After nearly a full season of managing certificates now, I have to say that I'm not so sure they are a good idea to continue. I am the organizer for a large store program and while the certs were cool at first and everyone was excited about them, they turned out to be a little bit of a housekeeping bother. I think the same thing could be achieved simply using the character log sheets, including trades with other players. You would have to alter the log sheet slightly, but it would be much easier.
I also think a digital version of the item certificate could be created and added to the Wizard's event reporter. Organizers could report items gained by players in that manner. It would be much more cost effective and a much more reliable record should you actually play at other locations. Trades could be registered in this manner as well. We have digitized the adventures for the program, why not the certs as well?
In my opinion, the DDAL would be better served by taking the large expense of printing the certificates and put it into materials that improve everyone's experience at the playing table, including and especially the DMs. Items such as NPC cards, poster maps (tactical and non-tactical), Dice (players loved these). Give the DMs the materials they need to present an impressive organized play experience.
Certs are really just fluff because all they are really good for is to trade with other players, which let's be honest, hardly ever happens. Trading items is a cool idea, but it is not a large enough use case to justify the lion's share of the program's budget. Always design for the 80% use case, not the 20%. In this case, it could be argued that it's much less than 20%.
I enjoy the feeling and collectability of receiving a physical cert that I can show off. Having it only appear as a log entry isn't the same.
Killing the paper cert program for a pittance worth of financial and organizational savings seems a bit extreme and would likely cause more backlash than its worth.
Actually factor in shipping a small envelope or two or more.. much more around the world and I doubt you will find its a pittance anymore.
and I dislike Paper certs for the very reason Organic above likes them 'a physical cert I can show off'
D&D is not competitive. It's not a race to the top of the level charts. Its about getting together with like minded people to enjoy a roleplaying game... not chest swelling 'Look at all my glorious certs mortals!' I have one.. you dont!'
I think digitizing magic item certificates is a bad idea. If you like magic item certificates, digitizing them "cheapens" them; literally every DM can print as many as they want, and they won't likely be as nice as the ones WotC ships currently.
If you don't like magic item certificates, digitizing makes everything worse. People will still feel like printed certificates are more "authentic" than entries on a character's logsheet, the PDFs will get out into the wild where anyone can get them and there wouldn't be any way to tell a "real" one from a "counterfeit" one.
Having any kind of magic item registration is very impractical. It's more work for the FLGS, and not all of them will bother. This will lead to gaps in the data. It's a LOT more work for WotC, who would have to create and maintain the database, and provide customer service support for people who have trouble accessing it. Of course, there would also have to be policies in place regarding who could access the database and how to enforce those policies. In short, a nightmare to solve a problem that doesn't currently exist.
Although I personally like the pretty certificates (and I'm not likely to be in a position to trade any), I could see doing away with the certificates entirely next season if the expense is seen as a burden. I just don't think Wizards should take on an additional burden by providing some kind of registration system.
TheBreen wrote:
Spykes wrote:
There have always been certs. I doubt they will stop printing them anytime soon.
Undrhil wrote:
Encounters hasn't always had certs, that's true -- but Encounters only dates back to the release of D&D Essentials during the Fourth Edition era. And it wasn't officially part of Organized Play when it was started; the Living Forgotten Realms admins at the time had to specify when and under what circumstances a character could move from Encounters into Organized Play. (At the very least, characters could not bring certain rewards gained via Encounters into LFR.) Adventurers League is the first time that Encounters has explicitly been an Organized Play program.
I think Undrhill's point is that OP has always had certs, which is probably true as far back as nearly everyone involved in OP can recall.
Personally, I like the certs, and think that using them as the primary limiting feature of magic item trading (which otherwise would be far too chaotic to be allowed) is a very elegant solution. I'd be sorry to see them go.
--
Pauper
I think the whole point of the cert is to show that you have an item which can be carried from store to store in your faction folder.
TheBreen wrote:
Jeraxle wrote:
So are magic item certificates still being printed by WOTC? Or are they only being sent to the big cities? I live in the Midwest and have never seen one. I just started playing D&D Adventure League, but I keep hearing about these.
