I have a few questions about GMing.
1.) If I run a Home Play (or at a Game Store) must all the players be
RPGA Members?
2.) How do I report a game without any RPGA Members or with a few members and a few non-members?
3.) If I run a Home Play, how much can I alter the adventure module (bringing in, other magical items, other npc's or monsters)?
thank you for helping
First I like to say "Hallo" since I'm new to RPGA (but not to gaming).
I have a few questions about GMing.
1.) If I run a Home Play (or at a Game Store) must all the players be
RPGA Members?
Yes, everyone who plays in an RPGA event, no matter where it is held, must be an RPGA member. The good news is that RPGA membership is free, and that RPGA and DCI membership are the same thing now, so anyone who's played in a Magic: the Gathering tournament, for instance, will have a DCI number and already be an RPGA member.
2.) How do I report a game without any RPGA Members or with a few members and a few non-members?
You can't: everyone who takes part needs to have a DCI or RPGA number. You can get blank DCI cards from the DCI. I believe that to do so you contact the appropriate person from the list here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/sanction/tocontact although it may be that you need to contact customer services (www.wizards.com/customerservice). You could also ask a game store to give you some blank cards as they might have spares. Make sure you get cards with ten-digit numbers on: shorter numbers don't work to create new members.
3.) If I run a Home Play, how much can I alter the adventure module (bringing in, other magical items, other npc's or monsters)?
Home Play was an ambiguous term and is now, I think, slightly outdated. It has been split into two concepts: 'Dungeons and Dragons Private Play' is any RPGA event held in a private place or for a closed group of people. 'Dungeons and Dragons Wizards Play Network' is any RPGA event open to the public. Whether you are running Private or WPN events makes no difference to how much you can change things - it merely alters the ordering process and whether running the event improves your standing with the WPN as a public event organiser (probably of limited/no use at the moment unless you also run big M:tG tournaments).
If you are running Living Forgotten Realms (or, in the future, a different shared-campaign), you ought to run the adventure close to what is written, though paying attention to the text at the front of the adventure which gives the DM the right to make some adjustments to ensure a fun challenge to the players. These forums are full of discussion of the scope of what the players have dubbed "DM Empowerment (DME)" so those threads may prove useful. If your players want to be playing Living Forgotten Realms, they need to follow the LFR rules, though, which particularly puts hard limits on the maximum XP, gold pieces, and other treasure which they can receive in an adventure. You can not change these rewards, no matter how the event is organised, if you want to be playing the LFR campaign.
However there are various other adventures which can be played in RPGA events. The only real advantage to playing these as RPGA events is that the DM gets a reward point for running it, and five points in a six-month period will result in the DM being sent some rewards from WotC. If you are running these adventures - whether it is an adventure from Dungeon Magazine which has not been adapted for LFR (or you are playing outside LFR), one of the printed WotC adventures (ditto) or 'Home Campaign (Forgotten Realms)' or 'Home Campaign (Other)' which do not come with an adventure to download and simply give the DM a point for each session he runs - you can pretty much do what you like as what you do will have no bearing on the shared-world campaign. On the other hand, as I've said, the benefits of doing so are slight.
In short, most people running RPGA events are running Living Forgotten Realms. If you are doing that you need to follow the rules closely. There is a new programme of D&D Delves which are perhaps a hybrid between my two categories, but are pretty much 'let's play some fun D&D tonight' so the precise details aren't as important. And there are some people who get reward points for D&D play not in these categories. They don't have to worry about sticking to the adventure too closely - as not doing so only affects their players, and no-one else!
thank you for helping
No problem; I hope that wasn't too wordy!
This answer will help me!
Since I prefer to run selfmade adventures in my Home-Group, I can earn Points for GMing there, too.
LFR is the 'official' RPGA campaign. Anything run in LFR must follow all rules closely and reported.
RPGA is the broad play network. Events can be run for RPGA that earn the DM (only) reward points. As far as I understand, anything goes as long as everyone has RPGA numbers?
Private Play is a 'sub-type' of RPGA with a DM and players in a private setting not open to the public, running RPGA events. Can LFR be run as Private Play? The PCs acrue xp and items and can play those same characters at conventions or other LFR WPN games?
I'm mainly concerned with Private Play. Can I schedule and download an RPGA Adventure CORE1-1, for example, and run it as a Private Play with no link to the 'official' LFR setting? Since I can't seem to download anything at all right now, I haven't been able to test this out.
Since it seems that only the DM earns rewards for running events (Private Play or WPN), what is the difference? What is the advantage to running a public event?
Thanks for the help. Either this is harder than it needs to be or I am making it harder than it needs to be.
Chris
Just so I understand this, I think I am getting LFR, RPGA and Private Play confused.
LFR is the 'official' RPGA campaign. Anything run in LFR must follow all rules closely and reported.
