-hour sessions with a little work.
I don't think the Encounters program is broken. At my store, we're up to three tables. Two of them are for store regulars -- groups of people who show up every week or so to play -- while I run the overflow table (which usually has the kids at it, since they're a little ADHD and not into "role-play" per se). The regulars tables can easily sustain the kind of serail play of Lost Mine of Phandelver or Hoard of the Dragon Queen, while the overflow table is much more episodic -- as a consequence, what I end up running only loosely resembles the module. But I signed on to run what the players want to play, not what I want to run.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my post.
I understand that LMoP is not a true Encounters adventure and that it isn’t necessarily designed to stand up to the abuse of public play. However, I have read the first half of Hoard of the Dragon Queen (which is the officially sanctioned Encounters material) and it also suffers from the same flaws.
***Possible minor spoilers ahead***
As just one example, in the first episode of HotDQ, Greenest in Flames, the party can tackle the various threats and tasks within the town in any order. If a player sits at one table one week and runs through the Save the Mill quest and then sits down at another table the next week there is a chance that he will have to run through Save the Mill again. Another scenario may involve him missing other important or interesting content all together. Throughout the HotDQ book I saw other instances where the “freeform” nature of the adventure would cause unnecessary grief at the public tables.
***End possible minor spoilers***
I appreciate Undrhil and AlHazred pointing out that perhaps the Expedition adventures may be a better fit for my FLGS. Personally, they sound like more fun to both play and run. However, my post is specifically addressing the shortcomings of the Encounters program for Wednesday nights. We have new players arriving at the store expecting to participate in the Encounters program and play HotDQ because that is what the WotC marketing machine is pushing out at the moment.
AlHazred wrote:
It sounds like what you want is a home game, which I don't think you're going to get in any organised play. Everything you've listed as being a desired part of the game play experience is pretty much incompatible with organised play.
AlHazred wrote:
Here here, Das Falke. It doesn't really make sense to expect a long-term campaign to work with drop-in players, which is the very nature and benefit of Organized Play. It should be fairly obvious that the methodology used to shoehorn these adventures into how they are being used (and the resulting--very vocal--mass confusion in reaction to it) is hopefully a lesson learned. Let's hope the next Campaign (coming early next year) will be approached in a different manner.
I shudder to think how to incorporate new players into Episode 2 (or 3!) of HotDQ and the burden that places on delivering backstory--already marginalized by lack of experiencing story, they're going to be doubly so because of their first level status... What's the alternative--turn them away from the table and say, "Sorry but you can't play until the next Campaign."? "Wait until we get the next Expedition game and come back in two weeks."? "We're going to continue to play because we were lucky enough to know about this 2 months ago, but you can stand there and watch?" Yeah... Um, that's gonna make an awesome impression for AL.
So far for Episode 1 I've had new players be captive hostage adventurers of Kobolds and Cultists they find on their missions in Greenest, and random visitors to Greenest caught up in things as the townspeople escape to the Keep who are then discovered between missions and called upon by the rest of the party to help them. The "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" works better for their absence when the players can't come the following week, though. We just, um, ignore it. There's always been a new player to work in anyway.
But these simple and easy ideas actually written into the mods would have gone a long way to providing the sense that the AL folks understood how new drop-in player dynamics work at the play table, instead of sticking slavishly to the serialized component that isn't the reality of most OP experiences that (I would venture to say) most people know. It's like AL's feet were in two camps. I hypothesize that they simply didn't anticipated that (which--and I'm not intending to be snarky here--I personally think they probably should have, since they're the professionals). If they did it isn't clearly articulated enough for the player base, as the resulting mass confusion demonstrates.
Here's hoping the next one will be better.
Thank_Dog wrote:
CoreyartustheSecond wrote:
CoreyartustheSecond wrote:
Undrhil and Mirtek, the difference is that the vast bulk of adventures offered by different Organized Play systems in the past are not designed like HotDQ and Phandelver. Yes, there was a continuing campaign storyline, but the actual table adventures were most often effectively played within a 4-5 hour window from beginning to end, with the next component adventure a seperate chapter in the ongoing saga.
