Talk:D&D Adventurers League

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I've got a question: why there is the D&DInsider link in here? I don't think that it matters anyhow.

Giorgio

Good question. It probably shouldn't in order to avoid appearing as a link farm. Howie23 (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe the RPGA may be defunct

The RPGA no longer has a website and attempts to go to one redirect to a general Wizards of the Coast site. I have been unable to verify this with Wizards though.

Geibelb (talk) 20:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

According to my sources, RPGA is still active. Check out livingforgottenrelams.com Guinness323 (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Adventurer's League should be separated from this page

There is very little to associate these two discrete associations. WOTC did not merely rename the organization; based on presented sources, the company denuded then dropped the RPGA in or before 2014 and created an entirely new group immediately thereafter. I propose to create a new page, then move the AL material and sources to that new target. BusterD (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose for a few reasons:

• Primary source says: "When the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons launched in 2014 we changed the name of our organized play program from the RPGA to the D&D Adventurers League and began the current shared world campaign set simultaneously on the Sword Coast and Moonsea regions of the Forgotten Realms". [1]
• There are clear continuations between the iterations (such as D&D Expeditions & Masters Campaign as successors to the Living Campaign). One of the better sources of criticism is from ICv2 which highlights the danger of ending the D&D Encounters program which started during RPGA 4th Edition and ended during AL 5th Edition. [2] Having the continuity all in one history section rather than spilt across two articles is more accessible & cohesive.
• While I've tried to improve the RPGA specific parts, it still heavily relies on primary sources. The reception section has exactly 1 source that focuses on the RPGA. If we removed the Adventurer's League section & sources, I don't think the RPGA withstands an AfD challenge.

My goal in improving this article was to improve the sourcing, so if other editors can find additional secondary sources for the RPGA bits that would be awesome. (Also, any sources for Living Greyhawk which I've struggled to find). Sariel Xilo (talk) 16:05, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

These are all good points, and I appreciate the work put in to anchor this page with secondary RS. It seems strange to me to file a subject matter which is current and well-cited under the pagename of a defunct, less well-cited historical organization. It would almost be better if the pagename was something more generic related to "organized play". Unfortunately the sources aren't helping us yet. As the history of TSR becomes better documented, I believe RPGA will get those source anchors. BusterD (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Fingers crossed that Shannon Appelcline's next book series can be used here; I've used his product history write ups for OneBookShelf but because that's considered work for hire it is a primary source (unlike his first book series Designers & Dragons). We could always change the name to the D&D Adventurer's League because that's the current name of the program. Or we could change the title to something like "Dungeons & Dragons organized play" and merge Living Greyhawk into it (since that article most definitely will not withstand an AfD). Is there anything in the manual of style (or other precedent) about when to rename articles (like when an organization changes its name)? I couldn't find anything and I've seen articles go both ways (ie. stay with the original name or change to the most recent name). Sariel Xilo (talk) 16:55, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@BusterD: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of renaming this article Organized play (Dungeons & Dragons). It's a broad enough category to include the RPGA, the AL, and the various Living campaigns and most sources use the term "organized play". Thoughts? Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I like it. Your proposed pagename has the advantages of being both accurate and open-ended. It's good enough that we might consider a Requested Move. We'd certainly need some consensus measured. Would you think it appropriate that we query WikiProject D&D on talk? I think we could find many modern sources which use the term OP, but I don't remember the phrase entering the industry until M:TG's Duelist Convocation. But that's my original synth. Perhaps it's enough that we leave this discussion open for a week or so to develop an idea of where the community is on this. There's no rush. BusterD (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Adding a subheading below for discussion. Sariel Xilo (talk) 21:55, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Organized play (Dungeons & Dragons)

