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Apr 29, 2010 -- 7:34AM, Skerrit wrote:

I'm not going to address this right now, but I will say it's more of an announcement than something that will be in the CCG. I do have it on my radar and likely we will post a Blog post discussing it on the LFG group (community.wizards.com/lfr). If you aren't a member, you should sign up today! I am trying to move all of the Globals towards using it for announcements, so like Gomeztoo, we are posting there and its easy to miss if you don't check it every so often.

Until members can receive a report on changes (posts/wiki edits/new threads/blogs/etc.) to a group, please also announce it on these forums. Otherwise, most of us won't know. I mean this in the nicest way, but I really can't click on every group I've joined every day to see if it changed.

Apr 29, 2010 -- 7:42AM, Dragon9 wrote:

Even tho9ugh we don't know the  schedule for Origins yet, I suspect it will have mor elower level play.   I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if the summer cons got  split up like that.

I know you mean this well, but outside of PAX (and arguably for PAX), it is a really bad idea. PAX is at least a con(s) that have as their target a much wider audience. Thus, excluding the experienced player is somewhat permissible... though you have to wonder why you want to do that. At anything other than PAX (Gen Con, D&DXP, Origins, etc.), I see no value in excluding a demographic. "Oh, you are an experienced player that loves LFR? Sorry, you should not play at PAX. We will have no LFR. Oh, you are a new player? Come to Gen Con and play this cool MINI series. But, don't come next year, because we won't support H2."

The last Gen Con was really close to getting it right. An ADCP allowed less prep-work and scaled to all playable tiers. You had new mods for every tier. You had specials for all tiers. You had premieres for the newest tier. Then you had the delves and other one-shots. I think that could be pared down and adjusted and would work well. The key is a sliding scale rather than a hard stop, plus having something that is flexible. I would argue:

PAX:

• 1-2 Non-LFR one-shots to introduce new worlds, new programs, new products. (Example: one-shot showcasing new minis, tiles, and a book.)
• A few sessions of latest D&D Encounters program. (To get them hooked on the new program).
• 2-4 H1 LFR adventures, of which 1-2 are new and the rest are really good recent releases. Or, a linked series. MINIs are ideal. (Get them hooked on LFR)
• 1 single scalable ADCP or scalable Special LFR adventure that can serve all current tiers. (Flexible, keeps judges happy and attracts experienced and new gamers).

Gen Con / D&DXP:

• 1-2 Non-LFR one-shots
• 1 Board game or non-D&D product demo or intro session
• D&D Encounters on demand (basically open system for a slot or 2 - name the session you want, and have fun. Could even be played as the Delve, replacing that effort.)
• LFR play for every tier. Study play demographics and shape the number of adventures at each tier to reflect that. Always provide at least 2 H1 adventures suitable for new players.
• 1 series of Special or ADCP adventures. Preferably a series (like the Elturgard specials) so it can be played several times by the same player or provide a seat for a certain tier of play, but a single scalable adventure like ADCP1-1 can work.

Origins: I don't know the con, so I won't hazard a guess at what works here.

Sure, once we are going all the way to E3, it is harder to do. But it can be done well enough (not necessarily with one adventure for each tier).

At Gen Con last year, we had:

• D&D For Beginners
• D&D Delve
• D&D Ultimate Delve
• D&D Championship (used to be called the Open)
• ADCP1-1 Jungle Hunt (1 adventure H1 - P1)
• SPEC1-3 (4 separate adventures, H1 - P1)
• CORE1-13 (H1)
• MINI1-1 (2-round H1)
• IMPI1-5 (H2)
• LURU1-5 (H3)
• CORE1-14 (P1)
• LFR Midnight Madness Open Play

That is a lot being offered! It covers non-LFR extensively while still covering all the tiers of play at that time.

Now, I would guess that the Ultimate Delve takes about as much work to write as the ADCP. In theory, you could convert that into a second part of the ADCP so you had two ADCPs covering all tiers. Change the 4 specs to be 3 specs, each covering a range of heroic, paragon, epic. Have two H1s as before, and then have the rest target tiers according to the reigning demographics.

