D&D 5E Dear 5e design team: Please research earlier editions

[Neonchameleon]

That seems unfounded since they still have some of the main guys on board who transitioned the game from 2E to 3.XE to 4.XE. Deciding to divorce themselves from some of those changes isn't the same thing as not being aware of them.

You might think. But given Monte Cook's apparent complete lack of familiarity with 4e, this is more of a danger than it should be.

 

[Mark CMG]

You might think. But given Monte Cook's apparent complete lack of familiarity with 4e, this is more of a danger than it should be.

Maybe, but it's not like there aren't others working with him who are very familiar with 4E, including his boss.

 

[Hussar]

There is another issue here as well. There's just SO MUCH material you could look at. We're talking tens of thousands of pages of books much of it with little or no indexing, and a pretty lackadaisical approach to organization.

I mean, heck, the guy doing the reread of Dragon magazine is on his FIFTH year now here on En World. Doing a super, bang up job and something I love to read. But, hiring "one" intern to reread and distill all this information? You'd need a small army of people to do this in any reasonable time frame.

It's a cool idea, but, let's be honest here, some stuff is going to slip through the cracks. It's inevitable.

 

[Mark CMG]

There is another issue here as well. There's just SO MUCH material you could look at. We're talking tens of thousands of pages of books much of it with little or no indexing, and a pretty lackadaisical approach to organization.

I mean, heck, the guy doing the reread of Dragon magazine is on his FIFTH year now here on En World. Doing a super, bang up job and something I love to read. But, hiring "one" intern to reread and distill all this information? You'd need a small army of people to do this in any reasonable time frame.

It's a cool idea, but, let's be honest here, some stuff is going to slip through the cracks. It's inevitable.

This is a problem when you gut your institutional memory with regular layoffs. This is also why you go to the source, like visiting Gary Con, or even hire on some of those progenitors of that material, at the least in a consulting capacity.

 

[Kynn]

This is a problem when you gut your institutional memory with regular layoffs. This is also why you go to the source, like visiting Gary Con, or even hire on some of those progenitors of that material, at the least in a consulting capacity.

Maybe those folks from Gary Con should go to PAX.

Or sign up on the WotC site for public playtesting!

 

[Mark CMG]

Maybe those folks from Gary Con should go to PAX.

Or sign up on the WotC site for public playtesting!

It's incumbent for WotC to seek out the sources it uses during design. They can't expect everything to come their way, or to spend their money and time trying to influence designers that only avail themselves of limited opportunities. No, I don't expect that any of the old guard designers are going to fly off to DDXP or PAX East to try and get their voices heard when it would be so much easier for WotC to simply send a few designers to Gary Con and meet with the lot of them over the course of a single weekend. I have no doubt some of the non-designer attendees of Gary Con have gone to DDXP and PAX East, and also have sent in applications to join in the playtesting. As to whether the designers of the original rules are even allowed to join in the playtest, given the Paizo folk seem to be barred from playtesting (not a surprising circumstance), I doubt many, if any, working game designers would be accepted as part of that process. Many of those old guard designers are hard at work on their own projects. Another reason why WotC getting on board with the licensing early would have benefits.

 

[Hussar]

This is a problem when you gut your institutional memory with regular layoffs. This is also why you go to the source, like visiting Gary Con, or even hire on some of those progenitors of that material, at the least in a consulting capacity.

Yeah, but, let's not forget that some of those progenitors are no longer with us. And, again, we're talking dozens, if not hundreds of writers over the years.

Contacting these guys isn't the easiest thing to do. For example, looking at Amazon, the writer of The Complete Bard (first book that caught my eye) is Blake Mobley. I have no idea how easy it is to contact him. So, I googled the name. Now, I only spent a couple of minutes, but, I couldn't find anything looking like contact information.

Does WOTC have this guy's current contact information on file? Some writer that did a couple of books for TSR and hasn't written a game product in about fifteen years? Maybe. I'm willing to bet not.

It's not as easy as all that to contact these people. Sure, some of them are no problem, they're still active in the community. But, there are an awful lot of writers who've disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

[Hussar]

As to whether the designers of the original rules are even allowed to join in the playtest, given the Paizo folk seem to be barred from playtesting

Hadn't heard anything about this. Where did you hear this? Seems a shame considering how much system expertise some of those guys have.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Unfortunately, I'd see that as logical from a business standpoint.

 

[Mark CMG]

Yeah, but, let's not forget that some of those progenitors are no longer with us. And, again, we're talking dozens, if not hundreds of writers over the years.

Over four dozen former TSR employees showed up for a TSR reunion at Gary Con IV this year, many of them designers, developers, and artists who were very active in the first two and a half decades of D&D. It's not difficult at all to contact Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer, Jim Ward, Chris Clark, Steve Sullivan, Bruce Heard, Larry Elmore, Liz Danforth, Jeff Easley, and many others, through their online information. If you believe that D&D under TSR began and ended with those who have unfortunately passed in the last handful of years, you're simply not paying attention. Anyone you couldn't manage to contact in the several arduous minutes you spent online looking, could probably be contacted through one of the more accessible ones, if they have any interest in working in the industry any longer.

Gary Con IV -

About Bruce Heard, D&D, and new stories: On and Off at Gary Con IV

Credits List | Stephen D. Sullivan

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