Bad title suggestion, as there's no other article with the title, so using parentheses as if it were disambiguation would be poor and possibly get moved to the un-disambiguate title as unneeded disambiguation. "Dungeons & Dragons organized play" is better. Note also that the RPGA does still exist, on paper at least. Someone taking part in the AL Expeditions (or Epics at a convention) is still issued an RPGA number. oknazevad (talk) 23:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not intending to be humorous here. Do you have an RS for that? That's news to me, but (as an "oldbie") I'm quite out-of-date. What is DCI? I find it humorous that in the PDF Sariel Xilo links below, there's an entire section about acronyms but nothing about DCI. BusterD (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's this?: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/DCI 2601:243:1C80:6740:52F:C87D:7250:594A (talk) 01:15, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I should have thought of that. Surely you are correct. Thank you. BusterD (talk) 01:33, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Magic: The Gathering Organized Play is the only other article which uses the OP term in the title, unless I missed something. BusterD (talk) 23:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Quick note: D&D AL Expeditions no longer exists (it was phased out in 2016). They also phased out required use of the DCI numbers around then. (2016 AL FAQ) Sariel Xilo (talk) 00:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I was also going to suggest that we change the name of Living campaigns to Organized Play. As far as I can tell, the term "Living" to denote a specific rpg campaign type was only used by RPGA. Lots of other publishers had/have organized play programs; I've been working to source/reformat an old list that was in that article in my sandbox. Sariel Xilo (talk) 00:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC) Had enough time to add the table to the article. Sariel Xilo (talk) 01:44, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Living campaigns are to organized play as Red Delicious are to apples (a mere subset). Even after the 1997 WOTC purchase, the majority of tournaments sent out to conventions used pre-generated characters which could not gain experience and items except in the single adventure. BusterD (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Some of the sources for RPGA that we have on the article are pretty good, so I'm not sure why we are talking about not having an article for the RPGA? Based on the discussion above, my feeling is that - assuming the sources can be found - I would actually prefer seeing a separate page for Organized play, and then one page each for RPGA and the Adventurers League. BOZ (talk) 03:57, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll confess I'd forgotten this conversation until I was compelled to go back over some personal talk archives. What sources can we accumulate on the subject of Organized play? I have no doubt we can source RPGA (if mostly with connected sources); I'm less confident (but not over-worried) we can source AL; I think Magic: The Gathering Organized Play poorly sourced and could conceivably be deleted. Again, what sources could we produce on the subject of Organized play? I'm thinking there must be something in academia we can draw upon. This is now a 40-year+ phenomenon. Ideas? No rush here. BusterD (talk) 22:16, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Page move

@Lowellian: I think you should have started a discussion before doing the article rename & page move. While it wasn't resolved, there was a lot of previous discussion on whether or not to split this article and/or reorganize it into an D&D organized play article. Tagging @BusterD, Oknazevad, and BOZ: who had previously participated in those discussions. Sariel Xilo (talk) 02:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that a discussion first would have been a good idea. That said, I have no opinion at this time. BOZ (talk) 03:11, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't necessarily object to other proposed solutions. But the original article title "RPGA" was definitely problematic: having "D&D Adventurers League" redirect here, and the whole article, including all the D&D Adventurers League parts, at the name "RPGA" is clearly wrong, since RPGA has been defunct for a decade, and is confusing to most readers, who would be trying to find information about the active/current D&D Adventurers League. I moved the article because, despite it being 2 years since the last post of that discussion above, still no action had been taken, and still it was sitting at the obsolete name "RPGA". —Lowellian (reply) 03:20, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I still think Dungeons & Dragons organized play is the best title because it's descriptive and not particular to any period in the history. oknazevad (talk) 03:23, 12 February 2023 (UTC) PS, the other problem, of course, is that the RPGA did more than just D&D, so perhaps splitting is the only proper answer. oknazevad (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

For my part, I'd prefer the splitting. I do very much appreciate the ping, and have no issue with Lowellian's BOLD. I anticipate the earlier organization acquiring more independent sourcing, now that the history of the general subject has been seeing attention. In my humble opinion, to best maintain attribution we should undo the move, perform the splitting of AL into new pagespace (leaving RPGA with its own page history), using whatever parts of the old article as necessary. The organizations are only similar as house clubs promoting the D&D product. They are in no way related in organization or membership. BusterD (talk) 03:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I should add that "organized play" is another term which might justify pagespace, perhaps as a disambiguation page, perhaps as a WotC subpage but possibly as a small header article which covers at least D&D and M:tG organized play. Other companies did create organized play, but industry coverage is still in its infancy so sources are spare. BusterD (talk) 03:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)