Tomb of Annihilation: AL campaign planning

The Quest of the Week schedule for Adventurers League got an update today, and it has something special in it… Tomb of Annihilation modules! They’ll start running in September, and some of them have some particularly evocative names:

• DDAL07-01 City on the Edge – Tier 1 (lvls 1-4)
• DDAL07-02 Over the Edge – Tier 2 (lvls 5-10)
• DDAL07-03 A Day at the Races – Tier 1 (lvls 1-4)
• DDAL07-04 A Walk in the Park – Tier 1 (lvls 1-4)
• DDAL07-05 Whispers in the Dark – Tier 1 (lvls 1-4)
• DDAL07-06 Fester and Burn – Tier 2 (lvls 5-10)
• DDAL07-07 Rotting Roots – Tier 2 (lvls 5-10)
• DDAL07-08 Putting the Dead to Rest – Tier 2 (lvls 5-10)

Looks like the dinosaur race event from the hardcover will make its way into the smaller modules in some fashion! I’m sure the storyline will have some Tier 3 content as well, but not in the Quests of the Week (or not in 2017 anyway). The filler weeks will focus on the Elemental Evil storyline, but that one doesn’t inspire me for whatever reason.

Campaign planning

Episodic play fits me best because of travel requirements for my job (around 1/3 of the time). Right now, I usually run Rage of Demons on Monday nights and Tales from the Yawning Portal on Thursday nights. Every other Sunday, a friend runs a homebrew campaign in which I play, and my kids and I go to a nearby FLGS on Wednesday nights. So for my own AL games, I will probably wind down the RoD campaign in favor of ToA. However, I would like to keep my YP campaign going because the dungeons provide so much delicious fun. I don’t expect to run The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan until we start the ToA season, since it fits Chult so thematically.

This means that, starting in September, a “normal” week (uninterrupted by travel or other events) will include:

• Monday: Tomb of Annihilation storyline (DM)
• Wednesday: Lost Mine of Phandelver or other AL modules (player)
• Thursday: Tales from the Yawning Portal (DM)
• Sunday (alternating): Home campaign with friends (player)

That seems like not enough, but in reality that is plenty. Between family, game prep, and other hobbies, running two AL “campaigns” and playing in two others already might have me at the limit.