Adventurer's League questions

[tchntm43]

I DM a game at home with family, but I want to play at my local gaming store as well, and they have Adventurer's League there on Wednesdays. I had a couple questions about playing in this.
1. When is a good time to join? I understand that AL has "seasons" to it where you can play out a full campaign. Since I would be starting with a level 1 character, I would want to join when other characters are also the same level.
2. Regarding Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw, do I have to pick one of the ones in in the PHB for my background? I know in normal non-AL rules those are just guidelines and you can make up ones of your own that are more specific to your character, but I also know that AL likes to have standards for characters (like no rolling for hit points on level up, or no rolling for ability scores at creation).
3. I have always wondered how continuity works when you don't have the same player group & DM every game. Suppose I play one night and we end up accidentally burning down the whole city of Waterdeep. Next time, I'm with different players and different DM. Do they address the continuity problem where my character experienced the city burning down but the other characters did not? How does that work?
4. What am I allowed to do regarding character history? It's not that specific in the AL rules online. There are lots of potential problems where someone's character history might break an adventure if they haven't been planned together. "Oh, we're in this town for this adventure? What a coincidence, my character was born here and knows the townspeople well."

[pothocboots]

1. When is a good time to join? I understand that AL has "seasons" to it where you can play out a full campaign. Since I would be starting with a level 1 character, I would want to join when other characters are also the same level.
Since groups will start the hardcover adventures any time during the season, and some stores don't even bother with the cadence of the seasons the best time to start is the next time it's scheduled. You will be restricted to a tier 1 table, so there's not much worry about traveling with level 5+ characters, though you may need to bounce around a little.



2. Regarding Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw, do I have to pick one of the ones in in the PHB for my background? I know in normal non-AL rules those are just guidelines and you can make up ones of your own that are more specific to your character, but I also know that AL likes to have standards for characters (like no rolling for hit points on level up, or no rolling for ability scores at creation).
Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw are usually unimportant for AL, make them up. You can also make up your background, but the background feature HAS to come from an official source.



3. I have always wondered how continuity works when you don't have the same player group & DM every game. Suppose I play one night and we end up accidentally burning down the whole city of Waterdeep. Next time, I'm with different players and different DM. Do they address the continuity problem where my character experienced the city burning down but the other characters did not? How does that work?
There is something called "Story Awards." If the writers expected what you did then there may be mechanical impacts. Otherwise continuity is explicitly ignored in favor of easy drop-in/drop-out.



4. What am I allowed to do regarding character history? It's not that specific in the AL rules online. There are lots of potential problems where someone's character history might break an adventure if they haven't been planned together. "Oh, we're in this town for this adventure? What a coincidence, my character was born here and knows the townspeople well."
A prepared and informed DM can use this to great effect and really drive the story, one who has already prepared or isn't ready or willing may just ask you to ignore that for the night. For AL there are certain regions that characters CANNOT come from without official campaign documentation from the AL admins.

[Keravath]

I DM a game at home with family, but I want to play at my local gaming store as well, and they have Adventurer's League there on Wednesdays. I had a couple questions about playing in this.

Hi! The experience at different AL venues may vary a bit since each store can organize things differently.



1. When is a good time to join? I understand that AL has "seasons" to it where you can play out a full campaign. Since I would be starting with a level 1 character, I would want to join when other characters are also the same level.

Anytime is usually a good time to join. AL does have seasons but most places may run a wide variety of modules from any season. AL modules are essentially a large set of one off adventures designed to be typically run in a 2 to 4 hour time window. There are some sets of 2 to 3 linked adventures but often you may not have the same players or characters playing each consecutive entry in a series.

AL modules are divided by tiers. Levels 1-4, 5-10, 11-16 and 17-20. An AL module will specify an appropriate tier and all characters playing that module must be in the same tier. There is no particular starting time for first level characters. You would sign up for a tier 1 module and bring your level 1 and could wind up in a group with anything ranging from all level 1 to mostly levels 3-4. I've had both experiences when starting a new level 1 character.



2. Regarding Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw, do I have to pick one of the ones in in the PHB for my background? I know in normal non-AL rules those are just guidelines and you can make up ones of your own that are more specific to your character, but I also know that AL likes to have standards for characters (like no rolling for hit points on level up, or no rolling for ability scores at creation).


