I'm running Tomb of Annihilation in a few weeks at my FLGS and I'm trying to decide whether I should run it as an AL adventure, or just a regular 'home' game. I don't have a regular group I play with, so I advertised and have had strong response, but no one has responded to my question about whether they want AL or not. The store charges a modest fee to play. My dilemma is that while a home game would give more flexibility, I have to pay to play. If I run AL, the store's fee structure is slightly better for the players and and I can play for free. In fact, they give me store credit.

FYI, I have run and played in numerous AL games, so I'm familiar with the rules. I haven't played a hardcover adventure ever (closest was Lost Mine of Phandelver, which I ran as a home game with friends). The rest has been homebrew worlds.

I'd love to hear what wiser and more experienced heads think. Is it worth running ToA as AL for the benefits I mentioned?

Since none of the potential players have responded to you, I would make a choice, let the potential players know, and if there's not a large push back, run with it.

As for AL or not, what do you value more, the flexibility, or the store credits?

You say you are familiar with AL rules.  Have you looked at/are you familiar with the TOA specific rules?  Especially the lack of resurrection and surrogate characters when a character dies?  If not, you should definitely read those before deciding.  [Although there might have been a time limit on those...I don’t remember]

I’m running TOA as a drop-in AL style (but not official AL) table, and there are a number of things I’ve adjusted for expediency; not sure how easy it would be to do so in AL without breaking the rules.  Those adjustments & house rules include:

-We gave up on figuring out if they got enough water and I stopped reminding them to track insect repellent.  It just got too tedious (and IIRC, the rules for water collection weren’t fleshed out enough; I created my own system, but it got tedious)

-I (or actually my backup DM, with my o.k.) created “air conditioned plate” for our paladin to get away from exhaustion issues for those in heavy armor.  (At one point, I had a system for exhaustion checks for everyone, but that also dropped by the wayside as too tedious)

-eventually the “hex crawl” through the jungle got to be a boring slog, so I started handling it in 5 day chunks, handwaving most of the encounters [which they generally blew through] and only running the most “interesting” of them.

-If PCs don’t make just the right choices, they can end up in the jungle with no clue where they need to go and no idea how to find where they need to go.  I fabricated additional clues.

-My players started at level 5 in Port N; the guide their hired was significantly under powered for their group and they resented him as useless.  I found a way to connect them with a more capable NPC guide, but by the time I could introduce him, they had decided guides were basically useless.  That may not be an issue for you if the group starts at level 1.

Those issues may all be manageable/not a problem for you.  I’m not sure I’d want to run it AL, but then I might choose to under those financial conditions.

One other note:  If you decide not to run it as AL, there’s a very helpful “enhancing TOA” thread over on the enworld forums.

Thanks, that's all really helpful!

I just thought the water collection rule was they needed a rain collector, and I figured a guide would make that clear, so didn't expect it to me an issue. I was also told talking about the weather got pretty boring very quickly!

I did wonder about the hex crawl component. A friend's game basically ended in the jungle because they weren't levelling up quickly enough. I've decided to use milestone advancement even if we don't go AL, but faster jungle movement sounds like a good idea, too.

I was thinking of, maybe, a short encounter prior to getting to PN to bond the group, since we'll be a lot of strangers playing.

Cheers.

Some other thoughts in terms of the jungle hex crawl.  There are a number of DMsGuild products with additional jungle encounters, etc.  For all that the random encounter tables are long, after a bit it seemed like I was always rolling the same encounters.  (And my party was a bit over-leveled for the hex crawl, so it got pretty boring).  I wish i’d found and used those encounter options earlier.  I also wish I’d given myself permission to pick and choose from the random encounter tables a bit earlier.

I have used a couple of encounters from Encounters in the Jungle of Chult recently, when I had new to the campaign players show up and none/only one of my regulars.  There was a stat block missing for one of the encounters (which was ok as I made massive changes to it anyway) and none of the encounters say what level they are geared for.  But they are interesting ideas, and they are AL legal, with a few adaptations that are laid out in the product description on DMsGuild. 

There are quite a few AL legal TOA related adventures/encounters on DMs Guild, most of them by “third parties” rather than by the AL “team.”

Quote from Barbarulo >>

 I don't have a regular group I play with

That sounds like a good reason to run AL initially. You can easily switch to a home game later if you so desire (say, if you develop a good group to host at home).

btw: I ran ToA for my three home groups, but gave each group the option of playing:

• by AL rules: meaning they have to take a ToA pre-gen when they die, but max HP reduction (like from life drain) is not permanent, or
• by the rules listed in the ToA book: meaning they can make another character at the appropriate level when they die, but max HP reduction is permanent