There used to be other RPGA campaigns. There may be others in the future. At the moment, though, this is correct - and should there be others, anything run in those campaigns would have to follow the rules and be reported
RPGA is the broad play network. Events can be run for RPGA that earn the DM (only) reward points. As far as I understand, anything goes as long as everyone has RPGA numbers?
In a private RPGA event, so long as you have between four and six players, plus one GM, no-one is going to know or care what else you are doing. What you do has no relevance outside that gaming session, except that it earns the DM a DM point.
Private Play is a 'sub-type' of RPGA with a DM and players in a private setting not open to the public, running RPGA events.
Yes.
Can LFR be run as Private Play?
Yes.
The PCs acrue xp and items and can play those same characters at conventions or other LFR WPN games?
Yes, and also at other LFR Private Play events.
I'm mainly concerned with Private Play. Can I schedule and download an RPGA Adventure CORE1-1, for example, and run it as a Private Play with no link to the 'official' LFR setting?
Officially, probably not. In order to report the event (and get the DM his DM point) you have to tell the system which LFR character each player played, and information about rewards received. Now, if your players are happy not to 'actually' be playing the LFR campaign, and don't use their characters outside your group in official LFR games, no-one's going to know whether you are telling the reporting system the truth. However as far as I can tell, Living Forgotten Realms adventures are, officially, made available only for people to use them as part of the official LFR campaign. Out of curiosity, why would you want to do this?
Since I can't seem to download anything at all right now, I haven't been able to test this out.
What problem are you having? There are lots of threads around with advice on the ways to get solutions to problems with the new system, or give us more specifics and we'll try to point you in the right direction.
Since it seems that only the DM earns rewards for running events (Private Play or WPN), what is the difference? What is the advantage to running a public event?
The differences are: whether you need to provide location information to the RPGA in advance of the event; whether your event is listed in the event calendar; whether your standing in the WPN is affected by the fact that you ran the event; and whether you have an event which is aimed at a pre-selected group of people, or available for people you don't know to join.
Thanks for the help. Either this is harder than it needs to be or I am making it harder than it needs to be.
The changes have made a few things odder than usual and will take some time to bed down. The questions you're asking suggest you've got a reasonable grasp on what's going on!
Thanks for the response. Most helpful. I'm am beginning to understand a bit more.
As for why I want to run an LFR adventure, it saves me from having to write one. Sure there are Dungeon adventures, published ones, and whatnot, but if I have the additional option of also using LFR material (since the game I am running is set in the Realms), good on me. Things seem to go a bit better if I take a pre-written adventure with most of the work done and then tweak it to suit my quirky tastes.
As for the download problems, I've been following the various threads and have seen others having similar issues. It's been covered in other posts, but basically I wrote to customer service on the help site (not sure of the actual link) and received a response a couple days later. I believe they gave me all the access I lost when the system changed, and I will try it out as soon as I send this post.
Thanks again,
Chris
p.s. Oops, one other thing. Running a Private Play game won't affect my standing in the WPN. What does that mean? What is my standing? If I still get swag points for running a Private game, what do I get for WPN? Not that I require any additional motivation to DM, but it's always nice to get loot.
p.s. Oops, one other thing. Running a Private Play game won't affect my standing in the WPN. What does that mean? What is my standing? If I still get swag points for running a Private game, what do I get for WPN? Not that I require any additional motivation to DM, but it's always nice to get loot.
There is information here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/wpn/levels - as far as I can tell, only events organised as WPN count for the purposes of moving up the WPN levels. As you can see from that site, there is nothing that an RPGA organiser needs that isn't available at Gateway level, so there's no need to worry about WPN levels - at least until/unless they add D&D-based benefits there. It's difficult to see what benefits they can add, though, at least without excluding a large number of regular and faithful RPGA GMs from those benefits, which would seem counter-productive
(It seems that the Magic-based benefits are all about recognising which organisers are good at running large Magic tournaments, and then letting them run pre-release or other special events. The RPGA reporting system isn't as good a measure of how well an organiser runs a D&D convention as it is at tracking how well a Magic tournament is run, I think.)
As it stands Gateway organizers can get them, so the plan may have changed, or (with the terms being new) Chris may have simply been mistaken.
The point is - there may eventually be advantages to being CORE level - even for the RPGA.
This brings me to my second question, however.
In a private RPGA event, so long as you have between four and six players, plus one GM, no-one is going to know or care what else you are doing.
Would I even be able to officially run a home play game with less than four players? It's currently looking like two players and myself, which we're fine with, but even if I make them RPGA members, is that still kosher? I might have to make the adventures easier and lower the encounters to fit two people.
Would I even be able to officially run a home play game with less than four players? It's currently looking like two players and myself, which we're fine with, but even if I make them RPGA members, is that still kosher? I might have to make the adventures easier and lower the encounters to fit two people.
Unfortunately, no. The event reporting system won't let you report a game (not even a home campaign) with fewer than four (or more than six) players.