Dear WPN Organizer,
This Wednesday, April 8, we’ll be implementing improvements to the D&D event scheduling process. Below is a list of these changes and how they impact your D&D event scheduling.
Two Logos for D&D Events
When you log in to schedule a D&D event (including Living Forgotten Realms, D&D Delve Night, and Worldwide D&D Game Days), you’ll now see two logos.
· If your game is private, meaning it is not open to the public, click the Dungeons & Dragons Private Play logo. Private D&D events can be run anywhere, including homes, stores, etc. We will no longer ask where you are holding your private events.
· If your game is public, meaning it’s run at a public venue (like a game store, library or hotel) and is open to the public, click the Dungeons & Dragons Wizards Play Network logo.
Living Forgotten Realms events can be either public or private, but only public LFR events count for purposes of the organizer’s standing within the Wizards Play Network.
Note that D&D Delve Night and Worldwide D&D Game Day are always public, so click on the Dungeons & Dragons Wizards Play Network logo to schedule those events.
Phone and Email Required for Public Events
When you schedule a public event, you will now be asked to provide a phone number and email address. Please provide the contact information for someone that can provide comprehensive information about your event to potential participants. If you are running a public event at a non-retail location (hotel, library) you should usually not provide the facility phone number or email address.
Improved Shipping Info Form
When you finish scheduling a D&D Delve Night or Worldwide D&D Game Day event, and you live in a region that receives physical materials for these events, you will be required to fill out a mailing fulfillment form so we can ship the materials to you. You can have the materials delivered wherever you choose (except PO Boxes). There is a new drop-down box that will help you enter shipping information.
As a note, Living Forgotten Realms events don’t have physical materials to ship; you’ll always find your download materials available instantly after scheduling your events via link to a .zip file in the “My Events” section of your profile.
Please note that you may not be able to schedule D&D events between noon and 5pm (Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 8 while the scheduling system is updated to implement these improvements.
We trust these changes will make scheduling D&D events even easier. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or comments about these changes.
Thank you,
The WPN Team
Wizards of the Coast
Living Forgotten Realms events can be either public or private, but only public LFR events count for purposes of the organizer’s standing within the Wizards Play Network.
Does this refer to the "Gateway" type standing, or the DM reward points standing?
Or, more simply put, will I still get rewards for private play? (Man, that did NOT sound good)
I do think this will drive more DMs to my meetups however, not a bad thing, but the incentive for others in my home group to share the DM load just lessened.
Does this refer to the "Gateway" type standing, or the DM reward points standing?
Or, more simply put, will I still get rewards for private play? (Man, that did NOT sound good)
Heh, odd phrasing aside, I'm curious about that too, and will attempt to get answers.
One thing this screws up for me is that I often use private home games to report LFR modules that weren't part of the sanctioning but were run at the gameday anyhow (this often happens as we bring piles of extra adventures with us for overflow). How are we to handle these sorts of things in the future?
I do think this will drive more DMs to my meetups however, not a bad thing, but the incentive for others in my home group to share the DM load just lessened.
In my experience you need not use "private" games for that - you can (as of the DCI merger) sanction a public game same-day. So, if today you play a "pickup" game of DALE1-1, you can login right before/after playing and still get it sanctioned and reported. You don't NEED to mark it as private.
They also say that they are changing how shipping information is done for gamedays and other events. Will this effect hose of us who have already signed up for the May Gameday?
Sounds to me like they're actually making that the standard - and this e-mail is just the announcement of that.
Sounds to me like they're actually making that the standard - and this e-mail is just the announcement of that.
This I like too, because half the time I sanction something my email address gets overwritten with the guy who coordinates M:tG... making for mayhem.
Thanks for the other note there Wolf, I wasn't aware of that and will try it next time.
I also asked if private games would keep your herald status active as well - and it will.
So it sounds like it's all the same old same old - save for a little reorganization.
I organize a weekly game day that regularly averages 45 attendees at a local game store. My volunteering my time to help grow this hobby should not subject me to having to give out my personal phone number to anyone. This part of the restructuring makes no sense and should really be reconsidered. The public game day I run maintains a Warhorn site and a forum on the game store's web-site as well as my email address being publicly available - there is no reason for anyone to have my personal phone number in order to provie comprehensive information.
