Is Mike Mearls responsible for the design of Essentials?

[Charwoman Gene]

Mike Mearls has balls of steel. That's because Lisa Stevens keeps the real ones in a trophy case on her shelf.

Is that where Paizo has been getting their game design ability?

 

[TirionAnthion]

In the recent essentials podcast, Mike and Jeremy mentioned that the work on the essentials line began last September. That would be about a year before the release of the actual product.

 

[ourchair]

Is that where Paizo has been getting their game design ability?

I like how this can be taken to mean either something good about Paizo design at WotC's expense or vice versa. Which means that everybody wins!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Going back into history, Monte Cook makes the assertion that 3.5E D&D was planned from the very beginning.

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Since he worked at WotC at the time this would have been decided or talked about, it seems more than an assertion.

I don't know if the specifics of the essentials were planned from the start, but I seem to remember that Scott Rouse once stated that they had a long-term plan from the marketing point of view - when to attract which player group. I am not sure this actually fits the plan he described or not, though.

I seem to remember they first wanted to attract existing and lapsed players and the new ones, but this seems to do both, kinda.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

1) The concept of "Stage 1 are current players, then stage 2 concentrates on new players" was said before 4e came out. Lots of people like to claim that they were talking about Essentials and that this is according to plan. It's not, that line was used by Bill S. And others when talking about the D&D Starter set that came out in November '08.

2) Essentials is a "rushed" product. Mike Mearls said in the last podcast that the timespan of initial design to release is less than a year when it is normally about 14 months. It's also been said that all of R&D shut down to focus on Essentials,so I'm not worried about the product being rushed. But why woul "it was their plan all along" need to be rushed?

 

[ggroy]

1) The concept of "Stage 1 are current players, then stage 2 concentrates on new players" was said before 4e came out. Lots of people like to claim that they were talking about Essentials and that this is according to plan. It's not, that line was used by Bill S. And others when talking about the D&D Starter set that came out in November '08.

2) Essentials is a "rushed" product. Mike Mearls said in the last podcast that the timespan of initial design to release is less than a year when it is normally about 14 months. It's also been said that all of R&D shut down to focus on Essentials,so I'm not worried about the product being rushed. But why woul "it was their plan all along" need to be rushed?

Ex post facto?

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am sure Essentials was a team effort strongly guided by one or two voices. That seems to be the way it works.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I'm being a total jerk about this but I was part of a focus group in June of '09. They asked for volunteers here and elsewhere. They wanted a ton of responses, and paid us for participating.

I think that Essentials was one of the results of the focus group.

 

[lutecius]

It has an old-school feel, which fits with Mearls. He also is the one who designed PH3, so he is pushing class design.

OTOH I think he was behind major changes like martial dailies that are being "corrected" in Essentials.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Facts:

Bigby got the inspiration for crushing hand from Mike Mearls.

Mike Mearls killed three vrocks with half a stone. Think there's no such thing as half a stone? The three dead vrocks didn't think so either.

Mike Mearls broke the fourth wall by glaring at it.