Let’s talk about Adventurer’s League

[KOLE]

Hey playground,

At the moment, it appears I will have some spare time in 2022, which is a rare thing for me. I love running 5e, I’m very passionate about DMing, but as it stands all my friends are just too darn busy to play more than say, once a month or once every other month. I live in a relatively small (though big for the area) town in the barren Midwest. We have a decent gaming store though, and since I’ve been itching to DM and have a somewhat friendly relationship with the owner, I’ve been debating trying to get an Adventurer’s League going here. I have no idea how involved that process is, but that’s not really part of my question:

Having never lived anywhere near a spot that has AL, I’m very curious as to people’s experience with it. Do you enjoy it? Did you enjoy the back end side of setting it up? Is it run well? Would you reccomend it?

Main reason I’m asking is I’m considering just asking the owner letting me run a drop-in, drop-out Thursday night game and sending out news on the mailing list/facebook so I can use my houserules, homebrew, and doing it more casually. But if there’s already a good system in place for that (whether I get technically endorsed by WOTC or not), maybe it would save me some trouble. Share your thoughts, stories, and experiences, please!

[TyGuy]

I only played one session in AL and it wasn't really for me. I've also heard too many stories about the craps shoot that is the players that show up.


Main reason I’m asking is I’m considering just asking the owner letting me run a drop-in, drop-out Thursday night game and sending out news on the mailing list/facebook so I can use my houserules, homebrew, and doing it more casually.
This is a better idea than AL imo. It puts you in more control.


But if there’s already a good system in place for that (whether I get technically endorsed by WOTC or not), maybe it would save me some trouble.
I don't think it would. I think AL is for structured play more than it's for helping out small communities get games going.

[Burley]

I attended an AL session at my local store, but I left really quickly. To TyGuy's point, the people who showed up all seemed like "That Guy" who doesn't get invited back into people's homes.
The store clerk said it's not always like that, but I try to avoid being part of some horror narrative when I'm able.

[Khrysaes]

My experience playing in AL and dming for AL is that its more about the rollplay than the roleplay.

Its all plot driven, given by the module or adventure they are running, and not the character driven experience that many find enjoyable.

Some may find it enjoyable, but i found it rather boring to play and stressful to dm.

[tokek]

I did a few sessions of AL remotely when lockdown was really gripping.

It was alright. Not amazing but alright. No horror stories but no huge memorable highlights either.

[Wildstag]

I've played in Albuquerque, and the community that played was really engaging and tried to become more proficient with the system. As such, games moved quickly and flowed well. There were limited GMs for low-level games, but they kept good track of progression and levelling.

I ended up with a story reward of Mithral Full Plate from one adventure that ended up being changed by AL rules, but as I was explained it (and read), players that had previously been awarded the original items could grandfather them in.

As such, I ended up with my bugbear (Battlemaster Fighter? I think? Don't have the sheet on me) Giovanni "Gio", a pretty dang good warrior that could sneak around well enough despite his armor. It was a blast, though I only got to level 6 in gameplay, and never actually played him as level 6.

As I understand it, I could still play the character, but I might not, there's probably rules regarding seasons and all that. Overall though, it was a fun experience. The GMs I played with were clearly trying to perfect their craft. Additionally, the characters were unique enough and the players generally interested in roleplay. I'd go back if I had a job in ABQ again, but sadly my current home town has nothing.

[sithlordnergal]

So, I play homebrew and AL a lot, and I actually enjoy both. There are some benefits and detriments to AL that you'll want to know:

--Pros--

- You can run AL literally anywhere. Heck, there are DnD Discord servers that run AL games and events.

- Its perfect for drop-in/drop-out games, as you can just play the modules. If you want a more consistent story line, you can run the hardcovers. Usually there are plenty of modules to enjoy for stories that happen after the hardcover finishes as well

- Its pretty easy to set up. Basically just tell the store owner "Hey, I'm gonna run AL on these days", and then you can run it. You don't really need to do much more.

