The Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game has had multiple official organized play associations and programs. The first association, Role Playing Game Association Network (RPGA Network, or simply RPGA), was launched by D&D previous publisher, TSR, Inc., in 1980. In 2014, the current D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast rebranded the association as D&D Adventurers League (or simply Adventurers League for short). This rebranding corresponded with the launch of D&D 5th Edition. In the 2020s, Wizards of the Coast released additional D&D organized play programs such as Legends of Greyhawk and Dungeons & Dragons Play Seasons.

The RPGA initially focused on a tournament style of play with competitive events for TSR games such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), Gamma World and Top Secret. In 1987, the RPGA launched its first living campaign where players at many locations could impact the storyline via their reported actions in campaign adventures. Various living campaigns were released for the different games administered by the RPGA. The Living City (1987–2004) campaign set in the Forgotten Realms was considered one of the most successful and by 1993, events for it surpassed the RPGA tournament style. Coinciding with the release of D&Ds 3rd Edition in 2000, the first edition published by Wizards of the Coast, the RPGA launched Living Greyhawk which became one of the largest campaigns and ran until 2008.

In 2010, during the D&D 4th Edition era, the RPGA introduced the D&D Encounters program which was intended as the D&D equivalent of Wizards of the Coast's Friday Night Magic program. This program ran alongside the Living Forgotten Realms (2008–2014) campaign. In 2014, the Adventurers League divided organized play between the D&D Encounters and the D&D Expeditions programs for D&D 5th Edition. In 2016, these programs were retired. The Adventurers League has since released various other organized play programs themed around different campaign settings and ongoing storylines. Many of these programs featured seasonal storylines which corresponded thematically with the hardcover adventure modules published by Wizards of the Coast. Additionally, the design of both the D&D Expeditions program and the Masters Campaign program were influenced by the living campaigns style of play.

In 2024, Wizards of the Coast launched Legends of Greyhawk as their new organized play campaign with separate rules from the standard Adventurers League program. Legends of Greyhawk started as a convention play format but was announced as the official secondary play program for Wizards Play Network (WPN) stores in April 2026. That month, Wizards of the Coast also announced Dungeons & Dragons Play Seasons for organized play at WPN stores which correspond with Dungeons & Dragons seasonal releases as well as the return of D&D Encounters as part of seasonal play. These programs run alongside but separately from Adventurers League.

<span class="anchor" id="RPGA Network"></span> RPGA Network (1980–2014)

In 1979, Mike Carr, the general manager of TSR, Inc., the original publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons game, conceived the idea of a role-playing gamers club. Shortly after Frank Mentzer was hired in 1980 as one of the first full-time employees of TSR, Inc., he was assigned the task making a role-playing gamers club a commercial reality, which was officially called the Role Playing Game Association (RPGA) in order to promote roleplaying of high quality and to allow fans of roleplaying games to meet and play games with each other. Mentzer officially launched the RPGA in November 1980 primarily to run tournaments at gaming conventions using TSR's top sellers: AD&D, Gamma World and Top Secret. In 1991, the RPGA ran 179 of these events.

At each tournament, a Dungeon Master and four to eight players would play a 4-hour adventure supplied by the RPGA. Each player was given a pre-generated character with a background, equipment, and some limited information about the other characters at the table. At the end of the adventure, the players and Dungeon Master would select one player at the table as the "winner" of the adventure, based on his or her knowledge of the rules and role-playing ability. All players were awarded experience points based on how well they did in competitive events, and could add to that experience point total at the next event, allowing them, over time to advance to higher levels.

Membership was originally paid by a yearly fee, and included a subscription to Polyhedron magazine (which was originally the official publication of the RPGA). and briefly in Italy.

Living campaign

In 1987, instead of presenting single adventures that were not linked to any previous or subsequent adventures, RPGA conceived of a long-term endeavor, called a living campaign, where the actions of the players would have an impact on the overall campaign story arc.

Unlike previous RPGA tournament play, where players were given a pre-generated character, Living City adventures required each player to provide their own character. Previously, experience points had been accumulated by the player, but now experience points were accumulated by the player's character. Bringing the same character back to subsequent adventures allowed that character to accumulate more experience points and greater powers.

To have an effect on the overall storyline, at the end of each adventure, the players would send the result of their play to RPGA headquarters for compilation. Success or failure by a majority of players would result in a change to the campaign storyline. For example, if most players in a particular adventure succeeded in lifting a curse, the curse would not appear in future adventures. "The RPGA set the template for MMORPGs; adventurers existing in the same world in a sort of mega-universe". At this point, RPGA had members on all continents of the world except Antarctica.

