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[UPDATED] Sean K Reynolds just rehired by WotC
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7670143" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>"Evil" is a substantial exaggeration, but he made/defended some choices while working at Paizo that left a number of people unhappy. I can give two examples, though, both relating to the Monk. The first one was when he defended the Vow of Poverty feat; it pretty much categorically weakens your character, for no purpose other than to have An Official Feat on your character sheet that says you've chosen to be poor. He said, "Not every game option has to be the best option. Not every game rule option has to be a good option. In fact, some game choices are guaranteed to be BAD in terms of rules consequences, and people do them anyway because they want to play interesting characters." Many people took this to mean that he believed mechanical effectiveness was antithetical to roleplaying, and that only by playing an ineffective character could you have an "interesting" one.</p><p></p><p>The other example is when he essentially fiat declared that Monks could not use brass knuckles (and a few other weapons) as part of their Monk unarmed strikes, despite the rules specifically saying that this was the case. He had some reasons for doing so (there being some edge-case questions that were resolved by treating brass knuckles and similar items as actual weapons, not unarmed attacks), but this change--despite him calling it a "clarification" and nothing else--was a serious blow to the effectiveness of PF Monk.</p><p></p><p>Although I cannot find the source now, he later recanted some of the positions he'd previously held. It was somewhere in his discussions of his own system, the Five Moons RPG. Basically, after leaving Paizo, he came to realize that he didn't actually like a number of design choices in 3e and PF, ones which he had previously defended fervently. Ironically, though he continues to have less-than-positive attitudes toward 4e (AFAICT, anyway) his actual design and style for Five Moons is ending up in a relatively similar place, just with most powers (he calls them Feats) being available to anyone rather than being class-associated.</p><p></p><p>Edit:</p><p></p><p></p><p>As noted, though, remember that these things are his *most recent* opinions on the subject, whereas most of the antipathy he receives is for opinions he had a couple years back, or more.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 7670143, member: 6790260"] "Evil" is a substantial exaggeration, but he made/defended some choices while working at Paizo that left a number of people unhappy. I can give two examples, though, both relating to the Monk. The first one was when he defended the Vow of Poverty feat; it pretty much categorically weakens your character, for no purpose other than to have An Official Feat on your character sheet that says you've chosen to be poor. He said, "Not every game option has to be the best option. Not every game rule option has to be a good option. In fact, some game choices are guaranteed to be BAD in terms of rules consequences, and people do them anyway because they want to play interesting characters." Many people took this to mean that he believed mechanical effectiveness was antithetical to roleplaying, and that only by playing an ineffective character could you have an "interesting" one. The other example is when he essentially fiat declared that Monks could not use brass knuckles (and a few other weapons) as part of their Monk unarmed strikes, despite the rules specifically saying that this was the case. He had some reasons for doing so (there being some edge-case questions that were resolved by treating brass knuckles and similar items as actual weapons, not unarmed attacks), but this change--despite him calling it a "clarification" and nothing else--was a serious blow to the effectiveness of PF Monk. Although I cannot find the source now, he later recanted some of the positions he'd previously held. It was somewhere in his discussions of his own system, the Five Moons RPG. Basically, after leaving Paizo, he came to realize that he didn't actually like a number of design choices in 3e and PF, ones which he had previously defended fervently. Ironically, though he continues to have less-than-positive attitudes toward 4e (AFAICT, anyway) his actual design and style for Five Moons is ending up in a relatively similar place, just with most powers (he calls them Feats) being available to anyone rather than being class-associated. Edit: As noted, though, remember that these things are his *most recent* opinions on the subject, whereas most of the antipathy he receives is for opinions he had a couple years back, or more. [/QUOTE]
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[UPDATED] Sean K Reynolds just rehired by WotC
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