Community

D&D Delve Night Announcement

Wizards of the Coast recently had 15 locations around the US test a revamped D&D Delve Night play experience. We provided the locations with materials and feedback forms and asked organizers, players, and DMs to give us honest opinions about the revised offering for the program. After reviewing the candid and detailed feedback, we have determined that the D&D Delve Night program will end after the current June 2009 offering.

In addition to receiving feedback on the D&D Delve Night program, participants and organizers told us what they’d like to see from a new program. We’ve listened to that feedback, and are currently in discussions about other program options for D&D. Once we have something in place, we will once again conduct a public playtest of the program to ensure that we’re incorporating feedback from the community before launch.

If you have or are currently playing, DMing, or organizing D&D Delve Night in a location near you, thank you very much for your participation. We hope that you enjoyed the program, and we look forward to creating an exciting new program in the future with your feedback and ideas!

Chris Tulach
D&D Organized Play Content Developer
Wizards of the Coast

D&D Delve Night Announcement for Organizers

As an organizer that has currently scheduled D&D Delve Night in your public location, thank you very much for your hard work and participation in the program. We’d like to take this opportunity to inform you about a recent decision regarding D&D Delve Night.

A few weeks ago, we had 15 locations around the US test a revamped D&D Delve Night play experience. We provided the locations with materials and feedback forms and asked organizers, players, and DMs to give us honest opinions about the revised offering for the program. After reviewing the candid and detailed feedback, we have determined that the D&D Delve Night program will end after the current June 2009 offering. For us, it is a giant step forward to be able to respond to the community’s concerns by performing a public playtest, and we will continue to provide such opportunities as necessary for future offerings.

In addition to receiving feedback on the D&D Delve Night program, participants and organizers told us what they’d like to see from a new program. We’ve listened to that feedback, and are currently in discussions about program options for D&D. Once we have something ready, we will once again conduct a public playtest of the program to ensure that we’re incorporating feedback from the community before launch. We want the program we develop to be the best play experience possible for its audience.

We understand that many of you have scheduled D&D Delve Night for your locations in July. We apologize for the inconvenience of the program announcement after scheduling had already opened for July. We are committed to listening to our community’s feedback to improve your participants’ play experiences, especially our organizers.

Therefore, we’d like to take this opportunity to ask you, our D&D Delve Night organizers, for ideas for a new program for D&D. What would excite your players and DMs? What would draw participants on a regular basis to your location? Let us know! You can contact us at www.wizards.com/customerservice with your thoughts.

Once more, thank you very much for organizing D&D Delve Night. We look forward to creating an exciting new program in the future with your feedback and ideas!

Chris Tulach
D&D Organized Play Content Developer
Wizards of the Coast

Official announcement is available here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/news/20090604

Please consider keeping delve night going at least until there is a replacement ready to go. The short-form pickup game is one f the best things that WOTC has done to support D&D, Tabletop Gaming, and local game stores. It's a great way to meet new players, and for some, the only way for them to play. I believe an interruption will be counter to all of the above.

Mithreinmaethor wrote:

And now how are we going to get the cool Condition cards?

Those DID look pretty damn cool.

Remember - while I definitely want to keep receiving feedback here - if you want to be SURE WotC hears your feedback, please remember to submit your ideas to Customer Service as well.

http://www.wizards.com/customerservice

I am glad to see something that was not working closed down. It probably was a hard decision to kill a revamped format, which again shows good leadership to take the results and shoot for something better.

I never played a delve. LFR 1-1s seemed plenty delvish and plenty accessible to new players, outside of not having intro PCs.

In reading ideas posted on the Delve ideas thread, I do think something can be done with the program. I look forward to hearing about it (and the bennies!).

The changes to the book-release days show a nice trend of improvements. Kudos to Chris and everyone else that makes our game better!

I didn't get a chance to play a Delve Night, but it seemed that it was aimed at a pretty high level, which is a bit hard to get into as a casual game.

So, we are looking for short pick up versions of the game that do not directly tie to existing RPGA format, correct?

What if we had something along the lines of the old DL module setup? Basically, we keep the three encounter format, but have a actual plotline that string between the short adventures, as well as pre-gens that advance as normal characters during the story. At the start of each adventure, the players report which decision they made at the end of the last adventure, and the scenario branches along that particular plot point for that adventure. The idea is more to keep the scenario fresh by throwing different encounter possibilities, then to make it a true tree scenario.

So, for example, if we took DL1, the first 'night' would be the escape from the Leaves of the Last Home, then the second 'night' would be negotiation with the unicorn, and the encounter at the temple. Third Night would be part of the city exploration, and how the party handled the Gully Dwarves the previous night affects the scenario here. The Fourth Night would be the final showdown with the Dragon, and if the party alerted the army or not would affect this scenario.

From my understanding, the Delve Nights were not interconnected, the characters constantly changed, and there wasn't much keeping groups together. With this idea, you form 'light' roleplaying groups, you focus on story elements, and players can get attached to the characters in the format, and watch them evolve over several scenarios, and if they play every one, they get an epic tale alongside.

Which, of course, is one of the things D&D is really about.

P.S. I am NOT saying Do Dragonlance. I am saying Look at the DL modules for inspiration on inter connectivity of format. That's all.