In 2010, Wizards of the Coast launched a new organized play initiative called D&D Encounters at stores in the Wizards Play Network as a D&D equivalent of Friday Night Magic. The company "supplied GMs across the nation with adventures to run on Wednesday nights. [...] Each night's adventuring contained just a single encounter. These sessions were billed as running 60-90 minutes in length". Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, wrote, "by running Encounters simultaneously across the nation, Wizards hoped to take advantage of social media; they envisioned people talking about the games on Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, comparing their experiences with those of other players across the nation. [...] Overall, the Encounters program would prove extremely successful. Though neither it nor Essentials made D&D Fourth Edition into an unprecedented success story, the Encounters program was well-loved; it got attention on CNN and elsewhere and was successful at drawing players into game stores to play. Eleven Encounters seasons ran through late 2012, before the program took a short break and shifted over to a mixed 4e and D&D Next format in 2013".

<span class="anchor" id="D&D Adventurers League"></span> D&D Adventurers League (2014–present)

In 2014, Wizards of the Coast rebranded their D&D organized play program – this included changing the name to the D&D Adventurers League. The inception of this rebrand coincided with the launch of 5th Edition. Initially, the in-store organized play program was divided between D&D Encounters and D&D Expeditions. This organizational division was retired in 2016. , there are three Premier Organizers for the Adventurers League – Baldman Games and Gamehole Con in the United States and the Greasy Snitches in the Philippines. <!-- Only include organizers for which there are sources for. --> These licensees are granted sections of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting to release their own official adventures in for the Adventurers League.

In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wizards of the Coast suspended in-store events in North America, Europe, and Latin America. In October 2020, Wizards of the Coast announced the ticketed D&D Virtual Play Weekends series organized by Baldman Games. This monthly event uses a convention style format and includes the option of either Adventurers League legal games or non-AL games. Wizards announced a series of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D throughout 2024. This included an official weekly actual play titled Legacy of Worlds which is produced by the D&D Adventurers League and Six Sides of Gaming. It premiered in February 2024 and features Devin Wilson as the Dungeon Master with Luke Gygax, Ed Greenwood, Keith Baker, Elise Von Brandthofen, and Tommy Gofton playing as various official D&D characters. In March 2024, Gary Con featured a live show for the Legacy of Worlds; the show will then resume its weekly format until October 2024 with its finale at Gamehole Con. In the same month, Wizards of the Coast shifted anyway from the official Adventurers League website, the Yawning Portal, to a hub hosted on D&D Beyond with some material migrating.

In April 2026, Wizards of the Coast announced the addition of other organized play formats, such as Legends of Greyhawk and the return of D&D Encounters. Additionally, there was a convention program called the D&D Adventurers League Epic; this was a "massive D&D session in which multiple tables work towards the same goals".

In 2016, with the 4th season of organized play, Wizards of the Coast retired the D&D Encounters & D&D Expeditions programs when they opened the D&D Adventurers League up to any organizer, rather than just limiting it to participating stores. Adventures were now available for purchase via the Dungeon Masters Guild and groups could play online or in private non-store groups. Additionally, licensee Baldman Games was authorized to create connected adventures set in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms. A non-seasonal "exploratory campaign featuring Eberron", titled Embers of the Last War, was run from September 2018 to December 2018. Then in December 2019, the Oracle of War – a separate ongoing storyline set in Eberron – began. In January 2020, the Dreams of the Red Wizards storyline was introduced which included adventures released in 2019; this was a non-seasonal storyline set in the Forgotten Realms which focused on higher-level play opportunities (Tiers 2–4).

Until 2020, the seasons of organized play continued to correspond to the most recent published hardcover adventure module with additional thematic adventures released just for Adventurers League. In September 2020, with the 10th season of organized play, the D&D Adventurers League divided organized play into four new categories: Seasonal Campaign, Historic Campaign, Masters Campaign, Alternate Campaign. The Seasonal Campaign featured the most recent published hardcover adventure module along with adventures published on the Dungeon Masters Guild which correspond to the storyline. The Historic Campaign featured the back catalog of previous seasons. The Masters Campaign was "structured like a lot of 'living' campaigns in the past" with "an ongoing narrative that is broken into story seasons, all set in the Forgotten Realms". The Alternate Campaign was initially focused on Oracle of War

In September 2021, with the 11th season of organized play, the categories were restructured again. Campaigns were divided into Expansion Campaigns, Event Campaigns, and Adapted Campaigns.

