D&D 5E Kate Welch on Leaving WotC

Kate Welch left Wizards of the Coast a few days ago, on August 16th. Soon after, she talked a little about it in a live-stream.

She started work at WotC as a game designer back in February 2018, and has contributed to various products since then, such as Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Descent into Avernus, as well as being a participant in WotC's livestreams. In December 2019, her job changed to that of 'senior user experience designer'.

"I mentioned yesterday that I have some big news that I wouldn't be able to share until today.

The big news that I have to share with you today is that I ... this is difficult, but ... I quit my job at Wizards of the Coast. I no longer work at Wizards. Today was my last day. I haven't said it out loud yet so it's pretty major. I know... it's a big change. It's been scary, I have been there for almost three years, not that long, you know, as far as jobs go, and for a while there I really was having a good time. It's just not... it wasn't the right fit for me any more.

So, yeah, I don't really know what's next. I got no big plans. It's a big deal, big deal .... and I wanted to talk to you all about it because you're, as I've mentioned before, a source of great joy for me. One of the things that has been tough reckoning with this is that I've defined myself by Dungeons & Dragons for so long and I really wanted to be a part of continuing to make D&D successful and to grow it, to have some focus especially on new user experience, I think that the new user experience for Dungeons & Dragons is piss poor, and I've said that while employed and also after quitting.

But I've always wanted to be a part of getting D&D into the hands of more people and helping them understand what a life-changing game it is, and I hope I still get the chance to do that. But as of today I'm unemployed, and I also wanted to be upfront about it because I have this great fear that because Dungeons & Dragons has been part of my identity, professionally for the last three years almost, I was worried that a lot of you'll would not want to follow me any more because I'm not at Wizards, and there's definitely some glamourous aspects to being at Wizards."

She went on to talk about the future, and her hopes that she'll still be be able to work with WotC.

"I'm excited about continuing to play D&D, and hopefully Wizards will still want me to appear on their shows and stuff, we'll see, I have no idea. But one thing that I'm really excited about is that now I can play other TTRPGs. There's a policy that when you're a Wizards employee you can't stream other tabletop games. So there was a Call of Cthulhu game that we did with the C-team but we had to get very special permission for it, they were like OK but this is only a one time thing. I get it, you know, it's endorsing the competition or whatever, but I'm super excited to be able to have more freedom about the kinds of stuff that I'm getting involved with."

 

[Dausuul]

"Dumbing down" is the eternal cry of those who have mastered a needlessly complicated system, and now object to making it less needlessly complicated.

A good rules system has rules that are simple and easy to understand, but each one adds depth and creates interesting choices. Bad rules systems have a ton of rules, but once you understand the system, there are very few interesting choices to make--there is always an obvious right answer.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Arch is a part or numerous titles. Monarch, patriarch, matriarch, hierarch, archduke, archbishop, ecclesiarch, and so on. It indicates a position of power or influence over something. It has other meanings as well of course, but the above is the use in this framework. So if you object to "patriarch" you could have the exact title used vary by the individual (patriarch, matriarch, etc.). Or use a gender neutral term if you prefer like ecclesiarch. It means the same thing in the case of a religious institution. Classically when people talk about a "patriarch" or "matriarch" they are simply talking about an influential male or female figure in a family, religion or what have you. I know that "patriarch" and the "patriarchate" are a thing with some people who object to male dominance of society (which can be pretty objectionable)... but I'm not responsible for their misuse of the language. People appropriate a word to stand for something they dislike (or like), come up with a new definition or spin on the term and the meaning of the word eventually shifts in popular usage (and eventually this worms its way into dictionaries with expanded definitions - language changes over time).

sigh Sorry, bit of a rant there, and I can understand the objection to a term (which for some people) has come to have an objectionable... if not meaning, then inference. Not everybody shares that internal definition.

Arch isn’t a title. Your tangential rant doesn’t change that.

Nor does it change that patriarch is a bad title to use for any player option in a modern gaming product.

 

[R_J_K75]

well playing other RPGs than DnD really improved my skills as DnD DM and player espc Dungeon World was a free your mind experience Also there are really good RPGs out
there other than DnD.

Im sure there are other RPGs out there with easier to learn rules and a different perspective than D&D. But at this point Im not interested in investing money, time and effort to learn a new system and then teach it to a group of players.

 

[MNblockhead]

I don’t understand how the new user experience is so bad. I’m running games with many new players, several kids even, and the rules are clean, product readily available and accessible, adventures fun...new users are having a grand time, and I’m having the most fun I’ve had with D&D in 30years.