- Prep-Time tends to be pretty minimal. So say you had a super busy week, and didn't have time to prepare much. All you need to run AL is the module itself. They typically provide stat blocks, item descriptions, everything. So even if you accidentally forget your DMG or Monster Manual, you can still run it.

- Games tend to be pretty quick. Most modules are 2 to 4 hours long. So you can easily fit that into a schedule.

- You are rewarded for DMing. The DM rewards change from story line to story line, but you can build up your own character, that way you don't have to start off with nothing if you choose to play

- On the player side of things, its really a great place to experiment with builds. Given you are guarenteed certain items with certain modules, players can make crazy builds that might require specific items or class combos to work.



--Cons--

- There is a lot more roll-play. Though lately I've been finding AL groups that do more roleplaying than rollplaying.

- Players can be a mixed bag. You might get a really good table of players, you might get a boring table. Since you're doing it irl its a lot easier to vet out the actual bad players

- You, as a DM, have little to no control over what a player might bring to the table. This is especially for irl games, where its a bit harder to vet what a player is bringing to your table. This could be fine...or it could mean you're dealing with a Shepard Druid with an item that summons an Earth Elemental, wears Plate Armor made out of Scorpion chitin that gives a +5 to Initiative, and has a Staff of the Woodlands, all at level 8 or 9.

- Speaking of Shepard Druids, you can't really homebrew things. Now, you are allowed to make minor changes to encounters, but that's about it. If a player brings a character that wields a quarterstaff, has PAM, and uses it 1-handed with a Shield, well too bad. Its allowed by RAW, so it can't really be banned outside of banning the player. Same goes for Conjure Animals. If the player casts it, the most you can do is follow what the spell says.


All in all, I enjoy AL quite a lot, as both a player and a DM. Its very different from normal homebrew games, but it gives a lot of player freedom. Also, the large events are just really fun. XD Plus the modules tend to be pretty fun, and you can find games for literally any level. Heck, I sometimes use AL modules in my HB games for small adventures when players just wanna find some loot

[sithlordnergal]

.

As I understand it, I could still play the character, but I might not, there's probably rules regarding seasons and all that. Overall though, it was a fun experience. The GMs I played with were clearly trying to perfect their craft. Additionally, the characters were unique enough and the players generally interested in roleplay. I'd go back if I had a job in ABQ again, but sadly my current home town has nothing.

You can absolutely play him again in the current rules. Heck, I had a character I hadn't touched since Tomb of Annihilation came out and I recently began playing him again. You might have fun in a discord server, there are a few of them that do AL

[Keravath]

People's experience with AL varies a lot - just as much as the players and DMs you might play with over the years can vary a lot. (this got a bit long, sorry :) ).

I've played AL for something like the past 5 years - mostly virtually for the last 2. In general, I've enjoyed it. However, it is not usually the same experience as playing a homebrew game with a bunch of friends.

The basic concept of AL is to run the same content for different players at many different locations. There are a wide range of approved modules as well as hardcovers from over 11 seasons of AL in the Forgotten Realms, plus a series in Eberron and a few separate modules from the Demiplanes of Dread. Each of these is a separate "campaign" but FR has an immense amount of content that can be run including a vast array of modules and most of the published hard cover adventures. A character played under AL rules with a log sheet can be played in any tier appropriate AL game run anywhere - so if you move or are traveling you can take your AL characters and continue to play them.

AL is run using RAW. The DM has the final say on rules interpretations where the rules are unclear but otherwise the DM can't impose house rules of any kind. Characters in the FR campaign can be created from a list of allowed sources for the FR campaign - check the player's guide in the link below for details.

Links to most of the documents can be found here: https://dnd.wizards.com/ddal_general (though the DM page has links to some additional documents)

The advantages of AL are the following:

- the biggest one is that it fits into real world schedules - you can book a spot to play AL and if you have to cancel because of work/spouse/children/other commitment coming up unexpectedly - you let the person running the game know and someone on the waiting list can take your spot. AL is an awesome way to play D&D on a casual basis that fits into the busy lives of most folks. The days of playing D&D for 6-8 hours in a row, once or twice a week, ended for most people in high school or possibly University.

