Heyo there! First time poster!
So a few months ago I had my first D&D AL playthrough and being a amature roleplayer I've always been intrigued by D&D and this was perfect way for me to play D&D with people.
My local comic book store holds this event every Wens like any other place and I was fairly happy that I finally got Wensday off to play.
So I went to my comic book shop and asked them where it was and I got "Oh it's in the back where we hold our MTG stuff at." I was suprised that there was no sign up, no registry, no anything. So I wait at the table for people to show up and for it to start. Well there were already 6 people there including our DM I was thinking "Wow so we have a full group." When I asked what character they were going to be playing nobody had a character sheet. Not even the DM had any pre-generated character's to hand out. So I was luckily enough to have the pre-generated character sheet's from the Starter Set. Around this time we had a dad and his son and daughther join. Each of the kids were about the age of 7. Now I don't have against kids getting into D&D.
So anyways the store/owner tells the DM that he'll be running the Mines of Phalanor (sp). So we start and the two kids immediately become a problem. We got to the part where we found the turned over wagon and we spent about a good hour trying to keep the kids focused and than one of them had to leave briefly because they were getting 'over-stimulated'. We managed to get a bit further along but by that time the owner had informed us that it was closing time and we had to leave. I was really put off that pretty much our DM did nothing to control the group and it was pretty much just a waste. Afterwards there was nothing no XP given out and nothing about the next time.
Overall I was disappointed with the lack of involvement from the session and how it was ran overall. The whole experience discouraged me from coming back.
But it's been about 6 months and I want to give it another try but I'm worried as to how one gets into a group that has already started and how does that work out?
You didn't say where you live, but you can search on the WotC site for stores offering D&D Encounters. Hopefully there are other choices nearby.
In a well-organized store with a good AL program, you should theoretically be able to just walk in any Wednesday night with your AL-legal character and get to play. However, some places may have limits on the number of players or may suggest you reserve a seat through meetup.com, Facebook, or another site.
The best way to find out what's going on is to call the store and ask something like, "Hey, I am interested in D&D Encounters on Wednesday night, what time is it and do I have to do anything to sign up?" You might also add, "Oh, and are you running any Expeditions in your store?"
Encounters is run using the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a long serial adventure divided into a number of chapters. Expeditions are individual adventures that usually take four hours to run. I personally like the latter better, as they are designed by the AL staff and are, IMO, more suited for organized play.
Let us know how it works out for you and let us know if you have any questions!
Ah, the location I was playing at was Fanfare Comics in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Granted this was about 6 months ago just a few weeks and the PHB would have been released. Looking at it now they say on the calender it is D&D Encounters. Is that the same as the Adventure League? This location is probably the closest I can get to a D&D event grouop and even than it's still 15 miles from where I live. How do I go about getting into a group? I mean what all should I do in order to particpate? Just show up and "Hey I'm here to play." Granted that's how it went last time. I just don't want it to be like the last time I played
Encounters is one aspect of AL (Along with Expeditions, and Casual Play, and Epics)
Currently, Encounters means they are playing the first 3 Episodes from HotDQ, so any legal AL PC from level 1-4 should be fine. In general, it is a simple drop-in system. People show up, each DM gets 3-7 players, and you start playing.
Now, in reality.... there tends to be the same players each week, and they tend to get the same DMs, (Some places rotate more than others). Some complications *may* occur.
1) There may be too many players for the number of DMs. Some stores have back up plans some do not.
2) They may have moved passed Encounters and into the rest of HotDQ, and you may need a lvl5+ character. (This can only happen if they are misreporting their 'Encounters' status)
But... I don't want to scare you off. From what I hear... things work just fine the vast majority of the time. You can bring one of the Pre-gens, or you can make your own 1st level character; just show up and you should be able to get a seat. Just be careful, first level is kind of fragile.
Looks like Fanfare does Enounters and Expeditions... so I assume they have managed to get their act together. Doesn't seem to be much else nearby...
Keep in mind to that by now, a good majority of groups will be either playing through Rise of Tiamt (RoT), which means that you wont be able to join one of those groups. Tier 5-10 has no accomodation for drop in players (unless of course the player has a character in Tier).
What happened locally is exactly that. We did start with 4 tables and relatively full tables. Week after week we started to bleed out players, then we lost 2 dms suddenly and the other tables couldnt support all the extra players. So we lost more players, then had 2 dms for a while then lost one. So now we are down to one table and finding it incredibly difficult to recruit new players. What has also happened is that we are not an AL group anymore. We have had new players start in and create higher level character so they can play, which is against the AL gudelines. Items have been bought that are not available etc. Which is sad yes, but has happened.
When Princes of the Apocalypse arrives Im going to be running that as part of encounters hopefully and I definetly want to run it AL only style.
So I see a bit of issues that I'm corncerned about. So what does this mean when HoTQ ends on February 28th. My LCS has yet to put up next month's calendar. But D&D says that the next one is Elemental Evil. Now does that mean I can't have a starting character joint this campaign? I mean will there be a campaign that I can start off in? I would like to keep it AL rule. WOTC has made it pretty enticing by the swag you get when you start.
You can start a new character with Elemental Evil, or you can keep using your current AL character. The choice is yours. Note that adventures are designed for certain level characters, though. If an adventure is for characters level 1-4, then you have to have a character in that range to play that event.
WhNow what do you mean by 'certain mission for certain levels'? I'm just confused by that am I going to be in a league of my own with starter characters?
Adventures are separated by level tier. As long as you have a character of the right tier, you can play the mission.
Tier 1 is open to all characters of levels 1-4
Tier 2 is levels 5-10
Tier 3 is levels 11-16
Tier 4 is levels 17-20
Most adventures are tier 1. Tier 2 includes Episodes 5-8 of HotDQ, RoT and Tyranny in Phlan. Tier 3 is RoT exclusively atm.
In case you have not done it yet, go to this page:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/events/adventurers-league-resources
and read the Player's Guide. It is for the current season and will help you understand things a lot better. A new Guide will be available some time next month, with updates for the new season. If you have new questions after reading through it, please come back here and ask them. 