What am I missing?

I certainly found it intimidating. I played OD&D, 1st ed., and many other TTRPGs back in the 80s, but then I left the hobby until I decided to get back into it with 5e.

Buying the books and trying put together a game to DM was pretty difficult. Sure, you don't need to memorize ALL of the rules, but it is difficult to when you are new to know which are the "must-know" rules. Also, many things you need to know are spread accross the book and difficult to look up. Try to figure out how spell-targeting and line of sight work as a new player. Cross references, "cheat sheets", and adventures that come with battle maps and cardboard tokens, and monster cards, would all help. The basic sets have increasingly moved in this direction and, I think, the game is easier to get started with because of it. But back when you only had the PHB, DMG, and MM, there was a steep learning curve. Steeper than it needs to be.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm surprised how often speculation like this focuses on the highest levels of the org. chart, on people who appear to be 2-3 levels of management higher than the unhappy employee. In ever corporate job I've had where I've been miserable, it's not because someone three levels up on the chart has taken a personal interest in making my day-to-day suck. It's usually my immediate supervisor who contributed most to my baseline misery.

When Welch was hired, she reported directly to Stewart. Her change of job title corresponds with when that stopped, it seems, and when they stopped doing Spoilers & Swag together.

 

[MNblockhead]

There are board games that have tutorial modes that gradually introduce more rules on top of what has been covered so as not to overwhelm the new player with everything all at once. There's little reason that a TTRPG couldn't adopt a similar model.

There are games that do this. No Thank You Evil, does a great job with this. Sure, it is a much simpler system, and it is made for kids, but the design philosophy could be applied to D&D.

Also, the Expanse come with one adventure that has a DM walkthrough mode that does a great job getting you started with running a game before you really know how to play it. It allows even the DM to learn while playing.

Come to think of it, so does the most recent version of Paranoia.

 

[Marandahir]

Just remember that WotC is publishing Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure Begins in October of this year.

Any one thinking that this game set is an attempt at this very thing?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think, on the player side, having ''playbooks'' that doubles as character sheets for each class with shortened features description and free space to add the features from archetypes and all the roleplay elements (ideal/bonds/flaws) on the 1st page could be added to the game.

 

[Hatmatter]

To add a couple of thoughts from my experience on the ”new user” thing.

So I’ve played D&D for a long, long time. From 1975 or so until 2010, so I’ve been through everything from OD&D to 4e with every kind of house-ruled thingies in between. I bought the 5e rules when they came out, read them and thought ’this looks neat’ but didn’t have a regular group so didn’t play anything.

Fast forward until 2019. My daughter says “I’d like to pay a game of D&D“ and I say “sure, and pull out the 5e PHB. 3-4 dense pages for each of 9 races. 4-5 dense pages for each of 12 classes. I get completely bogged down trying to skim through to find the relevant information from all the text. She decides that she would like to be an elf Druid. We never got as far as rolling up a character.

I know how the game is supposed to be played, but the sheer volume of information bogged us down. If I’d been playing 5e regularly I would have internalised everything and could quickly wing it, but since I’d not even looked at the book for years I couldn’t do that.

I’m a smart guy, but the volume was daunting. I can think of half a dozen ways of improving the information layout (and I’m sure that starter sets had a lot of that - some people directed me to them later, for which I’m grateful). I had expected that introducing my daughter to 3e would have been easier...

Anyhow, I can see how someone who was at WotC could consider that it might be valuable to invest in a new user experience.

Cheers

Wow. That shed a lot of light on the situation for me, Plane Sailing. You have so much experience and still found the PHB so overwhelming.

 

[Horwath]

5E rules do not need to be dumbed down, hell, they can even be more complicated.

But, they need to be better explained, PHB needs 5 categories better indexing, and lot's of thing should be more fixed in the rules.
I.E. skills/tools:
while it is nice general rule "leave everything for DM to work out" it is horrible for new DM and players.
Take acrobatics. It lists what you can do, but at what terms, what actions? What is the DC for various new things that you can do?
Is proficiency enough or you need to "fish" for expertise somehow? Will 12 dex be enough or should I not bother until I have 16 at least?

And yes, some DCs are written later on in PHB and DMG, but they NEED to be in skill description because that is the place where you decide will you pick this skill or that skill.
Better to double up on some rules than to place it in bad location for character creation.

what are perception penalties for distance? Is it some fixed -X penalty per fixed distance or you just get disadvantage at certain distance, and what distance that is?