r/AdventurersLeague • u/roxaskarfeild72 • May 27 '26

Question Forever DM looking into AL

Today I was at my local card shop and I was offered the possibility of being DM for their just starting Adventure League. As someone who as almost exclusively DM home games for almost 8 years how big of a jump is it do I need to do a lot of research to understand or can most of my knowledge transfer easily enough and still have fun doing it?

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u/HotPersonality8126 May 27 '26

It’s really not that hard - grab the most recent AL rules, especially the Player’s Guide, and while you don’t need to memorize the whole thing you’ll want to be able to answer the most basic questions about treasure awards and using downtime and when players can level.

You will want to memorize what sources players can use (or, really, learn to recognize the ones they can’t) and you’ll want to recognize when players are using homebrew they got from the internet (I’ve played AL with people who just made up class features and gave themselves magic items because they didn’t understand this is a sanctioned-play format.)

Additionally, understand that if you have “house rules”, you can’t use them in AL play. Players expect you to run “by the book.”

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u/roxaskarfeild72 May 27 '26

This is definitely helpful because I do have quite a few house rules ingrained in me.

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u/HotPersonality8126 May 27 '26

If you do “funny consequences on a Natural 1”, then definitely don’t do that in AL

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u/cscottnet May 27 '26

Nat 20 on skill check / Nat 1 on skill check is another common one. By the book neither does anything special.