Quote from: Spinachcat;1059483Shark, you're playing AL which is barely RPGing. Your OP sounds like "OMG, I went to a bar and it was full of drunks!'

Org Play is a munchkin magnet. It's been that way since 2e's RPGA Living City allowed Kits. But munchkin asshats buy books constantly so Org Play will cater to them.

As for you, gather your own crew and run something that supports the fantasy enjoy.

Yup. It's the first official public face of gaming -- and gaming of last resort -- at the same time. Which makes it a port terminal with a constant influx of new faces... and a munchkin prison for those who ran out of friends who'll put up with their shit. Putting your port terminal & max security prison together is kinda stupid, but there you are.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1059509Yup. It's the first official public face of gaming -- and gaming of last resort -- at the same time. Which makes it a port terminal with a constant influx of new faces... and a munchkin prison for those who ran out of friends who'll put up with their shit. Putting your port terminal & max security prison together is kinda stupid, but there you are.

Greetings!

Indeed. I admit, I've been accustomed to playing with family and friends for many years. My exposure to "random public drop-ins" has been limited to conventions and game tables there. So, it has been quite a culture shock to regularly play with jackasses. I've encountered them on occasion in the past--as others have well-noted--such morons have always existed in our hobby. I somewhat naively admit, I always thought they were an unfortunate minority. To my chagrin, I have discovered that they are far more numerous than I previously imagined. Then, of course, there's the sobering thought that such jackasses may actually be *increasing* in our hobby, because our larger society is in fact, creating more of them. Sad but true, my friend.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1059520Greetings!

Indeed. I admit, I've been accustomed to playing with family and friends for many years. My exposure to "random public drop-ins" has been limited to conventions and game tables there. So, it has been quite a culture shock to regularly play with jackasses. I've encountered them on occasion in the past--as others have well-noted--such morons have always existed in our hobby. I somewhat naively admit, I always thought they were an unfortunate minority. To my chagrin, I have discovered that they are far more numerous than I previously imagined. Then, of course, there's the sobering thought that such jackasses may actually be *increasing* in our hobby, because our larger society is in fact, creating more of them. Sad but true, my friend.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I don't see this dickwad behaviour at the Meetup I run. If you are ever in London SHARK do drop in for a game.

Quote from: SHARK;1059520Then, of course, there's the sobering thought that such jackasses may actually be *increasing* in our hobby, because our larger society is in fact, creating more of them.

Unlikely.

There have always been and will probably always be a proportion of jackasses in society. Some of them grow out of it when and if they mature. Some don't. Jackasses cluster in locales where they tolerated: social media, the Internet, gaming conventions, and organized game play each fall into that category.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1059483Shark, you're playing AL which is barely RPGing. Your OP sounds like "OMG, I went to a bar and it was full of drunks!'

Org Play is a munchkin magnet. It's been that way since 2e's RPGA Living City allowed Kits. But munchkin asshats buy books constantly so Org Play will cater to them.

As for you, gather your own crew and run something that supports the fantasy enjoy.

Pretty good points made there.  The RPG industry loves people who buy lots of books.  Those consumers are the backbone of the industry, and I have made my own contributions to the cause.

Quote from: SHARK;1059520Greetings!

Indeed. I admit, I've been accustomed to playing with family and friends for many years. My exposure to "random public drop-ins" has been limited to conventions and game tables there. So, it has been quite a culture shock to regularly play with jackasses. I've encountered them on occasion in the past--as others have well-noted--such morons have always existed in our hobby. I somewhat naively admit, I always thought they were an unfortunate minority. To my chagrin, I have discovered that they are far more numerous than I previously imagined. Then, of course, there's the sobering thought that such jackasses may actually be *increasing* in our hobby, because our larger society is in fact, creating more of them. Sad but true, my friend.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

My own unfortunate experiences with Organized Play (AL, Pathfinder Society, etc.) is that it breeds jackass players and turns off casual gamers from TTRPGs.

Quote from: jeff37923;1059550My own unfortunate experiences with Organized Play (AL, Pathfinder Society, etc.) is that it breeds jackass players and turns off casual gamers from TTRPGs.

Greetings!