HotDQ is broken up into Episodes which are then stretched out over 4 or 5 gamedays of 1-2 hours. Each Episode is supposed to take multiple weeks of game play, with leveling capabilities essentially restricted to the end of each Episode after multiple weeks of playtime. And those 1-2 hour chunks were not thoroughly examined in light of a player base that may or may not invest several months of dedicated continual weekly play time, let alone find out about it until their local gaming group has moved on through portions of the adventure.
The nature of Organized Play is that you can miss an adventure. Imagine suddenly incorporating a player at the 2-hour mark of your 4-5 hour mod session for those other Organized Play systems, or having a player leave halfway through. That's what it's like. Finding an appropriate "bookmark" where that's feasible is practically impossible. Are you saying that players shouldn't be allowed to play without committing to the whole thing at the onset? Are you saying no one should be allowed to join in at a later date? Are you saying a store's organizer should create a new table each time a new player shows up?
Yes, there are tables that are experiencing continual weekly commitments with the same players and DM. But I have yet to play without new players attending or the absence of other players from the previous week or the need for players to shift around to different tables that may currently be playing portions of the adventure they've already played. The very serialization of the series works against discrete component parts playable individually, which is exactly what is being encouraged by AL.
What I think DasFalke is saying (and forgive me for putting words in your mouth) is that this particular adventure is not like the other Organized Play adventures. Therefore, the system that has worked so well in the past isn't working for this one, because you can't apply the same system to it. You can't play it the same way. That's what he's struggling with--the previous systems of Organized Play do indeed work and they have indeed proven themselves. This particular offering is so "out of the box" from the norm that it's particularly challenging to make work and result in a play experience that actually keeps players coming back instead of feeling like they're an addendum.
Maybe you missed my first post: Horde of the Dragon Queen and Lost Mines of Phandelver are *not* designed for Encounters. I understand there is the expectation that these mods *can be played* in that capacity, but that will require a bit more work on the part of the DM or organizer.
The adventures which are store bought can be used to continue a group of players in Adventurers League in a home setting, not requiring the gameplay in a store or convention. That is the *only* reason those mods are even listed as AL compatible: they allow for home play; whereas, in organized play, that would not normally be allowed.
I have run 16 slots of games, Sokol, Moonsea, Defiance in Phlan. At PAX Prime I ran 12 hours of Defiance.
All 5 mini adventures in Defiance can easily be run in a hour. I often got this done in 40 minutes depending on how new/prepared the players were. But that is just what Defiance is for: Getting new player into your LFGS.
Why hey not set up a slot before, after or on a different day for your regulars? You still get full credit in, xp, items from AL when playing encounters on other days. Just no tradable certs.
_proxy wrote:
Undrhil, they're the only Encounters games existing right now. There are no others. They may not have been written for 1-2 hour weekly play slots at stores, but that's exactly what we've been saying. They're promoting it as such. And it's obvious that the AL pdf adaptation to facilitate that 1-2 hour play needs a little improvement if they're intending them to work in that capacity with drop-in new players arriving and disappearing every week. The uproar of confusion is evidence of that.
http://dnd.wizards.com/playevents/encounters
And _proxy, those adventures you've mentioned are Expeditions games, not Encounters, designed to be played in 4-5 hour slots. They will not be made available for 1-2 hour weekly Encounters play. You're experience at PAX Prime (and they did the same thing at GenCon) was an exception to the rule made to entice new players for the con (at least that's my understanding).
Undrhil wrote:
OK, comparing apples to apples then.
The 4e Encounters program was *exactly the same*. It consisted of a series of modules which were designed to be run in 1 hour increments over several weeks. There were no problems with those games, as far as I have heard.
Basically, be a DM and manage the story so it works with who does and doesn't show up. Make changes to the module so it works.
And that's what I'm saying--it's not designed to be run in one hour increments. It's not like 4E Encounters. I urge you to actually read it or try it out some Wednesday evening by dropping in on a WPN store to see how you're character is incorporated into the play-cycle to see what I mean. You're advice to suck it up and re-write the mod doesn't really work.
Yes, a good DM will create some trite or fantastical story tools to use to incorporate new players into what could potentially be the middle of a dungeon (abra cadabra!), but that doesn't relieve the burden of backstory for catching up nor the feeling of player confusion. The mod itself is not designed with that in mind and there is very little actual capacity nor DM agency provided to do so. It is made for continual play, not for casual drop-ins. That results in a disjointed and haphazard player experience that could actually drive them away from AL rather than endear them to the Organized Play experience, as DasFalke alluded to in the very first post.
