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."

 

[MNblockhead]

...cloud cuckoo land.

Thanks for inspiring my next adventure location.

 

[Haffrung]

The problem is likely that at WotC they don't have enough knowledge about how to teach something, either they didn't hire enough good experts or they aren't listening to them. At this stage, D&D still largely relies on experienced gamers to teach the game to newcomers, except newcomers who are already attracted by the idea of having to "analyse" hundreds of pages of rules.

Nailed it.

WotC got a lot right with 5E, including the realization that complex, crunchy character optmization was an endeavor much more popular online than in the broad player-base. But they didn't shake off the assumption that every D&D group will be led by an alpha gamer who plays D&D as a lifestyle hobby and internalizes hundreds of pages of rules in order to facilitate play for everyone one.

I think they do have access to experts, and have listened to them in the past. But as part of the 'return to the roots' objective of 5E, they deliberately turned their back on modern teaching and presentation techniques out of fear of alienating grognards. Which must be incredibly frustrating for someone tasked with improving the new user experience.

 

[Haffrung]

The problem is that the game is presenting newcomers with 320 (or 180) pages of stuff. Even telling them "here's 180 pages, but you only need 20" still means they have to read 180 in order to figure out which are the 20 they really need.

I also believe there's a powerful resistance on the part of RPG publishers to providing complete, compact summaries of the rules, out of fear of losing out on sales of those $60 hardcovers. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most effective rules summary in the history of the game, the Essentials Rules Compendium, was released when WotC had (temporarily it turns out) abandoned the 3 hardcovers publishing model.

 

[jasper]

Because to me, it's more important to find any spell I want quickly. If they're alphabetical, I know exactly where to look. If they're sorted by level first, then I have to know which level section to search. ("Is it level 2? No, it's not in the level 2 section. Must be level 3...")

To add on. If flip to level 3 spells, how many pages to I need to flip to level 5. Being Alphabetical I can make a better guess on how many pages to flip from charm person to charm monster.

 

[Henry]

*If you are following the rules regarding time for memorization, then you might take a little longer.

Ah, I remember those - I believe a 20th level Wizard (excuse me, “Magic-user”) took something like 5 DAYS to memorize all spells from scratch. Basically, he had to cram like a college student before Finals.

 

[R_Chance]

Ah, I remember those - I believe a 20th level Wizard (excuse me, “Magic-user”) took something like 5 DAYS to memorize all spells from scratch. Basically, he had to cram like a college student before Finals.

At least two days, no matter how you cut it, more if the DM mandates the minimum rest time be applied between "work days" That minimum was based on the highest level spell to be memorized (i.e. 12 hours for 9th level) and you needed a 1/4 hour extra per level of the individual spells. The first day would be spent memorizing the 2 9th level spells you could have. You run out of time and have to rest again... and memorize again... yeah, it would add up. That's what down time was for magic users back in the day

Thank all the odd gods that none of my 1E players ever made it to 20th level

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Would it possible what she now to be in Avalon Hill with the new Hero Quest?

 

[Micah Sweet]

At least two days, no matter how you cut it, more if the DM mandates the minimum rest time be applied between "work days" That minimum was based on the highest level spell to be memorized (i.e. 12 hours for 9th level) and you needed a 1/4 hour extra per level of the individual spells. The first day would be spent memorizing the 2 9th level spells you could have. You run out of time and have to rest again... and memorize again... yeah, it would add up. That's what down time was for magic users back in the day

Thank all the odd gods that none of my 1E players ever made it to 20th level

I had a buddy playing an 18th level magic-user in a 1st ed game, low on spells in a crunch situation. He used a 9th level slot to cast Wish to immediately prepare all his other spells. Exhausting, but potent.

 

[auburn2]

The idea that it is too complicated for beginers is hogwash. I started playing without reading a single rule with a friend who also never read a single rule when we started and we had fun.

