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.

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). In the early years, membership was largely limited to North America, but in 1989, the RPGA Network branched out into Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the U.K., Israel, Australia, 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. The first campaign of this type was Living City, a series of adventures set in the city of Raven's Bluff.

The first "Living City" module was "Caravan" released in August 1987 at Gen Con.

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".Living City proved to be a popular concept and "the number of Living City events actually surpassed the 'classic' RPGA tournaments — possibly as early as late 1993". In the first decade of the twenty-first century, RPGA created a variety of living campaigns. The largest was Living Greyhawk, played by thousands of people around the world from 2000 to 2008. At this point, RPGA had members on all continents of the world except Antarctica. "Creighton Broadhurst, who was in charge of the core modules for the Living Greyhawk world, explains that if a DM ventures too far off the pre-written adventure, players might get confused in subsequent RPGA adventures [...]. Writers for RPGA modules often come from within the RPGA community rather than being outside game designers. [...] RPGS writers must continually produce modules that will be used by the group. Adventures [were] released on a weekly basis".

In 2002, RPGA membership became free, but the subscription to Polyhedron was no longer included as a membership benefit because the magazine had been bought by Paizo Publishing, who then published it as a section of Dungeon.

4th Edition and launch of D&D Encounters 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.

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". The transition between editions of Dungeons & Dragons was called The Sundering and it included multiple structural changes to the D&D Encounters program.

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. The D&D Adventurers League has since reorganized its play program by various new campaign formats and campaign settings. , 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. 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. Wizards of the Coast described Adventurers League as the "legacy ongoing campaign". They stated Adventurers League would continue to be an official WPN event type that can use community-created adventures and other "material going back to the beginning of fifth edition". On the differences between Adventurers League and Legends of Greyhawk, Wizards of the Coast's D&D global play manager Chris Tulach explained that the new program is designed "around 5.5e rules", optimized for D&D Beyond, and features adventures only from organizer partners unlike Adventurers League which "is 5e-forward" and features content "created by the community through DM's Guild".

Campaigns