Well, I didn’t see that coming as the next announcement – or so soon – but it must be said that Organised Play is near and dear to me. I’ve been participating in one form of Organised Play or another for the last decade, with my participation being quite a bit more in the last three years as the D&D Encounters programs have run.

For the full announcement, here’s the link: Coming Soon – D&D Adventurers League

Liz Schuh has also given an interview to ICV2.

And here’s some of the additional commentary from Mike Mearls on twitter:

In practical terms, we’re tying Encounters to our convention play and making con scenarios available to stores.

Our published campaigns like Tyranny of Dragons will also be usable in OP when they are released.

Encounters stores will have access to a specially edited, PDF version of the first part of the Tyranny campaign to run in stores.

If you start with Encounters, you can keep levelling your character in the published adventure or in Expeditions, our con and store adventures

Whorak: Am I correct in understanding there is no support for groups playing at home? Requires a participating FLGS or a Convntn?

Home groups can run the Tyranny of Dragons adventure.

Whorak: Right, but are there rewards (maps, certificates, etc) for home participation, or does all of that require FLGS/con?

    Not for home play – certs are used for trading items, so you can earn it in home play but can’t trade it to another player

Thatakinsboy: will the D&D Adventurers League Player’s Guide be free or something we’ll have to pay for?

Free

DarthJerod: so once you complete tyranny of the Dragons for encounters version it goes back to level 1 and a new season?

A new season is a good starting point, but you can always keep your older character and play higher level content

Qstor2: Are the expeditions mods replayable?

I’m actually not sure.

I have to admit that I’m pretty excited that the D&D OP adventures kick off in and near Phlan. Loved Pool of Radiance.

Greg Bilsland has also been posting:

Changes coming to #dnd OP are exciting, including return of magic item certificates and character persistence across stores & conventions.

We’ll have more information coming about how homeplay interacts with OP in the weeks ahead. It’s something we’re aware of.

PaulBaalham: Is the new organised play for #dndnext only?

Yeah, it’s focused on the new edition.

Pedr: What’ll be the process for getting an Expeditions adventure for a small con?

We’ll have more details on convention support in the weeks ahead. Or @christulach might be able to answer your question.

And from Chris Tulach:

For those asking about home play and the #dnd Adventurers League – we’ll have more information on that soon.

For my own groups: D&D Encounters play will remain, pretty much unchanged in Goodgames Ballarat each week. Except that there may be more bits of paper (certificates) being given out. The big question is if anyone will begin running the D&D Expeditions at the store. It seems quite likely, although I’m not sure how much I’ll be involved in that – I have a long-running AD&D game I don’t want to abandon just yet!