Okay, I am thinking of running expeditions at our flgs. We have 2 games of 5th going, but none of them AL. I was looking at the release schedule for Rage of Demons and it doesn't seem like enough mods will be released to cover early play. Thinking of starting as soon as early September. There are 13 hours for 1-4, and 8 hours for 5-10 for September-November. Is that enough for a weekly 4 hour slot? And will the PC's hit 5th level before they run out of mods? Any help or advice on this would be appreciated.
Mary
Don't forget that you can still run adventures from the TOD & EE seasons until they're retired.
Anyone else remember October last year when people were complaining about a lack of Expeditions Scenarios? We should totally call them out on it now! 
Tyranthraxus wrote:
You are reading too much into my comment. I said that rather than add source books to old Story Origins, there is a better chance we would retire it. I have no expectation that we would retire multiple seasons at once, though it likely that at some point down the road we will retire a season.
Skerrit wrote:
I would imagine that a good time for retiring seasons is when/if we return to the city for a new season, so as to limit confusion. Now, if I was WotC, I wouldn't retire the printed hardcovers, ever, though.
Can't anything about previous complaints on the number of mods, wasn't playing expeditions then. As for running mods from the older season, I know I can do that. However thematically and story wise I would h-5prefer to stay in the rage of demons storyline. And I still don't know if 13 hours of 1-4 adventures is enough for the players to hit 5th level. I realize they can use the level up option from 4th to 5th level.
But I'm looking at our potential schedule for gaming. Assuming I start the week after the mods are released to allow for prep time, we have 11 weekly sessions before the mods in December are released. There are 13 hours of 1-4 and 8 hours of 5-10 available for game play in September, October and November. I'm looking at 4 hour sessions, although realistically it will be more like 3 hours. So I don't see how the math adds up. I know there will be more low level mods released as the season goes on, but for those of us starting right at the beginning the schedule seems a bit tight.
Mary
Lissan wrote:
Lissan wrote:
Some of the lower tier scenarios have been handing out between 900 to 1200 exp per scenario. Some of the Season 1 stuff was handing out 400-600 exp. Thats a big jump and its quite possible now to get to level 5 without playing anything else but Expeditions from multiple seasons
Tyranthraxus wrote:
SteveMND wrote:
Lissan wrote:
SteveMND wrote:
Lissan wrote:
Steve also forgot Online Play. AFAIK, you can sanction Expedtions for online play if you meet certain requirements. For example, if you stream your games, it counts as "public play" for the purposes of meeting requirements.
Encounters - Any game run on a wednesday at a store is considered "Encounters" (for the purpose of marketing/reporting), regardless of whether they are running the Encounters adventure(s), an Expedition, or LMoP.
Encounters Adventure(s): These adventures are given the code DDEN-X. These are store-exclusive excerpts from the hardcover adventures and impose XP caps on characters when playing them. These adventures are only allowed to be played on Wednesdays. Upon completion of the DDEN-X module, you can purchase the hardcover adventure and continue playing it, play expeditions, play LMoP, or play a different DDEN adventure and it would still be called "Encounters" (as above) but should not be confused with running the Encounters Adventure(s).
Casual Play: You can play lost mines of phandelver, hoard of the dragon queen, rise of tiamat, princes of the apocalypse, or out of the abyss any day of the week. This is reported as Casual Play if run through a store, but is considered Home Play if run privately. Home Play events are not reported in WER. They are otherwise identical to Casual Play (store sponsored) events. DCI numbers are not required for the DM and/or players if you only play them in Home Play events. If you take your character to a store or online play however, you require a DCI number for your character. Casual Play is any day of the week (except Wednesday). Home Play can be any day of the week (including wednesday).
Your characters must still fill out logsheets when run as a casual play event and must still conform to AL rules. The main differences between casual play and Encounters are as follows:
- Encounters have XP Caps
- Encounters are Wednedsay only.
- Encounters have a free DDEN excerpt from the hardcover adventures - Casual play requires the table to purchase the hardcover adventures or starter set to play.
Expeditions - These are Store exclusive adventures and have the Code DDEX X-Y. You must play these adventures in a public space, sponsored by a store. Online play counts as a public space for the purpose of meeting these requirements if the event is made available for public consumption (eg. live-streaming), and the event is reported in WER. These can be played any day of the week.
Online Play: Online play is identical to casual play and home play, except that it is run through an online medium such as Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds. It has the same restrictions as Casual Play.
Playtests: You can conduct private playtests of upcoming adventures if the DM is a member of the official playtest group. If you are a member of this group, you will be instructed as to the limits/requirements for playtesting each adventure.
