The Angry GM on D&D Encounters

[koga305]

The Angry GM, a sort of RPG pundit, just published an article where he talks about D&D Encounters. Some fair warning before you read it: Angry's style is unique (his "Angry Rants" are especially, well, rant-y, with a lot of @$&%ing) and it's not for everyone. That said, he makes some great points. His article doesn't address the rest of the AL at all, but it does cover Encounters, which is (in theory) the "entry level" version of the program:

• Publishing the big hardback adventures as Encounters is a pretty bad move for new players. Out of the Abyss is an especially egregious example, as it features all sorts of odd elements (underdark races, madness, etc.), and begins with an extended escape sequence - not at all the "traditional D&D experience."
• As a DM, making those adventures work is fairly difficult already, but the difficulty is compounded by the drop-in/drop-out nature of the format. Building relationships with NPCs or an area is hard to do when your group keeps changing.
• Much of the material from the published adventures makes very little sense in the context of Encounters. Random encounter tables don't work well for low-level players, and "designing your own session" doesn't mesh well with drop-in/drop-out play. Adventures with choices have to have those choices restricted, because the whole adventure can't be included in just 3-4 chapters.
• Why are things this way? Angry's not sure, but his conclusion is that WotC is cutting costs. Repackaging whatever they already have written is the cheapest way to do things.
• As a final note, ending on a cliffhanger then saying, "if you like this, you should buy the full adventure!" feels like a scam.

The above points are Angry's, not mine. That said, I agree with a lot of what he has said.
Personally, I am the president of a college gaming club that is running Adventurers League, but when deciding how to structure our program, we skipped right past the Encounters adventures* and went straight to Expeditions, which seem much better designed for the format. They're really long, though, and it's hard to get new players to commit to a 4-hour session. If WotC put more effort into making solid Encounters adventures (whether by better editing the prepackaged published adventures or writing something specifically for Encounters), it'd be a boon for our program and help us better serve new players.

Very curious to hear the AL community's thoughts!

*I am aware that we couldn't run them as Encounters because we don't host our games in a store, but in theory we could run an identical game on a different day of the week.

 

[cmad1977]

The guy is really quite sharp and his points in his blog are spot on.

 

[MerricB]

The basic problem we have is that D&D Encounters was originally a program to introduce new players to D&D, but it is no longer exclusively that. Instead, D&D Encounters is everyone-plays-D&D-day (otherwise known as Wednesday), married with a preview of the big adventure.

Honestly, you could very easily run one of the Harried in Hillsfar scenarios each week for 5 weeks, then a couple of the 2-hour adventures (levels 1-4) that have just been released and that would make an entirely suitable introductory program.

Encounters suffers because of this in-between state, but Angry's mainly working from the old definition.

Angry also doesn't see all the problems inherent in the introductory-only scenarios; allowing extended play of adventures on Wednesday has meant a lot of experienced players like playing them, rather than just new players, with experienced players getting fed up at only being able to play level 1-3 adventures each week for years on end.

I thought Angry wrote a really good, insightful article, but I think the program is better and more expansive than he thinks.

Cheers!

 

[kalani]

We discussed this on the FB group as well. We found it full of ego, glaring self-preside, and fallacious points. Yes he does make a handful of good points - however fails to understand the nature of the program; the fact that the AL staff has zero say about the hardcover adventures; the fact that a good DM can nudge players toward a course of action in a sandbox adventure by incentivizing a certain path by making it seem appealing; that Wednesday Encounters isn't just for newbs but is for everyone and offers adventures for all experience levels, and other factors.

Out of the Abyss for example is not an introductory adventure. It is for experienced gamers. At my store, I offer Princes, Hoard and select Expeditions for new players. Abyss and many Expeditions are for more experienced players who are confident in their 5e skills or gaming skills in general.

I could write a lengthy counter article in response but honestly - I don't think it's worth it as that would only feed his ego. He is convinced of his pov and is entitled to it. I agree that shoehorning the hardcovers into AL is a bad move without having said adventures written with an eye toward whether the adventure is OP or AL friendly - but other than that one point, it's simply not worth giving my time to.

 

[Lhorgrim]

That article is a good representation of my confusion when I started this season of Encounters (my first since 4E).

I understand that adventures cost money to produce, and it likely is more cost effective for WotC to adapt their current campaign book. Expeditions material seems much more similar to the old Encounters format that I remember. I think Expeditions could be converted for weekly Wednesday night play without much fuss. I really liked the free Expeditions adventure in Dragon+ and I can see how it would be much easier to run in the Encounters format than OotA.

The current Encounters format doesn't seem well suited to the Wednesday night sessions, but I don't know if it would do better replacing Expeditions in a convention setting.