Baneful wrote:
My local store didnt receive any Certs for Season 1 at all. Of course I found out they were not actually reporting any of my games either. Ive since had that rectified.
I loved certs in LFR. Can't stand them in AL. Generally rewards are better when they're not limited by the foresight of your organizer.
I just recycled my binder full of 4E stuf fthis weekend and it was awesome nostalgia. I've been unlucky so far and have literaly nothing from 5E in probably 20+ play sessions.
We have definately heard the issues with certs and are working at implimenting a new plan for future seasons.
Greg Marks
DnDAL Associate Resource Manager
Skerrit wrote:
Sorsohka wrote:
I played through the whole first season - or at least Encounters for it - and never saw a certificate. Then again, I also never saw a magic item...
Anthraxus wrote:
Enevhar_Aldarion wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
We have 2 distinct and emerging almost 'classes' of gamers now. Ones that purchase their books online for a variety of reasons (cost pressures, distance pressures, convenience, geographical isolation) and the gamer who buys the majority of their purchasing through their local gaming store and are willing to pay more.
The third type of gamer actually being the card gamer who is actually keeping the store afloat with the purchase of random packs of colorful cards. (95 percent of new gaming stores could better be referred to a Card stores, who might/may do RPGs on thre side)
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Enevhar_Aldarion wrote:
RCanine wrote:
Maybe if lots of other people find it a housekeeping bother, then you're on to something.
As is it seems a bit 'customise it all to my preferences'?
Enevhar_Aldarion wrote:
Oh, lordy, this thread is degrading fast.
SteveMND: This thread was never going to end well...
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Add me to the list of players who do not like certs. Simply because the certs tend to run out for the preliminary adventures pretty early in the season at our store, like...eh week 2-3.
.....as for the rest of the off topic in this thread. 
We continue to hear requests for changes to the cert system and are working on changes for season 4 or 5.
Greg Marks
DnDAL Associate Resource Manager
Granville7482 wrote:
The certs should only be given out as needed..... I highly doubt that four DMs at your store are completing the hardcover adventures in 2-3 weeks. If you are speaking about faction kits, that is a different matter because yes, they do fly off the shelves. Certs though, should take quite a while to go through and while you may lose out on some early items, you should be able to snag several certs throughout the season.
Now, I can understand it if your store has 5+ tables and the store organizer hands out the entire cert kit to each DM, and you are unfortunate enough to play at one of the tables that lacks certs - but honestly, the way I run it, I keep the certs on my person and have the DMs ask me for the certs they need at the end of the session.... If I happened to have run out of that particular cert, well thems the breaks but I find this strategy works best overall (esp. given the fact I have 7+ tables at my store to coordinate, and not every table finds all the items in the same order, esp. in Princes which is more sandboxy).
Nah for example last season's Embers of Elmwood, Earthspur Mines, etc. The first batch of the season. This season i'm at the Encounters table with GM + 4 others, so I have not seen anything that comes out of the expiditions except the typical 1-6 that kicks off the season, because we started early at our store with that one.
Then again I did not know they could order more certs. Can they get more for older seasons too? One item at our store that had huge popularity was the googles of night from season 1 EX
I also like what they did with that gencon cert, where it is more or less a trade honor system, instead of requiring a cert. The Fai Chen table even had you rolling for qualities.
Right now all the certs are kept in a drawer near the cash regester.
They do need to request more certs in the original order. There is only one print run. They also have to be able to justify it with the reported play numbers: you're playing more than 6 tables of each module in a month, as the Expeditions cert package should contain 6 sets, from what I've seen.
That is correct. Each kit provides enough certs for 6 tables of each expedition. Somehow, I think that the DMs at your store are handing out more than one copy of the item/adventure, or are handing out certs to players before they play said adventure.
Each session only has one instance of the item and should only hand out one cert. To hand out a second cert, you need to run through the entire adventure a second time (with different characters), or have multiple concurrent tables.
Even at my massive store, I only have 1-2 Expeditions tables a week (it has increased to three as one table now runs on Wednesdays for those who can't make Tuesday Expeditions).
Kalani wrote: