D&D Sage Advice

hi everyone this is Dean d beyond I am here with my friend Chris Lindsey and we’re talking about adventures leave yep so yeah tell me what this magical thing adventures like is what new things do you guys have in store certainly adventurers League is the organized play program for Dungeons & Dragons that Wizards of the coast manages and I’m responsible for it which is the coast so and we have all kinds of DD events around the world basically some of which we directly get involved in like the one here at origins right and our goal really is just to make sure that people can have the best play experience in public possible right and how do you go about doing that though well you’re providing structure we do we have a structure there’s a shared world campaign so people can take their character from game to game the game so if they go from event to playing it home to wherever to the store they can take the same character and they can play and they can continue to advance a character and have a good time and meet new friends and just be a part of their community you know of gamers why is this a passion of yours Wow well D&D in general has been a passion of mine since I was like 10 but community the the feeling of being a part of a much larger group has always been extremely fulfilling for me and super exciting and I love going to big shows and seeing like seeing a DND gaming event that you can’t get anywhere else right so like here we’re gonna have the red war epic and we’re gonna have today and tomorrow we’re going on the DD open and we have game elements built into these games that you can’t get at your home game you’re you need more than like one table you need more than five tables you need a whole bunch of tables or people whether it be what are these elements you’re talking about so like with the epic today tables will be able to help each other because technically they’re all playing in the same adventure right and it’s not that we have a bunch of separate teams and they’re all running the same adventure that there’s interactivity between tables right and there’s elements built in like they can do things to help boost the other table or give them a nice one tables handling an aspect of an adventure yeah other table is making something else handling something else and depending off this table succeeded or failed exactly that will inform the experience of someone next to you exactly have a big haul of people playing adventure exactly like 40 tables of people playing one adventure right then it’s basically live Marvel Cinematic Universe exactly exactly what it is right and and people were playing at all tiers right so you’ll have characters from levels 1 to 20 all playing the same adventure but the challenges that they have to interact with are gonna be different depending on where they meet that adventure attic right that’s gonna form some new friendships when you like jump into something like that it does yeah yeah absolutely and the logistical aspect of actually managing all of that because they’re in addition to having table Dungeon Master’s we have to have basically a bent dungeon masters who are circulating and making sure that everything is running smoothly as it’s all kinda like interlocked together right and someone’s gabbi’s designing the stories to interlock yes nice so yeah where is that coming from we we have a cadre stable or how do you want to call it of fantastic fan authors and which actually are professional authors for D&D yeah right and they put together these adventures under the guidance of the adventurers like abdun team okay who report directly to mean and they work to build out the entire we start with like a based storyline and and not line an idea and then we just kind of work with them to like flush out the whole thing and then they just go crazy and they build the adventure and the admins tie it all together that’s so cool yeah especially like if you are new to D&D mm-hmm and you can just like jump into like a convention like this or your hobby shop and you’re just getting the full experience in one day attack you’re getting the whole thing and you can come in and sometimes we’ll have like billions that float from table to table the table yeah right there’s nothing like having you know you just you know that that one Dungeon Master who’s all they’re doing is they’re playing the Dragon and the dragon comes flying in to the table and then um buddy goes nuts I get like Merle’s big a big miniature Tiamat just going and Tiamat shows up yeah yeah we had an epic last year where one of the it was a lower level of it but one of the floating monsters was this casmi demon and rhudi Ruttenberg from me Zarkana would go from table to table and the cosmic demon has a drone ability and he would speak to all the players in the voice of Ben Stein because he’s voice actor it was hilarious what uh what are there things that you’re working on now that you would like to expand is there like new features or new Jesus just had a DD summit and for the adventurers League and we are getting ready to move into season eight with the release of Dragon heists and then later on dungeon of the mad mage that’s gonna be an especially challenging season for us because instead of taking one adventure and building a season around it we’re taking both adventures and we’re linking the whole thing together in one cohesive story arc to support those adventures for adventure sake so we’re gonna have a two-book season and and we are moving over to using the checkpoint system in zathras guide to everything for player rewards and advancements so that’s gonna become a new thing for the adventures in community but we really feel like it’s gonna streamline how you operate in how people can like move from table to table with those characters will make it much easier for them to do that now Lisa’s not here with us no yeah she had a scheduling conflict yeah but tell me a little bit about Lisa’s contributions so lisa is one of our two Community Managers her and Alan Patrick and Lisa is really fantastic at rallying the community behind behind D&D and she is really basically the ultimate I don’t want to say she’s the ultimate cheerleader because that’s really diminishing what she does but she she’s like the you know she keeps everybody up right and it’s Lisa’s job to be that warm welcoming person for new folks as they coming into the adventurers League and she helps to kind of guide them into the program and then direct them to where they need the things they need so that they can be involved yeah and she’s fantastic at that how does someone get involved the easiest way to give especially for a new player yeah someone who is just scared of like making that leap to D&D uh-huh how do they get involved well one way to get there’s a number of ways to get involved one way to get involved of course is to come to a show like this right like where it is yeah like origins right and that’s but that’s kind of like sometimes it can be a little bit daunting but we always try and set up these introductory tables to get people involved like in a very gentle manner and we tell our dungeon master say be nice with the new guy hey folks we want them down you want them to come back yeah right another way is to go to your friendly local gaming store and and some of them will run adventurous League events at their store for new and existing players and and that can be very fun and exciting a third way is if you just want to get involved with the ventures League if you just want to start at home you could do that you can get an adventure off the Dungeon Master’s guilds and download it and run it for your friends and and you get the little documentation and you can keep track of your experience and stuff and it’s not complicated at all we try to make it as easy as possible how big is this community oh wow they get last count we had somewhere between eighty and a hundred thousand followers on Facebook and by the way our Facebook page for a DV Ventures league is also a fantastic way to come in and ask questions and get acclimated to the community right there’s Lisa is there and Alan Patrick is there and they’re their sole mission is to basically guide people into the community and help them get comfortable with participating with a much larger group yeah it’s really important to like for people who are like scared because they get this question a lot like we were scared – playing – indeed there is a network of first off the community for DeeDee is incredibly nice yes yes we would–we wants you to play they want you to have a positive experience and adventures League is a big part of that yes we want everybody to come we don’t care you know it’s the all inclusive environment and it’s absolutely a safe place to come in and learn about D & B and to have a good time and to be a part of a logic you’re not gonna feel alienated no you should never feel alienated ya know we want everybody from all walks of life from all belief speedos and whatever to come in and join us we’re within this fantastic hobby yeah if you ever see this guy walking around the show floor of any con just go over to them and yeah I’m not even you know say I say hi oh you got a little bit water yeah cool I like water is that water for em or maybe [Laughter] now dams go yeah you’re heavily involved with as well yeah I mean I’m the business architecture the Dungeon Master’s guilds and I I keep tabs on how the guild is doing the health of the guild as far as like number of new authors coming in and new products going up and I just kind of keep tabs on that and I am always looking for new talents and the DMS guild yeah oh the last handful of authors that Wizards of the coast has recruited to work on our own products have come directly from my recommendations from from authors that I found in the beams guild and then I brought them in and I’ve even got them to work on adventurers League product so they can get used to the idea of working in a collaborative environment and then some of them become guild adepts which is a kind of an elite cadre of awesome people who like to make things with other awesome people and put them up on the DMS guild and then other folks like you know James intro caso and will Doyle coming in and working on our products and Lisa Tran yeah we’ll go on and work on ya actual D&D pottery because we’re making you’ve shown you have the job yeah absolutely so yeah it’s like minor leagues so the DMS guild is a great place it’s a creative community at DMS guild calm right where you can go in and you can make a product and you can put it up there for yourself you can make a few dollars on it and and really to me though the most valuable thing you can get from that is the feedback of your peers and and other fans and creators who purchase your products and get a chance to engage with that in their game what’s your advice when it comes to standing out as a storyteller that’s an excellent question really the most important serving to audiences one you need to make a deemed skilled product that looks interesting to a DM to run yeah but it also has to be fun for the play exactly exactly so we have a lot of a lot of fans buying the hardcover content that was just creating the event the adventures that we have like Tomb of annihilation and then the upcoming I’m sure the upcoming dragon heist adventure what are you bragging eyes and what we really look for is authors that can take that content and then understand the game well enough that they can see oh if I were running this I would also have this other side quest thing right and and it would help flesh out this aspect to the adventure that I really enjoy them I personally enjoy and then they can take that idea that kernel or what they would run and they can turn it into a published adventure but they can put up on the DMS guild and then other people will see that and they’ll be like oh I haven’t thought about the adventure that way so I can get this thing and I can add it in I can see how it just pleasures out there’s one section of the adventure really nicely by those people who contribute really rather than doing it for themselves they really are basically adding to the whole community of gamers who are trying to experience that story together right and that’s people who can do that really well I think are more likely to get our attention than other folks how did you get involved in DMD like well this year gate of entry because the world is very different it is you are doing so much work to try to get people to join D&D yes great for D&D that’s to be coming from a place I was I was drugged kicking and screaming into my first D&D game by my little brother yeah because he and his friends wanted to play D&D II and III wanted nothing to do with them because that’s how you are when you’re like you know 11 yeah yeah yeah right but they kinda finally convinced me to come and play with them and six months later I was the only one still wanted to play and so I had to go I had to go find convince your little brother to play you can play anymore yeah he started it I’m like seriously the cool part is is that same little brother now who’s only really a year younger than I am but he he is he is playing D&D again and he is teaching his children to play D&D he just started in the last couple of months I’m so proud of him those multi-turret you know yeah those multi generations yeah it’s awesome to see my nephews and nieces and stuff get excited about the same things that we got excited about when we were kids what slew how long have you been that Wizards I’ve been that Wizards as a full-time employee since 2003 but I was a contractor for a couple years before that so over 15 years what has this been like for you go from you know running this game for your little brothers yeah your little brother and his friends yeah to wanting more I mean suddenly you are now a steward of Dean B it’s absolutely surreal sometimes sometimes I have to like you know punch myself so I mean I would recommend a pinch ya punch you know I’m a heavy sleeper yeah so to realize that I get to basically be like you know the front man to like you know cheer on people it’s almost like being a pudgy David Lee Roth right inhaling next thing that’s right you’ve got it right here but ya know it’s it’s it’s awesome when I started at Wizards I was actually in the game support and that was actually really valuable I did that for seven years I started off as a rep and I eventually worked into becoming a manager there but that type of a position constant contact with other fans like daily like hundreds of contacts every day on the phone and email and chat and all this things and that really helped me to formulate like a really strong idea of what it is like that i and all the other fans want yeah now right and so much comes from that yeah like even a lot of Dungeon Master’s playing games first and I were like this is what I would do differently absolutely I see you’ve learned a lot so you learn a tremendous amount and then playing in organized play starting with the RPG a and then transitioning into Dungeons and Dragons aventuras League which is what basically that became one program became the other right and you’d eat your damning for new players at conventions all the time and you always have something that you can learn from somebody at the table even if it’s like what not to do right sorry and I did that for four years for hours at Wizards and it was all I didn’t realize the time I was just engaging in my hobby but really I was training myself yeah so 2:12 no one no one working at Wizards right now was like I know where I’m going to go yeah I can become rich and famous yeah well anyways it was all like everyone came at it with love yeah absolutely that’s the impression of the entire team I’ve met yeah and we’re like a big boy right there’s like you know there’s 30 or less of us right over there yeah and and we fight and and we you know but but it’s all like roommates yeah that’s fight but we we fight and then we work together we get things done and at the end of the day we make really really awesome products and every conversation we have is out of that that love yeah yeah it shows especially when I see you guys damn yeah to see these guys running games very often I get to see them run games like Jeremy Crawford and Mike morels and you and then you see like oh my god these people are the biggest fans of D&D yeah yeah and so that’s like really spirit like that makes me really happy because you guys are all so genuine about your love of it and when you are doing it when you’re playing it when you are running games that explodes out of absolutely amazing absolutely hey look forward to one growing above this fall right season two I’m one rung above the drung in water deep I want a big I want to be the tall strong one rung above yeah it’s gonna be hey I can’t wait that ocher got the Barbarian growing yeah so instead of being like three feet tall you’re four feet tall yeah nice three and a half three in a hurry in the quarter yeah I tell everyone I mean Maxie I’m a three in the quarter yeah I’m not kind of a big run yeah I’m a big be wrong thank you so much for being drunks by the way yeah because that was a fight yeah that was that was it that wasn’t the one house Dean D group that did not one crime and in being I got a golden ticket monster when we were making bolos and that was my bowl that was my golden ticket monster so we we put it in the book wait wait so everyone gets a golden ticket monster no matter how terrible you can like incident we did with that one so when we were doing Volos we were going through this elaborate number of meetings that Mike put together and by the way we could turn anything into a game yeah the whole thing into a game where we’re selecting monsters and we’re you know checkmarks and voting them off the island and so right on it’s all a big whiteboard and at the very very very very very very very end we all got during that process anyways we all got one monster that we could give a golden ticket to and it didn’t matter how much people that like did not want that monster in the book you write that monster and there were there were harsh words between but and gazes of a challenge between myself and another person named Chris whose last day might rhyme with Arkans about the grunge but but Richard witness to the rescue so I gave them my golden ticket and then Richard sat down and he concept art like a madman the groung and he did such a fantastic job he really helped me I just love throwing them my people because they are like the cute oh look you frog yeah and then it all goes wrong yeah they’re way worse than Ewoks yeah oh yeah we’re terrifying I love that we need more cute monsters on there fit on the face yes and then horror underneath all absolutely yeah should never know you never feel safe in the jungle spots things I didn’t ask you about adventures League Indians guild what you want to impart to the audience right now since we’re live really just I don’t have anything specific other than just get involved you know reach out to us come to our Facebook page you know and and don’t afraid yeah yeah if you want to see somebody play D&D watch a good stream online critical role there’s me as Arkana right and all these people out there that are playing fantastic Dungeons and Dragons and it’s not complicated or hardware a friendly welcoming group and we really want everybody who has that drive to engage to engage and if you were a fan of watching DD live streams yes you are a fan of D&D yes also a member of the DD community absolutely I grew up reading the books I lived in the middle nowhere and all I did was read the Monster Manual a thousand times yeah it was part of the community absolutely yeah if you’re just watching and you’re engaging you’re in that chat room and talking about the cool stuff that’s happening I gaming sorry that you like D&D you are artim you are one of us all right I think that’s a good that’s a good message message stand up yes we feel we feel very passionately about please do Engler topic all right that wraps up with our interview with mr. Chris Lindsey hey thank you for all your wisdom your knowledge

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