- the game goes on even if some folks don't show up. Most of the regular D&D campaigns I've played just cancel the session if a couple of folks can't make it just due to "continuity". AL doesn't usually have that same level of continuity so the module can be run with anywhere from 3-7 (and sometimes more or less) show up.

- AL is organized by tiers so that character level 1-4 play together, 5-10, 11-16 and 17-20 ... this means you can show up with a tier appropriate character and get to play the character you want to play. Since parties can be somewhat randomized, the DM gets to balance things out a bit, but everyone can play whatever they like. I played a game once where four of the players were all bards or bard multiclass ... I don't recall the other two but we decided to spontaneously be a band with the other two being roadies for the session. Made for a bit of interesting role playing.

- you can actually play characters to level 20 and with a reasonable AL community which runs tables at different tiers you can probably have multiple level 20 characters. I only play casually so my highest level character is level 17. This may not matter to some folks but it is actually a bit refreshing to experience the game play at high levels since many campaigns never get there.

- AL characters are transportable. If you have logged the sessions you have played with a particular character (DM, Module name, magic items, story awards, date, location) then you can take that character and play them in any other AL legal game anywhere. This means that if a campaign or game you are playing in ends or stops, you don't have to stop playing that character - find another AL game and continue playing.

The disadvantages of AL are

- lack of storyline continuity. There are now 11 seasons of AL content in the Forgotten Realms and characters can play any of the adventures in whatever order so if you want to create a sense of adventure continuity for your character it is up to the player to come up with the fiction connecting the series of adventures they have played. However, you can choose to play adventures within the specific storylines or seasons in order

- Each AL module is typically a one shot adventure that takes 2-4 hours to play. However, there are some story arcs within seasons and in the modules from community created content CCC. The DM runs these modules as written, they can add/remove thematically appropriate monsters - make some other adjustments to keep the module fun and challenging for the particular group but the DM doesn't get to make up content. As a result, there doesn't tend to an overall plot arc or ongoing play experience that you might find in a regular campaign. However, this can be mitigated by playing through a hardcover adventure using AL rules since the characters remain transportable but the hardcover provides the adventure continuity if you can keep making it. I played through the entire ToA hardcover in a bit more than a year playing every two weeks in AL - there were about 4-5 core players that were present for the entire adventure with rotating roster of 2-3 others. It was actually a lot of fun, well run and much like running a home campaign. The main difference is that after ToA my character has gone on to play other tier 3 and 4 content in the Forgotten Realms - while a regular campaign could have ended or the character might have been retired.

- you never know who might be at your table. There are a very wide range of folks who play D&D. There are optimizers and min/maxers. There are folks who love characterization and role playing. There are shy, arrogant, noisy, grumpy, quiet, know-it-all, know-nothing, rules lawyers, rules breakers - ones who love to role play and others who just want to roll dice. When you sit down at a table of strangers the dynamic is very different from playing with friends you've known for a few years. Some folks don't want to even try role playing in that environment. Others don't want to role play in the first place and still others have different views of what role playing IS ... for example, role playing does not require acting though some folks do like to act or use voices. Anyway, because of the wide range of possible players and DMs and the fact that some of these people may have never met (while some of the others might know each other for years) - it can be very important to create an opening an welcoming environment so that folks can all play within their comfort zone. It is up to the DM to make sure everyone plays within the rules, and plays nice with each other, and creates a play environment that is open to anyone. (Anyway, meeting with new folks and learning about their differences could actually be considered an advantage in some circles :) ).

