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

[TarionzCousin]

The smart thing for WotC to do would be to immediately hire Monte to begin working on 6E.

 

[Janaxstrus]

To be honest, this isn't true at all. I'm a 4E fan who doesn't feel this way, and there are many other people I've seen who don't feel that way either. Frankly, a lot of the language used by the 5E team in blog posts and such has made many 4E fans very skeptical and nervous about the game (what with the designers praising the 3E fighter of all things and at times seeming rather ignorant of 4E's mechanics and philosophy). What's more, while WotC brought Monte Cook on board to appeal to the 3E fans, many of the key figures from 4E's development, such as Rob Heinsoo, weren't brought in and don't work at WotC any more.

The fact that Monte Cook, the designer so wrapped up in the development of 3E that he publicly rejected many of 3.5E's innovations, was brought in to work on 5E was itself a source of concern for many fans who simply don't like the 3E version of D&D. He was a controversial figure from the beginning for this reason.

If you can't trust the remaining designers (both 4e people) to look after 4e...well...not sure what else you want. (Besides 4.5e)

 

[GM Dave]

I just continue to find it interesting to look at what WotC is putting out in their weekly posts.

I mentioned earlier (up thread) on looking at how there seems to have been some radical shifting in what WotC seems to have planned and what they are now seeming to work on.

Synopsis

1> Announcement in January with revelation that media had a playtest of new game system in November.

2> Initial articles that had led up to January revealed to have been discussions from this design that was in the works for the last year.

3> Articles with discussion on Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and how they were based on looking at past editions to determine what people wanted.

4> DDXP highwater mark with playtest of Caves of Chaos.

5> Then something happened. Not sure what but things start to change.

6> Articles change and become more vague.

7> PaxE had the same playtest as DDXP with no real change in system, adventure, or characters being shown off. They were still level 1 characters which defeats the point of playtesting because you don't really learn much 'new' without changing things. The seminar discussion looked bad when it was shown the designers were several generations progressed on any material that was being 'playtested'.

7> We start to see a revisiting of topics like 'Clerics vs Paladins' which had been previously discussed several months previously. L&L this week discussed the 5 design goals for Clerics.

8> This week has some 4e tone with the return of discussion of Healing Surges in Bruce's Blog. Chris Perkin's blog has a poll on 4e GM advice as laid out in various 4e books.

It is interesting that Mearles is leaving at this point and the open playtest is being announced at this point.

If the playtest is the same Caves of Chaos material at DDXP and PaxE then there will be some real problems. The designers seem to have torn apart their original stuff and restarted some of their 'completed' design. A repeat of the existing playtest material will be more PR stunt then a real playtest as people won't be working with materials and classes that the designers are working their designs and ideas around.

Pundits will talk on Clerics that can not Turn Undead because it is something that occurs at 3rd level in the playtest material (though not given out to the players to know) and has been reworked already on the designers.

 

[Nyronus]

Except all the stuff I mentioned was happening before the D&D Next announcement, so that completely invalidates your reason for 4E sales tanking. It's also not like Pathfinder is selling like crazy because it was released last month. It's been out for nearly 3 years. Anyway, I'm going to stop now because I this thread is getting completely off topic.

Except then it was that Pathfinder sales were MATCHING 4e sales, not bypassing them by a large margin which was what was stated by someone in this thread, and even then it was based purely on the early stages of Pathfinder (i.e. the Core Rulebook) vs. 4e as it was slowing down, and was STILL ignoring DDi. Plus all of this debate is based purely on hear-say and what the sellers are telling us, since WotC doesn't give out sales figures.

Pathfinder may still end up making more money than 4e did, but only if its craze continues, and even then we will never know since all we know about DDi was that it was effective.

As for getting off topic, the old topic is kind of done. Either you liked Monte and sad he's gone, or you didn't and you aren't. Hissing at each other like cats and spinning out conspiracy theories won't change that.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Well we seem to all agree that 5E needs both the 3.5E and 4E communities, but nobody wants to admit that 5E needs to do what it needs to do to make each side happy, because people seem to think that 4e fans getting what they want means the 3.5E fans get screwed and vice versa.

One could interpret my words in that fashion, but I don't see it that way. My issue with the 5E design team as a whole and Monte in particular was that from everything they've said about 5E until recently, they have no clue what a 4E fan wants. I fully believe they want to please 4E fans, but in their apparent ignorance they'll screw it up by focusing on things they think we want(like tactical combat) and fail to deliver what we really want(balanced rules that work, a focus on cinematic action). I don't believe they are intentionally screwing me over, I think they're misguided on what makes 4E special to the people who enjoy it and will ruin it by bringing back old stuff out of ignorance as opposed to malice.

In addition, I see a lot of people with a genuine hatred of 4E, and want to see all traces of it removed or at least as little of it as possible in 5E. As a 4E fan, I can accept that there will need to be some compromises made, but I don't see how you can please people who want 4E surgically removed from D&D and make a game the 4E community can accept.

Also, while I think it's true that the number of actual old school D&Ders are minimal, I think it's the accessibility of older versions of D&D that are missing in 3x and 4x, and have turned people towards simpler games, or simply to stop gaming. So I think it's a mistake to focus only on 3x and 4x styles.

