I've been an Adventurers League (AL)/Encounters DM for going on 7 years now. At one time I was the official AL coordinator for my town before they did away with that program. Now I mainly organize for a single store, and we're growing. A lot. And it's mostly younger players (10-13).
I'm running in to problems with having enough DMs, and enough table space to easily include new players. Recruiting new DMs is a challenge in itself, but I'm more interested in learning how other stores/groups organize tables. Do you do sign ups? Do you always have a low level table? What do you do with people who just show up, or are brand new? Do you ever turn people away, or ask them to come back when a new season starts? If so, how is that received, and if not, how to do you incorporate them? Do you run mostly hard cover adventures, or modules from the DMSGuild?
How do I keep everyone happy all of the time?* So I'm hoping to hear stories of how other places organize, especially those with a lot of younger players. Thanks!
At the moment my store is running three tables with enough players that we are looking at opening up a fourth. For the most part we just slide in walk-ins wherever there is room. I'd like there to be some sort of sign-up situation, but some of our players are not the most consistent attendants, so having them eat up table slots would be something of a fool's errand.
In a perfect world, I'd run each table with a core group of three or four that are consistent attendants with about two flex slots for walk-ins and less consistent players.
Right now we've got one table doing the short print-out adventures, another table doing the full ToA book, and my table killing time with older adventures from Dungeon Magazine and One-Page Dungeon that I'm converting to 5e for players who finished the ToA adventure and are just waiting for the new season to start. There's a decent variety for people to try as we gear up for the new season.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The shop I DM for has a couple core groups, I do the walk ins, and then we have people who just petition for games. As need/want for games comes along we juggle tables and times to fit in as many people as we can. One game is even hosting 10 people due to interest. While we don't do AL, we do run modules, homebrews, and other official material based on what the group that's starting up wants.
We have just been running for a few months now. I try to keep the tables to 4-5 players. We typically have 3 tables: hardcover (mostly Tier II, but allows some x-over), Tier II (we have been doing SKT AL modules, mostly in order), and a Tier I (mostly also SKT, as these are more recent players, but we have done some x-season, too)
I wanted to encourage drop-ins, so I started with the rule that we would try hard not to turn people away. Hence, we will probably always have a Tier I table and we may have to occasionally seek a volunteer from the other tables to join it to make quorum. (Except this week there were 7 Tier I players).
I have tried to make it easy for people to try DM'ing and have a good number of people to draw on to run tables as needed; some new and some with experience.
The game store I play at uses a web site called tabletop.events to organize signups for tables. The store runs just AL compliant adventures so, except for hardcovers, there may or may not be a continuity of players from week to week. (Even HC do not have any requirement for continuity of players .. but the player needs to record what was played so as to avoid playing it again on the same character)
They have AL games running Sunday (currently a tier 2 table), Alternating Monday’s (ToA HC), Thursday’s (3 to 4 tables .. usually a tier 1, a tier 2 and a tier 3 or 4 .. sometimes a shorter HC requiring 2 to 6 weeks), Friday (alternating tier 1 and 2). Tables are 3 to 7 players (AL rules) and depending on the night they can often be full. The web site supports waiting lists so if there are enough people on the waiting list then they might set up another table.
DM development is an ongoing task of encouraging folks to give it a try sometimes by noting the DM rewards available combined with weeding out the DMs who don’t understand that it is AL so they can’t just arbitrarily change aspects they don’t like. Most new DMs can use a few hints on rules and it is usually the more experienced DMs who change the rules (which breaks the entire concept of AL). However, basically, anyone who seems interested in DMing should be encouraged.
Having games on multiple nights lets folks fit it into their schedule more easily. New players or walk ins are less common at the store location but can be accommodated if there is space at an appropriate table. Since the store owner DMs, it is sometimes possible to set up an impromptu game if there are enough folks and he isn’t already running something.
