Also Known as D&D Adventurers League is the 5e version of the various living games and D&D encounters.
the following is what I have been able to put together regarding this new system.
Adventurers league will be split into 3, really 4 parts all of which are perfectly valid ways to be involved in wizards new organized play events.
Each season (roughly a year from what they have said) will focus on a main quest chain, published by wizards of the coast, this season Starts with the adventure Horde of the Dragon Queen and continues through into The Rise of Tiamat and beyond each seasons main line is designed for levels 1-15 or so. Theses core adventures are the main story for the season and everything else revolves and touches at least in part on these Adventures.
The 4 styles of play involved in the Adventures League are Encounters, Expeditions, Epic, and Home play.
Epic is the easiest to explain Epic play happens only at major conventions, gen con, pax prime, exc. there are 4-5 of them a year and the epic events will be exclusive to those events and seem focused on high level characters 15+. Any Adventurer League character who is the correct level and attends the event can get into theses exclusive games.
Then there is home play Anyone who wants can purchase the main adventure chain modules and run it for there group at home, keeping track of character growth with there forms and as long as you stick to those adventures your home play characters are perfectly valid for all other organized play events. (obviously home play also includes someone running them at BG even if its a bit more formally done) your character quests along collects xp and loot, even often getting magic item certs to verify you received them.
Now for the long time classing D&D Encounters things have changed, we may not be seeing a full year of week to week encounters instead D&D encounters Held Wednesdays at both BG locations are taken directly from the early parts of that seasons main Adventure (the first season being Horde of the Dragon Queen) Each week players can show up to play through 1-2 hours of the adventure eventually you will finish that seasons encounters at which point you may decide to retire the character or perhaps find a home game to continue the adventure, or you could jump into the new D&D Expeditions.
Expeditions are not like the other styles of play, each season Expeditions are set in a specific area of a D&D world. (the first season is set on the moonshea Islands of forgotten realms) Expeditions are episodic adventures on avarage 2-4 hours long that are loosely connected to that seasons main adventure line. Unlike Encounters quick fights Expeditions tend to be a full short quest, cleans the cave of cultists, recover the lost treasure exc. Though they wont have the same plot shattering effect as the main quest like Expeditions, which are written out of house are being woven into the main story each season so that someone interested in getting the full picture are best off playing both the main plot line as well as in Expeditions (they have promised about 10 Expeditions adventures for the first season) one thing that dose make Expeditions stand out is that each player may choose a faction to belong to and gains reputation with them based on there actions, high rep and specific factions may be offered extra quests or encounters that are not given to others.
Well I hope anyone who reads this is less confused about D&D Adventurers League and We at Battle Ground Games are looking forward to sharing Glorious Adventures with you.