Hey there, Jeff! Very interesting. How do you think the "Organized Play" of Adventure League, etc. tends to *breed* such jackasses? Even more salient a point--assuming the driving purpose of "Organized Play" is focused on *increasing* the appeal of D&D specifically to casual gamers? I could be wrong, but I think I interpreted their "mission statement" accurately--that attracting and retaining casual gamers was a primary goal.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1059557Hey there, Jeff! Very interesting. How do you think the "Organized Play" of Adventure League, etc. tends to *breed* such jackasses? Even more salient a point--assuming the driving purpose of "Organized Play" is focused on *increasing* the appeal of D&D specifically to casual gamers? I could be wrong, but I think I interpreted their "mission statement" accurately--that attracting and retaining casual gamers was a primary goal.

Seems pretty clear the AL restrictions tend to fail, backfire, and get selectively applied, especially by problematic GMs, which you gave some perfect examples of.

The whole teenage backlash prank phenomenon has shifted from what kids did in the 70's and 80's (vandalism, prank phone calls, etc) to online "trolling" and "griefing" on forums and in games, and hacking web sites, etc. This seems like a related thing - hide behind the AL rules like:

"I'm a PC - I get to act like a serial killer and perversely murder NPCs like I'm playing Grand Theft Auto - and the AL rules keep the other players from stopping me or killing me or leaving me tied to a tree with no equipment to be eaten by slimes. And even if I die, I get to create a new StrangeBrew weenie/Munchkin/"assassin" character and the GM will have it appear in the wilderness by the party and the other players have to accept them into the group and let them near the NPCs so they can kill them and laugh at the reactions from the roleplayers."

A GM worth their salt could shut them down, but if not...

Other AL issues rawma mentioned above also look problematic to me:

"Most of the prepared material does not provide for players to fail from a lack of non-combat actions or abilities..."
- I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it sounds a lot like what the players do doesn't matter as long as they don't die (permanently) in combat. That sounds like the sort of thing players notice and get bored and start to see how ridiculous they can be, since there are never any real consequences for much of anything.

"XP is no longer calculated, but follows from the number of hours of play and from completing the adventure objectives. Treasure points are awarded at the same rate, so murderhobos get no additional treasure. Magic items are available to any character to buy with treasure points; each season has a list of magic items available automatically, and characters can get access to other items as a result of adventures. I have mixed feelings about these changes (e.g., wizards now have a hard time accumulating additional spells, since they have to spend treasure points on the cost of copying spells to their spell books), but I think they are intended to promote role-playing and probably achieve at least some of that. (I may be off on some of the details, which have changed since the original announcement; I've depended on other DMs I play with to track the specifics for our games, and only just started running for the first time last week.)"
- While this might cut back on murder for loot, it also sounds to me like more lack of rational consequences, which again can be taken by fools & asses as an invitation to not care and to do random perverse out-of-character bullshit for "LOLs" and to test the ridiculous consequence-less-ness of the game, since they will get the same XP, loot and magic "rewards" just for showing up and spending time at the table.

Quote from: SHARK;1059557Hey there, Jeff! Very interesting. How do you think the "Organized Play" of Adventure League, etc. tends to *breed* such jackasses?

Before I go on, let me preface that all of my negative experiences come from the Knoxville, TN area.

First off, those interested in Organized Play tend to not have their own home games. This may be due to any number of reasons, but antisocial behavior seems to be a big reason. As Skarg has said, any GM worth their salt can nip this behavior in the bud and so can Players (especially if they are allowed to engage in PvP). The lack of asshole controls (which were removed in the name of inclusivity) means that these jackasses can run amuck and not be penalized for it.

Now this, coupled with OP Directors who are severe social justice types (since those are who WotC and Paizo favors to represent them), you start to have a situation where the OP group becomes a private club in which they are the big dogs who decide who is and who is not discouraged or encouraged to participate. For myself, this came to a head with a charity gaming event called Save vs Hunger where I was invited to participate and donate money/material, but was not supported with advertising or even listing the games I was going to run. However, every Adventurer's League and Pathfinder Society game was repeatedly advertised and announced with attendant prize support from WotC and Paizo. When I asked around why I was not supported in my participation, I was informed that the local director of AL felt that I was too "heteronormative" for his comfort.

Quote from: SHARK;1059557Even more salient a point--assuming the driving purpose of "Organized Play" is focused on *increasing* the appeal of D&D specifically to casual gamers? I could be wrong, but I think I interpreted their "mission statement" accurately--that attracting and retaining casual gamers was a primary goal.

