What You Need to Know to be a Dungeon Master in the Adventurers League

The D&D Adventurers League is an organisation that provides a shared campaign where players can take their characters from one game to the next, playing wherever suits their fancy. The players can play any of the official D&D hardcover campaigns as part of the Adventurers League campaign, or any of the one-shot adventures that are available on the DMs Guild and tagged as AL-legal. Most AL-play takes place in game stores or conventions, but you could play it anywhere – at home, in a library, on a cruise ship, or even in a hot-air balloon!

There are no tests you need to go through to be an Adventurers League DM. If you have a group that wants to play with you, and you’ve got an AL-legal adventure, you’re fine to go. However, it’s probably advisable you know a few things first. Here are the main topics you should know:

A working knowledge of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules

Most Dungeon Masters don’t need to know all the classes and spells inside out. You can leave some details to the players to know and look up specific details when necessary. However, there are some core rules you should be very familiar with.

Player’s Handbook Chapter 7: Using Ability Scores
Player’s Handbook Chapter 8: Adventuring
Player’s Handbook Chapter 9: Combat
Player’s Handbook Chapter 10: Spellcasting

You can also find these sections in the free Basic Rules. These rules are the core of the game. You’ll use them again and again, and it’s worth reviewing them from time to time just to see if there are things you’ve forgotten. If you’re thinking of making the move from player to DM, read and reread these sections. They’re not everything you’ll need, but without them you’ll struggle.

To this, I’d also add

Monster Manual Introduction

The introduction (also found in the Monster chapter of the Basic Rules) explains the formatting of monster entries, plus additional information on how to run them.

At some point, you’ll always want to study:

Dungeon Master’s Guide Chapter 7: Treasure; Magic Items

The explanation of how magic items work might not be needed in your first couple of sessions, but eventually players gain items and you need to know it!

Other chapters of the Dungeon Master’s Guide can give you a lot of help running games. Please note that variant rules from the DMG are typically not allowed in AL games, however.

A grasp of the special Adventurers League Rules

The main rules of the Adventurers League can be found in four documents: the AL Player’s Guide, the AL DM’s Guide, the AL FAQ, and the AL Content Catalogue. You can find all of them in the free D&D Adventurers League Player & DM Pack on the DMs Guild. The first two, which hold the main rules, are very short. The longer documents – the FAQ and Content Catalogue – need only be consulted when needed.

You should be very familiar with the Player’s Guide and DM’s Guide. Rewards for players work differently than in home games of D&D – when you play in a campaign that allows characters to move from DM to DM, you need everyone on the same page (and not all carrying around vorpal swords at level 3!). In particular, learn how these topics work in AL play:

Advancement Checkpoints (rather than XP or milestones)
Treasure Checkpoints, Magic Item unlocks, and prohibited items
Gold awards
Downtime
Renown
Factions
Variant Rules (or how most are not permitted).

The Content Catalogue should be consulted whenever you DM an adventure to see if

If there are any special rules for the season
If there are any rules for the scenario

For instance, during Season 4, Curse of Strahd, all character playing that adventure or the DDAL adventures are trapped in Barovia. These rules are described in the Content Catalogue, along with the rules for leaving. Various seasons have special quirks to them; these are explained in the Content Catalogue.

Which adventures are Adventurers League-legal

The Content Catalogue is your friend! It lists all the adventures – although it can lag a little behind the release of the latest Con-Created Content adventures.

The basics of what adventures are legal are as follows:

Most official adventures produced by Wizards of the Coast for 5E
- DDHC = D&D Hardcover; the internal code used in the content catalogue
Official adventures produced by the Adventurers League; these typically have codes of DDEX or DDAL on the DMs Guild
- DDEX = D&D Expeditions, the old name for the short-adventure program
- DDAL = D&D Adventurers League, the newname for the short-adventure program
- DDEP = D&D Epics, special multi-table adventures run at conventions and store game-days (requires permission from admins)
- There are other codes (e.g. DDIA), for other special adventures
Adventures sponsored by Conventions for AL play, first run at those convention and then available for general play; these are marked by a “CCC” prefix.
Guild Adept adventures, that have been made legal for play in the Adventurers League. Check the Content Catalogue for these ones, as often they have special rules associated with them.