D&D 5E Monte Cook Leaves WotC - No Longer working on D&D Next [updated]

Neonchameleon · Apr 26, 2012

Aberzanzorax said:
Well, if he's a paid consultant, I hope WotC lets him go after that nonsense. He Godwined in his own email for goodness sake.

That is a staggering example of unprofessionalism.

He was still claiming to be a paid consultant for 5e a month after writing that e-mail. So no they didn't.

JediSoth · Apr 26, 2012

Aberzanzorax said:
Well, if he's a paid consultant, I hope WotC lets him go after that nonsense. He Godwined in his own email for goodness sake.

That is a staggering example of unprofessionalism.

I thought RPGPundit being a paid consultant for D&D 5E was an April Fool's Joke. If that's a thing, then that worries me more than anyone on the design team. I never seen anything positive come out of that guy's mouth.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Apr 26, 2012

Not sure how I feel about Monte leaving. I had some concerns regarding his involvement, but he also created a lot of good stuff, so neither was I sure how good it was that he was part of the team. If he's still working as "consultant" (hehe, normally that means he's overpaid but doesn't have to do the real work...)... I guess i can keep being ambivalent over it either way.

Though one thing is certain, I hope for the best. I had the impression that things weren't running so well lately for him, but I could be entirely mistaken, since I not just an armchair designer, I am also just half-remembering stuff I read somewhere and could have misinterpreted already then.

Shemeska said:
[sblock]Not a blanket term for 4e fans at all. The term started out on the WotC boards as the "4e Avengers", a term embraced in the sigs of a rather vocal group of fans who attacked anyone saying anything negative about 4e. It was pretty toxic for a while, and eventually the term 4venger started to be used elsewhere to describe edition warriors in the 4e camp that went over the top defending their edition of choice and also denegrating anything that appeared to threaten it.[/sblock]

But against all rumors, there is no C4bal... Really.

Or is there? Dun-Dun-Dun

Osgood · Apr 26, 2012

There's a lot of speculation on why Monte left, most of it related to taking a stand in the edition war, but in my experience most people leave a job for one of these three reasons:

Money
Job Satisfaction
Personality Conflict

Though there's always the 4th (slightly less common) reason: Dispute about casual Friday...

Mike: Monte, what the #@%! ?
Monte: What? Nothing's more casual than nude.

Bedrockgames · Apr 26, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
It's a bad sign when one of the leads leaves like this. But I wish I was surprised that all the blame was being put on 4e fans when a paid consultant for the 5e development team that represents the Old School quite literally suggested disconnecting Monte Cook's vocal cords in both private and public. With a work environment like that I'm not surprised Monte Cook left.

I think context is very important here. Pundit has expressed admiration for Cook's work in the past and I think this arose out of some backlashes to Monte's word choices (as I said on another forum people overeacted because Cook was speaking casually and didn't seem to know the current edition war landmine terms).

Howevere I seriously doubt cook's departure has anything to do with the rpgpundit. Pundit says all kinds of things all the time about all kinds of people. His posts about Cook were pretty tame Compared to his others. And he was raising a vaid PR point in that words the old school crowd associate with stuff like the forge were being bandied about. Keep in mind, when they brought pundit aboard, they knew who they were getting and if Cook took the time to check out pundit's forum (therpgsite)---which I suspect he did-- then he would see how popular Monte Cook is with most of the posters there (myself incuded). Cook's d20 Cthulu is practically revered there and Ptolus is the focuw of multiple threads. On in all the site is very pro-Monte. Just contrast therpgsite threads discussion his departure versus rpgnet or even enworld.

Bedrockgames · Apr 26, 2012

Osgood said:
There's a lot of speculation on why Monte left, most of it related to taking a stand in the edition war, but in my experience most people leave a job for one of these three reasons:

Money

Job Satisfaction

Personality Conflict

Though there's always the 4th (slightly less common) reason: Dispute about casual Friday...

Mike: Monte, what the #@%! ?
Monte: What? Nothing's more casual than nude.

Those are all fair things to consider but my experiene working on creative projects (and game design teams specifically) is people do tend to get much more emotionally invested when they are designing a game and emotions do run high when disagreements arise. Cook is a professional, but he is also human and been his own boss for a while now. I have seen more than my share of walk-outs working on small games meant to make a few bucks. Working on D&D Next is probably ten times worse. And the stakes are much higher because all these guys know their names are going to be associated with this edition and if it fails or goes against their own design philosophies they have to live with that for some time. I can easily imagine a guy like cook resisting having his name associated with design principles he doesn't embrace.

This is just speculation of course, but we shouldn't exclude creative differences as a possible expanation is all I am saying.

Noumenon · Apr 26, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
people do tend to get much more emotionally invested when they are designing a game and emotions do run high when disagreements arise. Cook is a professional, but he is also human and been his own boss for a while now.

Also, Cook just got divorced/separated and moved, both of which put your stress level through the roof and make it harder to stay in control.

Bedrockgames · Apr 26, 2012

Noumenon said:
Also, Cook just got divorced/separated and moved, both of which put your stress level through the roof and make it harder to stay in control.

That crossed my mind as well. And working on a design team can be one of the most stressfull things on earth. When things get tough it is a bit like a flamewar where you have to sit next to and work with the posters you disagree with on a daily basis.

billd91 · Apr 26, 2012

Noumenon said:
Also, Cook just got divorced/separated and moved, both of which put your stress level through the roof and make it harder to stay in control.

Stress? Perhaps. But those changes could also enable him to be more decisive about his career when things aren't satisfactory and that's even without stress. It's easier when you're making decisions for one instead of two.

Falstaff · Apr 26, 2012

neonchameleon said:
it's a bad sign when one of the leads leaves like this. But i wish i was surprised that all the blame was being put on 4e fans when a paid consultant for the 5e development team that represents the old school quite literally suggested disconnecting monte cook's vocal cords in both private and public. With a work environment like that i'm not surprised monte cook left.

lol!