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1Here's the reasons why Adventurers League is garbage:
2- **Progression issues.** The admins changed the rules for progression in Season 8, in an attempt to focus on 'play' rather than being a competitive game. However, they went too far in reverse with Advancement Checkpoints (ACP) and Treasure Checkpoints (TCP). Since you can't actively hold back in gaining experience, and the progression gain is not linear, it creates an issue where characters might end up progressing faster than a given adventure intends to (which is especially problematic in hardcovers). Even using the slow advancement option (1 ACP for every 2 hours), it's very possible to break the adventure's intended level of play because progression is based on one's participation rather than one's progression.
3- Speaking of progression, TCP makes some sense regarding magic item obtaining (it's far better than the previous rule of greed/need which allowed idiots to take items that they couldn't use) but it creates a certain burden on players: do I use TCP to have gold to buy things that are 'mandatory' for my character, such as a spellbook and spells, or plate armor? Or do I tough it out and get magic items?
4Also, because TCP exists and you no longer gain gold from adventuring normally (the treasures just go 'poof'), several traps have been rendered obsolete as they attempt to bait players into getting the free gold sitting about. And you can't just say "oh, this is just your TCP sitting in a very obvious trap" or some other way to try to explain the abstraction, because the *players get their TCP regardless of their action.* Nevermind that you can no longer bribe characters who have no reason to participate in an adventure, or that it invalidates Dragon Heist.
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6- **Factions.** Because factions were apparently a failing in the system, and the admins have decided they didn't want to force players to think factions were mandatory, they've dropped faction participation as a necessity. This causes all adventures from season 7 and back to be out of place, since many of them rely on faction participation as a hook. Season 5 is the biggest loser, as every hook is literally "You got summoned by the factions to do a thing."
7- Also, getting rid of faction benefits. They could've fixed faction benefits and made them sensible, even potentially as a community-based progression system, but they opted for the easier solution of nixing it entirely.
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9- **Community issues.** Even with the rules changes, because problematic players with hordes of treasures and loot still exist, a rules change isn't enough to fix the problems associated with the shared campaign rules. The game's still exploitable due to players who are able to trade magic items that otherwise could no longer be obtained. The game got exploited when they put out a list of forbidden magic items, and everyone decided to run a certain adventure or two for 24 TCP (enough to buy any magic item of an appropriate tier).
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11- Also, because of progression, there is a reason to actually want to prioritize 'winning D&D' over 'playing D&D'. Even if there's no technical benefit, such as being able to participate in adventures that are harder than others, the desire to brag about what a character can do becomes apparant in any community involving competitive roleplayers. Stormwinding aside, players are always going to be drawn to making their character as powerful (whether damage or utility) as they possibly can. But when this becomes the community's ideal, it becomes harmful to a game that is collaborative, rather than competitive. A munchkin player can very much ruin the fun for everyone else by one-shotting a big monster when the others can't seem to do much damage to it, and in turn, breeds more munchkins who also want to do the same. When there's several munchkins at a table, it creates a certain atmosphere for the table, which inevitably results in someone not being able to enjoy themselves. In that sense, AL enables this sort of cancerous gameplay to occur, though there may not be any solution to resolve this outside of telling people to stop being that guy.
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13- This opinion is in regards to even the current rule set. It doesn't actually do anything to inhibit the mindset of winning D&D, just makes it slightly harder for someone to over-optimize their character with magic items and progression. The problem exists in another system (Pathfinder Society), but is far more prevalent due to the design of the core system (Pathfinder RPG) making optimization almost necessary.
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15- **PHB+1 Rule.** While I think PHB+1 is a necessary rule to help keep things simple, it should never have been a long-term solution to rules and balance on the player's side. There was enough complaints from players regarding certain 'roleplaying' combinations such as the Air Genasi Storm Sorcerer or the Shadar-Kai Hexblade Warlock, neither of which is allowed with this rule. It also will be more problematic as more splatbooks are released (with XGE's sucessor coming out next year, it'll be interesting to see how this is handled), but the better solution is to create a new set of rules for player restrictions, rather than holding to the PHB+1 rule as golden.
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17- **Adventure Flooding and Exclusitivity.** There's over 150+ adventures in Adventurers League: many of them are official 'seasonal' adventures, but a majority of them are 'con created content' which has far less quality control as a result. They're also, particularly early on for the CCC program, oddly designed and assume certain rules that don't exist in AL (such as the ability to procure adamantine bars to then forge into any weapon you desire). Even with the excuse that AL is a volunteer-run program, it's very clear that WotC has influence within AL, and quality control should certainly be a thing rather than just allowing people who happen to have the connections be able to make adventures.
