Kate Welch is WotC's New D&D Designer

WotC has a brand new D&D designer, and it's Kate Welch! She plays Rosie Beestinger, the Lightfoot Halfing Monk in Acquisitions Inc's "C Team". She starts work on February 2nd. That's all I know for the moment, but more info if I hear it!

[video=youtube;fRsURJf4SjQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRsURJf4SjQ[/video]
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[thekindgm]

Congratulations. Seeing the D&D team grow bigger is nice. Maybe there is enough brain power now to start working on another setting.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Summary of Powergaming:
,
Type 1: A theoretical, intellectual puzzle of reason and mathematics.

Type 2: My imaginary p**** is bigger than your imaginary p****.

Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice type 1 in order to avoid type 2. Your mileage may differ.

 

[Azzy]

Welcome aboard, Kate Welch, kick some ass (figuratively)!

 

[mach1.9pants]

Welcome aboard, Kate Welch, kick some ass (figuratively)!

Kick some ass like a squishy marshmellow granny halfling! Great to see more people and perspectives coming into official DnD.

 

[dave2008]

Ad Hoc and Dave...

Now I am curious... how many different players do you both normally play with... 1 table of maybe 5 or 6 players like a home game... or you expose yourselves to a bigger community?

I've only played with 2, mostly consistent, groups over 30 years. About 18 people total. However, several of my players are much more well versed and attend AL and Cons and such. I've never directly asked them, but from our conversations it seems there experience is pretty much the same everywhere. They have comments that at cons that some people can be more uptight. But not as a rule. But again that is very informal as that is not something I specifically remember discussing.

 

[Schmoe]

Kick some ass like a squishy marshmellow granny halfling! Great to see more people and perspectives coming into official DnD.

I think this is a pretty awesome hire by WotC for all the right reasons. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of her setting book.

 

[Hastati]

As someone who's been playing D&D for 40 years, I'm very glad to see WOTC hire someone who is young, seems creative from what I can gather, and generally grow the design team. That's a good thing. I wish her all the best.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Her background is in web design for those wondering.

I'm mostly just excited that a woman is joining the DnD design team.

 

[hutchback]

Has anyone here actually seen the C Team stream? You know, the thing were people can literally watch her play D&D for hours at a time? Wouldn't that provide as least some insight into how she handles D&D?

I watched almost the entire first season. It's a pretty entertaining liveplay.

As far as what we can learn about Kate's approach to D&D? Of all the people at the table, she pays the most attention, seems to have the best grasp of what her character abilities are, and how the rules work. She is seldom searching her character sheets for what to do or what dice to roll (To be fair to the rest of the C Team, a Monk is a much more straight-forward class to play than Druid, Warlock, etc.). Her character is admittedly not optimized because she finds the build more interesting to play. Her back story has provided rich fodder for the campaign. Although the entire table has a bend towards humor, I don't get the impression she is always going for the "Yuks." Her style is role-play rich, but she keeps it all pertinent to the game in front of her.

These are my impressions YMMV. How this will translate to her role as a designer? Hard to say, but I would feel incredibly lucky to have players like Kate at my table. At the very least D&D has a quality ambassador in her.

 

[Pauper]

Maybe we'll get lucky and WotC will send her and other designers to GenCon where we can chat with them and sit down to play Adventurers League with them...oh, wait, WotC doesn't do GenCon anymore. *sadface*

I do hope some folks get to interact with her and ask some of the questions in this thread at the conventions WotC does patronize.

--
Pauper