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Ateach 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.

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.[10][12]

In 2008, Wizards of the Coast launched the Living Forgotten Realms at Gen Con 2008; this living campaign utilized the new 4th Edition rules and replaced the 3.5 Edition Living Greyhawk campaign in organized play. The campaign ran until 2014 with its finale at Winter Fantasy 2014.[16][17][18]

In 2010, Wizards of the Coast launched a new organized play initiative called D&D Encounters[19] at stores in the Wizards Play Network as a D&D equivalent of Friday Night Magic.[20][21] 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".[22] 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".[22] The transition between editions of Dungeons & Dragons was called The Sundering and it included multiple structural changes to the D&D Encounters program.[23][24][25]

In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wizards of the Coast suspended in-store events in North America, Europe, and Latin America.[37] 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.[38][39][40] 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 will feature 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.[41]

Similar to the 4th Edition program, D&D Encounters continued to be run on Wednesdays. Participating stores had access to a "digital edition of an existing for-sale adventure product for the entirety of the storyline season".[29] D&D Encounters was focused on low-level play with short sessions; once a group finished the adventure, they had the option to migrate their campaign to the corresponding hardback adventure module or to a D&D Expeditions adventure.[29][30] The D&D Expeditions program was envisioned as the living campaign successor; initially, the program was going to be called Living Moonsea as the story was set in the Moonsea region of the Forgotten Realms.[18] D&D Expeditions were designed to have longer sessions and show the regional impact of the current season's storyline.[18][30][42] 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".[43]

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.[52][34] Expansion Campaigns feature "a set series of adventures in a connected storyline"; the original Seasonal and Alternate Campaigns were moved to this category. Event Campaigns feature "completely independent storylines from official D&D products" and are the analog to the previous living campaigns. The ongoing Dreams of the Red Wizards is now considered an Event Campaign. Adapted Campaigns are any official D&D product, such as hardcover adventure modules, with the corresponding Adventurers League rules guide.[34] In March 2022, Baldman Games began running a ticketed Adapted Campaign featuring Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (2022) as part of the D&D Virtual Play series.[58]

As part of the D&D 50th anniversary celebration in 2024, the Adventurers League Epic Proxy Hunt is scheduled to premiere 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, it is scheduled to be released on the DMs Guild with alternative rules for running the Epic at a single table.[41] Wizards also announced a series of in-store organized play events. The first, Descent into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (March 29, 2024 to April 29, 2024), will feature a standard mode and a tournament mode; the tournament mode is competitive and "a throwback to old D&D convention tournaments that revolved around the DM using a scoring checklist to track what the group did throughout the game session".[59]

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[60] to "drop in or out on a session by session basis".[61] This includes unique rules on experience points, magic items and gold.[62] In 2018, "the admins of the Adventurers League announced a sweeping overhaul of the rules, designed to change how players earn XP and treasure".[63] 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.[63][64][65][66] In 2019, with the 9th season of Adventurers League, these checkpoint rules were replaced with new character advancement and magic item rules[67][68] and then adjusted in 2020 with the 10th season of Adventurers League.[69]

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".[60] "This was done to allow DMs to ensure their games were balanced and avoid abuse of multiple rulesets".[54] In 2021, the rules for character creation changed to allow players to use any of the following sourcebooks: Player's Handbook (2014), Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016), Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017), Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018), and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020).[54][70][55] Additionally, "setting-specific AL campaigns [...] have access to books created for those campaigns like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide or Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Each Seasonal campaign will [...] allow the use of character options from the campaigns' associated hardcover book".[54] In September 2021, character creation rules for adventures set in the Forgotten Realms were adjusted after community feedback.[71][72] 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.[72]

In May 2022, the Adventures League announced that all player characters must be updated to the new ruleset published in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022); this supplement replaces the player options included in Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes supplements. Dungeon masters have the option to use creature stat blocks included in older playable content; however, starting in September 2022, new published content will use the adjusted stat blocks released in Monsters of the Multiverse.[73][74]

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".[10]

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