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19- Most players probably aren't aware of the Author-Only adventures, but those are more or less harmful to the community by only allowing a special set of people who are connected to the administration to be able to create and run their own adventures. Living Forgotten Realms had a special thing called "My Realms" that allowed a person to create and run their own adventure, and only one. It'd make sense to bring that back in some form.
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21- Also related is the dmsguild.com "Guild Adept" program, which on it's face says that people who are really good in the community about designing adventures can design AL-official adventures and have them released. The goal was to create additional content for TOA at the time it was announced (during Season 7), but in practice, it was just another exclusive club for exclusive people. You'd only ever be able to become a Guild Adept if you personally knew someone in the administration or someone otherwise in the know. Additionally, the quality was questionable again in several adventures, despite supposedly handpicking the best of the best to design these adventures. Guild adepts, indeed.
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23- On a related note, the argument of a DM being able to make the adventure sing is a moot point. The quality of the adventure given does rely on a DM being able to be a good DM, but it shouldn't *have to rely on a good DM* to be good on it's own merit. If the DM has to intervene to cover errors in a given adventure (rather than just filling in the blanks), then there's a problem.
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25- **Hardcover adventures.** Speaking of, the Hardcover adventures aren't really designed for Adventurers League specifically, and that's where some of the obvious exploits for the shared campaign system exist. In OOTA, you can get a legendary sunsword at 2nd level then peace out. In SKT, you can exploit a single encounter (the twin dragons) followed by the last chapter to obtain 2 legendary rarity items. If your DM lacks morality, they can fix the rolls for you. In POTA, you can obtain several legendary weapons and peace out. And though not much of an exploit, there's several items that you could purchase in TOA that were apparently unknown by most DMs, so players never got the chance to procure unusual items in AL such as poisons, scrolls, or even basic +1 magic weapons.
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27- While the rules change in season 8 forcibly removed several problematic items (especially items mentioned in the previous paragraph), it still has an effect on the magic item economy as a whole.
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29- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist seems to have become a victim to Adventurers League, as it forcibly shoe-horns in factions. Which is odd, given that factions have been removed. There's also some things in WDH that are literally unusuable in Adventurers League, but were hotpatched to make them work (and very obviously so [spoilers], in regards to flintlocks, the cache of dragons, the repairable tavern), or just ignored outright (faction assistance and NPC assistance).
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31- **Downtime activities.** They still don't have a good ruleset regarding downtime usage, which is fair for a shared campaign to not want to deal with the 'in-between adventures' since that's usually left in the air. But it could be improved. Having downtime as a resource makes a whole lot of sense. It's just a shame that there's nothing to really spend it on besides trading magic items or copying spells.
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33- **Special Secret Clubhouse.** There's a definite inner circle mentalty involved with Adventurers League. If you're not an admin, or not a friend of the admins, or part of WotC, you'll never be able to influence any changes to the league, even if they're better. Voicing your concerns, you'll either be ignored at best, or shitcanned at worst. There was one exception: the Red War, which involved several players bascially attempting to character assassinate an entire country (the land of Thay). The admins mentioned that they're going to do something involving this movement, and at the face, it seemed like a cool idea. Players would actually be able to influence the game's storyline, which for previous iterations of the shared campaign system (Living Greyhawk, Living Forgotten Realms), was one of the big selling points.
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35- Except that the players never really had the ability to influence the game from the get-go. The Red War (DDEP00-01) epic adventure was designed in such a way to be basically 'unwinnable'. The admins decided that the players were not going to be able to oust Thay from the city of Mulmaster. And they used it as an excuse to shitcan faction participation in that city. The administration had a big opportunity to allow players to have a voice, and then unceremoniously squashed it. But hey, remember to buy those Red War adventurers now on the dmsguild.com website as part of our Guild Adept program!
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37- And don't even think about trying to get people to participate in a 'home game'. Adventurers League and it's adaptive "play your character at any participating location" mindset is actually harmful to communities as a whole, when everything must be AL-legal or they may not participate. Even if you do find the players to do this at an FLGS, you may end up finding your play group excluded from the rest of the community, whether directly or indirectly.