As far as personality is concerned, it is your character and you can choose anything you like. Keep in mind though that PVP is not allowed in AL so choosing bonds or flaws like "always steals from their friends" just won't work. Typically in AL, anything that affects mechanics is standardized while anything that affects fluff is up to the player unless they try to give it some sort of mechanical impact. This includes backgrounds. Backgrounds can be chosen from any source (they aren't limited to +1) and could be any choice of skills. However, the "perk" that is offered by many backgrounds is limited to those in published sources. (e.g. Outlander ability to forage for food).



3. I have always wondered how continuity works when you don't have the same player group & DM every game. Suppose I play one night and we end up accidentally burning down the whole city of Waterdeep. Next time, I'm with different players and different DM. Do they address the continuity problem where my character experienced the city burning down but the other characters did not? How does that work?

There is no world level continuity between games since that would be literally impossible. Consider how many AL tables world wide might be playing the same module. They are expected to have a similar play experience. You can take an AL character and play it at any AL venue (other shops, convention, or a home game following AL rules). As a result, if you happen to somehow cause a significant world level disruption, it only happens to you in your particular adventure and doesn't carry over to the next module. That said, I haven't seen this happen personally. At most I have heard of parties killing a significant NPC that then appears later in a different module but this can be understood as them being resurrected or other magic.



4. What am I allowed to do regarding character history? It's not that specific in the AL rules online. There are lots of potential problems where someone's character history might break an adventure if they haven't been planned together. "Oh, we're in this town for this adventure? What a coincidence, my character was born here and knows the townspeople well."

There aren't any restrictions on character history. They can be from anywhere though it can be easier to choose a generic village. On the other hand, any sizable settlement is usually too big for a character to know all the townspeople. In addition, a good DM can easily blend in your knowledge of people fairly seemlessly. Consider that you may have come from a town but you likely left some time ago and things change. In addition, most modules tend to be focused on specific locations or NPCs that you are unlikely to have encountered previously.

Basically, your background and history might give you some additional role playing options if the DM works them in but it isn't going to mechanically affect how the module plays out. The actions and decisions of the characters will decide that.


AL is generally a different experience from a home game. The exception would be the hardcover adventures when played under AL rules. These provide more of a campaign experience and do include some continuity from session to session though the characters present may change. In addition most of these cover multiple tiers so it is possible to have a wide range of character levels represented. (There are specific guidelines covering the playing of hardcovers in AL in the AL player documentation).

Some of the key elements to keep in mind when creating an AL character are:
- PHB +1 for rules sources creating your character (a yuan-ti hexblade warlock doesn't work for example since it needs both Volos and XGtE as sources).
- point buy or standard array for initial stats before racial modifications only with a max value of 15 prior to racial additions.
- fluff can be whatever you like that fits your character concept
- if you want to play an evil character - ONLY lawful evil is allowed and they MUST be a member of the either the Lords Alliance or Zhentarim factions (if I recall). Basically, you must create a character who is motivated to work with the party to achieve the goals of the module. AL is about playing D&D together, having some fun, and overcoming some challenges all with a group of people you may not know at all ... so anything that attacks another player or negatively affects them directly is not allowed.
- any background including custom are allowed but any "perk" from the background has to be in the official sources (UA, 3rd party etc are not allowed).

[tchntm43]

AL modules are divided by tiers. Levels 1-4, 5-10, 11-16 and 17-20. An AL module will specify an appropriate tier and all characters playing that module must be in the same tier. There is no particular starting time for first level characters. You would sign up for a tier 1 module and bring your level 1 and could wind up in a group with anything ranging from all level 1 to mostly levels 3-4. I've had both experiences when starting a new level 1 character.

Won't it be a problem combining levels 1-4 in the same game? It seems like the adventure would either be too easy for the level 3-4 characters, or too hard for level 1 characters.

[Fryy]

Won't it be a problem combining levels 1-4 in the same game? It seems like the adventure would either be too easy for the level 3-4 characters, or too hard for level 1 characters.

No, not really. The modules contain written guidance for how to scale difficulty up or down depending on the average party level (APL) and # of the characters playing at the table. So, the DM can quickly scale encounter difficulty on the fly.