That is the stated goal, but in practice Organized Play is used as an unpaid advertising department for the publishing company of the game. Now with even just a handful of lawncrappers involved in the public games, good players will be turned off and drift away (as is going on in your instance). Now support in the form of swag or prestige is dependent on the number of people who show up for the Organized Play event, so it behooves the Organized Play directors to attract and recruit as many people as possible. This usually results in a very aggressive recruitment approach. I have had Adventurer's League and Pathfinder Society participants try and poach my players when I am running an unrelated game (Traveller, d6 Star Wars) in the same public space.

Organized Play groups do not wish to share, either. The number of public play spaces and number of potential players tends to be finite and Organized Play groups want them all. I have had FLGS gameplay spaces be taken over by Organized Play groups, pushing out non-Organized Play games being played (I cannot fault the FLGS owners for this, they are trying to make a living by selling stuff and OP members tend to buy a lot of stuff - so it is good for business in the short run). I have had convention space allotted to me for running games be handed over to OP groups because they promised a larger number of attendees (which may or may not show up). I have walked in on OP reps bad-mouthing GMs, players, and games that were not associated with Organized Play in an attempt to recruit for OP games because they did not want competition.

So, yeah. I've had a lot of negative experiences with Organized Play.

Quote from: Skarg;1059563Seems pretty clear the AL restrictions tend to fail, backfire, and get selectively applied, especially by problematic GMs, which you gave some perfect examples of.

Problematic GMs are probably worse outside of organized play, and there's the least pressure on them to change in a campaign with only a single GM (i.e., not organized play).

Quotehide behind the AL rules like:

"I'm a PC - I get to act like a serial killer and perversely murder NPCs like I'm playing Grand Theft Auto - and the AL rules keep the other players from stopping me or killing me or leaving me tied to a tree with no equipment to be eaten by slimes. And even if I die, I get to create a new StrangeBrew weenie/Munchkin/"assassin" character and the GM will have it appear in the wilderness by the party and the other players have to accept them into the group and let them near the NPCs so they can kill them and laugh at the reactions from the roleplayers."

A GM worth their salt could shut them down, but if not...

It's against the AL rules to have a chaotic evil or neutral evil alignment, and the Adventurers League DM is specifically empowered to deal with things that violate the rules: "You may disallow something that seems outside the rules", "You're Empowered", "Challenge Your Players". And you can add thematically appropriate opponents; in Storm King's Thunder, I added a ludicrous squad of paladins and clerics who were six levels higher than the PCs, not because anyone was being a jerk but to make it clear that there were opponents they could not defeat. (They had to use an NPC contact from earlier in the adventure to rescue the wizard who did not run away.) Low level characters are fairly easy to deal with by introducing a large force of town guards or vengeance seeking relatives; higher level characters should have been playing AL long enough to know what's appropriate.

QuoteOther AL issues rawma mentioned above also look problematic to me:

"Most of the prepared material does not provide for players to fail from a lack of non-combat actions or abilities..."
- I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it sounds a lot like what the players do doesn't matter as long as they don't die (permanently) in combat. That sounds like the sort of thing players notice and get bored and start to see how ridiculous they can be, since there are never any real consequences for much of anything.

I meant that the adventure never grinds to a halt because no character has proficiency in Arcana or can't figure out a given puzzle or open a particular locked door or persuade a stubborn NPC without combat; the adventure does come to a halt if there's a TPK. Players therefore favor more combat relevant abilities: Stealth and Perception, which affect combat for purposes of advantage or surprise, or Acrobatics and Athletics, which affect combat for grappling or maneuver and also obstacles that might kill the character, over social, crafting, knowledge skills.

Quote"XP is no longer calculated, but follows from the number of hours of play and from completing the adventure objectives. Treasure points are awarded at the same rate, so murderhobos get no additional treasure. Magic items are available to any character to buy with treasure points; each season has a list of magic items available automatically, and characters can get access to other items as a result of adventures. I have mixed feelings about these changes (e.g., wizards now have a hard time accumulating additional spells, since they have to spend treasure points on the cost of copying spells to their spell books), but I think they are intended to promote role-playing and probably achieve at least some of that. (I may be off on some of the details, which have changed since the original announcement; I've depended on other DMs I play with to track the specifics for our games, and only just started running for the first time last week.)"

- While this might cut back on murder for loot, it also sounds to me like more lack of rational consequences, which again can be taken by fools & asses as an invitation to not care and to do random perverse out-of-character bullshit for "LOLs" and to test the ridiculous consequence-less-ness of the game, since they will get the same XP, loot and magic "rewards" just for showing up and spending time at the table.