Previews: If at least half the table are DMs, you can run a preview of an adventure up to 2 weeks before the adventure is scheduled. DMs are committed to running the adventure within the next 2 weeks in order to qualify for the event to count as an Adventure Preview (see ALPG for details of previews).
Thanks Kalani for the clear explanations, it really helps. Since I can't run on Wednesdays, it would definitely be expeditions. They will be run in the store, sponsered by the store so no problems there. While I haven't done Adventurer's League, I am familiar with running living mods from running Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms at our local con where I staff. So the paperwork parade and having to follow the rules set for the storylines is not an issue. I just had a different idea of how expeditions would work then it actually does. Still, going to give it a try. Need to let our manager know to order the mods and get them scheduled. Wish me luck! I'll no doubt be back on the forums asking questions again.
Mary
You only need to schedule the adventures if you want to get the certificates. You can run them any time (even if they weren't scheduled) and simply report them in WER so that the store gets credit for running them. They only issue the certificates for the upcoming months adventures though - so you cannot schedule older adventures and expect to receive the certificates for them.
The current adventures/products being scheduled are the first few expeditions for Rage of Demons, Out of the Abyss (hardcover adventure), and the Rage of Demons Faction Kits. Stores have until August 7th to schedule these products (and order certificates for them).
Lissan wrote:
You keep saying this... but it isn't true.
Season 1 is the easiest example. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is an published adventure with 8 Episodes.
The Encounter Adventures for Season 1 are simply Episodes 1-3 from that book distributed as a .pdf with some minor additional restrictions added. (Only Tier 1, XP caps per episode)
So you can play Greenest in Flames (Episode 1) on Wednesday and it is Encounters, but you can play the *Exact same content* on Tues, or Fri. or any day... and it would just use a different lable (Casual play)
*ALL* AL content can be played on any day.... you are just not supposed to use the .pdf version on any day but Wednesday.
Sorry, I'm not making myself clear. I DO know that I can the encounters as casual play. What I meant is that I can't run it AS encounters on Wednesday, for purposes of scheduling on wizards. The mods are available for play though. I'm not sure if I want to run Out of the Abyss or not so I'm going to start with expeditions for now.
Also keep in mind, that if you start up some AL play, if those PCs go and play in non-AL sessions, they are no longer AL legal. So they can't go back and forth between your AL-Expeditions and the PotA campaign in the store. Now, if the PotA campaign was also running with AL rules... then that is fine. [/quote]
From running living campaigns at cons I understand about restrictions on characters with playing in-and out-of the system. I am running it adventurer's league in the Rage of Demon storyline, so the characters will be AL legal. Several of my players have player at cons, including AL, so they understand the rules. If I do switch to Out of the Abyss, I plan on running it with AL rules so no problem there. Added benefit to me running expeditions is our local con is in 3 months. If I have run some of the current storyline, then it is easier for me to run them at the con. And easier for the con AL organizer to have a DM who knows them. In any case the mods are ordered and I'm going to start the week after they are released to give me time to prep. So I'm going to be back asking many questions I'm sure Thanks again for all the help.
Mary
Lissan wrote:
Is there any reasoning behind the "you can only play Wednesday" rule? Always thought that was annoying (since I can't play). If you'r running the same content (PDF), using AL rules, why should it matter when you play? I can understand restricting it to the stores. Though Pathfinder Society doesn't do this and works just fine, though Society play is a lot more like Expeditions than Encounters.
I'd recommend also not playing somewhere with a hard and fast cut time. Adventures are supposed to be 4 hours, but that assumes everyone is on time and such things. We started at 12:30 and got out at 6:00 yesterday. That was with 7 players and skipping an entire encounter through clever bard thinking.
Kahless wrote:
Kahless wrote:
Essentially, if you download for free off of the DNDAL website, it's restricted to public play (plus DM previews). If you buy it, you can play it anywhere, any time.
And just because you're playing it "in public" doesn't make it a public event. You need to advertise it and allow others to join in.
Just an update
We have our 2nd sessions of expeditions tonight. Because of spending a fair amount of time on character creation with new players, we only got the first mini mod of Harried in Hillsfar done. I'm thinking 2 more sessions for this one. Then I'm going to try the suggestion of running 2-16 Boltsmeirs Book, then on through mostly the Rage of Demon storyline expeditions. The table as well as the DM both prefer that keep it in the underdark Only 4 players, but I think I might be getting 2 more tonight. I appreciate all the responses I've gotten from the boards and I will certainly be back for more help. I just have to have our flgs get the password for the older seasons, which is no problem since the store is very cooperative. We are the first AL to run there.
Mary