----

TL;DR - AL is what you make of it. There are good and bad DMs and players in both homebrew and AL settings. You can run AL or you can run a homebrew game at your local game store. AL has a lot of published content (including hardcovers) and if the modules run are run using RAW and the player logs the modules for those characters then the character can advance and be played at any other AL legal venue. This is less of an issue in a smaller town with only one venue to play at but means more if you move/travel or are in a larger city with multiple venues all running AL content. You can't use house rules or home made content with AL games.

[Melphizard]

Hey there! I'm a long time (at least 3-4 year) Adventurer's League DM and player so I feel it'd be good to put my input here.

The long rambling about rules: Adventurer's League is something which I both love, adore, despise, and hate. I've only been with it since season 7 (it's currently season 11) and the rules for making characters, handling gold + magical items, handling certain spells, and more has been so swapped around that I can't even imagine what seasons 1-6 could have been like. Least to say its current iteration rules wise is balanced and fair to the content with which you're allowed to play under the setting, that being Forgotten Realms. The way magical item distribution back in season 7 was handled was someone funky and clanky. It used to be that the party decides who gets the magical item or the player with the least could just take, which lead to some exploits by using DM exp to have no magical items and just get it. Ok so DM exp is a whole other section so I'll split this part up into the general things of how AL has handled itself. By looking at AL's past we can maybe divine the future from 4 categories; those being Magical Item + Gold, [B]Characters and Progression, and Dungeon mastering. Tackling one at a time:


Magical Item + Gold Distribution: So back in season 7 here's how magical items worked to my memory
1. The player with the least amount of items can choose to get an item found in the module. This has priority over everybody else. This was an issue since people could have high level characters they create to be high level enter modules and snipe items.
2. Anybody may otherwise declare they want an item. If somebody else wants it they roll a d20 and whomever gets the higher wins it. This was fair enough I suppose and allowed for #1 to be used to balance out the loser's pools.

Season 7 was what I feel to be the best general era of Adventurer's League rules for they were balanced enough and felt fair. Gold was split evenly and everything was happy..... until Season 8 attacked.
Season 8 replaced a lot of what Season 7 was doing well such as magical item distribution and gold, placing a gold cap on adventures and making you get treasure points so you can buy items later??? It was weird and the addition of a cap on gold, thus shaving off a lot of the dragon's hoard from your profits, was widely disliked by most I knew since the economy was already so busted it mainly hurt wizards.
Season 9-11 takes us up to where we are now and things are better. All you need to know is that today it works like this
Gold is distributed fairly again with no gold cap being placed on adventurers. No taxation on our dragon hoards! They also introduced more ways to spend gold such as services which is great.
Magical Items: Today's AL magical item system is both unbalanced and balanced in a mostly harmonious way. When you find a magical item in a module, all players get to keep it. Players may keep as many magical items as they want; however, there is a cap on the number of magical items they can bring into an adventure relating to their Tier. Oh yeah tiers let me explain.

Tiers: They basically are level ranges that modules must abide by. Depending on the party and the module it usually ends up being as accurate as CR does. That said the tiers are the following
t1 - 1-4 t2 - 5-10 t3 - 11-16 t4 - 17-20
Every module has an assigned tier and only characters with the level range of a tier can play in a module of that tier. There's an ocean of Tier 1 and tier 2 modules. A good number of tier 3 modules. A horrible lack of tier 4 modules.

Ok so that covers magical items, onto the next point!



Characters and Progression: Here's how leveling currently works
- After 4 hours of a play you gain an advancement. Basically consider it a milestone. With 4 hours of play you level up. I think it increases to 8 hours in tier 2 or tier 3.
- You may only create characters with PHB, XTG, SCAB, TCoE, MToF (tieflings), Fizban's, and Tortles as valid books. Any subclasses and races go.
- You May Not Be Evil. God I hate this rule and they just implemented it.
- At level 5 you get your choice of one of the following magical items for free:
Bag of holding, +1 weapon, +1 DC + Spell Attack item from TCoE, +1 shield, and monks get NOTHING (well they get a pick of one of the other items but they're basically screwed over)
- Feats are allowed if people want them
- No advancement aside from downtime past level 20.

tl;dr Leveling is fast, you get a free magical item at level 5, all books in Forgotten realms are go, evil has been banished from all characters. In other news, Chaotic neutral character creation further skyrockets.


