[UPDATED] Sean K Reynolds just rehired by WotC

He's an opinionated bald man, why can't we slam him?

Probably good news. They certainly need the help.

 

[Fildrigar]

Game designer Sean K Reynolds posted a photo on Facebook today with the caption "First day of my new gig at Wizards of the Coast". He worked at WotC on D&D 3E, and then spent a few years working at Paizo on their Pathfinder RPG. The caption doesn't make it clear whether he's back as an employee, a contractor, or even that he's working on D&D (though it's a fair bet that he is). I'm sure we'll find out more very soon! [UPDATE: "I've taken a contract position at Wizards of the Coast to help manage lore and other content for D&D and FR, in order to make it easier for WotC and licensors to make stuff.... I'm actually not doing game design... I'm helping sort out lore and other content (primarily for FR) so WotC licensors (like videogame companies) have easy access to the info they need."]

Thread promoted to article by Morrus. Original post below.

Sean K Reynolds posted (publicly) on Facebook that today was his first day back at Wizards. He did a bunch of work on D&D 3.0, and went on to work for Paizo for a good bit of time. I'm *assuming* that he's working on the D&D team, though he hasn't actually said that's the case. I know they could use some more people working on products

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Please don't take this as an opportunity to slam him, or the work he's done. Please, just accept that this probably means Wizards is going to ramp up a bit on D&D releases in the near future. I'm excited, as I know he's done a bunch of Forgotten Realms work in the past.

 

[fjw70]

Interesting if true since he is in the middle of publishing his own work.

 

[pukunui]

He hasn't posted this anywhere publicly yet, Fildrigar, and Facebook isn't public. I'm not comfortable with sharing non-public Facebook information without permission. If he tweets it, or sets the Facebook post to public, then it's public!

I don't know if it wasn't public before, but it sure looks to be now!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...02656268.1073741830.1508097303&type=1&theater

 

[Kramodlog]

Interesting. I wonder if he works on the APs a freelancer, like they did for PotA or they gave him a job. He might be working on MtG.

If he is working on the APs, he is bringing Paizo's knowhow on APs. WotC needs it.

Edit: I wonder if he is the new license overlord WotC wanted to hire a while back. Do we know if they found anyone for the job?

Cause if they did that would mean the hard cap of 15 employees just popped.

 

[Paraxis]

I like most of his work. His thoughts on things like fewer absolutes are very good IMO.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantfewerabsolutes1.html

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantfewerabsolutes2.html

Now those blog posts are from back in the 3.0 era of D&D so pretty old, and people develop and change over time, but I for one am happy about this news.

EDIT: For those unfamiliar with his work, here is a all the rpg projects he has contributed to over the years. http://www.seankreynolds.com/store/index.html

Does anyone know his job title at WoTC?

 

[Morrus]

I don't know if it wasn't public before, but it sure looks to be now!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...02656268.1073741830.1508097303&type=1&theater

Excellent! News-ward it goes!

 

[ExploderWizard]

SKR, the Billy Martin of WOTC!!

 

[Riley]

Welcome back!

I look forward to something brilliant.

 

[Henry]

Hopefully, what this means is that (D&D Team) = (D&D Team +1) and we'll see some ramping up! If it's for Magic or another department, it means absolutely nothing to me personally, but I wish him well in his new gig!

 

[Larac]

First test should be getting out of Jury Duty.
For any WOTC hire.

Though I do find it odd all males on R&D these days.

 

[JoeyQueerAF]

Home is where the heart is

 

[Henry]

First test should be getting out of Jury Duty.
For any WOTC hire.

First test before THAT is for a business to have enough cross-trained and authorized people so that the entire department is not hamstrung by one jury summons -- but I digress.

Welcome back, skreyn.

 

[SkidAce]

He's an opinionated bald man, why can't we slam him?

Probably good news. They certainly need the help.

Because us opinionated bald men are more worthy of your veneration....?


hehe...

 

[doctorhook]

New hire? Good omen for the future.

 

[pukunui]

Sean has updated his FB post (and accompanied it with a tweet to the same effect):

I've taken a contract position at Wizards of the Coast to help manage lore and other content for D&D and FR, in order to make it easier for WotC and licensors to make stuff.

I was wondering if they'd brought him back on board for FR, given the vast amount of work he did on that setting for 3e.

 

[spinozajack]

Anyone they hire that goes against absolutes is a good thing. Unless that lack of absolutes is absolute. Oh wait...

I'm glad a d20 expert is back into the mix. Not only to avoid the excesses of 4e design, but just as importantly of 3e's. Being intimately familiar with the mistakes of the past two generations of D&D is a terrific thing in a hire for 5e.

Good for Wizards landing him. The two sets of books that I purchased went towards something.

But I find it so ironic that I was just mentioning how I didn't like their idea of fixing a balance issue in basic D&D with a feat fix in standard, or a substandard PHB option with a strictly superior option in AU. And his blog mentions the arms race of immunity vs immunity piercing feats escalation.

As well as the disavowal of absolutes. Like the absolute ability to completely negate any chance of an AoO when a swashbuckler runs around attacking 3 things a round. They could have done so much better, like say such attacks are at disadvantage, or he has resistance against such attacks. Literally pertinent in so many ways to the latest AU article they just published yesterday.

Hopefully he brings another voice for rational game design to avoid such absolutes or endless arms races or power glut that 3e and 4e were cursed with. But I see a lot of the issues of 3e and Pathfinder could easily have been fixed through errata yet weren't. Many people believe 3.5 is not much of an improvement over 3e for many classes. And Pathfinder is well known for having many classes like Summoner that are pants-on-head _________ed.

 

[Nellisir]

It's a little weird for me to see SKR as some bonafide old school designer, but he was with TSR when TSR was still TSR...albeit not by much. :/ He's living history.

 

[wedgeski]

Interesting, I'd always thought of SKR as a crunch guy (in fact didn't he coin the terms fluff and crunch?). In any case, good luck Sean!

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I am glad somebody with experience working on the Realms is back to work on the Realms.

IIRC he wrote a lot in the past about the difficulties managing third parties, yet that seems to be what he is doing here.

He's super opinionated too. Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.