In this thread: dude has complaints about the structure of encounters, and Undrhil and AlHazred tell him he's doing it wrong because he's running the encounters adventures and not the expeditions ones.
I organized and played in the first few seasons of encounters, and they did a great job of leading with a quick "previously in D&D Encounters..." that could be summed up in a paragraph, lead to an encounter that made sense, and ended at a sensible point. The challenge is that model fits 4th Edition far better than it does fifth. I'm guessing what you're experiencing is two things: authors of the system still figuring out how to write for it, and the growing pains of their new strategy retrofitting the published adventures for encounters.
My only advice to you is to try and make the best of it, and keep doing what you're doing. Posting stuff like this on the forums is a great way for the people in charge to hear this feedback, and if the adventures aren't fun and people stop coming, Wizards needs to get that feedback too.
It's interesting--as a free program, the success of encounters (at least in the first few months) has nothing to do with how good it is. I'm curious how they measure success. Regardless, expect them to need a few seasons to get it right.
Id measure success based on the fact they still have new stores applying to be part and they have literally run out of faction folios.
Undrhil wrote:
Lots of words. Oh, so many words! 
Would it be correct to sum up by saying that you believe the adventures are simply too long?
I skipped 3.5 and 4e entirely and went from Living City / Living Greyhawk directly to 5e and Adventurers League. So I went from modules that were written to be run in four-hour slots "period,"* to adventures that run across several gaming sessions. I do see the problem.
At my very small store, that only has room for one table, I've played three weeks now and never with exactly the same players twice. The DM, one other player and I have been there every time, but the other 2-3 players have been different each week. It's a little screwy when you plan for a cleric who also has a potion of healing and then you go halfway through the adventure and he disappears. I can deal with it, but it's definitely not as neat as the run-then-done style I was used to.
My two cents.
Any organized play program will have its shortcomings, and those will be a bit deal for some while they will be inconsequential for others. However, I think most people can find some techniquest to mitigate issues and come out ahead. I also find that understanding the overall goals of the program helps temper expectations - because no program can be perfect for every single player/DM.
I've been running Lost Mines of Phandelver as Encounters and here is how I handle it. At any point in the adventure I think about where new PCs can come from. For example, our second session was in the goblin caves and a PC that joined could either be another adventurer trying to solve the problem of caravans being attacked, could be a late comer sent by the same employer and following the PCs' trail, or could be a hostage previously captured by the goblins.
For the next few sessions, where they had reached Phandelver, new PCs could come from the town, having arrived and been informed of events by the Lords of the Alliance and the guy (I forget his name, Sildar?) who installs himself in the town hall and helps the PCs. He would redirect PCs as needed. If PC x didn't show up this week, well, maybe Sildar sent them to scout somewhere. If new PC y shows up, I give them the Sildar intro and that PC joins the fun. In most cases that can work even if the PCs are in the middle of a certain place (the bandit hideout, etc.).
Truthfully, I have these kinds of issues come up in home campaigns too, but they are just more prevalent in store play because some players will disappear or show up without warning. But, I'm also approaching this as a community game to serve many people - the store, Wizards, me, the players, potential new DMs, the larger D&D player base, etc. I'm okay with dealing with these things, which is to me well worth it to meet new players and see various people try D&D.
I don't see an adventure run at a store over various sessions as the story of just 6 PCs. Rather, as the story of adventurers in an area working together over time to accomplish these heroic goals.
To add to the above, I happened to just read the recounts of Encounters (using Hoard of the Dragon Queen) on GeekDad. These two articles review sessions 2 and 3 and provide some good ideas on how his DMs have adjusted for new players coming in and out each week.
(Contain spoilers)
TheBreen wrote:
While I sympathize with the OPs points, I doubt this is an issue that's going to be solved any time soon. The reason I say this is, while the OP's suggestion sounds simple enough (make Encounters a series of 1-3 hour adventures playable in a single session), the execution of that suggestion is much more involved:
- Create a series of adventures that participating FLGSs can run weekly; this is effectively a request for weekly content, as it's already been demonstrated that simply writing a longer-form adventure and breaking it up into weekly chunks doesn't solve the problem.
- The adventures would, ideally, tie into the overall story season; otherwise, some would ask what the point of the adventures is.
- The adventures would also, ideally, provide rewards such as permanent magic items.