The campaign can also use the MYRE concept to double-dip. If you look at last year's Ultimate Delve, you could lower the encounter levels to normal LFR levels and be able to run a MYRE shell in addition to being a competition for non-LFR players. Encounter 1: remove x and y. Etc. This season's D&D Encounters would also make a fine LFR MYRE, and could be fun in that format. Add a bit here and there and cut it off at 4 hours. Good times.

This Gen Con isn't far off. If it just had a scaling adventure that could meet the needs of all current tiers, it would be in good shape. Or, having the Specials bridge the gaps (SPEC 1 does H1-H3. SPEC 2 does P1 and P2. SPEC 3 does P3) could work well to give greater flexibility.

Meh on titles. I don't mean to be disrespectful at all, mind you, but "Acquisition" is a lovely bit of business speak. Sure, you want to attract new players... but we had brand new players at D&D XP. We just had far fewer than at Gen Con last year (tons of new RPGA cards handed out) or at PAX Prime (incredible ratio of new players and walk-ins). So, sure, let's acquire new players.

But, PAX East did exclude people. 0 LFR support will exclude people. While I am a strong believer in playing a lot of things at Gen Con, my schedule is more than 50% RPGA and many people do choose a near 100% RPGA/LFR schedule. I suspect that the demographics of casual play have a good number of players that have just one PC in the 5-10 range. Those players are excluded by this year's Gen Con. My old DC group narrowly avoided being excluded. They have been fairly clear to me that they prefer not to create a second PC, but I'm doing my best to bring them into more LFR play. Luckily, we can play the three MINI mods and not level out... barely. To do so, we have to play our midnight madness LFR only after the three MINIs, which is a bit inconvenient. If we ran them earlier, as we normally would do, then we would be unable to play the last two MINIs. And that would drive us (because we are excluded) to play more Spycraft, Eclipse Phase, L5R, etc. instead of D&D.

At the end of the day, you look at what to offer and it will cater to some more than others. Having two PAX and one Gen Con be all about "acquisition" is a huge amount of exclusion. 3 out of 5 cons exclude. That's too much.

Moreover, it is too much when it doesn't have to be that way. Gen Con last year would have been in bad shape had it not had ADCP1-1, which really provided a lot of flexibility for organizers. Camp 13 was flooded, but ADCP1-1 could handle overflow and still please everyone else. Exclusion was very low. Awesome! ADCP1-1 ran at PAX Prime, again providing flexibility, in addition to several Gen Con specials. While it takes more effort to make ADCP1-1 scale than not, it is vastly easier than writing x mods. That sort of flexibility should be there.

And, there are other ways to create flexibility. How about a MYRE showcase, with prizes to the mods that are ranked highest? You could even have a celebrity table play the winning adventure at the end of the con. (And yeah, easy for me to sit back and dream up ideas when others are buried by real work. I know. I'm just saying that Gen Con and PAX Prime should have more options for more players. However that can be achieved, I just suspect it can be done.)

I do not view Open Play as a great "solution". It is offered once a day at Gen Con. As a person who gets to play LFR at most once a month, my characters are mostly in the 4-7 range now. I come to Gen Con (the only con I get to go to) to get 4 days of LFR and use it as an opportunity to get some significant progression for my main character (who's level 6). With the lack of slot with new adventures and a small number of slots with old adventures for the level ranges at which I can play appearing at Gen Con, my motivation to go is diminished. I'll make the best of it, I guess, but I think it sucks. I guess I'll take the bone that was thrown to us and play the Open play at night and play the MINI twice.

For those of you who say, "It's Gen Con, go play something else." I don't want to. I have no desire to play another system or campaign. Gen Con = LFR for me, and I think the lack of new H2 and H3 material sucks. I suppose next year, if I manage to get into P1 with a character or two, that level band will be phased out in order for new E1 material to be played and I'll still be stuck waiting for Open Play to play those character while more than likely playing H1 adventures for the rest of the Con. Woo Hoo! I feel all warm and fuzzy about that.

Karma's right. I get the desire to really do nothing but LFR all weekend -- I go to quite a few cons with that in mind. But Gencon's a bad choice for that purpose. Seriously, do DDXP once a year instead. It's tailored for pure LFR play.