By Mike Mearls
Mike talks about the D&D Adventurers league launch at Gen Con in this week’s Legends & Lore.
Talk about this article here.
"If you haven’t played D&D in public before, give it a try. Years before I started work at Wizards of the Coast, I took part in the Living Greyhawk campaign as a DM and volunteer. It’s easy to become too comfortable creatively when you play with the same group week after week, and playing D&D with a wide variety of people makes you a much better player and DM. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone exposes you to other styles of play, sharpens your skills, and broadens your horizons."
Sorry, Mike, public play isn't for everyone. Not everyone "should" push one's self out of one's comfort zone. It depends on the person. I've tried organised play (LFR), and I am really not happy playing with strangers, as so very often someone's style at the table is very contrary from what I'm looking for in a game. In short, if you're not having fun in public play, go ahead and play at home. Nothing at all wrong with being comfortable.
SteeleButterfly wrote:
In addition to not enjoying play with strangers in general, I also don't like the direction of public/organized play. All these weird 'rewards', charts, 'score cards' etc...Plus no interesting house rules...I dunno, I agree, it's not for me, and probably never will be. In my limited experience with it, back in the days of Gen Con being in Milwaukee, WI, and at a few LGS's in college and somewhat recently, it's not too fun. Competitive, boardering on trolling...Sexist...Elitist...In fact, I don't call them "FLGS" anymore, I call them LGS's. It was worse for my girlfriend at the time (who's now my wife). TTRPG players are just like any other group; a lot of jerks, a few nice people.
It can be hard to find people to play with, however...When time, jobs, lives, etc. keep me from playing/DMing I turn to videogames and boardgames lol.
That being said, if it's something people want to do, go for it. I can see it being cool, in the right environment, and if you connect with some of the people there.
Oh, the GenCon article. Such niche content for the last L&L article before the release of the PHB.
SteeleButterfly wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Yeah...
I'm not really a great fan of game companies putting so much attention into conventions. Convention attendance is a tiny portion of the hobby as a whole, attendance at a particular convention is even smaller, and the attention paid to them as far as releases and events just makes the rest of the hobby feel left out.
Why not release all the content to home games and game stores?
While Gen Con has a small fraction of the hobby attending, it's got a much larger portion watching all the social media streams like hawks. This includes myself.
I really hope there's videos of the seminars. I love those.
But yeah, by this point it's a huge part of the hobby in terms of it's importance.
Don't know about y'all, but I'm packing for GenCon and prepping for a ride to the airport in 7 hours!
Down for meetups and such!