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.

 

[The Glen]

This guy? Well even he only claims to have played D&D "in his youth" and "with his kids", and I doubt he's even heard of stuff like Underground. I think his vision of D&D is going to be pretty narrow and very much aligned with "D&D as lifestyle product" rather than "D&D as RPG".

That was the Citizen Kane of cannibalistic shell shocked super hero games.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Character gen could be done online.

But you didn’t have too. We just used the books

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That was the Citizen Kane of cannibalistic shell shocked super hero games.

I'd honestly forgotten the cannibalistic elements.

But yeah it definitely far into the realms of gonzo. In a good way. Re-reading it I'd forgotten how extremely detailed a lot of gear/weapons were, as part of that rather cool era of sci-fi RPGs which effectively criticised or reflected consumerism with ultra-detailed gear stuff.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

"WotC doesn't need my protection"? What does that even mean in the context of this? I'm just saying that the definition of an edition change is different from it used to be. Somehow that's me "protecting" them?

The "history of the game" only suggests that this is a full edition change if you ignore the past 20 years of it.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

No, because you know what I mean and those same complaints are well documented since its release.

Go dig up those old posts and articles you seem to to have willfully dismissed. It's not like this is some new revelation. You are just nitpicking wording and meaning, I don't feel the need to engage further since again, its all well documented.

Is your opinion well documented? I was there o the 4e board and a lot of people had a lot of different opinions. As someone who never played MMO games I never noticed the connection!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As if that will matter, given how much standard D&D language has already been released under the irrevocable license?

I mean, it will matter, I'd personally say, because if they change the game just enough, they'll make it so it's awkward to use 5E-based stuff with it.

If they combined that with basically dropping cooperation with 3PPs, and continuing the walled-garden approach with D&D Beyond, whilst strongly motivating people to use Beyond, I think they might cause some real issues for 3PPs.

Rawson literally just got the job so I doubt he's made many decisions on anything. Truth be told we know absolutely nothing about any plans he has for D&D,because beyond that he played D&D as a kid & as a father, that he used to be a Marine, and he used to work for Microsoft and worked in all kinds of places across the world, we don't know much about him. Anything else is jumping to unjustified conclusions.

Hard disagree.

Do you work in a corporate environment? If so this seems surprisingly... uncynical? Unrealistic? If you don't, then it's more understandable. But I do and yeah no. People at this level get hired for clear reasons. Sometimes, rarely, those reasons are stuff like nepotism, or mates-type nepotism, but much more often, you can see why the person has been hired.

In this case, it's extremely clear from his CV why he's been hired.

Digital transformation - specifically moving people from physical stuff to digital stuff. That is his background. That is why he has been hired. You know a ton more than that, too. Just read his LinkedIn. Literally everything you're repeating the most positive/humanising stuff you can find, which is 100% irrelevant to what he'll actually do in this role. If you actually look though, this is someone who has been hired to take D&D digital. There's no real question about it.

(Also, he was a CO in the Marines, not Enlisted, so let's not get any ideas that he was some kind of "man of the people" or "tough grunt". If you go look on dndnext reddit, there are some ex-Marines with some opinions about COs in the Marines lol. Not the flattering kind.)

 

[overgeeked]

Is your opinion well documented? I was there o the 4e board and a lot of people had a lot of different opinions. As someone who never played MMO games I never noticed the connection!

As someone who was playing WoW while 4E was coming out and being argued about...I didn't see it more than superficially. Classes had explicit roles. The game was, mechanically, incredibly balanced and fine-tuned...especially compared to other editions. And it was more focused on combat than normal, specifically well-balanced skirmishes. It was honestly closer to tabletop wargames, specifically small-unit skirmish games, than an MMO. Something like Necromunda, Kill Team, Gorka Morka, or Mordheim. And 4E works fantastically for that. It's just not what a lot of people wanted.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"WotC doesn't need my protection"? What does that even mean in the context of this? I'm just saying that the definition of an edition change is different from it used to be. Somehow that's me "protecting" them?

The "history of the game" only suggests that this is a full edition change if you ignore the past 20 years of it.

And it only doesn't count as an edition change if you ignore the first 25 years of it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And it only doesn't count as an edition change if you ignore the first 25 years of it.

The more modern definition of the word is the one that should be used. The definitions of plenty of words have changed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The more modern definition of the word is the one that should be used. The definitions of plenty of words have changed.

Opinion noted.