D&D 5E Kate Welch on Leaving WotC

Kate Welch left Wizards of the Coast a few days ago, on August 16th. Soon after, she talked a little about it in a live-stream.

She started work at WotC as a game designer back in February 2018, and has contributed to various products since then, such as Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Descent into Avernus, as well as being a participant in WotC's livestreams. In December 2019, her job changed to that of 'senior user experience designer'.

"I mentioned yesterday that I have some big news that I wouldn't be able to share until today.

The big news that I have to share with you today is that I ... this is difficult, but ... I quit my job at Wizards of the Coast. I no longer work at Wizards. Today was my last day. I haven't said it out loud yet so it's pretty major. I know... it's a big change. It's been scary, I have been there for almost three years, not that long, you know, as far as jobs go, and for a while there I really was having a good time. It's just not... it wasn't the right fit for me any more.

So, yeah, I don't really know what's next. I got no big plans. It's a big deal, big deal .... and I wanted to talk to you all about it because you're, as I've mentioned before, a source of great joy for me. One of the things that has been tough reckoning with this is that I've defined myself by Dungeons & Dragons for so long and I really wanted to be a part of continuing to make D&D successful and to grow it, to have some focus especially on new user experience, I think that the new user experience for Dungeons & Dragons is piss poor, and I've said that while employed and also after quitting.

But I've always wanted to be a part of getting D&D into the hands of more people and helping them understand what a life-changing game it is, and I hope I still get the chance to do that. But as of today I'm unemployed, and I also wanted to be upfront about it because I have this great fear that because Dungeons & Dragons has been part of my identity, professionally for the last three years almost, I was worried that a lot of you'll would not want to follow me any more because I'm not at Wizards, and there's definitely some glamourous aspects to being at Wizards."

She went on to talk about the future, and her hopes that she'll still be be able to work with WotC.

"I'm excited about continuing to play D&D, and hopefully Wizards will still want me to appear on their shows and stuff, we'll see, I have no idea. But one thing that I'm really excited about is that now I can play other TTRPGs. There's a policy that when you're a Wizards employee you can't stream other tabletop games. So there was a Call of Cthulhu game that we did with the C-team but we had to get very special permission for it, they were like OK but this is only a one time thing. I get it, you know, it's endorsing the competition or whatever, but I'm super excited to be able to have more freedom about the kinds of stuff that I'm getting involved with."

 

[Li Shenron]

In theory, we could say that beginners should start from Basic rules, and consider buying the PHB only when they decide they want to play more regularly or "seriously".

Starter Sets should more or less include Basic rules + pregens + sample adventure + props such as dice/minis/maps.

WotC has modified the structure of Basic over time. It used to have two separate docs for players and DMs, now it's a single doc. I'm not saying it's better, just that WotC has not neglected considering possible improvements. Yet it is still 180 pages, that is NOT good! Even someone who wants to start straight into DMing would probably need a more slim document to start with, but someone invited over as a player can't be seriously told to read even 50 pages in advance. Either you give them a much smaller "readme" or you give them nothing and rely on the DM.

As someone who introduced many beginners to the game over 20 years, I can testify that on average:

1) New users want to create their own PC but have more narrative than mechanical ideas in mind.

That's because they don't even know what mechanical options exist. They may decide they want to play a Wizard, but if the game then tells them to choose 6 spells out of 12, many already get analysis-paralysis, afraid to make a wrong choice.

Open-ended character creation is not good for new users, there are simply way too many options even in Basic. Some players are intimidated, others are fascinated by the options and end up wanting to read them all instead of actually starting to play.

However, full pre-gens might be too strict. A player might want to play a "Wizard that shoots magic", another a "Wizard that charms" or a "Wizard with lots of tricks" or a "Wizard that protect friends". Especially the 4 iconic classes have lots of variants, you're gonna need a lot of pregens.

Perhaps the best way is in the middle, some sort of partial pre-gen with as many as possible ready stats (so that almost no calculations are required) but free room for strictly narrative elements (name, gender, description, personality...) and a few last-minute choices to make: weapon & armor, background/skills, and spells BUT with a small bunch of "starting packages" provided with pre-selected spells.

2) I am sorry to say but Races are a spanner in the works for new users!

New users LIKE the idea they can play an Elf or Dwarf, but the way races modify a character stats always complicates character generation. And in addition, racial benefits are always too much at once.

The ship has sailed for 5e, and Tasha book can only marginally make it easier, but it would be MUCH easier for new users if the choice of race would not modify existing stats (so no recalculation needed i.e. no ability modifiers) but only give additive benefits, and such benefits being spread over a few levels (so that at 1st level maybe only 1-2 to deal with).