As part of the D&D 50th anniversary celebration in 2024, the Adventurers League Epic Proxy Hunt premiered at Gary Con (March 2024). This is a higher tier multiverse-themed adventure run at multiple gaming tables simultaneously and allows players to use characters from the Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, and Ravenloft settings. Afterwards, was scheduled to be released on the DMs Guild with alternative rules for running the Epic at a single table.

Rules

The D&D Adventurers League requires both players and Dungeon Masters to keep official logs of their play experience and it includes an additional ruleset for play in order to facilitate the ability This includes unique rules on experience points, magic items and gold. In 2018, "the admins of the Adventurers League announced a sweeping overhaul of the rules, designed to change how players earn XP and treasure". Several magic items were removed from the game, and players now gained "advancement checkpoints" and "treasure points" which they could trade for level advancement and magic items respectively. In 2019, with the 9th season of Adventurers League, these checkpoint rules were replaced with new character advancement and magic item rules and then adjusted in 2020 with the 10th season of Adventurers League.

This unique ruleset also governs character creation. Initially, players were limited to the character creation rules in the Player's Handbook (2014) along with a single other "officially allowed book of their choice". Changes included the option to start at a higher level and the ability to use any treasure of a monetary value during a session with unused treasure converted to its gold value at the end of a session. Subsequent iterations of the Adventurers League Player's Guide were updated to include additional sourcebooks, such as Fizban's Treasury of Dragons (2021), Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants (2023), Book of Many Things (2024), as player options. Additionally, the 13th version of the Player's Guide (December 2022) added Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (2022) to Dragonlance campaigns; All players are required to update to the 2024 5th Edition revision; this change is being implemented with a sixty day grace period after the release of each new core rulebook. At Gen Con, in July 2025, they announced an expansion of Legends of Greyhawk as their "newest D&D organized play campaign" with various premier organizers assigned locations within the Greyhawk setting to create adventures for. Samantha Nelson of Polygon reported that it "will run at several other conventions this year before being made widely available for organized play in 2026". Nelson explained that players go from level one to three "after playing at least three adventures" and the "decisions players make in these early adventures will shape the future of the campaign, which is entering its beta phase. The campaign will grow and evolve based on the decisions players make at events worldwide, shaping the future of the campaign and the way that players experience the Greyhawk setting". In April 2026, they announced Dungeons & Dragons Play Seasons for organized play at WPN stores which correspond with Dungeons & Dragons seasonal releases; for WPN stores, "Season of Horror" events are scheduled to start in June 2026. D&D Encounters, including the recommendation for the program to be run on Wednesdays, will return as part of Play Seasons and will feature short adventures. The season will start with a "D&D Encounters Celebration" event, followed by four "D&D Encounters Weekly Play" events.

Other programs

In April 2026, Wizards of the Coast announced that in addition to D&D Encounters, Legends of Greyhawk, and Adventurers League, WPN stores can run "D&D Campaign" and "D&D One-Shot" events for adventures that are not covered by the other event types. This includes campaigns featuring house rules or other custom-made content.

Shannon Appelcline, author of the book Designers & Dragons, wrote, "the ultimate success of the Living City can probably be attributed to its close attention to characters and continuity. [...] However, just before the events really exploded in 1992, it was increasingly obvious that the series of Living City tournaments had become a massive campaign. [...] Meanwhile, the Chemcheaux magic shop began to appear alongside Living City tournaments, allowing players to trade their gold and unwanted magic items for stuff they actually liked. By Gen Con '93 Living City characters and their stuff had become important enough that the RPGA started logging what people had earned, to prevent cheating. [...] Meanwhile, continuity was coming into the Living City tournaments too, truly making Ravens Bluff 'alive'. [...] By the time that the Living City events surpassed the 'classic' RPGA tournaments, they had become a very different sort of tournament. They were focused on continuity of characters and continuity of setting, with adventures that were widely available and which would be run again and again all over the world. This would be the model that would take the Living City successfully into the 21st century and that would be repeated many times over the years, for Living Death (1997-2007), Living Greyhawk (2000-2008), Xen'drik Expeditions (2006-2008), and others".

References

  • D&D Adventurers League: Forgotten Realms Adventure Index (Version 11.0; effective October 19, 2021) via Wizards of the Coast
  • D&D Adventurers League Resources & Links on D&D Beyond
  • Border Kingdoms website by Gamehole Con for the Adventurers League
  • Moonshae Isles website by Baldman Games for the Adventurers League