Dragon Talk Interview with Kate Welch re Ghosts of Saltmarsh

[cmad1977]

Respectfully, I think it is fair. She dismissed Greyhawk as a "vintage" setting, in contrast to the Forgotten Realms which Ed began publishing in Dragon in 1979, and which had it's big "Gray Box" release in 1987. Greyhawk was originally published in 1980, and updated as part of the "Living Greyhawk" campaign through 2008. They're both "vintage" settings dating back to TSR. She went on to imply, to my ears anyway, an association between Greyhawk fans and the "gatekeeping" that Mearls made comments about when she was hired, referring to a "barrier" and a "gate" that Greyhawk, or its lore, or its fandom represents.

It is difficult to take her comments as anything other than entirely dismissive of both Greyhawk and its fans. She spoke about Greyhawk lore as something that not a lot of people (including herself) are interested in. She suggested that the Forgotten Realms is more "new-player friendly" as if that is the cause of their abandonment of other settings, not the result of it. Having then spoken about Greyhawk fans, her only comment for them was that she didn't know whether there was much GH material on the DMs Guild, but if she wanted to find "old Greyhawk stuff" that's where she would look.

I think in all fairness paraphrasing her comments the way I did (don't know, don't care, FR is the setting that matters) was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, but I suspect that she associates Greyhawk with whatever crap she caught when she started working for WotC (I didn't see it, but I saw the conversation here about it.) If that is the case, it would explain her apparent low regard for the setting, and I'm not trying to say that she ought to be a huge Greyhawk fan. It's perfectly fine for her to not like or care about a setting, just like it's fine for Mike to unabashedly love that setting. Ultimately, she did say she didn't know much about Greyhawk, she made it pretty clear that she doesn't care much about Greyhawk, and she went out of her way to point out that the Forgotten Realms is more popular and more useful. It's just what she said.

I’m sensing the anger here isn’t actually about what was said.

 

[lkj]

I guess. Assuming Mearls ever appears again!

He is at GaryCon. There are folks who have tweeted about being at his table. And he even showed up in a picture. So they haven't shut him in a WotC dungeon.

But, yeah, he's staying awfully quiet.

AD

 

[epithet]

That "frenzied mob of cyberbullies" (a) is his customers and (b) included victims of a known harasser who he covered for.

I think (a) is the reason he's remaining quiet, and (b) is not what I saw when I glanced at his twitter page. It appears he believed M when she made her recent statement against Z, but also believed her when she made a statement in his defense before. No victims of Z are clamoring for Mike's head on a platter, at least not that I saw. The people who are clamoring seem for the most part to just be a virtual pitchforks-and-torches mob who don't want to miss an opportunity to be ferociously outraged. Some of them apparently had online arguments with Z, and it seems at this point that most everyone who interacted with him in almost any capacity dislikes the man, but Z's actual victims have made no attacks against Mike that I've seen.

Mike didn't "cover for" anyone. He's a game designer, not a grievance investigator, and I think it's clear in retrospect that investigation should have been handled a lot differently. Still, he did the best he could in the situation he found himself in, and I seriously doubt that anyone with any sense believes that Mike would or could willfully ignore domestic abuse. By any reasonable analysis Mike is an ally, not the enemy.

Anyway, I don't plan to respond more on this topic. I don't want to derail the thread, but I did want to stand up for Mike.

 

[epithet]

I’m sensing the anger here isn’t actually about what was said.

In the context of several years of taking stories and characters from Greyhawk and transplanting them to the Forgotten Realms, Kate's comment that "The Forgotten Realms is just the most popular setting, and that's all there is to it" was a bit grating. I mean, if the FR is so freakin' wonderful, why not dig up its "vintage" story lines to be revisited, hmm? Clearly, there is more to it, since we've now seen Elemental Evil, Against the Giants, Descent into the Depths & Vault of the Drow, Tomb of Horrors & The Forbidden City, and of course Mordenkainen, all repackaged to be FR compatible. If the FR is so great, why are so many of the 5e storylines coming from Greyhawk? No indeed, that's not all there is to it.

 

[Volund]

I doubt there is a big market for Greyhawk, but it might be comparable to the market for Art & Arcana. I just wish they would decide to do something with the setting one way or another - either publish something, hand it over to a 3rd party partner like Goodman Games or Kobold Press, or at least unlock it for DMsGuild developers. Keeping it in limbo won't make anyone happy.

 

[Morrus]

I think (a) is the reason he's remaining quiet, and (b) is not what I saw when I glanced at his twitter page. It appears he believed M when she made her recent statement against Z, but also believed her when she made a statement in his defense before. No victims of Z are clamoring for Mike's head on a platter, at least not that I saw. The people who are clamoring seem for the most part to just be a virtual pitchforks-and-torches mob who don't want to miss an opportunity to be ferociously outraged. Some of them apparently had online arguments with Z, and it seems at this point that most everyone who interacted with him in almost any capacity dislikes the man, but Z's actual victims have made no attacks against Mike that I've seen.

Mike didn't "cover for" anyone. He's a game designer, not a grievance investigator, and I think it's clear in retrospect that investigation should have been handled a lot differently. Still, he did the best he could in the situation he found himself in, and I seriously doubt that anyone with any sense believes that Mike would or could willfully ignore domestic abuse. By any reasonable analysis Mike is an ally, not the enemy.

Anyway, I don't plan to respond more on this topic. I don't want to derail the thread, but I did want to stand up for Mike.

I really need you to stop dismissing victims of a known harasser as "a virtual pitchforks-and-torches mob". You can discuss the topic with resorting to insults. Thank you.

 

[TarionzCousin]

What does "update the lore for 5e" even mean? The lore doesn't have DCs.

I'll tell you, but only if you make a DC 20 Investigation check at Disadvantage* first.



*For trying to get accurate info over the internet.

 

[guachi]

Kate: That's partially because we wanted 5e to be more new-player friendly, and also that having a barrier to playing D&D, and that barrier being you have to know a lot about the history and the lore, that's a gate. That's not something that a lot of people have time for or even interest in, so the idea of gating anything behind this sort of vintage knowledge, certainly knowledge that I don't have, so if that had been a requirement of this job I definitely wouldn't have been sitting here. I did research it. I researched everything. The Forgotten Realms is just the most popular setting, and that's all there is to it.

It's like they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Play upon nostalgia of old adventures and old monsters but not do the actual work of caring about their own 40-year history.

"We don't care" is the WOTC philosophy.

If you don't care about your company's own history, stop strip-mining it for lazy rehashes.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's like they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Play upon nostalgia of old adventures and old monsters but not do the actual work of caring about their own 40-year history.

"We don't care" is the WOTC philosophy.

If you don't care about your company's own history, stop strip-mining it for lazy rehashes.

Ford can care about it's history without relaunching the Model T.

 

[Parmandur]

Based on the Spoilers & Swag on Twitch from last night, Mike Schley has done the map of the town of Saltmarsh, but the various floorplans are done by Dyson Logos in a style similar to the Waterdeep APs. They shared some of the maps, they look good.