I wasn't aware that the Encounters season ended in a "cliffhanger". I guess I thought they would be adapted to have an endpoint that let player transition to another campaign with that PC, or retire and start a new season of Organized Play with a new character.

 

[kalani]

There are several misconceptions here:

• The encounters seasons do not end on a cliffhanger. There are two seasons each year, a long and a short season. During that season, are three branches of inter-related adventures - one (or more) hardcover adventures set in the Sword Coast; a group of episodic adventures set in/around a single major city along the Moonsea (Expeditions); and the seasons Epic.
• The DDEN adventures (commonly called the "Encounters PDF") are EXCERPTS from the current season's hardcover adventure. At the end of each PDF, is a message saying that if the party wishes to continue the adventure they can purchase the full adventure and continue running it (either at home, or on Wednesdays as their "Encounters"). The confusion comes from the fact that these EXCERPTS do end on a cliffhanger, with the promise that the players can continue the adventure by purchasing the hardcover.
• The DDEN adventures are intended to be the gateway program to the entire Adventurers League. The DDEN adventures can only be run during Wednesday night Encounters. However, anything run on Wednesday is considered "Encounters". For want of better words, "Encounters night" simply means D&D Night for Everyone. You can run an Expedition on Wednesday nights - and it would still be called "Encounters". You can run a hardcover adventure on Wednesday night - and it will still be called Encounters (even if you have gone further in the story than the DDEN excerpt covers).

At my table, we never play the DDEN excerpts for several reasons.

• Someone always buys the hardcover, so we run it straight from the book.
• The Excerpts are more linear, and do not offer all locations in the hardcover. DDEN3 for example only details two major locations. Upon escaping from the drow, the party is guided toward the closest settlement (some 8 days away from their former location). In the full adventure however, all locations are available to the party, and they could potentially spend over a month wandering the underdark getting to their intended destination.
• The DDEN adventures have Experience Caps. This is unqiue to the Encounters PDF adventures. The hardcover adventures lack XP caps, allowing players to earn as much XP as is available. In Hoard of the Dragon Queen for example, players could easily earn upwards of 900XP in Episode 1, yet DDEN1 capped them at 300 for the entire Episode. Players who run the adventure from the hardcover lack such an XP cap, and could potentially end Episode 1 at 3rd level.

 

[Lhorgrim]

There are several misconceptions here:

I appreciate you posting that overview. That is much more information than what I found on WotC's webpage. I think the Encounters information on wizards.com may be leading to some of the confusion.

D&D Encounters is our weekly Wednesday play program, geared for a casual play audience with short sessions each week. It serves as a great introduction to our main storyline events, and uses material right from published adventure product. Each session only takes 1-2 hours to play, so it’s easy to fit your game in after school or work. And each week there’s a new and exciting challenge. Jump in anytime!

The last three sentences in that quote are what made me think that the sessions would be 1-2 hour modules that could be completed in one night. The idea that players can "jump in anytime" had me thinking that each week would be a new situation that could easily accommodate rotating players and PCs.

We’ll introduce the Elemental Evil storyline by adapting a portion (levels 1-4) of the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure for play. This adventure adaptation will be available as a complimentary PDF for stores that schedule D&D Encounters, who can then pass it along to their Dungeon Masters. After you’ve finished playing that portion of the adventure, you can continue play by picking up the rest of the adventure from the store or play in D&D Expeditions.

When I read this I thought that Encounters would transition into Expeditions in most cases. That's my fault, because it clearly says you can buy the book and continue. My thinking was there was no way to continue the hardback campaign and still be able to have people drop in and out each week.

The description you gave is much more accurate as far as I have seen, and I think it sets different expectations from the explanation WotC has posted.

Maybe when WotC updates the Organized Play section of the website, they could adjust the descriptions.

 

[Coredump]

I disagree that OotA is bad for new players. I have found it is only the *experienced* players that balk at losing their gear or not having all their normal options present. New players don't know what is 'normal' and thus adapt just fine.

Everyone is familiar with the 'jailbreak' trope and can work with that pretty readily.

I will agree that OotA is much better with an experienced DM, but that is a different matter. I have seen inexperienced DMs manage it adequately. And well, bad DMs are bad regardless of the material.

While AL is designed to allow for drop-in drop-out... it also needs to meet the needs and desires of folks that are reliable and consistent. For many people, Wednesday night is their DnD night....every Wednesday...every week. As a player, and as a DM, I *much* prefer the continual storyline...continual adventure...that the Encounters + Hardback provides. While the Expeditions are fun.... they are often rushed for time, or don't allow for as much role-play and environment interaction.

We have new players, and they are doing fine, we have people dropping in and out, and that is working okay. (Of course it would be better if everyone made it every week)

*IF* a location has almost only transient people with no consistency.... then it might be a problem. So *those* places may be better off not running encounters. But please don't ruin our fun just because some people can't take part.