—————
One last note, AL run at game stores often has a sitting fee to play .. the people are using the game store space and the game store is organizing the entertainment for the players. This is different from most home brew type games where folks play in a regular group at someone’s house. AL uses the same rule set everywhere so that a player can take their tier 2 character and play in any tier 2 AL adventure at any venue (even at someone’s house .. you can play by AL rules at home and as long as the play is logged with DCI numbers those characters are still playable at public AL events. )
The game store I play at uses a web site called tabletop.events to organize signups for tables. The store runs just AL compliant adventures so, except for hardcovers, there may or may not be a continuity of players from week to week. (Even HC do not have any requirement for continuity of players .. but the player needs to record what was played so as to avoid playing it again on the same character)
They have AL games running Sunday (currently a tier 2 table), Alternating Monday’s (ToA HC), Thursday’s (3 to 4 tables .. usually a tier 1, a tier 2 and a tier 3 or 4 .. sometimes a shorter HC requiring 2 to 6 weeks), Friday (alternating tier 1 and 2). Tables are 3 to 7 players (AL rules) and depending on the night they can often be full. The web site supports waiting lists so if there are enough people on the waiting list then they might set up another table.
DM development is an ongoing task of encouraging folks to give it a try sometimes by noting the DM rewards available combined with weeding out the DMs who don’t understand that it is AL so they can’t just arbitrarily change aspects they don’t like. Most new DMs can use a few hints on rules and it is usually the more experienced DMs who change the rules (which breaks the entire concept of AL). However, basically, anyone who seems interested in DMing should be encouraged.
Having games on multiple nights lets folks fit it into their schedule more easily. New players or walk ins are less common at the store location but can be accommodated if there is space at an appropriate table. Since the store owner DMs, it is sometimes possible to set up an impromptu game if there are enough folks and he isn’t already running something.
—————
One last note, AL run at game stores often has a sitting fee to play .. the people are using the game store space and the game store is organizing the entertainment for the players. This is different from most home brew type games where folks play in a regular group at someone’s house. AL uses the same rule set everywhere so that a player can take their tier 2 character and play in any tier 2 AL adventure at any venue (even at someone’s house .. you can play by AL rules at home and as long as the play is logged with DCI numbers those characters are still playable at public AL events. )
Our store does not charge a fee, which is my preference as it lowers the barrier to entry. I fully understand why some stores do, and I support that if it works for them. In your case, that's a lot of a games and a lot of DMs, which is awesome. I just don't have enough enough people to DM games, and that's probably most of my issue. The DM rewards from Adventurers League itself are only beneficial to a DM who is interested in playing in AL at some time as well. I don't know how it is for other AL DMs, but I rarely get to play. I don't mind, as I really enjoy DMing, but I don't really do it for the rewards. The store itself offers some small incentives to discounts (Free drink, %discount on RPG materials type stuff), which could be a selling point.
I'm working with one of the other DMs now to run a DM training course for people new to it, and encourage some of our current players to step up and DM. I figure once we have some more willing people, it will be easier to organize more tables.
The local store here used Warhorn for registration, which works great. Their model is free to play Tier 1 and free to play any tier if you’ve DM’d prior month with small fee for higher tiers for non-DMs. Creates incentive to DM I guess. I’ve heard other stores issue store credit for DMs and collect fees from players as a more direct incentive. Everywhere seems to accommodate walk-in players, which seems to me the most important the first time they appear if you want them to keep come by back.
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I've been an Adventurers League (AL)/Encounters DM for going on 7 years now. At one time I was the official AL coordinator for my town before they did away with that program. Now I mainly organize for a single store, and we're growing. A lot. And it's mostly younger players (10-13).
I'm running in to problems with having enough DMs, and enough table space to easily include new players. Recruiting new DMs is a challenge in itself, but I'm more interested in learning how other stores/groups organize tables. Do you do sign ups? Do you always have a low level table? What do you do with people who just show up, or are brand new? Do you ever turn people away, or ask them to come back when a new season starts? If so, how is that received, and if not, how to do you incorporate them? Do you run mostly hard cover adventures, or modules from the DMSGuild?
How do I keep everyone happy all of the time?* So I'm hoping to hear stories of how other places organize, especially those with a lot of younger players. Thanks!
*Note I realize this is not possible. Or is it...
At the moment my store is running three tables with enough players that we are looking at opening up a fourth. For the most part we just slide in walk-ins wherever there is room. I'd like there to be some sort of sign-up situation, but some of our players are not the most consistent attendants, so having them eat up table slots would be something of a fool's errand.
In a perfect world, I'd run each table with a core group of three or four that are consistent attendants with about two flex slots for walk-ins and less consistent players.
