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."

 

[ph0rk]

Test it! I think you will be shocked to see how many times newbies bounce off the rules.

There are players that have played since 5e was released that still don't know the rules, and the root cause is the same - they don't care to read the books.

 

[billd91]

The problem with how D&D 5E explains the rules is that it doesn't really start at the beginning.

There is only one rule needed to play D&D:

"Tell the DM what you want your character to do, and the DM will tell you what happens"

It needs to teach that first.

It's described in page 5 of the 5e PH.

 

[EthanSental]

After an earlier post mentioned the Mentzer red box, I went back and reread the beginning. Agreed in the contents did a better job of walking through parts of being a new player compared to other editions of example of play.

I pulled out my cd from the AD&D first quest boxed set....plopped it in my lap top that still has a cd/did drive....that was a good way to learn for new players. Maybe as others have said, a WoTC created stream for new players similar in style that has link on their various sites so people see and watch them.

 

[Hatmatter]

It's described in page 5 of the 5e PH.

I am glad that you wrote that. My memory was that very concept was mentioned right at the beginning after the contents and the basic prefatory material, but I had not looked it up. I just did and "Tell the DM what you want your character to do, and the DM will tell you what happens" (Monayuris's quote) is pretty much the purpose of page 5 of the PHB.

I don't know. Everyone (of course) is entitled to their opinion and I certainly think some very clever introductory videos could be produced for new players, but speaking for myself, I am so fond of this 5th edition Players Handbook: the design, the layout, the art, the writing. Someone above mentioned that they felt the art is cartoony, I don't experience that at all. I just love these books. Oh well. Carry on.

 

[Zardnaar]

I am glad that you wrote that. My memory was that very concept was mentioned right at the beginning after the contents and the basic prefatory material, but I had not looked it up. I just did and "Tell the DM what you want your character to do, and the DM will tell you what happens" (Monayuris's quote) is pretty much the purpose of page 5 of the PHB.

I don't know. Everyone (of course) is entitled to their opinion and I certainly think some very clever introductory videos could be produced for new players, but speaking for myself, I am so fond of this 5th edition Players Handbook: the design, the layout, the art, the writing. Someone above mentioned that they felt the art is cartoony, I don't experience that at all. I just love these books. Oh well. Carry on.

5R phb is sweet but the index isn't great and in 3.5 for example they included class and domains in the spell description as to who could cast it.

It's very pretty but not the best in functionality. 5E the better system IMHO than 3.5 but 3.5 has a better PHB.

 

[EthanSental]

And with no more spoilers and swag since the end of last year, and no Welch’s Game juice since June 2020, maybe the grind of the job wasn’t offset by the fun she enjoyed doing the interactive things. I think she’ll land on her feet nicely, she’s bound to get a chance at other companies if and when they economy picks up and they feel more likely to hire full time people.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The funny thing is that if you break down each class into a booklet, those big books get much smaller.

Then the new player has to read all the booklets in order to decide what class to play?

I see no benefit.

Give the new player a pregenerated character sheet and throw them in.

 

[Henry]

Running a game for my 11yo and two of his friends. I can see new players doing fine with an experienced DM. I can't imagine a new DM having to run things without a sizable amount of player experience. (I mean, we managed with Moldvay and B2 back in the day after having only been a player in a few sessions, but I don't remember how).

Oh, I remember how — it was because I played without using even half of the rules as written, because they were too hard for 10-year old me to understand. Fueled off of the art, the class concepts, treasure descriptions, and descriptions of role play and encounter examples in the Moldvay Red box, I filled in the blanks by describing combats to my players after they made their choices, and throwing cool loot at them from the limited treasure tables. Same thing with Expert Blue Box and then the AD&D books. It wasn’t until actually joining a different experienced group about 7 years later that I truly understood most of the actual rules in the books.

There’s a significant problem though, one which at its heart brings up the old 4e debates of a decade past - at what point does streamlining make it something that the majority of existing players find hard to recognize as the same game? My early D&D games would have been something existing D&D players of the day would have called “choose your own adventure D&D” instead of a D&D game. There is also a seeming stigma to “introductory” products as opposed to making streamlined rules a part of the “full” game - it seems as if it’s not part of the main game new players have a harder time figuring out how to make the transition.

I’m not saying I know what to do about ANY of these issues - I recognize that the game is inherently hard for a new player group to spring into existence without a guiding hand of a current player. However, I don’t want a game that is SO different that someone who learned it recently would have to re-learn everything just to join a game with existing players.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

There’s a significant problem though, one which at its heart brings up the old 4e debates of a decade past - at what point does streamlining make it something that the majority of existing players find hard to recognize as the same game?

Whatever you do, the end result has to be fully compatible with 5e D&D. I think that's the line that shouldn't be crossed. Keep three or four classes and races, get rid of skills and backgrounds, keep a handful of spells, fully restore every character on a short rest, but don't touch anything about hit points or the way checks are rolled.

 

[Alzrius]

There’s a significant problem though, one which at its heart brings up the old 4e debates of a decade past - at what point does streamlining make it something that the majority of existing players find hard to recognize as the same game?

I remember being at Gen Con in 2007 while WotC was giving a seminar on what would and wouldn't be in 4E. When one of the designers (I can't remember who) announced that 4E would do away with Vancian casting, the entire room burst into applause, to my stunned disbelief. Things like that serve to remind me that there's a Venn diagram of the parts of D&D that someone likes/enjoys, and the parts they find intrinsic to what makes the game "D&D," and that how that diagram is laid out is going to be different for everyone.

There is also a seeming stigma to “introductory” products as opposed to making streamlined rules a part of the “full” game - it seems as if it’s not part of the main game new players have a harder time figuring out how to make the transition.

I'm reminded of what The Alexandrian has to say about "pay-to-preview" starter sets, i.e. introductory sets that, once they teach you how the game is played - and direct you towards the three Core Rulebooks that you need to buy - then serve no purpose. That is, after you've learned how to play the game and picked up the PHB/DMG/MM trilogy, do you get any further use out of your starter set?