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."

 

[ChaosOS]

At the very least spells should be written with keyword highlights - charmed is a big one I see confusion over fairly often.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's more a case of thinking that the idea that shuffling that information around would make the slightest bit of difference to "the new player experience" is stupid.

You really don’t think that maybe explaining the basic systems before listing a bunch of player options that give benefits within those systems would make the book more accessible?

How rules are presented is a matter of taste. I found the 4e rules inaccessible because they where presented as the rules to a combat boardgame rather than the chattier, storytelling approach of 5e.

Sure. But however the rules may be presented, they will be easier to learn if you start with the basics and build up to the more complex as you go. No D&D edition so far has been organized that way.

But the fact is D&D has too many rules for any new player to absorb in one go.

Who says it needs to be learned in one go? We’re talking about removing the need to bounce back and forth between different sections to understand what the heck you’re reading. A book is easier to digest in multiple sessions if you can start from page 1 and read through in page order, pause, and resume where you left off than if you have to bounce around from chapter to chapter to understand the context of what is being said.

It doesn't matter how you present it, it is the amount, not the manner of presentation that makes D&D hard to learn without someone to teach it to you. I would also add that I don't see that as a problem. Things that are easy are rarely worth spending time on.

D&D is easy to learn. It only looks hard because it’s poorly organized.

That being the case, the only possible way to make D&D more accessible is to take an axe to the rules and massively reduce the number.

Hence the hostility. People who claim that equating "improving the new player experience" and "dumbing down" is a strawman are living in cloud cuckoo land. It is not possible to do one without the other.

This is just simply not true. It is entirely possible to improve the new player experience without changing a single rule. You may believe that such an experience would still be a challenge, or broadly inaccessible. I would disagree with that opinion, but it would still be an opinion. It is a fact, however, that the way the D&D rules are organized creates a barrier to understanding, and it would be more accessible (we can disagree about how much more, but still undeniably more) if it was reorganized.

 

[BMaC]

looks at his 12 year old playing D&D with two friends using the Essentials kit without help from me and shrugs

 

[MockingBird]

looks at his 12 year old playing D&D with two friends using the Essentials kit without help from me and shrugs

Yeah, it really seems like a non-issue IMO. I mean I figured out THAC0 by myself before the the time of internet. We literally have the easiest edition of D&D with tons of support now. I dont care how easy or how nicely laid out you make it, if someone doesn't want to put forth the effort to learn it they're just not gonna learn it.

 

[Cadence]

looks at his 12 year old playing D&D with two friends using the Essentials kit without help from me and shrugs

You didn't show them anything about it first? Cool.

I had run through B/X with mine (now 11yo) before we switched over to Essentials last year and then the full thing this year. So I didn't have the experience of watching someone start from scratch without someone experienced helping them.

 

[cbwjm]

Yeah, it really seems like a non-issue IMO. I mean I figured out THAC0 by myself before the the time of internet. We literally have the easiest edition of D&D with tons of support now. I dont care how easy or how nicely laid out you make it, if someone doesn't want to put forth the effort to learn it they're just not gonna learn it.

I learnt as a kid using the Rules Cyclopedia for BECMI, I've seen people online suggest not using it to learn the game and instead use the earlier BX because its easier, but it wasn't really all that difficult.

I think the problem with people who are new to the hobby, or perhaps aren't joining the hobby is because to learn there is a bit of homework. You can sit down and provide character sheets and start running them through an adventure but if they don't take the time to understand the numbers then you can have some confused players. I've had players who I don't think ever really read the rules and had trouble remembering when to apply proficiency bonuses or even where to find information on the character sheet, stuff I'd always assumed was basic but then I've been playing DnD for years, picking up a new edition tends to be fairly simple because of all the history of playing older editions. Some numbers or calculations change, but it's all pretty much the same edition to edition.

 

[BMaC]

You didn't show them anything about it first? Cool.

I had run through B/X with mine (now 11yo) before we switched over to Essentials last year and then the full thing this year. So I didn't have the experience of watching someone start from scratch without someone experienced helping them.

Nah, between watching his older brother play Skyrim and his own experience with Breath of the Wild and other random stuff (all the LotR!) it seems pretty intuitive to him and his friends. Now they are making a mess of the rules, and adding new ones too--seems like fighters can surge and add an extra d20 damage--but they have the gist of it.

 

[Puddles]

I think there are a few small tweaks they could make that would really improve the on boarding for new players. If think they could add another 8 pages to the PHB (the standard amount for printing) dedicated to helping new players and it would really enrich the book whilst taking nothing away from the rules.

Some tangible examples of what I mean: the starting process for most new players is to fill out a character sheet. In the PHB they sort of guide you through this in the first section, but they don’t tell you everything you need to know. For example, no where in the first section does it tell you what your passive perception score is. In fact they don’t overtly tell you in the second section. There a box out on passive scores and you can deduce it from there.The same goes for you initiative and for your attack bonus on ranged weapons and things like that. I think for a lot of players they get lost creating their first character because there are all these empty areas on your character sheet that you would expect to fill in as you follow the first section of the book, but can’t find the answers to.

Another thing that I see tripping players up, is that after choosing your race it prompts you to select a number of skills to be proficient in. But then in the next step, choosing your class, you might get set skills that your character is proficient in, perhaps being ones you’ve already chosen meaning you need to jump back a step and pick another skill instead, and then the same thing can happen with your background prescribing skill proficiencies too. Really you need to choose your race, class and background simultaneously - work out all the mandatory skill proficiencies you get, and then make your choices. A little flow chart to guide a player through this could do wonders in my opinion.

 

[Cadence]

Now they are making a mess of the rules, and adding new ones too--seems like fighters can surge and add an extra d20 damage--but they have the gist of it.

Some above seem like they wouldn't count that as actually playing (or might for a kid but not an adult?).

I think it's cool.

I wonder if there is any reorganization of the rules that would make it less of a mess - or if it's just the nature of being that age. (I'm pretty sure F14s weren't in 1e when we played back in the day, but we worked it out).

 

[Haffrung]

It's more a case of thinking that the idea that shuffling that information around would make the slightest bit of difference to "the new player experience" is stupid.

How rules are presented is a matter of taste.

And yet technical writing and instructional design are professional fields where people get paid a decent salary to do just that - make content easier to learn, reference, and understand by how it's presented. You can take entire courses and get diplomas in the fields. And I can tell you that one of those professionals who shrugged off criticism of their work by claiming how content is presented is just a matter of taste would be out on their ass in a heartbeat.