"Tabletop D&D Has Lost Its Way" Says Pathfinder Video Game Exec

Feargus Urquhart, one of the execs from Obsidian Entertainment, which is behind an upcoming Pathfinder-themed video game, told Polygon why the company chose to go with Paizo rather than WotC for tabletop fantasy inspired games. "One of the reasons we actually went with Pathfinder was ... how do you say it? I'll just say it: We were having a hard time figuring out how to move forward with Dungeons and Dragons." The issue, he says, is that "D&D is a part of Wizards of the Coast and WotC is a part of Hasbro" and that he would "love to see D&D be bought by someone and become what it was before... Become TSR again."

Of course, TSR went bankrupt, so I'm not sure wishing that on somebody is a kindness.

Urquhart is a long-time D&D video game exec, having worked on games like Neverwinter Nights 2; he points out that "I'm probably one of the people who has one of the most electronic D&D games that they've worked on". Now, of course, his company has moved on to Paizo's Pathfinder.

The upcoming Obsidian video games will be based on the Pathfinder games - specifically a tablet game based on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, due in the next few months. The studio is, of course, known to tabletop RPG fans for D&D games like Neverwinter Nights 2. Urquhart did hint at non-card-game based projects, saying that "We're thinking about how can we take traditional RPG stuff and put it on the tablet. No one has solved it really."

You can read the short interview here.

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[Dausuul]

I suppose in some sense 3.0E is largely a design and execution by TSR people who came along with the sale to WotC of TSR. 3.5E isn't all that different from 3.0E, so the same would hold true all through 3.XE if you take the first part to heart. Did 4E and does 5E, however, have anyone who was with TSR on staff?

Monte Cook is a TSR alum who was involved in the design of 5E. Granted, he didn't stick around, but he was employed by WotC for a substantial period as the game was taking shape. I'm pretty sure his name is on the credits page.

 

[Mark CMG]

Monte Cook is a TSR alum who was involved in the design of 5E. Granted, he didn't stick around, but he was employed by WotC for a substantial period as the game was taking shape. I'm pretty sure his name is on the credits page.

That was like a few months, right? I got the impression he was contracted to help, sat in on some of the design meetings during playtest, and they parted ways for whatever reason(s). If things were all good, it could have been about money, but seems more likely either they were going somewhere he didn't think it should go or he wanted to take it somewhere they didn't think it should go. I don't know that I would hold him up as someone who had much direct design control over 5E. But it's a good point that he was a contracted freelancer for at least part of the process.

 

[jeffknight]

PLOT TWIST!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/12/new-dungeons-dragons-game-storm-coast-legends-coming-in-2015?utm_campaign=fbposts&utm_source=facebook

Looks like I was right on the money.

 

[Wolfskin]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. The Neverwinter Nights 1/2 community desperately wants a true Neverwinter Nights 3. The first 2 games have done really well on GOG and are still selling copies. NWN was what got me into the world of D&D. NWN3 could be a massive boon to 5e if WotC plays its cards right.

I stand corrected. Looks like WotC got the drop on us and announced Sword Coast Legends. Glad to see the kind of games I enjoyed about a decade ago are still selling well!

 

[ThirdWizard]

IMO, the best hands D&D has ever been in business-wise was the brief window between being bought by Wizards and before Wizards was sold to Hasbro. Second-best would be the early Hasbro years when Wizards people were still in charge.

WotC bought TSR in 1997 and was bought by Hasbro in 1999. D&D 3e was released in 2000. I'm not going to say that a lot of D&D design decisions weren't made during that two year time period before WotC was bought out, but it is important to realize that WotC was owned by Hasbro when D&D 3e was actually published.

 

[Parmandur]

WotC bought TSR in 1997 and was bought by Hasbro in 1999. D&D 3e was released in 2000. I'm not going to say that a lot of D&D design decisions weren't made during that two year time period before WotC was bought out, but it is important to realize that WotC was owned by Hasbro when D&D 3e was actually published.

Specifically, Hasbro gave the OGL and d20 the green light.

 

[Cybit]

That was like a few months, right? I got the impression he was contracted to help, sat in on some of the design meetings during playtest, and they parted ways for whatever reason(s). If things were all good, it could have been about money, but seems more likely either they were going somewhere he didn't think it should go or he wanted to take it somewhere they didn't think it should go. I don't know that I would hold him up as someone who had much direct design control over 5E. But it's a good point that he was a contracted freelancer for at least part of the process.

Cook was a pretty big part of the design process - his leaving WotC had nothing to do with the 5E process and had to do with (IIRC) Hasbro not allowing him to make games that could potentially compete with 5E while working on 5E. IE, Numenera. IIRC, there was another developer from WotC who ended up having to leave over the same deal.

 

[Mark CMG]

Cook was a pretty big part of the design process

I'm not sure what that means in actual terms of what he did and what others did without him. Do you have any sort of details?

- his leaving WotC had nothing to do with the 5E process and had to do with (IIRC) Hasbro not allowing him to make games that could potentially compete with 5E while working on 5E. IE, Numenera.

That certainly makes sense.

IIRC, there was another developer from WotC who ended up having to leave over the same deal.

At roughly that same time or do you mean since WotC bought TSR?

 

[MerricB]

Cook was a pretty big part of the design process - his leaving WotC had nothing to do with the 5E process and had to do with (IIRC) Hasbro not allowing him to make games that could potentially compete with 5E while working on 5E. IE, Numenera. IIRC, there was another developer from WotC who ended up having to leave over the same deal.

That was Stan! Wizards doesn't allow you to work on outside creative stuff when you're with them, which would have shut down Numenera entirely, which (we now know) was very much on Monte Cook's mind at the time.

Stan!'s blog posts on it are:
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2049
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2054
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2063

It's the second one that describes the problem.

Cheers!

 

[billd91]

That was Stan! Wizards doesn't allow you to work on outside creative stuff when you're with them, which would have shut down Numenera entirely, which (we now know) was very much on Monte Cook's mind at the time.

Stan!'s blog posts on it are:
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2049
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2054
http://www.stannex.com/?p=2063

It's the second one that describes the problem.

Cheers!

Wizards must have allowed that sort of thing in the past, otherwise, I don't think either Stan! or (as we strongly suspect, Monte) would have approached management with the topic. Nor do I think they'd have forms for that sort of thing if the answer was always going to be "No." That said, we don't know how old those forms are and they might all predate the current (as of Stan!'s writing) VP for HR and the CEO.