JP On Gaming

Saturday, August 21, 2021

FOE and Organized Play Part 2

Continued from Part 1 where I stated the many reason why it does not really makes sense for FOE to support and run an Organized Play (OP).

Well as you guessed, the answer to "Should FOE give up on OP?" My answer is Yes.

And No.

...

Okay, FOE will not run an OP like Wizards or Paizo. I don't have the manpower for that (and I want to focus on other things) or frankly the interest. I wrote for and ran OP campaigns for a decade and a half (2003-18). I say 2018 because from the time I published Akhamet, I already pulled back on the OP elements to focus on adventures and playing. I want to provide a fun product to showcase my settings, and the base game, though I'm pretty sure my settings are not what converted many people to a game (looking at you, Chad-N). Still I believe my products provide a fun experience and something different than "basic D&D."

So why keep up the OP?

I like OP campaigns. I played in some good and some weak ones. In some big and some small ones. In some for well-known and some obscure ones. I like the idea of building my own story and playing with a variety of people, not "just" my regular group.

So as I thought about this and discussed with people, I received different feedback and decided that rather than an endlessly ongoing campaign, I would try to create a mini-campaign where players would get rewarded for playing more FOE games at the con. Driving traffic to my tables yes, but also creating a demand for my games and a (more) unique experiece.

I searched and thought what I could do, and think I came up with a clever idea: a "reward" sheet that is valid for the con only. Take Gencon, FOE offers a total of 6 unique adventures, 2 Akhamet and 4 Olympia. I came up with the following restrictions.
- Must be simple
- Must not be paperwork heavy
- The rewards must be adventure and setting agnostics
- The rewards must be worth it at whatever levels (so I don't have to "just" write intro material)
- Very simple and intuitive

I played with the idea and settled on the following: A promo "card" (in a postcard format) that would double as a reward card for the campaign. So I came up with this basic design. I may very well change or tweak things before the con but this would replace a full-on OP campaign. A player would get the card, and regardless which character, level, setting (Akhamet, Olympia, Rhym, or Saggakar) he plays in, he applies the rewards to his character.

This means I can offer games of any level, from 1 to 20 with limited disturbance to the game. The biggest changes are the addition of 5 HP or potions.

What do you think? Comments? Anything I should add? Remove?

(There are a few extra surprises I added already )

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