WotC James Wyatt is on the Dungeons & Dragons Team Again

[Greg K]

Not being a fan of either his work on 3e D&D (other than 3e Oriental Adventures and Heroes of Horror)* or most of the 4e lore, I was glad when he moved to the Magic side, because he would still be working (just not on D&D). However, given my dislike for WOTC 5e supplements, the news doesn't really bring a strong reacton from me one way or the other. I guess my reaction to the news is, again, "Yay, the man still has a job", but I will, probably, continue to refrain from purchasing WOTC 5e supplements until there is change in the design team (both mechanical and story).

* I found both Oriental Adventures and Heroes of Horror to be among the few 3e WOTC non-setting books that I found to be decent (note: I am not a fan of Eberron and avoided the supplements). However, I don't know how much of what I liked about HoH was due to the contributions of Ari (a.k.a., mousefaratu) given that I have liked Ari's standalone D&D projects away from WOTC and didn't like Wyatt's Dragon magazine articles unrelated to Oriental Adventures (which, if I recall correctly, had to do with updating OA 3e to 3.5).

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I was thinking that him and Mike Mearls working on D&D again is a bigger indicator that 6e is being looked at.

But then again, maybe he was just tired of working on Magic and wanted to work on RPGs again.

Considering how Mearls doesn't seem to be credited for some time, I think it is more that Wyatt just likes being on RPGs more and wanted back in.

 

[Parmandur]

Considering how Mearls doesn't seem to be credited for some time, I think it is more that Wyatt just likes being on RPGs more and wanted back in.

Yeah, Mearls is still at WotC, but he's not involved in the RPG side of things anymore.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah, Mearls is still at WotC, but he's not involved in the RPG side of things anymore.

Oh, he is working on something on the RPG side of thing which hasn't come out yet.

Like...6e.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, he is working on something on the RPG side of thing which hasn't come out yet.

Like...6e.

Nope, he's working on Baldur's Gate 3 and Dark Alliance from the Franchise side, last anything was apparent. His role is no longer involving facing customers or interacting with the tabletop scene...which is fitting.

Jeremy Crawford was quite clear a while back that Mearls didn't work on the TTRPG any longer, and he hasn't appeared in any capacity in the credits.

 

[Emerikol]

Reviewing Wyatt's work... he's done a lot of stuff on D&D going back to 2001, but his largest contributions were in the 4E era. He was part of the core development team that created 4E, and played a big role in the sweeping overhaul of D&D lore that produced the World Axis cosmology (among other things).

I had mixed feelings about 4E mechanically, but there were a number of things it did well that I wish 5E did a little better. And on the lore front, I consider 4E to be an unqualified success--ironic, given that one of the knocks against 4E was how it disconnected lore from mechanics! They created this amazing evocative world (far better than the Great Wheel IMO), and then they put it into a system that held it at arm's length and treated it as disposable flavor text.

I'd love to see all that 4E lore revived and given a 5E treatment, perhaps as a stand-alone setting book. That probably isn't what Wyatt is working on, but if it is, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

I think having a unique cosmology for each campaign setting would be a great idea. I think they are hung up on the idea that all their campaign settings are actually points on PM plane of the great wheel.

 

[Mind of tempest]

so we can say something big is in the works?

 

[Mistwell]

Nope, he's working on Baldur's Gate 3 and Dark Alliance from the Franchise side, last anything was apparent. His role is no longer involving facing customers or interacting with the tabletop scene...which is fitting.

Jeremy Crawford was quite clear a while back that Mearls didn't work on the TTRPG any longer, and he hasn't appeared in any capacity in the credits.

Naw we know he went back to RPGs relatively recently in some capacity in addition to digital. It's not customer facing, but it was a promotion.

Crawford's comment was about "at that moment."

 

[Parmandur]

so we can say something big is in the works?

No more than before this: WotC has been saying they're ramping up the team and the product lineup for a while.

I suspect we will see a July product, in addition to the September and November traditional slots.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Nope, he's working on Baldur's Gate 3 and Dark Alliance from the Franchise side, last anything was apparent. His role is no longer involving facing customers or interacting with the tabletop scene...which is fitting.

Jeremy Crawford was quite clear a while back that Mearls didn't work on the TTRPG any longer, and he hasn't appeared in any capacity in the credits.

I'll add that contributors to books on 5E openly do not believe he is involved on the TTRPG print side anymore.