3) Combat options only confuse new users.

Really, for their very first adventure new players only need to know how to do these 3 things:

• move
• attack
• cast a spell

Everything else can wait. They do NOT need to immediately know they can hide during combat, help an ally, disengage, grapple, ready... these options do not need to be explained before a player asks "can I instead..." or the situation demands (like someone tries to run away). In Basic, they'd be better placed in a DM section.

4) Basic is still waaaay too verbose.

The counterpart of having too much stuff that is already a bit too advanced, is having also too much trivial text in Basic.

Random examples: four (!) pages for step-by-step character creation, half a page to explain what are personality traits/flaws/etc (if you just see the tables in your chosen background, you already know what they mean), one full page to explain how to socially interact with NPCs (just talk dammit!).

These sections don't seem they were written by someone who wanted to take new players easily but rather by a scholar who wanted to write a perfect essay about the game, which is OK for a PHB, but only increases the time to read through Basic (and the chances of the new player just not doing it at all).

5) Organization goes a long way.

In a digital document you have a lot more freedom compared to a printed book. For example, filling entire pages is not necessary. So why not organizing stuff (for example each race, each class...) so that it always starts at the beginning of a page? Then encourage a player to print out only the pages of their chosen race and class.

With regard to stuff at points 3) and 4), as they are good-to-read but not essential to start playing right away, move them all to a series of appendixes.

The structure of Basic is still VERY conservative, as if nobody at WotC ever bothered catching up with all the ideas in UX that came up in the last 20 years.

Just as an example, having first a minimal section for setting up your character at 1st level in broad strokes (class/race/background + "starting packages") versus full regular character creation rules, and a second minimal chapter on actually playing the game. And THEN having lots of appendixes like "Character classes beyond 1st level", "More stuff you can do in combat", "Adjudicating spells effects", "Everything you wanted to know about exploration but were afraid to ask" and so on.

This would give a new user the idea that reading 20 pages is ENOUGH to start playing, and they can read the remaining 160 later, and only if they wish.

 

[ccs]

I'm pretty sure it was in the 1st edition AD&D DMG, under the heading "Why Level?"

And? You shouldn't need to look in a 40+ year old oop book for a previous edition so an explanation to a current day question....

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

And? You shouldn't need to look in a 40+ year old oop book for a previous edition so an explanation to a current day question....

Please tell that to lawyers.

 

[ccs]

I have a question....

Have any of you considered simply asking Ms(?) Welch what she meant by her comments?
Or is it just better to debate & theorize about it?

 

[ccs]

Please tell that to lawyers.

I'm sorry, I assumed that anyone reading this could figure out based on the context of the conversation/comment I responded to that I was referring to within our favorite game.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I'm sorry, I assumed that anyone reading this could figure out based on the context of the conversation/comment I responded to that I was referring to within our favorite game.

And the humor when spirals into the drain...

 

[Zardnaar]

I have a question....

Have any of you considered simply asking Ms(?) Welch what she meant by her comments?
Or is it just better to debate & theorize about it?

What logic online!!!! That's just crazy talk.

 

[cbwjm]

After thinking about it, I have concluded the dungeon level / spell level nomenclature is probably intentional. Men and Magic (the OD&D Player's Handbook) contained 6 levels of spells. Likewise Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (the OD&D DMG) provided tables for creating 6 levels of dungeons.

The magic-users (Conjurers and Thuergists) on the 2nd dungeon level are capable of casting 1st and 2nd level spells. The Thaumaturgists and Magicians on the 3rd dungeon level can cast up to 3rd level spells. The enchanters on the 4th dungeon level can cast 4th level spells. The sorcerers on the 5th dungeon level can cast 5th level spells. The wizards on the 6th level can cast 6th level spells.

I really doubt that's a coincidence.

This may be true, but I think even Gygax admitted in a dragon magazine that the use of levels for dungeons, classes, and spells was confusing but it had become so ingrained ny that time that the ship had sailed and we were stuck with it.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

This may be true, but I think even Gygax admitted in a dragon magazine that the use of levels for dungeons, classes, and spells was confusing but it had become so ingrained ny that time that the ship had sailed and we were stuck with it.

Agreed. It is confusing. I simply think it isn't thoughtless.

 

[cbwjm]

Agreed. It is confusing. I simply think it isn't thoughtless.

Oh yeah, what you posted definitely makes a lot of sense as a possible correlation between the use of level. It's not something I think I ever would have picked up on.

Your post has reminded me of something I like to do using the old level titles, I use them for NPCs of specific levels. Makes it easy to quickly throw together groups of bad guys, used them like that back in 2e and 3e but still need to build up some NPCs for variation on the 5e NPCs.