D&D 5E Progressive D&D?

[Zardnaar]

This thread is about various recent posts about WotC hiring a women game designer and the reaction online. It seems a few people are upset. This may also be a ramble.

So first things 1st. I am a red blooded hetrosexual male who is 39 years old, and I was raised as what would be called a liberal in the USA. I also live in New Zealand which I like to kind of think as the Canada of the South Pacific- we do not tend towards extremes. politically we tend to be left of centre (far left in USA terms) but the centre right is better at winning elections (generally its something like 2-1 ratio over last 100 years).

I also regard myslef as a mild feminist. By that I mean women should be giving equal opportunity and choices as a male. Her in NZ there are more women at university than men for example but there is still a gap in the average wages. I am not an idealist though as the reality is men do not get pregnant (time off work basically), and men are also stronger (and those jobs tend to pay more- tradesmen, truck drivers, port workers etc). You will never close the gender gap in wages IMHO the best one can do equal pay in the same fields with variation of length of tenure, skill and things like office politics. I do not subscribe to the theory that women can do anything (I have seen it tried, doesn't work) however. To clarify that is jobs that require physical strength, my wife earns more money than me and I have been with here 17 years. Piece of advice to some younger readers when you are in a relationship its all about her, make her feel special daily (well maybe weekly it has been 17 years). Happy wife happy life. Learn to cook and clean, and how to clean the bathroom (my wife has not cleaned a toilet since 2004, I barely hang out washing whatever works).

Now I am aware of the me to movement in the USA and some of the shocking stories that have been coming out. For the most part we do not have it here in New Zealand as we are one of the most progressive countries in the world especially when it comes to women's rights. For example women got universal suffrage here in 1893 IIRC, we legalized things like gay marriage, prostitution and I think marijuana reform won't be to far away. We are not perfect here of course bad things happen to women, one left my wife's workplace do to sexual harassment but it doesn't seem as endemic here. We have our problems with things like family violence of course.

Much like the USA D&D/roleplaying/wargaming here is a sausage fest. It has never really been that noticeable to me however as even in 1996 3/6 players were female and I have played with my wife for the last 15 years and the last group I played with outside my personal group was 3/7 females. Sexual harassment has never been tolerated at my table. Physical assault when we were younger however was a thing (the guys hit each other, disruptive players may have been hit or had things thrown at them by other players). A dice container to the head tends to shut up those type of players I noticed (circa 1996 we were all 15-18). That was guys being stupid, the females were never touched. Things turned to poo however when the players started dating and inevitably broke up badly but that just part of life I suppose.

Sorry for the ramble this is a rough explanation so people kind of understand where I am coming from.

So what do I think about the progressive issues, WotC hiring a women etc. Generally I do not care one way or the other, I am not a SJW, or bigot. With such a small design team I would prefer it if WoTC hired experienced game designers. Unfortunately this means men as a lot of the active designers these days are male and worked on previous editions of the game- Mearls for 3 and 4E, Wolfgang Bauer (Kobold Press as far back as AD&D). I don't think this has been a deliberate policy of exclusion but the original designers were all male and the game traditionally has been top heavy with male players. Most designers since Gygax and Co started off as players/fans and got involved that way so I would expect more designers to be male than female. Weiss is the only major female designer of repute I can think of and Lisa Stevens seems a very smart business women over at Paizo and before that in the 90's when she looked at what went wrong with TSR.

So basically pro meritocratic when it comes to my preferences and this is where it comes to be a problem. If I was hiring a D&D designer I would want someone who had either worked on a previous edition of D&D or at least a successful RPG, or had design credits on 3pp adventures with a proven track record of quality. Unfortunately in recent years WotC has been shedding staff rather than hiring them and the lack of Dragon and Dungeon Magazines for the last decade has also cut off another source of new blood male or female. Generally I do not like pandering and beaten over the head with the latest social justice cause. It seems this new hire has been hired due to social media presence over chops in game design, personally I do not watch D&D on youtube so I am semi oblivious to that side of things. From a business PoV however that may not be a bad thing. But hey she has an opportunity may as well give her a chance its good D&D is hiring again is more important IMHO.

In some ways I am still old fashioned. I do not really care what 2 consenting adults get up to in the bedroom (as long as its not to weird like those Germans who killed and ate a consenting adult). I did not buy Storm Kings Thunder for example due to low ratings on ENworld and other places and I found out about the gay marriage thing in it. That is not rally something I want to read about or deal with in my gaming for much the same reason I do not like gay porn. If Jeremey Crawford wants to include it due to his RL influences that is on him, if I do not buy it that is on me. I have not bought Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation either just to clear. However I do not mind gay storylines and plotlines as long as I am not beaten over the head with it and it is well done (eg Renly in GoT). Gay players are also welcome in my groups although I have had a total of 3 in 20 odd years plus maybe a couple of more ( I don't ask/care). Note I also have a very slow turnover rate in my players, I consider a player of 8 years as short term my most recent player I have been gaming with for 4 years, the others, 8,12 and 15, the other 3 that left due to RL lasted 10 (2000-2010),11 (1996-2007) and 14 (1998-2012) years. If they piss me off I boot them out just like anyone else- I boot players for being to disruptive/idiotic (CN types fireballing the party/pissing the other players off) and bad personal hygiene being major ones. I ormally only have 1 maybe 2 "floater" type players some of them become new permanents others don't fit in or leave after a year or two when they leave town.

I admit I am not perfect, I try to learn/get better (no one has been hit since around 1999).