The alignment restrictions still exist. For Season 8 and beyond, modules can award bonus points for achieving specific objectives; for hardcovers, the points are awarded per hour only if the characters are "in pursuit of the adventure's stated goals". Previous season modules do appear to award fixed amounts based on the stated duration of the session without regard to what the party does; given a critical mass of players who don't care and a DM who does nothing to stop them, then, yes, that's a table to leave at once. But the same could happen in a non-organized play setting when you join a group. I have a home campaign but we stick with AL rules because the players want to take the characters to AL events.

But the consequences do not have to be solely in the game; like disruptive posters at a forum like this can be banned, so can the jerk who does not care about ordinary social pressure be ejected. If a forum like this or an entire AL group is taken over by jerks, then you should leave and find somewhere more to your liking.

Opaopajr gives some examples of other kinds of disagreeable behavior:

Quote from: Opaopajr;1059450Well, if you are shielded from the consequences of your actions, then this is the glorious result. :mad:

It matters not the venue for rat-fuckery, be it: anonymity on the internet (or plausible deniability in politics and alphabet soup agencies), distance on Xbox Live and the like, or coherent setting consequences from a hog-tied GM in an Organized Play RPG society. If you forever get mindless mercy -- not receiving what you justly deserve from your actions -- then you will persist on doing that. It's the nature of life and exploiting advantages.

But all of these other things depend on anonymity or significant remoteness (e.g., road rage is more common than pedestrian rage). Barring an entirely dysfunctional AL group, AL disrupters have a table of other people who want to play the adventure they came for, who are right there in the seats around the same table; without a critical mass of jerks (who include the DM), ordinary social pressure will typically deal with the problems. But I would deal with it as a DM and expect any AL DM or venue to deal with it, up to and including ejecting the player.

---

[/HR]
It's kind of boggling that a "rulings not rules" site like this has so many people whining that the AL rules aren't sufficient.

For people like SHARK and jeff37923, I am sorry for your bad experiences with AL; the AL people I have played with (multiple game stores, conventions and home games) are really nice people, but apparently I have been lucky in my experiences.

Quote from: jeff37923;1059565Before I go on, let me preface that all of my negative experiences come from the Knoxville, TN area.

First off, those interested in Organized Play tend to not have their own home games. This may be due to any number of reasons, but antisocial behavior seems to be a big reason. As Skarg has said, any GM worth their salt can nip this behavior in the bud and so can Players (especially if they are allowed to engage in PvP). The lack of asshole controls (which were removed in the name of inclusivity) means that these jackasses can run amuck and not be penalized for it.

Now this, coupled with OP Directors who are severe social justice types (since those are who WotC and Paizo favors to represent them), you start to have a situation where the OP group becomes a private club in which they are the big dogs who decide who is and who is not discouraged or encouraged to participate. For myself, this came to a head with a charity gaming event called Save vs Hunger where I was invited to participate and donate money/material, but was not supported with advertising or even listing the games I was going to run. However, every Adventurer's League and Pathfinder Society game was repeatedly advertised and announced with attendant prize support from WotC and Paizo. When I asked around why I was not supported in my participation, I was informed that the local director of AL felt that I was too "heteronormative" for his comfort.




That is the stated goal, but in practice Organized Play is used as an unpaid advertising department for the publishing company of the game. Now with even just a handful of lawncrappers involved in the public games, good players will be turned off and drift away (as is going on in your instance). Now support in the form of swag or prestige is dependent on the number of people who show up for the Organized Play event, so it behooves the Organized Play directors to attract and recruit as many people as possible. This usually results in a very aggressive recruitment approach. I have had Adventurer's League and Pathfinder Society participants try and poach my players when I am running an unrelated game (Traveller, d6 Star Wars) in the same public space.

Organized Play groups do not wish to share, either. The number of public play spaces and number of potential players tends to be finite and Organized Play groups want them all. I have had FLGS gameplay spaces be taken over by Organized Play groups, pushing out non-Organized Play games being played (I cannot fault the FLGS owners for this, they are trying to make a living by selling stuff and OP members tend to buy a lot of stuff - so it is good for business in the short run). I have had convention space allotted to me for running games be handed over to OP groups because they promised a larger number of attendees (which may or may not show up). I have walked in on OP reps bad-mouthing GMs, players, and games that were not associated with Organized Play in an attempt to recruit for OP games because they did not want competition.

So, yeah. I've had a lot of negative experiences with Organized Play.

Greetings!