I mean, yes, 1e has a lot of Gygaxian prose, But ultimately it's a very simple game, at least that's how most people actually played it (more akin to B/X than anything else, with the AD&D style multi-classing)

I mean, you went from being able to come up with monsters on the spur of the moment (the Gelatinous Cube being an example) to monsters needing to be designed by people with degrees in accounting (or at least a spreadsheet written by someone who has one). It went from a game about creativity to one about numbers.

I really like this quote. One thing I've learned arguing with people over D&D is not to underestimate the size of the pre-3E D&D fanbase, though there is little of it here at ENWorld. While I view the Old School Revolution as a small group of highly vocal and opinionated people, there is a large group of people behind them who are less strident and less visible, but still prefer things how AD&D(or other earlier editions) did things. A significant percentage of the 3E community during its day were using 3E/3.5E rules to play AD&D, ignoring or glossing over the changes 3E made, and these people continue to play the same as they always have. Some still playing 3E, 3.5E or even Pathfinder, some playing earlier editions or retroclones. They aren't defined by the OSR, but the OSR is more visible.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I just continue to find it interesting to look at what WotC is putting out in their weekly posts.

I mentioned earlier (up thread) on looking at how there seems to have been some radical shifting in what WotC seems to have planned and what they are now seeming to work on.

Synopsis

1> Announcement in January with revelation that media had a playtest of new game system in November.

2> Initial articles that had led up to January revealed to have been discussions from this design that was in the works for the last year.

3> Articles with discussion on Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and how they were based on looking at past editions to determine what people wanted.

4> DDXP highwater mark with playtest of Caves of Chaos.

5> Then something happened. Not sure what but things start to change.

6> Articles change and become more vague.

7> PaxE had the same playtest as DDXP with no real change in system, adventure, or characters being shown off. They were still level 1 characters which defeats the point of playtesting because you don't really learn much 'new' without changing things. The seminar discussion looked bad when it was shown the designers were several generations progressed on any material that was being 'playtested'.

7> We start to see a revisiting of topics like 'Clerics vs Paladins' which had been previously discussed several months previously. L&L this week discussed the 5 design goals for Clerics.

8> This week has some 4e tone with the return of discussion of Healing Surges in Bruce's Blog. Chris Perkin's blog has a poll on 4e GM advice as laid out in various 4e books.

It is interesting that Mearles is leaving at this point and the open playtest is being announced at this point.

If the playtest is the same Caves of Chaos material at DDXP and PaxE then there will be some real problems. The designers seem to have torn apart their original stuff and restarted some of their 'completed' design. A repeat of the existing playtest material will be more PR stunt then a real playtest as people won't be working with materials and classes that the designers are working their designs and ideas around.

Pundits will talk on Clerics that can not Turn Undead because it is something that occurs at 3rd level in the playtest material (though not given out to the players to know) and has been reworked already on the designers.

During the course of #s 1-6 saw a lot of people freaking out in response to what they were previewing, including a large number of 4E fans, and following that they seem to have backed off their original tone. A great example for this was the outcry following the announcement that Vancian magic would be core to 5E, which after an outcry they started saying there would be alternatives to Vancian magic in 5e.

 

[talok55]

The smart thing for WotC to do would be to immediately hire Monte to begin working on 6E.

Except, if 5E isn't tremendously successful, it's hard to see 6E existing, at least not made by a Hasbro company. Possibly licensed out to another RPG company, but not by Hasbro. I'm sure they will still make video games, board games and novels with the D&D brand, but D&D the roleplaying game will be shelved for a good while or permanently.

 

[Hussar]

Sure the total encompasses all things D&D but the rpg is at the heart of brand and central to its identity. If Hasbro tries to maginalize investment into the rpg aspect of the brand then they will find the the entire brand worthless soon after.

I would point out that R. A. Salvatore has probably brought in more money to D&D than all the tabletop books combined. Certainly if you combined Salvatory, Weiss and Hickman and possibly a couple of others, you would find that the tabletop RPG end of things has never been the big breadwinner.

 

[talok55]

Actually, this is why I think hiring him was completely brilliant.

Understand that my opinion of the guy is best described by my satisfaction when we banned him from here. Not my favorite person by any stretch, and I doubt I'm his, if he even knows who I am. I have disdain for his negative pattern of ripping stuff, and people, apart. That said, even if I don't like him I recognize that he's smart.

And that's why WotC hiring him to give D&D Next a once-over is sheer out of the box genius. Corporations have a predilection for group-think; they convince themselves that their ideas are great because they start to lose perspective. We saw it with 4e's high monster hp/low monster dmg/slow combat that should never have made it to launch. Can any of you think of a better way to get instant perspective on a new game than to ask the blogging industry's most outspoken critic to criticize it?

I am with you there. It would have been good if someone had shown the designers the folly of taking an hour and a half or more to fight a few lousy kobolds being a regular occurance prior to 4E being launched.

 

[ren1999]

This is pretty disappointing.

It was my hope that 5th Edition would have more people who actually play Dungeons & Dragons not just consider it a boring job creating a game for someone else. Players and Dungeon Masters can tell. We can tell that Monte actually likes the game itself and understands the game.

Wherever he goes, I'll follow. Pathfinder design is awesome. It is more in line with the spirit of the original game. With just a few 4th edition formulas, we could have a good 5th edition game.