Can we check on why this is being required and how public our phone numbers are going to be made by this restructure of the system?
Donovan Hicks
Devoted slave to the game (though I think the drow were less brutal task masters than the current Netherese and Shadovar masters)
I got this email today too. What bothers me is the requirement for a phone number of someone that can provide comprehensive information about a public event. That person would be me, the organizer, and they're not going to ever get my personal phone number for a public event, so they're going to get the game stores number and it's possible that they will not be talking to anyone with more than passing knowledge of the event. An email address should be more than sufficient for this.
I organize a weekly game day that regularly averages 45 attendees at a local game store. My volunteering my time to help grow this hobby should not subject me to having to give out my personal phone number to anyone. This part of the restructuring makes no sense and should really be reconsidered. The public game day I run maintains a Warhorn site and a forum on the game store's web-site as well as my email address being publicly available - there is no reason for anyone to have my personal phone number in order to provie comprehensive information.
Can we check on why this is being required and how public our phone numbers are going to be made by this restructure of the system?
Donovan Hicks
Devoted slave to the game (though I think the drow were less brutal task masters than the current Netherese and Shadovar masters)
I suspect that this is simply so that they can put the number of someone who can talk about the event on the calendar.
I personally put the information for my FLGS on there, as I'm a volunteer there - and more often then not when calls come in about D&D it's on the day of the event so I'm there anyhow. As a fallback, however, the store's employees have an e-mail address they can give out for me (I actually have an e-mail address at the store's domain).
The goal is to make sure that "Bob the Newbie" can easily call and find out things like: are there seats available, how does the RPGA work, what's LFR, etc.
Create a one-page document for your events, and leave that with the store to read off to curious callers. E-mail "should" be good enough - but some people simply prefer to communicate by telephone. There are two people in my group of ~12 that use computers at the bare minimum they must. There's no reason to exclude people because of their communication preferences.
Living Forgotten Realms events can be either public or private, but only public LFR events count for purposes of the organizer’s standing within the Wizards Play Network.
I should probably know the answer to this, but this is different than GM rewards, right? I usualy order events for retail, with the assumption that I am helping out the store somehow... I hope this is the case.
I should probably know the answer to this, but this is different than GM rewards, right? I usualy order events for retail, with the assumption that I am helping out the store somehow... I hope this is the case.
I think it *might* help the store, but I also understand there to be levels to your WPN Organizer status.
By default we're all "Gateway" organizers - but if you hold "x" events and recruit "y" new players annually you get bumped up to Core. I don't recall off -hand what the advantages of this are - I think it's largely to do with support for Magic: the Gathering events.
We were running so many retail games at out FLGS that Wizards sent a free wall clock/timer and whiteboard event calender with useful magnets and markers. It was actually pretty cool of them.
My FLGS has that calendar (at one location) but the wall clock/timer sounds AWESOME.
Thanks guys.
As pointed out on the LivingFR Yahoo!Group, characters now (currently?) appear only under Dungeons and Dragons: Private Play in 'My Characters', not under Dungeons and Dragons: Wizards Play Network.
Is that accurate, is that the way things are going to be going forward, and will events ordered as WPN correctly update characters listed under Private Play?
Another question to pass back to WotC:
As pointed out on the LivingFR Yahoo!Group, characters now (currently?) appear only under Dungeons and Dragons: Private Play in 'My Characters', not under Dungeons and Dragons: Wizards Play Network.
Is that accurate, is that the way things are going to be going forward, and will events ordered as WPN correctly update characters listed under Private Play?
This issue is being discussed in more detail in this thread.
I've raised the issue with Community Management, Customer Service, the DCI team, and a couple key RPGA/WPN individuals in side WotC.
Hopefully someone will respond to us fairly soon.
I only have 3 now, but I've only run 3 home games for this duration.
I should have another... uh... alot ;) of points for all the retail days and gamedays that I'verun.
They're still working on the reporting tools, so please be patient. Remember, though: you can always email [email]dci@wizards.com[/email] and/or [email]customerservice@wizards.com[/email] if you feel something more is amiss!