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39- **Store support.** Originally, Adventurers League was a way to get people to play at your friendly local game shop (FLGS). They provided free copies of the adventures to participating Wizards Game Network (WGN) stores up until season 5, and even introductory adventures for the hardcovers (usually up to 3rd or 4th level). They also sent out special certificates and player introduction portfolios that included really unique, albeit temporary, items (such as a Tear of Bahamut that could one-time revive a player). They could've provided more support for stores, such as allowing the FLGS to generate or have special certificates that could be handed out to players. Of course, again being a volunteer thing, it's hard to blame them for not being able to do so. This is more a failing on WotC.
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41- But... hey stopped doing these things in Season 7, opting to instead provide special adventures for splatbooks (XGE, MTF). Certificates are no longer required, except for special items or perks (such as having a flying cat familiar). Regardless, AL has made it so that the FLGS has to pay for those adventures, or risk losing their player base because they can't provide the most up-to-date adventures to their DMs. While the adventure quality was pretty good for past adventures (with some exceptions), players really don't want to play the same adventure several times over, and will be more than happy to stop showing up if the FLGS can't provide.
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43- "So, why doesn't the FLGS just charge a fee?" This is due to AL no longer being particular to FLGS. You can literally play AL anywhere, through any medium. If the FLGS charges money, players will decide to stop showing up because they can play for free elsewhere. One FLGS I'm familiar with had at one point hosted an Epic, which is a pretty impressive feat to do for a moderate-sized FLGS. They started charging players $5 per seat, including the DM. They now no longer have players. It could be example bias at work, but logically speaking, a player isn't likely to play a game they can play for free at somewhere that charges them a fee.
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45- **Convention exclusitivity.** Adventures are often premiered at conventions that host D&D, and D&D Epics (or now known as D&D Open for 12+ table adventures) can generally only be played at epics. But that's not all! Certain adventures are unable to be played outside of those conventions until 6 months after they premire (afterwhich you must pay dmsguild.com to have the adventure). Certain certificates are only obtainable at conventions. And most importantly, Fai Chen's Magical Dump For Cursed Items is there, too. Adventurers League focuses a lot of exclusitivity towards conventions, instead of giving FLGSs, where a large majority of their players hang out inbetween conventions, some of the same pie.
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47- In regards to Fai Chen (Fai Chen's Magic Emporium, I think it's called now), it's a way for someone to trade magic items for something else they may want. However, speaking to an event coordinator who's run several conventions, it's often used as a way to dump unwanted items, particularly cursed items. You can also purchase certain things from Fai Chen, that serve literally no purpose other than to show off to other players (such as an estate). However, Fai Chen is a really cool concept, having a magic-item trader with weird things for sale. This is something that really should be at an FLGS; the ability to come to an FLGS and do some trading for things you normally couldn't get elsewhere would be stupid easy to implement. But that'll never happen.
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49- **DM Restrictive.** One of the basic rules for Adventurers League for DMs is *You are Empowered.* That is, the DM is allowed to change things in order to enhance the fun for players. The problem is, this rule is something of a trap. There's a lot you actually can't do in AL, especially if it relates to progression.
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51- The DM cannot provide any rewards beyond what's listed under the 'treasure' subheaders of an adventure, or at the end of a module. The DM cannot allow the use of downtime beyond what's listed in the AL Player's Guide. The DM cannot provide favors or assistance from NPCs, even if that assistance doesn't leave the table (a magic item that just suddenly vanishes at the end of the session, for example). The DM is unable to change the statistics of monsters officially, beyond adjusting hit points. They also cannot change encounters listed in an adventure, even when it may be appropriate. The DM cannot use custom spells, magic items, or monsters. The DM cannot use custom rules (or variant rules), and it's a gray area as to what constitutes something being a variant rule or DM arbitration.
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53- Having said all that, these are all disregarded half the time in AL, as long as the AL police aren't around. So it's ultimately a rule designed to punish DMs while simultaneously appearing to be a rule of empowerment.
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55- **Final thoughts.** Adventurers League serves a good purpose; it allows for there to be a larger community for people to participate in, especially players who don't have a dedicated DM, or DMs who have a lack of players (ha!). It also further promotes the FLGS on a good day, since players who do spend time in an FLGS are likely to also purchase things to help out the store. But as it is, the shared campaign system is just a breeding ground for a harmful community, rather than a healthy community, and players and/or DMs who participate in the shared campaign will eventually see the cracks as I do, but be unable to do anything about it, even when they just want to improve the game for everyone's sake, not just because they hate something as trivial as the PHB+1 rule, or that they dislike a player having a christmas tree character. Maybe one day.