Damn, Jeff! LOL. At the risk of sounding way out of touch--what for God's sake is being "TOO HETERONORMATIVE"? The AL organizer actually said that to you? Geesus.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Shark, is this your first XP with Organized Play? Did you ever play RPGA's Living City during 2e or RPGA's Living Greyhawk in 3e or RPGA's Living Forgotten Realms in 4e?

All the problems I'm hearing from people about AL 5e was the same bullshit song and dance I encountered in those previous Org Play. The SJW idiocy in AL 5e is new, but its just a shit flavored twist to the old clique bullshit that regularly plagued the previous Org Play incarnations. AKA, now they hate Jeff for being "too heteronormative" and 2 editions ago, they would have hated Jeff for whatever [fill in the blank] reason. Back in the ancient time, I had a RPGA director lose their shit because I let a non-gamer wife sit in the room while I ran a convention tourney event and the fucktard was ranting that the non-gaming wife would now tell everyone about the tourney and ruin it for other groups.

So if you're playing AL, you're kinda complaining about why you're getting a shit sandwich in the HQ of 24/7 Shit Sandwiches, Inc.

I've seen Org Play work, but it was because we had a team who made it work, but it was pretty clear that took more effort than just hosting a home game. I know AL groups who aren't public, aka they play AL with their own GM and set of players completely divorced from the local jackass brigade and their wannabe dictators.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1059815Shark, is this your first XP with Organized Play? Did you ever play RPGA's Living City during 2e or RPGA's Living Greyhawk in 3e or RPGA's Living Forgotten Realms in 4e?

All the problems I'm hearing from people about AL 5e was the same bullshit song and dance I encountered in those previous Org Play. The SJW idiocy in AL 5e is new, but its just a shit flavored twist to the old clique bullshit that regularly plagued the previous Org Play incarnations. AKA, now they hate Jeff for being "too heteronormative" and 2 editions ago, they would have hated Jeff for whatever [fill in the blank] reason. Back in the ancient time, I had a RPGA director lose their shit because I let a non-gamer wife sit in the room while I ran a convention tourney event and the fucktard was ranting that the non-gaming wife would now tell everyone about the tourney and ruin it for other groups.

So if you're playing AL, you're kinda complaining about why you're getting a shit sandwich in the HQ of 24/7 Shit Sandwiches, Inc.

I've seen Org Play work, but it was because we had a team who made it work, but it was pretty clear that took more effort than just hosting a home game. I know AL groups who aren't public, aka they play AL with their own GM and set of players completely divorced from the local jackass brigade and their wannabe dictators.

Greetings!

Hello Spinachcat!!! Well, yes, I suppose it is, my friend. In high school, I played with a good number of home groups, and even some groups at school. A few of our teachers played and supervised us. Lots of fun, too. Home groups though, from then, until the military. In the Marines, I played with a good number of different groups. D&D was always popular. The groups were made up of all Marines, from ages of 18-26. Occasionally a few girlfriends would join in with us. After the Marine Corps, well, again I had numerous home groups through the years, sometimes more than one campaign going at the same time--like two campaigns during a week. Then I went to college--again, I had veterans, family, friends, and new friends made at college. Lots of regular, constant gaming groups going on for years. Throughout all of these years, I attended conventions fairly regularly--but even there, I had a couple friends with me, and my wife, and their wives, ao we joined tables and groups at the cons, and we always had a blast playing with new people. To now. LOL. My first experiences with "organized play." So, I think maybe you can see I have played with many, many different people. Currently, I have a few girls in one group (all adults); several Marine buddies in another group (all adults); and a few other friends that I play with regularly. (also adult friends of mine.)

I suppose it is why I'm feeling bewildered at how about 50% of these jackasses play at Adventurer League. It has been a huge culture shock, my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I love, love, love the concept of OrgPlay (which is why I've been a GM/organizer/volunteer repeatedly in the past), but OrgPlay unfortunately draws in a certain element who I dub "people you'd kick out of your home game...through a window" and when those people become the local organizers or the most vocal players, then everything goes to shit.

Shark, it sounds like you have enough good players in your reach to have a fun and functional private group.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1060010I love, love, love the concept of OrgPlay (which is why I've been a GM/organizer/volunteer repeatedly in the past), but OrgPlay unfortunately draws in a certain element who I dub "people you'd kick out of your home game...through a window" and when those people become the local organizers or the most vocal players, then everything goes to shit.

That is what I am seeing too, which begs the question, "If OrgPlay had the goal of getting casual gamers and lapsed players back into the hobby, then why is it set up in such a way as to drive them away and turn them off of TTRPGs?"