Mearls is the new manager of D&D

Rolemancer · May 19, 2010

Filcher said:
Note that, in 4 years or less, we will be wishing Mike well again, in a round of seemingly-random WotC layoffs.

This.

Mearls, Wyatt, etc., will past history dictate what this actually means, we are just seeing the next generation about to step up to the chopping block? Some have survived, many have not.

I can sort of see why there would be a moment of excitement (hey, I am promoted) but then again I can see why one would ask what kind of "promotion" is this anyway? Well, we're the ones who survived... this time... thus, a promotion.

I have been watching and this kind of lay-off, next up, churn like a slave, squeeze blood out of a rock, salary is too high, person is becoming too important, discard, next up scenario that has repeated itself over there bothers me.

Once I would have wanted to help produce D&D professionally. That dream hasn't appealed to me for quite some time now.

I am not trying to take anything away here. You all have contributed immensely to D&D and to the fans who play it and for that I am grateful to you all personally, especially Wyatt whom I have watched from the beginning.

At the same time, I cannot help but get this sinking feeling that we will indeed see some of these names in the next trials of lay-offs after the powers that be parasitically feed off of every drop they can get, make them and their families sacrifice long hours and endure heavy stress only to toss them aside when finished with them.

Welcome to the corporate world? For D&D to thrive and recapture that magic again from the misty old days from decades ago, corporate needs to be welcomed to D&D. It had such a spirit of fun and love and does in a lot of ways still in certain circles, but the taint of the harsh brutality within the mechanism of its production is appalling.

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is...

Congratulations!!!

I'm A Banana · May 19, 2010

Attempting to tie this vaguely back to the topic at hand: What does everyone think about D&D that's less dependent upon graphical representation? Does anyone think we'll see a resurgence of that within the foreseeable future? (...Acknowledging that D&D originated as a wargame, of course.)

DO WANT.

Roleplaying, exploration, puzzle and problem-solving; and they are areas that have been sadly neglected in Wizards adventures. Not to exclusion; certainly all the official modules have such sections in them, but they have somewhat wilted away under the combats and the (mostly) linear pacing.

However, supplements like Hammerfast give me hope. I want to see more adventures from Wizards; adventures that allow for more flexibility in their structure and aren't dominated by the nightmare to pacing that combats can become.

Man, if I could get an artist to pair with me, I would write so many of these products for everyone to enjoy. I've got a lot just sitting on my hard drive. Old haunted mines filled with kobolds. City sewers overrun with wererat cults. Graveyards in which necromancers lurk. All ready to be spliced into whatever Generic Fantasy Campaign you have.

Maybe I'll whip up something for the boards anyway, with internet art.

xechnao · May 19, 2010

@grid & combat

I am exploring possibilities of a tactical combat system without minis. Rather tactical actions that the way they will be described and structured they wont require minis at all. I am hoping to speed up combat and make gameplay more interesting and tactical on a roleplaying instead of a metagaming basis.

Caerin · May 19, 2010

Congratulations, good luck, and I hope you have a chance to have some fun. ^_^

Herschel · May 19, 2010

TheYeti1775 said:
Even the jump 2E to 3.5E is fairly painless.

Presumptuous and, quite frankly, wrong. A large portion of 2E fans hated 3E, myself included. It is/was what it is/was.

The great thing about this appointment is not only promoting a guy who has done good work but in his post in this very thread acknowledged the "schism" and feelings of players who may not like whatever edition from a real, first-poerson perspective. Like the product or not, a good person doing good work should be commended.

GVDammerung · May 19, 2010

Congratulations. I have enjoyed your previous work. I hope you will be in a position to supervise the development of the next edition of D&D. Soon. Given the present edition’s advanced state of development, I don’t see much of an opportunity for you to change the state of the “current atmosphere among D&D fans” that you note, short of developing a new edition. Good luck.

Uder · May 19, 2010

Herschel said:
Presumptuous and, quite frankly, wrong. A large portion of 2E fans hated 3E, myself included. It is/was what it is/was.

Regardless of what you, me, and a completely undocumented "large" portion of players think of this edition or that, Yeti was talking about ease of converting and using materials between editions and not whether anyone hated/loved/binned any particular edition.

Bluenose · May 19, 2010

Uder said:
Regardless of what you, me, and a completely undocumented "large" portion of players think of this edition or that, Yeti was talking about ease of converting and using materials between editions and not whether anyone hated/loved/binned any particular edition.

Mostly in the 80s I GMed (and sometimes played) with the BECM series, Basic D&D. Which isn't to say they're the only rules I have, but I've got a lot of adventures for that version. Converting to AD&D (1e or 2e) was sometimes mildly annoying but rarely particularly diificult. Converting to 3e is a lot more work. Converting to 4e is a lot more work. While I'm perfectly willing to believe some people can 'eyeball' it and get good results, I'm not one of them. And I don't believe that I'm in a small minority in believing there's not much difference in the difficulty of conversion, rules-wise.