Monte Cook back at wizards

[Walking Dad]

You're basically doing that thing folks on the internet do: seize upon a minor comment, go way overboard dissecting its meaning, and ignore the relevance of timeliness. That's from, what, 2002? 2003 maybe?

So, in summary: old artcile, and admitted it wasn't all that great of an idea at the time. Unclench.

But he did it. And it was the big game he is famous for.

...

Having said all that, Monte is nothing if not a pro. He's obviously been brought on for a reason, and I'm excited to see what he has to say.

His love for magic users over more martial character shows in most of his designs. I don't know if I consider this professional.

Mike Mearls + Monte Cook = Pure Unadulterated Awesome.

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Mearly worked for Cook before, when he designed Iron Heroes.
IMHO, the best game book for martial characters with Monte cooks's name on it.

Monte Cook's a great designer, but I believe he needs a good developer to keep his ideas grounded. He's likely to get that at Wizards.

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This. His setting ideas are fresh and good, but they needed to be rooted in good rules.

BTW, hasn't he worked with Paizo until now?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So Monte Cook and Mearls synergize very well?

 

[ourchair]

It's quite likely that if Monte has a role outside of Legends and Lore articles, it's to act as a consultant of the 3.x ethos to help marry more old school ideas (not necessarily simulationist ones, good or bad) into 4e or future editions.

Design and development is a team effort, and its quite likely that his design style would serve as a corrective to other not so old school ideas. Conversely, other designers help keep his style in check. The ideal being to hybridize multiple schools of design.

So, I remain cautiously optimistic.

 

[vagabundo]

Ha.. I called it.. I knew after Mearls mentioned him in those articles.

Even though 3e is not my cup of tea. I'm kinda of happy that he is back. I see it as a nice balance with Mearls et al.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes now.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'll go out on a limb here and state that I think Monte Cook respects precedent more than most game designers/developers. He does this, while at the same time being somewhat willing to buck precedent. How far this goes, and how much of it was the people around him on various projects, I can't say. And naturally, this means nothing for any particular element in a game, since such a designer could, by definition, either build around the element or kill it dead. Most important elements will, however, remain in some useful form.

If you had a good design with nevertheless some holes in it, and you wanted to revise that design while staying true to its spirit--you could do a lot worse than get Monte Cook involved.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You may be entirely correct, but still it leaves the question of what he can actually DO for WotC at this point. 4e is 'mid-edition', and frankly the only way WotC is going to avoid a monstrous backlash and making its name crap forever in the book of a large amount of the fanbase is to stick with 4e and ride it to the end of its lifecycle, which is going to mean at least 4 or 5 more years at this point if they have any intention of being able to sell an edition of the game ever again that everyone won't assume is a bad investment.

SO, what is Cook (or anyone else) going to do for WotC right now? They already know they need to focus on adventures and settings and related stuff. They already know there are certain issues with the play of 4e at the table that can't be fixed in a compatible way. What does that leave for Monte Cook (or WotC in general) to do? I guess he could come on as a producer of adventures. That might be his best role, but it seems like a fairly minor role for a guy with such a high profile. Maybe they can use him for PR value "Monte Loves 4e", "Monte's 4e Adventure Path X, Y, and Z!" etc. That wouldn't hurt, but I don't think it will have a HUGE impact.

IMHO WotC is stuck with the bed they've made, they're going to sleep in it for a good while. Making some kind of big panic move now will only make things worse, and if they DO stick to 4e, support it well, and make as much of it as they can and loyally support the existing 4e fanbase for a few years, they can go a long ways. Heck, we don't know what shape Paizo or other competition will even be in in 5 years, WotC is a big company, it can survive and make long-term plans while moving towards whatever direction it wants to take in 5 years slowly and in a measured way.

THEN in say 2013 they can start working on 5e for real, with a good idea of where to go with it. Having a good stable of experienced game designers at that point would be great of course. Right now? I'm not sure it does them a heck of a lot of good.

 

[Scribble]

Callin it...

Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.

Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Callin it...

Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.

Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.

This has been my view for some time also mainly because WoTC D&D is now firmly tied to software tools and the turnaround time on the software is pretty long. Particularly since the forst lot is not yet finished.

 

[darkwing]

Callin it...

Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.

Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.

That's probably close to the truth. 4e is pretty established but WotC needs to keep making money from the D&D franchise somehow. WotC would love love love to make products like collectible cards an integral part of D&D.

 

[Dannager]

So Monte Cook and Mearls synergize very well?

They just disagree over whether or not that ought to entitle them to a +2 synergy bonus.