WotC RPG Dept. Re-Orgs

[Pour]

I feel good about the changes, and I'm intrigued by the line of open, almost stream-of-thought, articles Mike has been producing (I'd call him Mearls, but honestly it just seems too personal, and calling him Mr. Mearls is just odd, idk, I'm weird).

Now I think we'll start to see his vision of D&D moving ahead a year or so, and with it I'm hoping a pushing of just about every mechanical and conceptual boundary, and an improvement to modules. Rich Baker seems like a nice guy from his blog, and I know he's been with D&D awhile, so more power to him too.

I'm behind the guys, but there has got to be some heavy burden given the task ahead, especially given the idea that both have pretty much found the managerial ceiling. Now they have as much command of the brand and the game as they can have under Hasbro, and after they ride the rest of the scheduled projects, lets hope it amounts to great things.

 

[rjs]

For the record, my work lives in the blackguard, (some) hexblade, and the wizard. Feel free to send me questions via my website.

 

[The Little Raven]

Now they have as much command of the brand and the game as they can have under Hasbro

Which is the same amount of command of the brand they have had since selling to Hasbro in 1999, as aside from appointing a CEO almost a decade ago (which affects the whole company, not just D&D), we've seen absolutely ZERO evidence that Hasbro has interfered at all with D&D.

 

[Pour]

Which is the same amount of command of the brand they have had since selling to Hasbro in 1999, as aside from appointing a CEO almost a decade ago (which affects the whole company, not just D&D), we've seen absolutely ZERO evidence that Hasbro has interfered at all with D&D.

I apologize for not being clearer. They didn't mean WotC, they meant Mike and Rich.

 

[The Little Raven]

I apologize for not being clearer. They didn't mean WotC, they meant Mike and Rich.

Duly noted.

I'm interested to see how things shake out under Mike Mearls, since he has helped me in the past to feed my old-school-feel (like AD&D adventure conversions) with new-school mechanics. I've always described the guy as "Gygaxian, but in the best way possible," and I want to see how that affects the foundation of the line going forward.

 

[ourchair]

It's really from a mechanical standpoint that I'm not a fan of Schwalb's work. I've seen a few too many Dragon articles from him that added bloat instead of ultility.

I agree with this whole heartedly.

Schwalb is a great writer, especially if you read adventure content and campaign books.

Because of that I tend to overlook some of his mechanical shortcomings, which don't really stick out in those kinds of products, since a consumer's focus is on story and interaction, not deeply calculated mathematical synergy.

I noticed though that he writes less player-bloat now than he used to, and as such those Dragon articles are result of filling up what the content directors were looking for, rather than deliberately trying to flood the gates with mechanical choices.

 

[Argyle King]

Disregard what I said concerning Epic Destinies in HoS. My initial impression was based upon a misunderstanding of how a few things worked.

 

[Klaus]

Disregard what I said concerning Epic Destinies in HoS. My initial impression was based upon a misunderstanding of how a few things worked.

No problem, Johnny3D3D. Cheers!

 

[Klaus]

Because of that I tend to overlook some of his mechanical shortcomings, <SNIP>

His "perceived" mechanical shortcomings. What a designer turns in isn't necessarily what ends up in a book.

Rob does amazing mechanics stuff, with a mind-boggling regularity. Check out his conversions of 3e monsters at his website (specially the Epic ones), they're a thing of beauty.

 

[Gryph]

For the record, my work lives in the blackguard, (some) hexblade, and the wizard. Feel free to send me questions via my website.

We added a new player to our weekend game who brought a Blackguard. Seems very solid in heroic.