Dungeon mastering: I DM a lot of content. 8 hours a week and sometimes it's more. As a Dungeon master in AL you get rewards as well so there's something you can start playing with once you free yourself from the cage. What you used to have back in season 7 and 8 were things called DM rewards in where you'd get special perks for running all of the season's content (seasons being created with new HCs like Tomb of Annihilation or Rime of the Frostmaiden). In season 8 if you ran all of Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Dragonheist you got the special ability to play a Death Cleric. In season 7 you had the ability to unlock playing an aarakocra and/or oathbreaker (no evil characters though so no oathbreakers). In addition, you also could get magical items from the modules you ran! This made DMing great and while exploitable, still meant people Dm'd.

Following season 7 they changed things so many times in worse and worsening ways that I saw many DMs threaten or actually quit doing AL because of it. Last season for Rime of the Frostmaiden they never even made any DM rewards or much of any thing season 10 related, vanishing off to do something? What we got with season 11 isn't great either but basically
- You still get levels with the players
- Capped at 400 hours of rewards
- Earn points by DMing to spend on magical items; however, the costs of a specific very rare item from their list, which by the way, there's a list of what you get, is exuberant.

DM rewards in general are in a poor state imo currently. As for actually DMing AL is great mostly.
Doing pros cons here.

Pro:
1. Finding players is much easier doing AL since a lot of it can be managed with a site called warhorn which has ended up causing overflow for a lot of online games I've listed. One of my campaigns is formed of a lot of players from varying parts of the world just through warhorn and I think that's pretty great.
2. Tons of content is there in the form of modules or hardcovers for you to use! It makes a lot of the preparing easier and overall they're typically fairly well written (others much worse) and getting them off of DM's guild supports the creator as well!
3. DM moderation has as much power as it should at any table in AL. You are within your power to have a player leave or respectfully hold back in regards to their op magical items (such as a staff of power in tier 1. Various methods and such using cheesy tactics).


Con:
1. (As a player) Some DMs are just outright horrible whilst others will be the best one you may have ever had. I've felt both and it has been a rough time. I once went to a convention to do some AL play and both my DMs essentially noped both of my characters whole mechanics out of the gate. One in specific used rules where initiative was 1212121212 where the players are 1 and the monsters are 2, thus making it so our Oath of the Watchers paladin was pointless if it'd all end up the same anyways.
2. Creativity is stifled quickly in the lands of AL. Unless you have a solid group to do a hardcover with who wouldn't be against some "alterations" story wise, you're mostly going to be stuck with modules. You could write your own; but, that too has a lot of limits put in place.
3. Every season brings about change and it's rough having stuff flipped about every 6-8 months and watching some ideas burn or weird rules be added.




So yeah as a DM and player of AL for 3-4 years I can say that it may be great or it may be very rough; yet, if you're with a group of people and y'all find yourselves to be able to meet regularly and play, you can probably relax a bit and add a bit more flavor to the blandness. If nothing else, AL works as a great way to potentially find groups of people who have time to regularly play DnD and likely wouldn't be against a campaign. Heck, I've even gotten into a non-AL Avernus game just through meeting someone through this funky system. Hope this helps.

[da newt]

It all depends on the people who show up - AL can be great or crappy. It's nice because anyone can hop in/out anywhere anytime. It sucks because anyone can hop in/out anywhere anytime. Some of the mods are well written, some have terrible illogical holes.

One of the things you have to accept is that AL is intro to DnD and grognard optimizer rule lawyer who doesn't bathe all at the same table. As long as you set your expectations appropriately and cultivate the atmosphere that you want, a good DM can make AL great.

At my local shop it was nice and a good way to meet others who were interested, but it did smell like a highschool boy's locker room. Some excellent people - some folks who defy explanation.