If you have a lot of new people, then run X-1 adventures instead.... or give them some credit and let them play OotA.

I get tired of this "concern trolling' about the 'poor new people that need my protection'. Just because they are new, doesn't mean they are stupid. It just isn't that complicated to understand the concept of 'in jail'.

 

[CapnZapp]

Don't listen to him. As a bonus, that should make him more angry. ;-)

 

[koga305]

Lots of good discussion! It's certainly interesting to hear from folks with a lot of experience with AL.

We discussed this on the FB group as well. We found it full of ego, glaring self-preside, and fallacious points. Yes he does make a handful of good points - however fails to understand the nature of the program; the fact that the AL staff has zero say about the hardcover adventures; the fact that a good DM can nudge players toward a course of action in a sandbox adventure by incentivizing a certain path by making it seem appealing; that Wednesday Encounters isn't just for newbs but is for everyone and offers adventures for all experience levels, and other factors.

Out of the Abyss for example is not an introductory adventure. It is for experienced gamers. At my store, I offer Princes, Hoard and select Expeditions for new players. Abyss and many Expeditions are for more experienced players who are confident in their 5e skills or gaming skills in general.

I could write a lengthy counter article in response but honestly - I don't think it's worth it as that would only feed his ego. He is convinced of his pov and is entitled to it. I agree that shoehorning the hardcovers into AL is a bad move without having said adventures written with an eye toward whether the adventure is OP or AL friendly - but other than that one point, it's simply not worth giving my time to.

Kalani, it's great to hear from an AL Coordinator about this! I agree that there's a lot more going on here than Angry realizes. In addition, I realize that the AL staff doesn't control what WotC does with the hardcover mega-adventures, and I don't think anyone is blaming you all for any real or perceived problems with them.
That said, not sure I agree with your point that individual stores/groups can just offer different adventures for new players. Sure, they can, but isn't that an indicator that the default isn't working? Certainly it seems like WotC is focusing its marketing on Encounters, as that's the only way to get the special faction kits, and the Encounters adventures are much more nicely presented and edited than the Expeditions. It's rather counterintuitive to me that the thing WotC is pushing for new players actually isn't as good an option for new players.

I disagree that OotA is bad for new players. I have found it is only the *experienced* players that balk at losing their gear or not having all their normal options present. New players don't know what is 'normal' and thus adapt just fine.

Everyone is familiar with the 'jailbreak' trope and can work with that pretty readily.

I will agree that OotA is much better with an experienced DM, but that is a different matter. I have seen inexperienced DMs manage it adequately. And well, bad DMs are bad regardless of the material.

I agree that the "jailbreak" adventure theme isn't that bad in and of itself - I rather like it as an introduction to D&D on the whole. I also agree that the problem is not as much on the player side. Rather, I think between the many complex NPCs, the unfamiliar setting, and the particular brutality of drow (making it easy to shut down players' actions and plans), it's easy for an inexperienced DM to make mistakes, especially when you add in the complexity of breaking it into encounters sessions and dealing with players who weren't there every week.

I get tired of this "concern trolling' about the 'poor new people that need my protection'. Just because they are new, doesn't mean they are stupid. It just isn't that complicated to understand the concept of 'in jail'.

Point taken. However, I think the nature of Out of the Abyss makes it much more difficult to run - it isn't just the jailbreak concept, it's the many different "new and different". Clearly a fantastic DM can, with enough prep work, make just about anything fun for players of various experience levels. But Encounters isn't populated by just fantastic DMs - there are also a whole lot of new DMs, or DMs with weaknesses in certain areas, or just all-around mediocre DMs.
When you give an adventure this complex to an inexperienced DM, it's much more likely that something the players do will throw them off, or they'll make a mistake that results in people having a bad time. I have read reports of various players walking away frustrated from season 3 Encounters because they didn't understand what was going on or they didn't feel like they could make a difference to the situation. That's dangerous - Encounters is a whole lot of people's first experience with D&D, and their first impression could make the difference between a lifelong player and someone walking away from the game. Isn't Encounters supposed to be about welcoming new players to the game?

Don't listen to him. As a bonus, that should make him more angry. ;-)

Not sure I agree with you. Angry is definitely taking advantage of a unique, rant-y style to attract attention. However, he makes a lot of strong points that shouldn't be discounted just because of his style. The guy isn't being negative for no reason - if you read his stuff, it seems pretty clear that his goal is to give genuinely good advice and help change RPG culture for the better.
In addition, I personally find that his style makes his work more interesting to read. The "Angry Rants" tend to be very negative in tone, but he's actually published a lot of really helpful content on his main site - for an example, I'd recommend his article on encounter building.