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

Azgulor · Apr 25, 2012

Wow.

Whether or not this ulitimately bodes well or ill for 5e can't be determined at this point.

However, at this particular moment in time, this is certainly negative news for 5e. The reasons, which we'll likely not know for months or years, are largely irrelevant.

As an analogy, you've got a highly anticipated movie in the works. Much is made of the star selected to play the lead and after filming starts, the star quits.

Alternatively, a star athlete quits after being actively recruited by Team A. That athlete was going to be a cornerstone of the team strategy, a ticket draw, etc. Now they're gone from the team.

Can the negative be overcome? Sure. Could the end result be better than originally thought through the addition of his replacement? Yes. Could it be a loss they can't recover from? Yes, but less likely, IMO.

But right now, it's a negative -- and a big one.

Side Note: I love reading posts where people slam Monte for 3e content but rave about Mike M for 4e. Has anyone bothered to look at the credits of a lot of 3e d20 & OGL supplements? Mr. Mearls has a large body of work, and a fair bit of it was done with Monte. (Iron Heroes, anyone?)

Doug McCrae · Apr 25, 2012

This is bad news. Monte is an excellent game designer.

monstermanual · Apr 25, 2012

I'm a little dismayed to see such disregard for the other designers in this thread. I'm not thrilled to see Cook leave, but I don't think the entire enterprise is hopeless now. Mearls, Schwalb, Cordell, and the others are all great designers who are working hard to make a good game. The whole thing wasn't resting on one person's shoulders.

Shemeska · Apr 25, 2012

Huh. That was unexpected.

Whatever the reasons behind his departure, it's a loss for WotC certainly, and in a larger sense to the gaming community as well (petty internet crowing by 4vengers aside) since he's got a damn fine pedigree of work that I hoped would influence 5e as much as possible. But I've got little clue how 5e will ultimately turn out, and for me at least it remains a wait and see situation.

As for what Monte does next, I wish him all the luck in the world, and whatever he might have up his sleeve to announce as a next project, I'll give it a look when it's announced.

Incenjucar · Apr 25, 2012

Azgulor said:
Side Note: I love reading posts where people slam Monte for 3e content but rave about Mike M for 4e. Has anyone bothered to look at the credits of a lot of 3e d20 & OGL supplements? Mr. Mearls has a large body of work, and a fair bit of it was done with Monte. (Iron Heroes, anyone?)

I can assure you that Mearls gets his share of criticism as well. Neither of them are uncontroversial.

jsaving · Apr 25, 2012

I'm surprised and more than a little disappointed by this turn of events. Monte played a key role uniting a fan base that had fractured in the latter days of 2e and I'd hoped he might be able to play a similar role today.

As to why he left, I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that design issues weren't a key motivating factor. We do know from his statement that differences amongst the design team weren't the reason, but it may well be that he was meeting substantial resistance from other quarters. There may well have been rifts between the 5e design team (which Monte led) and the 5e development team (which he didn't). Or rifts between Mearls' Bo9S-centric outlook and Monte's 3e-oriented outlook. Or even demands from WotC that 5e more closely emulate WoW or M:tG or who knows what. Being told what to do design-wise, when he was hired to be head of the design team, certainly seems like a more plausible reason to leave the company than fears that digital issues or the 5e SRD -- areas he wasn't hired to oversee and over which he wouldn't necessarily expect to have much influence -- might not go his way.

Amurayi · Apr 25, 2012

1. He said good-bye to Cordell and Schwalb and wishes them all the best.

He didn't mention Mearls at all.

Now guess who he has "differences of opinion with"...

or ...

2. ... it's about money.

nillic · Apr 25, 2012

I wasn't expecting much from a game named after:

Now I am even less excited.

Mark CMG · Apr 25, 2012

jsaving said:
(. . .) or the 5e SRD -- areas he wasn't hired to oversee and over which he wouldn't necessarily expect to have much influence -- might not go his way.

Those who believe that using the OGL is something you don't have to know about from the beginning don't understand the full power of the OGL. I can easily see this as a struggle between designers who'd like to incorporate OGC from various sources and being stalled by management/legal who might believe that they can delay any licensing (OGL/GSL/some combo or variation) until the end, as if it is not an integral decision that needs top priority for an OGL-designed game. And given what we know about where they are in the process of design and playtesting, they have clearly been at a point where that decision has been overdue for months. Forget about a "big tent" when what you really need to unite the fractured D&D community is a solid foundation and a big house with lots of rooms, something the OGL is ideally suited to help accomplish.

KesselZero · Apr 25, 2012

My concerns are now...

1. It'll take longer for 5e to be released, or for the playtest to be opened up; alternately, that the playtest won't happen at all.

2. That corporate concerns are overriding the attempt to simply design the best game possible. That happens all the time, of course, but if that's what caused Monte's departure, it had to be on a large scale or about something very important, which bodes ill for the quality of the game. This of course only applies if he left over such a reason, and not if he left because there wasn't hot sauce in the breakroom or something.