Right now we've got one table doing the short print-out adventures, another table doing the full ToA book, and my table killing time with older adventures from Dungeon Magazine and One-Page Dungeon that I'm converting to 5e for players who finished the ToA adventure and are just waiting for the new season to start. There's a decent variety for people to try as we gear up for the new season.
The shop I DM for has a couple core groups, I do the walk ins, and then we have people who just petition for games. As need/want for games comes along we juggle tables and times to fit in as many people as we can. One game is even hosting 10 people due to interest. While we don't do AL, we do run modules, homebrews, and other official material based on what the group that's starting up wants.
We have just been running for a few months now. I try to keep the tables to 4-5 players. We typically have 3 tables: hardcover (mostly Tier II, but allows some x-over), Tier II (we have been doing SKT AL modules, mostly in order), and a Tier I (mostly also SKT, as these are more recent players, but we have done some x-season, too)
I wanted to encourage drop-ins, so I started with the rule that we would try hard not to turn people away. Hence, we will probably always have a Tier I table and we may have to occasionally seek a volunteer from the other tables to join it to make quorum. (Except this week there were 7 Tier I players).
I have tried to make it easy for people to try DM'ing and have a good number of people to draw on to run tables as needed; some new and some with experience.
ref: https://www.meetup.com/VancouverRPers/events/252684870/
The game store I play at uses a web site called tabletop.events to organize signups for tables. The store runs just AL compliant adventures so, except for hardcovers, there may or may not be a continuity of players from week to week. (Even HC do not have any requirement for continuity of players .. but the player needs to record what was played so as to avoid playing it again on the same character)
They have AL games running Sunday (currently a tier 2 table), Alternating Monday’s (ToA HC), Thursday’s (3 to 4 tables .. usually a tier 1, a tier 2 and a tier 3 or 4 .. sometimes a shorter HC requiring 2 to 6 weeks), Friday (alternating tier 1 and 2). Tables are 3 to 7 players (AL rules) and depending on the night they can often be full. The web site supports waiting lists so if there are enough people on the waiting list then they might set up another table.
DM development is an ongoing task of encouraging folks to give it a try sometimes by noting the DM rewards available combined with weeding out the DMs who don’t understand that it is AL so they can’t just arbitrarily change aspects they don’t like. Most new DMs can use a few hints on rules and it is usually the more experienced DMs who change the rules (which breaks the entire concept of AL). However, basically, anyone who seems interested in DMing should be encouraged.
Having games on multiple nights lets folks fit it into their schedule more easily. New players or walk ins are less common at the store location but can be accommodated if there is space at an appropriate table. Since the store owner DMs, it is sometimes possible to set up an impromptu game if there are enough folks and he isn’t already running something.
—————
One last note, AL run at game stores often has a sitting fee to play .. the people are using the game store space and the game store is organizing the entertainment for the players. This is different from most home brew type games where folks play in a regular group at someone’s house. AL uses the same rule set everywhere so that a player can take their tier 2 character and play in any tier 2 AL adventure at any venue (even at someone’s house .. you can play by AL rules at home and as long as the play is logged with DCI numbers those characters are still playable at public AL events. )
Our store does not charge a fee, which is my preference as it lowers the barrier to entry. I fully understand why some stores do, and I support that if it works for them. In your case, that's a lot of a games and a lot of DMs, which is awesome. I just don't have enough enough people to DM games, and that's probably most of my issue. The DM rewards from Adventurers League itself are only beneficial to a DM who is interested in playing in AL at some time as well. I don't know how it is for other AL DMs, but I rarely get to play. I don't mind, as I really enjoy DMing, but I don't really do it for the rewards. The store itself offers some small incentives to discounts (Free drink, %discount on RPG materials type stuff), which could be a selling point.
I'm working with one of the other DMs now to run a DM training course for people new to it, and encourage some of our current players to step up and DM. I figure once we have some more willing people, it will be easier to organize more tables.
The local store here used Warhorn for registration, which works great. Their model is free to play Tier 1 and free to play any tier if you’ve DM’d prior month with small fee for higher tiers for non-DMs. Creates incentive to DM I guess. I’ve heard other stores issue store credit for DMs and collect fees from players as a more direct incentive. Everywhere seems to accommodate walk-in players, which seems to me the most important the first time they appear if you want them to keep come by back.