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.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

5e was explicitly a big departure from 4e. One D&D is not. Which makes using the term 6e an accusation of dishonesty towards the designers.

You aren't showing me the link between "not a big departure" and "accusation of dishonesty". I couldn't tell you 5 words the designers have said about the new project, I just use 6e because.

1. It's easier to type on a phone.
2. It's not confused with the already in use OD&D which is the commonly used abbreviation for the version predating 1st edition.

Neither 1 nor 2 reflect on the design goals or stated intent of any of the designers. And also when I say 6e people know what I'm talking about...and have since the idea of a 2024 anniversary version was floated years ago.

 

[Staffan]

Yes and no. Yes, 1e and 2e were not terribly balanced. But to take that unbalanced edition and hire a giant to stomp on one end of it made it a lot more unbalanced, which is my point. The skills and powers books amplified things to an incredible degree and nobody I knew then allowed any of the stuff to be used.

I used a bunch of stuff from the Player's Options books. It's been a while, but as I recall:

• Non-weapon proficiencies from Skills & Powers. I liked that these provided a lower base, but one which you could gradually increase with level-based points.
• Most of the stuff from Combat & Tactics.
• New spells from Spells & Magic. Also, in theory, the variant specialist wizards and priest variants (e.g. Crusader or Shaman), but no-one ever bothered with them when the much stronger Faiths & Avatars specialty priests were available (many of those would have cost hideous amounts of points to build with the S&M system, but that was mainly because S&M charged a LOT of character points for 1/day spells, and F&A priests had a lot of those).

I also had a plan about using the priest design rules in S&M to build priesthoods for some setting that didn't have much in that way (I can't recall if this was Planescape, Spelljammer, or Savage Coast), but never got around to it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So like all of D&D before them. It's not like multiclassing didn't exist where you got to slap a whole new suite of abilities on your character for at most 1 level difference. The only way 1/2E could be construed balanced is because we had RIFTS making it look better by comparison.

funny thing, I started playing Rifts before D&D

4E was the first and last time D&D was reasonably balanced.

true

 

[UngeheuerLich]

funny thing, I started playing Rifts before D&D

true

I prefer asymmetrical balance to symmetrical balance.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I prefer asymmetrical balance to symmetrical balance.

there is an argument for both, but I don't feel 5e has either (it's not as bad as 3e/3.5/PF1 before that gets brought up) but it still isn't. Now giving everyone the exact same powers and just refluffing them is the easiest way but I do think it is better to make separate but equal options... I even have been convinced there is a market for NOT balanced on the low side classes sometimes called 'simple' classes and as such I am fine with keeping simple options if you ALSO have a complex balanced option to choose.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

there is an argument for both, but I don't feel 5e has either (it's not as bad as 3e/3.5/PF1 before that gets brought up) but it still isn't. Now giving everyone the exact same powers and just refluffing them is the easiest way but I do think it is better to make separate but equal options... I even have been convinced there is a market for NOT balanced on the low side classes sometimes called 'simple' classes and as such I am fine with keeping simple options if you ALSO have a complex balanced option to choose.

I can't disagree here.