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.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean I would equate it more to picking booming blade or sacred flame... but yeah. I pick the things I want to do. "I want to attack with a short sword" was replaced with "I want to attack with my dex and add cha to damage" because in the 2nd one ALL ROGUEs could attack with short swords where in the 1st only prof characters could (without a penalty)

my defualt fighters in 2e took bladesx3 and a ranged weapon
then at 3rd specilized in a weapon and at 6th mastered that weapon
now 9th was where I had to decided between the SoD Death Blow, or High Mastery.

Sounds like you were playing with skills and options? Skills and powers? I don't remember what it was called, but it was poorly executed and tacked on at the end of 2e. 2e didn't have those things, other than specialization for most of its life span.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Lack of 2e short sword proficiency meant that you weren't attacking at a minus 3 with your short sword. Lack of Sly Flourish meant no penalty to hit with a short sword. Sly Flourish(which I just had to look up) also applies to three different weapon groups, unlike short sword proficiency which only applied to short sword and no other weapon. Then Sly Flourish uses dex to hit, unlike 2e which only used strength. Then it adds both dex and char modifier to damage, unlike 2e short swords which were only str bonus. I mean, how the hell does charisma let you do more damage when you swing a sword?

For me, I just can't see that as anything resembling 2e proficiency selection. And 1st level isn't all that I'm talking about. It was the entire character class ability selection. You didn't get more proficiencies as you leveled up in 2e, but you do get more powers in 4e.

Either I misunderstood or you are saying things about 2e that are factually untrue:

If you lack proficiency in a weapon, you attack at - 2 as warrior class and a bit higher penalties for other classes.

You also got more proficiencies and weapon proficiencies as you leveled up

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The entirety of the conversion doc so far is "take a level 1 feat and some classes get an extra feat. You may have different spells than other characters of the same class. Your unique abilities are yours "

I mean class features changed on both bard and ranger, class spell list changed on both, and how you know/prep spells changed on both

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Sounds like you were playing with skills and options? Skills and powers? I don't remember what it was called, but it was poorly executed and tacked on at the end of 2e. 2e didn't have those things, other than specialization for most of its life span.

I mean I started playing in 95 and I remember these being 'new options' at some point... but still 2e (although funny story I had friends that called it 3e)

 

[Maxperson]

Either I misunderstood or you are saying things about 2e that are factually untrue:

If you lack proficiency in a weapon, you attack at - 2 as warrior class and a bit higher penalties for other classes.

We're talking about the thief class, since he's using a 4e rogue's Sly Flourish as his example. So the penalty was -3

 

[UngeheuerLich]

We're talking about the thief class, since he's using a 4e rogue's Sly Flourish as his example. So the penalty was -3

The thief class of ADnD 2nd editon?
So he just wrote weren't instead of were? Just a slipup?

 

[Maxperson]

I mean I started playing in 95 and I remember these being 'new options' at some point... but still 2e (although funny story I had friends that called it 3e)

2e came out in 1989 and stopped being made in 1997, so 1995 when those books came out was near the end and tacked on. There was no balance to them at all and a lot of them were pretty darn broken.

 

[Maxperson]

The thief class of ADnD 2nd editon?
So he just wrote weren't instead of were? Just a slipup?

Yeah. The rogue category, which thieves were a part of, had a -3 penalty along with priests. Wizards had -5. Warriors had -2.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

2e came out in 1989 and stopped being made in 1997, so 1995 when those books came out was near the end and tacked on. There was no balance to them at all and a lot of them were pretty darn broken.

I'm sorry you feel that way most of them (outside of Mthac0 and costume classes) were main stream for us through 2003 (we started 3e in 2000 but had legacy games going and some DMs didn't want to update my last 2e game was right before September 2003)

I also just remembered the 'cantrip' like ones were a dragon mag add on (one of the ones with the wizard 3 I think a dragon was playing chess on the cover... it's amazing how my old mind works with some memories)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah. The rogue category, which thieves were a part of, had a -3 penalty along with priests. Wizards had -5. Warriors had -2.

yup and I remember all wizards taking throwing knives from combat and tactics for the last few years cause you could throw them with Dex and deal 2d4 on a hit... but they couldn't be used in melee. I can't remember why we didn't have thieves use them more... heck or fighters at that damage.