WotC Ray Winninger Steps Back From WotC

Former leader of the D&D team Ray Winninger has announced his departure from WotC, having "accomplished the ambitious goals we set". Dan Rawson was announced the new head of D&D earlier this month, leading many to speculate about Winninger's departure.

"Sorry for the radio silence; I'm in the midst of a SORELY needed Long Rest. I have indeed left WotC, having accomplished the ambitious goals we set when I took over the D&D team.

Shepherding D&D was an honor and a privilege, but I'm looking forward to slowing down and getting back to a list of personal design projects. (Gamers, you haven't seen the last of me!) Most of all, I look forward to following D&D as a fan again.

Proud of the team I left behind; D&D is in very good hands: @JeremyECrawford, @ChrisPerkinsDnD, @DroidsForSale, @dtovar77, Liz Schuh, Kate Irwin, Trish Yochum, @aquelajames, @FWesSchneider, @MakenzieLaneDA, @amandahamon, Emi Tanji, Bree Heiss, @doctorcomics. @justicearman

@RPGRonLundeen, @BillBenham2, Rob Hawkey, Ben Petrisor, @Dan_Dillon_1, @EytanBernstein, Adrian Ng, Janica Carter, @chrislindsay, @TrystanFalcone, @mattchucole, Bob Jordan, @christulach, Natalie Egan, Hilary Ross, Carl Sibley. Thanks for being such great adventuring companions."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This point was brought up in this thread on twitter. Hard to say for sure but interesting if design decisions are taking into account what will work best on a vtt

Looking at Solasta, and how closely it reflects the rules of 5e, I doubt too much consideration is needed, really. Some, sure, but not anything huge.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sure. But there's a certain... well, insidiousness is not quite the right word, but close. I don't mean any malice on the part of Wizards, but compare these two situations.

1. You have a moderately complex game like D&D. It's a bit of a pain to keep track of everything with pen and paper and your own brainpower, but since that's what's available that's what you use. If there's something in it you don't like, changing that thing is not a huge additional burden over what you're already doing.

2. You have a moderately complex game like D&D. It's a bit of a pain to keep track of everything with pen and paper and your own brainpower, so you use available software to simplify the process which makes things much easier. But adding a thing is a bit of a hurdle, and changing core parts of the system becomes almost impossible.

It's very easy to fall for option 2 because it's easier in the short run, and thus cut oneself off from the ability to make large-scale house rules.

For example, let's say I'm running Princes of the Apocalypse, and my players manage to defeat the Prophet of Water and take their elemental weapon for themselves. I look at the abilities of the weapon, and see:

Spoiler

• +1 trident, +1d8 cold damage on a hit.
• Bearer can speak Aquan.
• Bearer has resistance to cold.
• Bearer can cast dominate monster (DC 17) once per day but only on water elementals.
• If you're in the water node, you can create a water devastation orb 1/day.
• You get the flaw of covetousness, and barnacles grow on your skin.

That's not exactly the most exciting thing in the world for a level 10+ party. So let's say you want to add some cool abilities, maybe casting tidal wave or something like that. In PnP D&D, you just say it and it is is done, but the process is significantly more involved on a VTT.

I don’t think JC is going to be down to stop prioritizing ease of use and leaving room to tinker anytime soon, nor do I think the “suits” (who are mostly D&D nerds at this point) are going to demand such things.

One positive thing we can learn from video games is that taking away the ability to mod a game people have been modding for years is a bad move.

Quite possible. I haven't used it in a while, and at the time pre-made homebrew material was kind of scarce.

Hopefully the new general features system they’ve been working on will make imputing homebrew easier.

 

[Haplo781]

As someone in a Discord channel I frequent put it:

5e chugs along at a steady pace, growing and increasing year over year
wotc announces new edition
couple months pass
wotc mentions digital tools and VTT and other online systems
couple months pass
hasbro makes it public that they're pushing to increase profits by 50% in three years
wotc lets go of d&d team head (with game design history and was a platform strategist for microsoft), hires microsoft digital commerce exec as head of d&d

gee i wonder what all these things might mean

 

[Zaukrie]

For the two VTTs that I am familiar with (Foundry VTT and Roll20) it is pretty trivial to change, add, or remove abilities on magic items.

Agreed, super easy. I remain baffled at some of the comments here.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

As someone in a Discord channel I frequent put it:

We don't know he was let go of.

 

[Alzrius]

Agreed, super easy. I remain baffled at some of the comments here.

For what it's worth, the criteria of what's "easy" when it comes to manipulating digital technology has a pretty wide scale, especially across multiple generations of gamers.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

We don't know he was let go of.

Even if he was, it had nothing to do with Rawson, Kyle took his job and Kyle has been working in the D&D team for the last two years, including the last four months!

I do miss the transparency of Ray already, the new guy doesn't seem to be on Twitter (worse for us, likely better for his sanity most likely).

It is weird that after making a big dead about Rawson, WotC doesn't bother to mention that someone else is taking over as Executive Producer. Perhaps because Ray was generally well liked for his trancity, even if I disagreed with some choices.

 

[Zaukrie]

For what it's worth, the criteria of what's "easy" when it comes to manipulating digital technology has a pretty wide scale, especially across multiple generations of gamers.

Drag and drop..... And I'm 58..... But the point is... You don't need to use the VTT if you don't want. Or, you can use it only for maps. I'd bet my life on those two things. That's what baffles me about people in this thread and online

 

[Alzrius]

Drag and drop..... And I'm 58.....

For what it's worth, I agree that's not very complicated. But I know people not much older than you who've needed me to explain that, when I tell them to "click" something with the mouse, I mean "left-click" (as opposed to right-clicking).

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Drag and drop..... And I'm 58..... But the point is... You don't need to use the VTT if you don't want. Or, you can use it only for maps. I'd bet my life on those two things. That's what baffles me about people in this thread and online

A series of huge changes in rapid order. First D&D's popularity and profitable. Then OneD&D is announced with playtests.

You have huge changes in the upper hierachy, Chris Cox becomes CEO, Cynthia Williams, becomes the new President of WotC, and Ray Winninger leaves 4 months ago, doesn't tell anybody, get replaced by Kyle Blint who basically keeps this news to himself, until folks stumble onto the new on linked.

They announced what looks like an amazing, super advanced VTT, buy D&D Beyond, have made it clear they are going all in on a D&D cinematic universe, does two extremely profitable D&D MtG sets (and a couple D&D secret lairs and 8 D&D Commander Decks), (and more D&D secret lairs next year), announcing that they are considering merging D&D & MtG's multiverses if they can find a cool way to do it (March of the Machine suggests they found their way), flPhysical & Digital Bundles, indictate they are going to increase the volume of products released and start doing major playtests for a new edition. Oh and according to WotC they plan on making a Billion Dollar Brand. Oh and none Drizzt novels make a return. All in a span of what 2 years?

Don't get me wrong, I largely agree with you, but given all the crazy, none stop news, and extreme change is bound to lead to huge speculation and maybe panic, especially among those comfortable with 5e the way it is.

It's pretty clear WotC has increasingly massive plans for D&D. A lot of folks focus on the digital end of things, but because it's the most visible part, but I believe WotC plans are bigger, more complicated and multi-faceted then that.