The AL environment is different from a traditional gaming group experience. AL is built to get new people into the game easily by supplying them with a nice on-ramp where characters are similar in power level and adventures are light and deal in basic game concepts. The structure of AL play is made for those new players as well as folks who don't have a lot of time to dedicate to managing a folder full of character inventories and spreadsheets, but just want to play out an adventure for a few hours a week. It's not really comparable to the "traditional" D&D experience, though it does have a few overlapping trappings.
As someone who handles both a home-game and a slew of AL games, there's a noticeably different mindset and expectation between the two. If AL seems off-putting or doesn't really grab you after trying it out, it's just likely that you are not the target audience for the program.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The AL environment is different from a traditional gaming group experience. AL is built to get new people into the game easily by supplying them with a nice on-ramp where characters are similar in power level and adventures are light and deal in basic game concepts. The structure of AL play is made for those new players as well as folks who don't have a lot of time to dedicate to managing a folder full of character inventories and spreadsheets, but just want to play out an adventure for a few hours a week. It's not really comparable to the "traditional" D&D experience, though it does have a few overlapping trappings.
As someone who handles both a home-game and a slew of AL games, there's a noticeably different mindset and expectation between the two. If AL seems off-putting or doesn't really grab you after trying it out, it's just likely that you are not the target audience for the program.
Thank for your reply Metamongoose!