I remember when I first started D&D, it was the redbox 1980s era basic system. Me and my friend Erin (we were 12), watched his older brother (who was 15) play with his friends. I saw it a once or twice, Erin saw it a lot since he lived with his brother.

Well Erin and I decided we were going to play D&D. Erin said he was going to be the DM, since he watched his brother play and knew everything about the game. Me and my 10-year old brother would be the players. I asked if being DM meant he talked to the players in riddles since the "DM" in the D&D cartoon talked in riddles ... shows you how much I knew. Erin said no and explained the basics of how the game worked fighters, elves, dwarves, combat .... and everthing he said it turned out was completely wrong. We started playing Keep on the Borderlands (which he did not read either before or during the session) in the back of my dad's station wagon on the way to the beach.

Our first D&D session lasted most of the 2-hour drive until the TPK which happened while we were still in the keep. I think Erin thought his ultimate goal as DM was to wipe out the party and "win". We had loads of fun, a rules referee would have said what we were playing was not D&D. Erin was just making it all up, roll this dice, roll that dice, he was using technical words like "hit points" and "secret passage" that he had heard his brother say. I loved it so much I started reading the rulebook on that vacation. It took me about a 2 sentances into the description of Elves to realize Erin got the rules all wrong, but he still got the "game" right (except for the part of trying to kill the party).

Over the next few years we recruited a few of our friends and started playing with me as DM pretty regularly. We moved to AD&D 1e and I became an expert in the rules and after that we played mostly by the rules.

My point in this post is people can play and D&D and even DM without understanding the rules at all and the #1 rule in 5e - the DM has final say - means that you can do this "legally" as well. Using your imagination to make a fun immersive story is the important piece, not the rules. If people understand that and if they are welcomed by any rules-mongers at the table it won't be intimidating or difficult to start at all.

 

[Olli Rose]

Without wanting to be mean or start a flame war or anything, doesn't your post kind of amount to "DnD is easy if you ignore all the DnD"?

It's good that you had fun but I think a designer would consider their rule books and modules a failure if you had fun because you didn't read them.

The idea that it is too complicated for beginers is hogwash. I started playing without reading a single rule with a friend who also never read a single rule when we started and we had fun.

I remember when I first started D&D, it was the redbox 1980s era basic system. Me and my friend Erin (we were 12), watched his older brother (who was 15) play with his friends. I saw it a once or twice, Erin saw it a lot since he lived with his brother.

Well Erin and I decided we were going to play D&D. Erin said he was going to be the DM, since he watched his brother play and knew everything about the game. Me and my 10-year old brother would be the players. I asked if being DM meant he talked to the players in riddles since the "DM" in the D&D cartoon talked in riddles ... shows you how much I knew. Erin said no and explained the basics of how the game worked fighters, elves, dwarves, combat .... and everthing he said it turned out was completely wrong. We started playing Keep on the Borderlands (which he did not read either before or during the session) in the back of my dad's station wagon on the way to the beach.

Our first D&D session lasted most of the 2-hour drive until the TPK which happened while we were still in the keep. I think Erin thought his ultimate goal as DM was to wipe out the party and "win". We had loads of fun, a rules referee would have said what we were playing was not D&D. Erin was just making it all up, roll this dice, roll that dice, he was using technical words like "hit points" and "secret passage" that he had heard his brother say. I loved it so much I started reading the rulebook on that vacation. It took me about a 2 sentances into the description of Elves to realize Erin got the rules all wrong, but he still got the "game" right (except for the part of trying to kill the party).

Over the next few years we recruited a few of our friends and started playing with me as DM pretty regularly. We moved to AD&D 1e and I became an expert in the rules and after that we played mostly by the rules.

My point in this post is people can play and D&D and even DM without understanding the rules at all and the #1 rule in 5e - the DM has final say - means that you can do this "legally" as well. Using your imagination to make a fun immersive story is the important piece, not the rules. If people understand that and if they are welcomed by any rules-mongers at the table it won't be intimidating or difficult to start at all.