 

[DEFCON 1]

A factor I believe in the hiring of someone outside of the so-called "experienced D&D designer" pool is that the salary is most likely less than what an "experienced designer" either already makes, or had made when they were working for TSR/WotC before. Why is it there were always layoffs or resignations in the D&D department following the release of each new edition? Part of that is because of the need/desire to shed higher salaries. You start at the company you get paid an entry-level wage. Every year you stick around you probably get either a cost-of-living increase, or an actual raise if your title jumped up. But at some point after you had been with the company long enough, your salary was no longer tenable in the bean-counter's opinions, especially once the cash influx of a new edition's core books had come and gone. As a result, people were let go or they realized their days were numbered and they left on their own accord. Then... when new team members were needed, more entry-level and indy-level creators were hired with probably much lower starting salaries, because for them, the privilege of just getting to WORK on D&D was half the paycheck right there. So while the desire for "more experienced" designers is nice... there's a certain salary expectation that comes with that experience. And there's probably fewer designers of that type willing to come in at that entry level. And heck... even those that might be willing to accept the lower starting salary, they also know that (other than Chris Perkins) the lifespan of a WotC D&D employee is rather short. Five to seven years at most usually. So if you really have that experience and are using it in other ways outside of working for WotC... the draw to go back is also quite less.

Let's also not forget a couple other things-- first is that hiring someone who already lives in the area your company has their headquarters is probably a much easier/cheaper choice than having to have someone re-locate. Especially if the job is really only going to last a handful of years. I'm not saying they couldn't have brought some DMs Guild designer in from like Ohio to come work for them... but having a viable candidate already living there? Probably a bonus. And secondly... as much as we all might clamor and say what really should happen is "best person for the job!"... the "best person" for a job is always fungible. Experience isn't the only want. Technical design skill isn't the only want. Creativity isn't the only want. Speed isn't the only want. You also want things like... personality. Likeability. How well do they mesh with those already there? What kind of different life experiences do they bring so that different perspectives can be brought to the game? How much time can they give to the job? How invested are they in the job? How does their employment help with building up the brand and the company? How does their employment bring about more enjoyment for the people already there? All kinds of stuff like that. All kinds of stuff that have nothing to do with us people sitting at our homes just waiting for new books to come.

Why do we care about who they hire? It's not because we care about what's best for them as a company... all we care about is what is best for us. All we care about is getting the very best book for ourselves to use, and thus all that other stuff about who, how and why WotC hires who they do means diddly-squat. It's a very selfish way of looking at things. It's not surprising, by any stretch... and indeed it's not something we necessarily should be ashamed to want. Heck... I couldn't give a rat's ass about what's happening over at Marvel Studios, all I want is an awesome Avengers: Infinity War to go see. And there's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time I also shouldn't get all worked up about how they're making the omlette... only that the omlette is being made.

So at the end of the day... we just have to admit that any concern we have over who WotC hires to work for them has nothing to do with wanting to make sure their company is doing well... but rather that we just selfishly want the best product we think we should get. We want "the best designers money can buy!", regardless of how inane and unrealistic a desire like that actually is. And WotC is well within their right to tell us that they aren't doing this for us... they're doing what's best for them. And we can go screw ourselves if we can't handle it.

Suffice it to say... some people can't handle that. I just know that thankfully for me... I personally care as much about who works at WotC as I do about who works at Marvel Studios: not one f-ing bit.

 

[Kobold Boots]

politics + opinion = eventual dumpster fire of a thread.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=98938]DeF[/MENTION]con1 pretty much nails it. What business is it of mine who a company hires? Unless the hiree has some sort of issue attached - harassment charges for example- why should anyone give the slightest toss who’s behind what desk.

If you do care, you really really need to do a bit of self examination to determine why.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[Harzel]

<snip>

I largely agree with DEFCON. The only thing I will take exception to is the implication that we customers are better able than WotC to judge whom WotC should hire in order to produce "the very best book". That seems a bit presumptuous. It is not at all clear that the "other" qualities that you speculate WotC might consider in their hiring are, as you seem to imply, antithetical, or at least irrelevant to producing high quality products.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I largely agree with DEFCON. The only thing I will take exception to is the implication that we customers are better able than WotC to judge whom WotC should hire in order to produce "the very best book". That seems a bit presumptuous. It is not at all clear that the "other" qualities that you speculate WotC might consider in their hiring are, as you seem to imply, antithetical, or at least irrelevant to producing high quality products.

If that's how what I wrote came off as, then I miswrote. It's not that I think the fans actually know better... it's that the fans only care about one specific thing when it comes to the hire-- the ability to "produce the best book". And given their druthers, they want the most prolific, most experienced, "best" person for the job... not that they have any manner of quantifying what "best" means in this situation. All they know is that they can give umpteen reasons why X candidate *isn't* the best person. If someone gets hired that for instance doesn't have any D&D design credits already on their resume... the fans' thought is "What?!? No experience designing D&D?!? There had to be a better candidate! I don't want someone with no D&D experience designing the next book I want to buy!" It doesn't matter how necessary that D&D design credit actually is to do the job Mike and Co. are hiring the person to do... the fans just believe that all things being equal, D&D design experience GOOD, no D&D design experience BAD. So find someone with the GOOD so that the book they want to buy will also be GOOD (as though one correlated to the other.)

It's the whole "meritocracy" angle. As though having the most experience in the field you are being hired for is the only quantifiable measurement worth looking at. Which... let's be honest... is NEVER the only reason someone does or doesn't get hired for a new job. But that doesn't matter to the "fans". Because they won't actually have to deal with that person during any part of the entire process, all they'll experience is the book that gets published at the end.

So no... the fans in no way know who is the best candidate for the job... all they know is what they believe should be the most important parts to do the job. Which in the real world is never actually all that important.

 

[Morrus]

When a thread is closed, please don’t immediately start another one on the same subject.