[NaughtyTiger]

The only thing that I didn't see mentioned is:

the number of players.

AL is supposed to be 7 players max. That is a lot of players. it is hard to keep everyone engaged, especially if they are a random group of people with different playstyles.

Moreover, most FLGS have a limited number of tables and way more players that wanna join in.
So you have your regular 5 players... but Bob is running late. 2 newbies show up early. You will be encouraged to accept them to your table (bringing you up to 7). Cuz it is bad form to turn away players for AL game.
Then Bob finally shows up (fighting traffic for 30 minutes to get here).
Eventually, you will be pressured to accommodate 8 or 9 players at your table.

[DigitalCharlie]

AL is incredibly area dependent. To that end, I always say give it a shot and see. Some places, AL is for people who can't find games. In some places, AL is where people choose to host their games to meet a few new people. It just depends.

I'm in the Bay, most of our games are soft capped at 5, and a lot of the people who play are active — it feels more like a group of D&D friends rather than people who can't find other games.

So, you'll hear horror stories. If you're in a place where horror stories are the AL norm, run away. If you're in a place with an awesome community, though, it's delightful.

[Keravath]

... deleted to save on length ...


So yeah as a DM and player of AL for 3-4 years I can say that it may be great or it may be very rough; yet, if you're with a group of people and y'all find yourselves to be able to meet regularly and play, you can probably relax a bit and add a bit more flavor to the blandness. If nothing else, AL works as a great way to potentially find groups of people who have time to regularly play DnD and likely wouldn't be against a campaign. Heck, I've even gotten into a non-AL Avernus game just through meeting someone through this funky system. Hope this helps.



Nice post :)

I have a couple of comments I can add.

Character creation: The current season lets you use a wide choice of setting relevant choices to create characters. It used to allow only the PHB+1 source of your choice from the setting. This has made character creation much easier for new players.

Magic Items: These days, any magic item that appears in an adventure is available to every character who played it at the end of the adventure. If you find a magic item during an adventure, then only one character has an opportunity to use it during that adventure but everyone can add it to their "bank" at the end of it. Magic item limits are imposed by only allowing a character to bring a specific number of chosen permanent magic items on an adventure. The number varies by tier. There are also limits on the number of consumable magic items you can bring.

Season 7: The Season 7 magic item rules were closer to home tables but caused a lot of friction and upset players when items that were perfect for your character went to a character who could not use it except to trade. It's fair but since you can't replay content there was often only one opportunity to obtain specific items. Unlike home tables the DM can't adjust loot to fit character desires. The current system avoids this element which DID cause friction between players. For a game that can often be played with strangers the current system is much better.

Advancement: Leveling up is even easier if you want it. However, it can be fun to play at a particular tier for a while so you can always decline advancement when offered.

"Advancement. Once the players successfully complete an adventure, inform them that they’ve gained a level. If the adventure has specific leveling instructions, follow those. If it does not, award the opportunity to gain a level after completing a session of play that’s at least two hours long. A character can gain no more than one level per session. Players can always decline to have their character gain a level that is offered."

Evil Characters: Removing evil characters has to do with folks abusing it and actually doing evil things. PVP is banned in AL so one character can not do anything that would harm another unless that player decides it is ok in terms of role playing and they are cool with it.

However, there are lots of evil things that some folks incorporated into their character that are simply not appropriate for the wide range of AL players. I've played AL with kids as young as 8, and folks 60+, from all walks of life with vastly different life experiences. Having an evil PC that collects ears from their victims, tortures or maims for fun, bullies, or does other nasty things to NPCs (or is a murder hobo) ... just doesn't work with the wide variety of AL players.

Of course, not all evil characters have to be played that way but some folks seem to think having an evil alignment is a license to go off the deep end. Preventing characters from being evil gives the DM a platform to use when saying to a player that their choice of role playing options in unacceptable. (PS I played Waterdeep:Dragon Heist with a group of folks in AL who played evil members of the Zhentarim ... I played a good Harper spy since I don't like evil characters ... some of those characters were very nasty even if some of their activities were narrated off screen when most of the other characters weren't present.) So I have no problem with an outright ban of evil characters for AL games.

DM Rewards: I agree the current DM rewards are bad. I personally think the DM should get the same rewards as a player that they can apply to their choice of character. Most DMs won't use them all (I still have something like 40 levels and a wide range of magic items sitting on logs that I could award to characters from running AL in previous seasons but I just haven't had the chance or inclination - but I do like having the option). I haven't DMed enough to obtain the current rewards and it requires a ridiculous amount of DMing for someone with a real life to get all the available rewards (though there are ways to game the system by creating a code of conduct document, distributing X cards, streaming your game even if it is on a private Discord and other methods to increase hours awarded - but honestly, the rewards aren't worth it and would not encourage me to run AL games).

DMs:

"1. (As a player) Some DMs are just outright horrible whilst others will be the best one you may have ever had. I've felt both and it has been a rough time. I once went to a convention to do some AL play and both my DMs essentially noped both of my characters whole mechanics out of the gate. One in specific used rules where initiative was 1212121212 where the players are 1 and the monsters are 2, thus making it so our Oath of the Watchers paladin was pointless if it'd all end up the same anyways."

I just want to comment that the DM who modified the initiative system was not playing AL. AL is very specific about the use of house rules and using a 121212 etc initiative system isn't allowed. At a convention, whoever was organizing it should have been able to fix it but it gets into issues of personality and people so it can be problematic. DMs can make rulings where the rules in the PHB might be unclear but they can't create their own rules when playing AL.

[Yakmala]

Old school D&D player who began mixing AL games in with homebrew games over the last five years.

Most of the pros and cons have been covered above, so instead, I thought I'd give a bit of advice for those who like to roleplay and get in depth with their character backgrounds.

Unless you are playing through a hardcover campaign in AL with most of the same players week over week, there simply isn't going to be time or opportunity to get into any real depth about your character's personality and motivations, especially if the majority of it is rooted in past events.

Instead try to get across your character's unique assets through other means.

1: Make sure something about their codes and convictions will come up in almost every possible game scenario, not just under specific circumstances that may or may not come up in a given module.

2: Give the character motivations rooted in the here and now, not based on past grudges or tragedies that you might not get the chance to discuss.

3: Think of personality quirks that correspond to their best most used features. For example, if the character has the Alert feat, why do they have it? Are they paranoid or twitchy? Are they always on guard?

4: Props and flourishes are a great way to stand out and distinguish your character. Is there something different about the way they wield their weapon? Do they wear an usual hat? Is there something they shout as they charge into combat? Is there something usual about their familiar? Is your preferred wild shape different than the usual popular choices?

Elements such as these will make your character memorable within the short span of a typical AL module.

[Tanarii]

Main reason I’m asking is I’m considering just asking the owner letting me run a drop-in, drop-out Thursday night game and sending out news on the mailing list/facebook so I can use my houserules, homebrew, and doing it more casually. But if there’s already a good system in place for that (whether I get technically endorsed by WOTC or not), maybe it would save me some trouble. Share your thoughts, stories, and experiences, please!
If you're going to run a pick up table home-brew campaign, you need to put a LOT of thought into how it will work. AL already has that structure built in. It's basically one of the two entire points, the other being that people can take their characters to different pick up games if they like.

The three best ways to handle pick up tables are:
1) Megadungeon
2) West Marches
3) Single session modules

AL does the third. It's also the easiest to prep, since you can just jack content (including AL DDEX content) from anywhere, so long as it's designed for a single session.

Mega dungeons and West Marches are also (almost always) single session forays, returning by end of session. But they both take a ton of prep. Like easily a hundred hours to do it right.

[sithlordnergal]

Old school D&D player who began mixing AL games in with homebrew games over the last five years.

Most of the pros and cons have been covered above, so instead, I thought I'd give a bit of advice for those who like to roleplay and get in depth with their character backgrounds.

Unless you are playing through a hardcover campaign in AL with most of the same players week over week, there simply isn't going to be time or opportunity to get into any real depth about your character's personality and motivations, especially if the majority of it is rooted in past events.

Instead try to get across your character's unique assets through other means.

1: Make sure something about their codes and convictions will come up in almost every possible game scenario, not just under specific circumstances that may or may not come up in a given module.

2: Give the character motivations rooted in the here and now, not based on past grudges or tragedies that you might not get the chance to discuss.

3: Think of personality quirks that correspond to their best most used features. For example, if the character has the Alert feat, why do they have it? Are they paranoid or twitchy? Are they always on guard?

4: Props and flourishes are a great way to stand out and distinguish your character. Is there something different about the way they wield their weapon? Do they wear an usual hat? Is there something they shout as they charge into combat? Is there something usual about their familiar? Is your preferred wild shape different than the usual popular choices?

Elements such as these will make your character memorable within the short span of a typical AL module.

Very much this, I have several AL character, some of them are very fun and interesting to rp, some are about the mechanics. My best rp based characters have thus far been:

Vieel of House Anteos, a goblin adopted by a Noble Family of Waterdeep. He carries the airs of a Noble, speaks very properly, and tries to present himself as a Noble. Buuut he's a Goblin, and usually has to deal with the fact that people don't take him seriously. He makes for a rather entertaining character to play, especially in RP heavy games.

Smunsou, Lizardfolk Monk. He stuggles to really fully understand some of the mannerisms displayed by his squishy compatriots, but is always willing to offer a finger or two to munch on to help calm the nerves. He's friendly, but effective and efficient.

Elros, an old character that I've given new life to. He's a Death Cleric/Hexblade Warlock Goblin that is super excitable. He likes to make sure everyone can see him helping out, and is very proud of his Clerical abilities...even though his touch tends to kill the people he's fighting cause, ya know, Death Cleric. He also likes to reassure people that even if they die he'll be there to raise them...or animate them. Which ever one they prefer.

You'll notice they don't tend to have complex back stories, but rather they have some really fun traits that people can enjoy.

[prototype00]

People have covered 99% of the pros and cons of AL in this thread, so I'm just going to put my suggestions for new players or DMs.

Players:

- I've found it really doesn't pay to have an in depth three page backstory for your character. Just pick a region your character is from, latch onto some current event there to explain the short one paragraph backstory and Bob's your uncle. The reason for this is in a pickup group, you aren't going to be making an in-depth connection with the rest of the party members over the course of 4 hours and the DM is going to be concentrating on making sure everyone has a good time and won't have the months to properly massage your character background into the narrative.

- Shallow, flashy and, most importantly, pulls their weight in combat and in the other two pillars. That's the kind of character I like to build and most fellow players like to see. If you come into the module with a "weak because of story reasons in every possible way" other players are kind of going to groan inwardly as you are taking up a slot/increasing the difficulty of the module (challenge goes up with number of players and average level) while not pulling your weight.

DMs:

- Others have already covered the basics, but may I point out something that hasn't been mentioned yet that everyone at the table is happy for? Responsible Time Management. Learn to run your modules in a fun, engaging way within the time provided. Its a challenging skill to pick up, and the temptation to grandstand and drag things out is always there, but people live busy lives these days, and I always make it a point of pride to make sure that I respect their time as much as they respect mine.

[RingoBongo]

Check out The Forged Concordance.

Big West Marches with good organization. many pick up games happening all the time. https://discord.gg/AVzkJGXSQ5

[KOLE]

Proper reply to clme, busy weekend for me, I just wanted to extend a very sincere thanks to everyone who replied, you guys are amazing and very helpful!

[1Pirate]

I just wanted to post this cheesey adage: The real AL DM Rewards were the players I met along the way.

YMMV.