Who would you pick to design Fourth Edition?

[Greg K]

In additon to Steve Kenson, I would add the following individuals (and the list is not necessarily finalized).

Sean Reynolds. I love the variant rules on his website. I especially like the variant rules for both poison and "Fewer Absolutes" (he just needs to finish the latter).

Charles "Vigilance" Rice: Legend of the Samurai, Legends of Excalibur, and of course "Blood and Fists"

Andy Collins: Based upon Dragonomicon, Unearthed Arcana (especially the class variants and alternate combat rules), and the stuff on his web site, I'll forgive the Epic Handbook which should be burned, buried and forgotten (my opinion of course)

Monte cook: Despite his preference for higher magic and the go go mentality, I wonder what he might do differently with DND given that he has had time to reflect on 3e.

 

[Greg K]

Bruce Cordell - He's done some very solid work with psionics.
.

To each their own. I really like the 2e work of Bruce's that I have seen, but it was the Psionics HB and Advanced Psionics Handbook and along with 'Tome and Blood" that kept him off my list.

 

[helium3]

Any group, so long as Sean Reynolds is included (he's the only one who seems to know how to do the math, and is snappy enough to remind other designers they're being dumb if they forget about the math underlying the game mechanics).

J. Grenemyer

The math? What math?

<--- Stares at the 2nd order partial differential equation he's in the middle of solving.

 

[Writers_Blog]

This is an Updated list after poaring over my books big and small.


This a list of the top 20+

Starting with

1. Monte Cook- Sorry Ryan had to he is a good supervisor and his product is always the ferrari of D&D books especially the Malhavoc Press prints.
2. Kim Mohan as editor lead
3. Sean K Reynolds
4. Richard Baker
5a. Mike Mearls 5b. Chris Pramas 5c. Skip Williams
6. Wolfgang Baur
7. Will Upchurch 7b. Ryan Nock (I loved TT&F)
8. Mari Kolkowsky (as graphic design)
9. Ed Stark, Bill Slavicsek, Bruce Cordell
10 Artists Galour, Including some of my favorite Socar Myles, Sam Wood, Tod Lockwood
Brom, Royo, Chris Trevas
With a cover reprise of the original D&D product re invisioned by Brom, or Royo
11. A Central Essay section on Buildling believable societies and what not by Fantasy Genre Authors like Terry Brooks, and G.RR.Martin (DMG and PHB Tie IN)
12. A DM Adventure Builder guide with a Fantasy Genre section (DMG)
13 Skip Williams in Charge of Monsters, with the Wordsmiths of Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon at his side, and the Crew of Legacy of Dragons MP ( BOZ, from the Creature Catalogue )
14. Sue Weinlein Cook

And that is it for now

 

[Jupp]

Add Neil Gaiman and Francois Froideval to the team. One for the dark side of things, one for the epic and heroic stuff.

 

[glass]

Well, I'd have lot of people who have already been mentioned several times (Monte, SKR, Hyp, John Cooper, Mike Mearls, Rich Burlew etc), plus one other who as far as I can see, noone has mentioned:

C J Carella.

EDIT: Plus me, of course!


glass.

 

[interwyrm]

Larry Elmore
Dan Parkinson
Marc Sasso
Wayne Reynolds
Todd Lockwood
Brom

3 Cheers for Brom.
I'd also put in a vote for DiTerlizzi

 

[wedgeski]

Monte cook: Despite his preference for higher magic and the go go mentality, I wonder what he might do differently with DND given that he has had time to reflect on 3e.

This is exactly why I would hire Monte to lead the 4e design team in an instant. There are few other people out there who I trust to keep D&D its own game, to design something that is recognisable as D&D and not 'generic fantasy RPG v5.2'. Some of the names I have seen mentioned in this thread fall into the latter category, for me anyway.

 

[buzz]

I want Steve Long on the team.

I was this close to listing Mr. Long, but I know he doesn't love D&D enough. Besides, if he works on D&D, I won't likely be getting my requisite 500 new pages of HERO material each month.

 

[The Sigil]

Good freaking grief, people.

STOP NOMINATING MONTE COOK!

Twice in the thread, Ryan (who started the thread) has asked that we exclude those who previously worked on D&D... and mentioned Monte Cook by name as excluded from consideration.

I love Monte's work as much as the next guy, but can we please keep the thread on topic? And that means no mentions of Monte's name. Or Gygax's. Or Tweet's.

This is supposed to be "D&D by guys who haven't done D&D before."

While Henry didn't specifically say so, in my mind that excludes those who have done ANY work for WotC on 3e. So Sean K. Reynolds is out. Pramas is out. Mona is out. Mearls is out. Greenwood is out.

I would start with Kevin Siembieda as a "big idea" man, but restrict his work to "fluff" only. No "crunch."

For the nuts and bolts of martial combat, I'd want Steven Palmer Peterson (of "Second World Simulations" and "Masters of Arms" fame).

For class creation, I'll take Ben "Wulf Ratbane" Durbin (Bad Axe Games) and M Jason "Hellhound" Parent (Librum Equitis).

For monsters, give me Scott Greene (Tome of Horrors) for stats and the Privateer Press team for ideas.

For the DMG, I'll take Phil Reed, who seems to have a little bit of everything at his disposal and Justin D. Jacobson (Poisoncraft), who knows how to be lethal, and the Joe/Suzy tag team of Expeditious Retreat Press for teaching us how to make a quasi-real "medieval backdrop."

Yeah, that would be a nice start, though I would shamelessly cherry-pick the best of third-party OGL offerings for the rules.

--The Sigil