D&D General Dan Rawson Named New Head Of D&D

Hasbro has announced a former Microsoft digital commerce is the new senior vice president in charge of Dungeons & Dragons. Dan Rawson was the COO of Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Hasbro also hired Cynthia Williams earlier this year; she too, came from Microsoft. Of Rawson, she said "We couldn’t be bringing on Dan at a better time. With the acquisition of D&D Beyond earlier this year, the digital capabilities and opportunities for Dungeons & Dragons are accelerating faster than ever. I am excited to partner with Dan to explore the global potential of the brand while maintaining Hasbro’s core value as a player-first company.”

Rawson himself says that "Leading D&D is the realization of a childhood dream. I’m excited to work with Cynthia once again, and I’m thrilled to work with a talented team to expand the global reach of D&D, a game I grew up with and now play with my own kids.”

Interestingly, Ray Wininger -- who has been running D&D for the last couple of years -- has removed mention of WotC and Hasbro from his Twitter bio.

 

[Vincent55]

I remember them saying that 5e was the last edition, well it obviously not, 5e is the last edition I will ever back from this company. I have decided to use all the older versions and some of my own fixes to fill the gaps. I saw an article about the balance of melee and casters and the reason there is a problem is due to the 5e changes caused the casters to have more power in many ways and fail to enforce drawbacks.

The older editions had their problems with casters being too much power, this was because the melee ones had much less as well, with each edition adding to the total power of each class having improved the melee classes very much. The problem is they removed many of the balance factors of the caster classes. So how do we fix this? well first take a look back while embracing what already is in 5e, as this version is way oversimplified and tends to not give any real drawbacks.

I have thought about the issues with the caster classes and the martial ones, and the fix is easy, wizards 1d4 for hit points, age requirements to be one, like in 2nd edition or 1st. Also no armor and limited weapons. Sorcerers: 1d6 is ok as well as the weapons but requires a bloodline background or at least gives the DM a heads up, so you can't just willy-nilly decide to take a level. Also a blood component for all their spells, best way to do this is the divide their hit points in half, if they go past the half limit then they suffer a level of exhaustion, they can regain all the hit points used in this way during a short rest but the exhaustion is recovered as per the standard rules. Warlock: Easy enforce the drawback of a patron example: demon well the character can't be good or suffers from an evil taint that if detected he will emulate as if evil. This also would require the person to do an evil act or something distasteful.

I am also in favour of ability penalties as per races from the old days as well, because an ogre will always be stronger than a halfling and also you could apply this to movement as well but could overcomplicate that part of the game. So reducing movement for small by 10 feet i think is a good idea. And for large increase by 10 as well. I can remember being a child and having a hard time walking can keep up with my stepdad, my small legs had a hard time keeping up. Anyway like I said not supporting this new edition and will just do my own version of the game i am willing to run, but good luck with getting people to buy digital stuff and charging a membership fee every month to keep more updates. This is what many games do to sell you a new costume option or weapon or a manor of things. The thing is with the theatre of the mind they can't do this and so once they sell enough books the money starts to dry up and so bam a new edition is slightly more different to cause most to buy new books. Now they say that it's compatible but we all know that the new shiny is appealing.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm seriously having huge difficulty imagining Rawson speaking to fans/customers at all about D&D and its future in any meaningful way, whereas Winninger was able to do quite eloquently and frankly interestingly. I doubt we'll see any discussion of upcoming settings or the like from Rawson, because I very much doubt he even understands why we care (though I'm sure he understands if they make money or not). And even if he has played the game, that's not at all the same thing as having been a game designer.

Based on what? Really? You have no idea, but have already decided. I hate the internet.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's exactly what I was saying.

I get what you guys are saying, but it doesn't change my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, this is an edition change. What WotC is calling it is immaterial to that. "Modern D&D" is a construct I can take or leave.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I get what you guys are saying, but it doesn't change my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, this is an edition change. What WotC is calling it is immaterial to that. "Modern D&D" is a construct I can take or leave.

It is not what wizards is calling it.
It is how we see it. If you decide it is too much for you, ok. But it is annoying if someone insits that their personal view is the correct one, and it is annoying to use names for things that are implying the customers are lied to.

 

[Staffan]

Freemium D&D is inevitable now.

I'd argue that D&D has been freemium since 2000 when the SRD was released for free. Though the SRD is technically not a complete game as it does not have instructions for how to create or advance a character, so if that's a requirement you could use 2014 instead, when the 5e Basic Rules were released.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I get what you guys are saying, but it doesn't change my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, this is an edition change. What WotC is calling it is immaterial to that. "Modern D&D" is a construct I can take or leave.

"Edition change" hasn't meant what you apparently think it means for quite some time now. All of the "full edition changes" in the past 20ish years have been way more substantially different from the previous editions than the OneD&D playtest is from original 5e.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes and? You were playing with the same rules... new classes. I'm not getting your point. Is a new printing with changes and corrections a new edition?

In most of the publishing world? Yes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is not what wizards is calling it.
It is how we see it. If you decide it is too much for you, ok. But it is annoying if someone insits that their personal view is the correct one, and it is annoying to use names for things that are implying the customers are lied to.

Marketing is not lying, strictly speaking. You are allowed to have your opinion, and I have mine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Edition change" hasn't meant what you apparently think it means for quite some time now. All of the "full edition changes" in the past 20ish years have been way more substantially different from the previous editions than the OneD&D playtest is from original 5e.

I accept that they're not marketing it as an edition change, for solid financial reasons. They may even believe it. To me, the history of the game suggests that this constitutes an edition change, so to me, it's 6e. I don't know why you guys are fighting me on this. WotC doesn't need your protection. And we can hold, and even publicly proclaim, different opinions on the same issue.

 

[Charlaquin]

Evidently Richard Garfield was an Alchemist that figured out how to turn slips of cardstock into crack cocaine...

Turns out the formula (assign rarities to them and sell them in randomized blind bags) actually works for anything, not just cardboard.