[tchntm43]

So I went to this last night, have kind of mixed feelings about it. The DM presented an interesting story. The other people at the table were fun.

The biggest problem was that I had set out to start a character for Adventurer's League, and I joined a Tier 1 table at the store, but one of the other players said after we got started that it was more of an "AL-adjacent" game. It turned out that last night's game was also a continuation of an adventure started a previous week, so I had no idea what was going on but all the other players (except one other player who joined) did because they had played previously, and they often referred to things that happened and I had no idea what they were talking about.

The DM never introduced himself to me, never asked my name, and never asked what character I was playing. I don't know if I should have been bothered by that or not. It made me feel a little bit like I was an unwelcome intrusion on the game.

We played for 2 hours and there was one major battle. I was the only level 1 character, the others were level 2 and 1 level 3. We fought against a kobold spellcaster and a drow with a nasty magic weapon and very high magic resistance. He was capable of dealing 20 damage in a hit (which he did to the 3rd level character), so I stayed out of the way, burned through all my spell slots (Dissonant Whispers and Tasha's Hideous Laughter, both of which he easily resisted). I had no ranged weapon, so all I had left to do was keep throwing Vicious Mockery at him. I never took damage, but also never really impacted the battle. This is basically exactly what I was worried about with getting put with a table with all characters higher level than me.

At the end of the session, the DM said "I hate levels 1-3 of this game, so... you all are now level 4." I really didn't like that. I want to play the character as it progresses through the levels. The journey is what matters. I didn't even ask about him filling out my AL logsheet, because I knew there was no way in hell that jumping to level 4 like that was acceptable for AL play. Actually, the only thing that changed on my entire character sheet was spending 2 spell slots and 2 bardic inspirations. So I think I'll just try again another time, resetting the character to how it was before last night, and hope to get a table that's more strictly devoted to the AL rules, because that was what I really wanted to give a go at.

[OverLordOcelot]

I DM a game at home with family, but I want to play at my local gaming store as well, and they have Adventurer's League there on Wednesdays. I had a couple questions about playing in this.
1. When is a good time to join? I understand that AL has "seasons" to it where you can play out a full campaign. Since I would be starting with a level 1 character, I would want to join when other characters are also the same level.

AL seasons are months long (current one lasts until august or september IIRC) and there are constantly new players coming in and old players rolling new characters. You should just start playing when you get interested unless following a season is a big deal for you, and even then I'd start one character now and a new one for the specific season.


2. Regarding Personality/Ideal/Bond/Flaw, do I have to pick one of the ones in in the PHB for my background? I know in normal non-AL rules those are just guidelines and you can make up ones of your own that are more specific to your character, but I also know that AL likes to have standards for characters (like no rolling for hit points on level up, or no rolling for ability scores at creation).

There's no rules requiring you to use them at all, you can put any that you want on your sheet or leave them blank. Some DMs will use them for handing out inspiration, mostly they just don't get used unless you're in a recurring game.


3. I have always wondered how continuity works when you don't have the same player group & DM every game. Suppose I play one night and we end up accidentally burning down the whole city of Waterdeep. Next time, I'm with different players and different DM. Do they address the continuity problem where my character experienced the city burning down but the other characters did not? How does that work?

Continuity doesn't work like that. The world exists, you can talk about your adventures all you want but the world keeps existing regardless of what you did. Other PCs will generally either move on with their lives or treat your character as a madman if you claim to have burnt down Waterdeep. A DM letting PCs burn down a major city like Waterdeep is silly anyway, some of the level 20s that live there should have put a stop to those shenanigans.


4. What am I allowed to do regarding character history? It's not that specific in the AL rules online. There are lots of potential problems where someone's character history might break an adventure if they haven't been planned together. "Oh, we're in this town for this adventure? What a coincidence, my character was born here and knows the townspeople well."

You can make up whatever character history you want, but the DM doesn't have to give you any special information about an adventure or location because of it. Like if you grew up in Waterdeep they'll probably let you know about how to get from A to B, but they're not going to let you say "I'm personal friends with the Blackstaff, so she'll teleport me to the end of this adventure" or "Oh, I'm buddies with the griffon riders, so I already know what's happening with them."