So, what the OP is asking for is for one or more people to be dedicated to doing nothing but writing weekly adventures tied into the existing story season. In addition, the rewards provided in those sessions would vastly increase the expected volume of magic items in the shared campaign, meaning that Encounters characters would enter Expeditions play as significantly more powerful than their counterparts who only participate in Expeditions adventures. Given that people are already complaining about Epics adding an extra 'tier' of play for dedicated con-going players and their characters, I doubt that a new, even more potent tier of Encounters players would be well-received.
I'm not trying to belittle the OP here, but it does seem as though the obvious solution as offered is simply too expensive and too rife with potential controversy to be workable, especially for a problem that, as the OP himself admits, many of the participants have already been working around for a number of years.
--
Pauper
Pauper wrote:
Cryptus wrote:
Pauper wrote:
I will concede Pauper's point that a weekly adventure pipeline may be too expensive to maintain. This is a business decision that WotC would have to make. A couple of ideas that might help mitigate this cost would be: run adventure writing contests (soul-crushing corporate buzzword: crowdsourcing) or to create a long form adventure such as HotDQ and then hack it into digestable pieces for the Encounters program (i.e., mandating the content and order of the sessions).
Pauper wrote:
I think the response most DMs would provide to your question is, "because Encounters is working fine for us." Instead of trying to change the system significantly (and many of your ideas are large increases in work and cost), my recommendation is to focus on ways to mitigate player changeover. The town doesn't just have 6 heroes, it has a score of them. Some were off doing something else last week, some just arrived, etc. Spend just a few seconds on the explanation, then leave that behind and focus on the play (which is what your players came to experience). There will always be some suspension of disbelief. For example, if you play Expeditions, you will meet other players that played a previous adventure, but did it at other tables. "How could I have saved the Prince if you also did it... but you weren't here with me when I did it?" Regardless of what you play there will be a need for some suspension of disbelief. Don't let it ruin your fun!
I will say that the initial Horde episode being run for Encounters does support Alphastream's point -- since the party is in a keep with a bunch of other refugees from the town, it's easy to say that 'this particular group of heroes' engaged in a particular mission while others helped repair defenses, smuggled in supplies, or did other things to help out without participating directly in that week's mission.
--
Pauper
I'm happy with things so far, but I think this will be on topic. Can a player play in the Mines adventures from the beginner box, get XP/gold for it, then play in DnD encounters/expeditions?
biotech66 wrote:
As someone who DMed a slew of the 4E Encounters and played in 5E last week, DasFalke's post hit the nail on the head for me.
Wednesday nights are for introducing people to the game in 2-hour sessions, and need to be hot-swappable so that people can turn up and play, and know that it's going to be *relatively* simple for them to fit in to whichever table they get marshalled into.
Unfortunately the main Tyranny of Dragons scenario resists this even more than the Expeditions. Having a look at the 3rd chapter of the Encounters version, it's effectively a dungeon which is broken up into 8-9 sessions. Get onto a different table every other week and you're going to end up playing the same combats or RP encounters again and again - much more problematic, for my money, than to have a different face or two in the adventuring party.
I'm currently thinking of either running Expeditions on a Wednesday in two two-hour slots (as recommended in the League Players Guide - but even then you can't get Downtime or Faction rewards if you miss one of the sessions) or accelerating a four-hour Expedition into a three-hour slot.
But neither of those seem ideal.
What I'd really like is what the old 4E Encounters had; a ready-prepped two hour session which it won't matter if a player occasionally misses one or more episodes of or gets assigned to a different table for.
My 2¢.
Undrhil wrote:
I agree with DasFalke, CoreyartustheSecond, and piersB.
HotDQ was not meant to support the style of play that the Encounters program is promoting. It would be fun to play in a home game, but it doesn't work well with the Encounters format.
We aren't even coming close to finishing an episode in 2 hours. We play for 3 hours each week and each episode takes us at least 2 sessions to finish.
We've got one guy that can only make it every other week. So far, he's only managed to catch the first session of each episode. The problem is the majority of experience is given out at the end of the adventure ... and those have fallen on the weeks he's gone.
From the comments of our players, I think everyone would enjoy a short yet complete adventure every week rather than trying to shoehorn an adventure designed for a home campaign into a format that doesn't fit it.
Roy
Taalrith wrote: