PAX West came and went recently, and it was my first time going. PAX is something that happens here every year, but I always miss it because either I can’t buy a ticket, or I have other plans that weekend. This year though, I finally got a lucky break from a friend who had a one-day pass for Friday, which means that I could go to PAX, and still spend time with my kids on the weekend. ❤️
Since I only had one day to go, I decided to make the most of it at the tabletop gaming area since I am not an avid player of console/PC games.
PAX was hosting a special gaming table for the new Acquisitions Inc. module, and an introduction adventure. Since the timing of the Adventurers League adventures didn’t line up with other things I wanted to do, I opted to do the Acq Inc. adventure instead. I was seated with some other people: a nice older couple, and a father/son combination. We played a small, fun adventure using example characters from the book. I played Lok, the dwarven cleric Obviator.
We all had a good time, and as the adventure wound down, one of the guys asked me what I thought about the book. I replied that I liked it, but hadn’t had a chance to use it with my kids’ adventure at home, and it was then that they told me that they were the writers of that book! It was so cool playing at the same table as the writers. I shook their hands and got autographs in my book (which was already signed by Mike Krahulik as his character Jim Darkmagic).
It was a great start to PAX, but after a lengthy afternoon lull spent people-watching, looking at expensive dice, and purchasing spellbook cards, I got to see my first live D&D game of Acquisitions Inc. at the Paramount Theater here in Seattle:
We were stuck in the middle of the seats, which was not a great place to be when you have to go to the restroom, but it all worked out well. It was great seeing Anna Prosser, Xavier Woods, Patrick Rothfuss, Jeremy Crawford and of course Jim Darkmagic and Omin Dran. You can see the full episode here on Youtube.
It was a great day: I got to meet many good people in the D&D community, and got to finally see a live show. I am already looking forward to next year. 😆
P.S. PAX apparently has a thing with collecting “pins”, which I only realized much later in the day, so I got a total of 1 pin. But, since I was trying to stay on a budget, one pin was probably enough. 🙂
Recently, I wrote about my new hobby playing Dungeons and Dragons’s Adventurers League at a local game shop. My character Qisandoral Ariestannus, the Elvish answer to Mr Spock or Sam the Eagle, started as a level 1 character back in August, and “Qi” has now reached level 5 and is now considered a “tier 2” character.¹
For the jump from level 4 to level 5, I decided to leverage the “Catching Up” downtime rule which lets you spend 20 days worth of downtime to simply go up a level. This can only be triggered at specific experience levels, but is a nice, easy way to nudge your character to the next tier if you like.
The catch is that my daughter now plays with me, and since her character is much lower level than Qi, they can’t play in the same tiered-adventure as one another.
To work around this, I revived a different character I that played privately with my kids with a few minor tweaks: Gwynen Naïlo, an elf cleric of the Nature domain. He is one level lower than my daughter’s character, but at least we can adventure together at our local game shop on AL nights. Plus, I do enjoy playing clerics almost as much as wizards.
It seems that many seasoned AL players have a roster of different characters available so that they can always have something ready regardless of what adventure tier they play that day. Eventually as Qi and Gwynen move to higher tiers, I’ll probably have another character or two waiting in the wings.
In any case, it’s nice to see Qi (and Gwynen) rack up adventures, stories, and some loot, even as I get to know other people in the local AL community more and more. I am continuously pleased to see how supportive people are, and how much they’ve helped my daughter get up to speed. 🙂
P.S. With Season 9 just around the corner, I am excited to see Qi pick up some default items for tier 2 (in particular a Wand of the War Mage +1), and maybe also keep some of the magic items he finds in the adventures. I think the season 9 rules are a welcome improvement.
¹ A point of clarification: AL has 4 tiers, that map like so:
My PHB and character sheet from my first AL session
Recently, I alluded to a change in hobbies toward Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer’s League. It all started one night at the local gaming store when I had yet another losing night drafting Magic the Gathering. One of the store clerks, who is a fellow Dungeons and Dragons fan, told me about Adventurer’s League. I had vaguely heard of it before, but he helped explain how it works and why it was worth a look.
Adventurer’s League exists to solve one of perennial issues with Dungeons and Dragons: finding a game. It’s a program that provides drop-in games at any game store or event that offers them. AL has stricter options for customizing your character,¹ but you gain portability in that you can bring it from one drop-in game to another, and can track progress between them using a standard logsheet and the baseline rules. Larger conventions regularly host AL sessions too, if you’re part of the convention crowd.
Getting started with Adventurer’s League isn’t too difficult, especially if you’ve played D&D 5th Edition. You need at minimum:
An Adventurer’s League logsheet (to track your character’s progress across sessions)
DMs can help you walk through the rest, or address questions you have. However, it’s also really helpful to review the Player’s Guide first so you get familiar with some of the terms and how progress is tracked. Having access to a player’s handbook for D&D helps too. If you can’t afford one, there is a more limited, free version provided by Wizards of the Coast that you can download.
My first AL session ever was a large multi-party event that was also a charity fundraiser. The DMs who volunteered to conduct the event were super-helpful in answering my questions, the people in my group were great, and the adventure was pretty darn fun, especially since it was part of a larger war campaign involving other groups at the same event and we all had to coordinate with one another to liberate the city of Phlan.
The subsequent sessions I played were much smaller in scope, and the players were different since it was a drop-in campaign, but it was still a lot of fun. One session was a battle against local undead forces, while the next session was a role-playing adventure to help raise funds for a local orphanage. D&D Adventurer’s League benefits from a large collection of quality-written adventures from DMS Guild, and these can be surprisingly fun and creative. Often times, they’re one-off “mini adventures” from larger campaign settings such as Barovia or Waterdeep.
With AL, you don’t get to go as deep into role-playing as you would a home-campaign since your character drops into an adventure for maybe one session, but I found if you lighten up a bit and just go with the story, you can still have fun role-playing your character without heavy commitment either. However, you’re 10-page backstory may need to be trimmed down to 3-4 sentences to make it fit into whatever campaign you wish to play. 😉
My current character, linked here in DnD Beyond, is a Sun Elf named Qisandoral Ariesstanus or “Qi” for short. He started as a throw-away NPC character in my home campaign with my kids but he soon grew on all of us and I decided to make an AL-version of him. He is the elf version of Mr Spock or Sam the Eagle from the Muppet Show: very stiff and deadpan in an amusing way.
Compared to a more competitive environment like Magic, AL is much more collaborative. People are there to work together and have a good adventure, so they’re inclined to get along and solve the adventure rather than try to one-up one another. That doesn’t eliminate the issue of problematic players (and I’ve met a few over the years), but I found those incidents pretty rare, and such players don’t last long. The rest of the players are great people, and I always walk away from an AL session having had a good time.
Adventurer’s League is also very budget-friendly, which as a working father with kids is great. I can’t vouch for money spent on game-store food, but that’s another story. ;p
I can’t praise AL enough. If you’d like to play D&D or looking for a gaming event that’s easy going, friendly and cost-efficient, definitely give Adventurer’s League a try. You have nothing to lose, and many adventures and loot to win! 😀
P.S. One thing I have noticed is that AL is still a relatively new program, so rules do change from season to season, especially with how progress is tracked. If in doubt, your DM can help you walk through any updates or rule changes if need be.
¹ For example, AL uses something called the “PHB+1 Rules” which means that when create and customize your character, you need to stick to the rules of the original Player’s Handbook plus one other book (e.g. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything).
Recently, I got to enjoy a couple weeks as a pseudo-bachelor while my wife and kids were in Japan visiting relatives (I caught up with them later, but that’s another story), and decided to spend a bunch of time at my local game shop. With the release of the M20 set for Magic the Gathering, I participated in a bunch of drafts that time, and lost most of my games.
Drafting with MtG has never been my strongest suit (I tend to play Pauper or other Constructed formats more often), but I can often get a 2-1 night when I draft. However, each time I played I got at most 1-2, which at a draft price of $15 means I am in the red each time.
I felt like adding some more draft opportunities to try and re-coup my losses, but then I read about the economic concept of sunk-cost fallacy. This means that after you’ve put money into something, even if it’s a loss, you’re inclination is to put more money into it. For me, this meant that playing more draft would (in theory) help me win more games and start getting in the black (since you win more packs).
But, what if I still lost draft games? Then I’d be even further in the red, and have more cards that I’d have to store somewhere and would like never use again? The potential for waste kind of outweighed the potential wins I might get. And honestly, I have too many cards from M20 at this point, and don’t really want to add to the collection at this point.
So, after having a small light-bulb moment, I realized that rather than trying harder to win at drafting, I needed a long break.
Drafting for Magic the Gathering can be fun, but if you’re going in with the intention of competing and getting a winning score, it requires a considerable investment of time, endurance and practice¹ to get good at it. At this point in my life, I just don’t feel it’s worth it. I like playing with my coworkers and friends from time to time, and use my Constructed decks when I can, but apart from that, I just don’t like competing in Magic.
So, rather than banging my head against the wall that is competitive drafting, and trying to save face, I decided to accept that fact that my M20 drafts were a sunk-cost and move on. It kind of sucks that I spent dozens of dollars and have nothing to show for it besides a bunch of cards I don’t really want, but better to accept this and move on than to try to “recoup” my losses.
Also, I have decided to focus my energies on a different hobby now: D&D Adventurer’s League! More on that in a future post.
¹ The thought of spending hours every night playing Magic online just to get more “reps”, or grinding away Friday night after Friday night just doesn’t appeal to me. Life is short, and this just isn’t worth it.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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