Monte Cook doing an AMA for En World

[Prak]

So I just got this in my email:

This week, from Monday August 10th until Friday August 15th, RPG designer and publisher Monte Cook will be holding an Ask Me Anything (AMA) at EN World. You can ask him about anything, including Numenera, D&D, Monte Cook Games, Malhavoc Press, and more. The AMA will continue through the week.

Here's his introduction:

Starting August 10, 2015, I will be holding an AMA right here on EN World! So, what would you guys like to talk about?

Of interest to ENWorlders, I've been professionally designing games for 27 years, and have worked on Rolemaster, Champions, and D&D 2E, including Planescape, and a little Dark Sun and Forgotten Realms. I was a co-designer on D&D 3E, and worked for a time as lead designer on 5E. I am the designer of the award-winning Numenera and HeroClix, and co-designed the now (!) ENnie-award winning The Strange with Bruce Cordell and the upcoming No Thank You, Evil! with Shanna Germain. I also just got inducted into the Academy of Adventure Design's Hall of Fame, which was a big honor for me. I am the co-owner of Monte Cook Games, but also ran the d20 Studio, Malhavoc Press for a time where I published stuff like the Book of Eldritch Might, Arcana Evolved, and Ptolus. I worked full time at Iron Crown Enterprises, TSR, and Wizards of the Coast.

In short: Worked on a lot of games.

Believe it or not, I also do stuff that isn't related to tabletop games, but who cares about that?

Bring on the questions!


If you want to ask Monte any questions, head on over to the AMA thread on EN World and ask away!

I'm tempted to ask why he considers players who use the rules as written to the logical conclusion assholes


Edit: link to thread now included. I think this is acceptable by Den rules, but I'm still sketchy on what the exact rule regarding links to other threads is.

[MisterDee]

Absolutely ask about what disagreements led to him leaving the D&D5 team.

[silva]

I'm tempted to ask why he considers players who use the rules as written to the logical conclusion assholes

Because rules are not world physics axioms, but only a means to resolve conflicts at a gaming table. If you see rpg rules as world axioms, you are indeed a stupid person.

[K]

Since I'm certainly going to forget that this is happening, can someone ask him about how much money each of his projects has earned him? Cool-shame him if you have to.

[Leress]

I'm tempted to ask why he considers players who use the rules as written to the logical conclusion assholes

Because rules are not world physics axioms, but only a means to resolve conflicts at a gaming table. If you see rpg rules as world axioms, you are indeed a stupid person.

Silva, you must not know what playtesting is. Testing the limits and outputs are what people do with systems. People are not assholes for pointing out when the outputs come out as bizarre. Monte's ego got in the way and he lashed out.

[Prak]

I'm tempted to ask why he considers players who use the rules as written to the logical conclusion assholes

Because rules are not world physics axioms, but only a means to resolve conflicts at a gaming table. If you see rpg rules as world axioms, you are indeed a stupid person.

Rules are a description of how the game world works. If you cannot understand that, you are indeed a shitheel.

[silva]

Rules are a description of how the game world works...

..for the purpose of playing a game, not writing a world physics simulation model.

Missing that point is like saying all rpgs are silly because they dont have stats for anal circumference and elasticity.

[Prak]

YES rules describe how the game world works for the purposes of playing a game. Do we need to go over tautologies? A world physics simulation would be incredibly boring. No one is asking for one, you shithead. But if someone puts this in a game book:

Musical Instrument (small):
This could be any old musical instrument you can carry: a violin, bagpipes, a triangle, whatever. Playing a musical instrument requires a dexterity check. Successfully playing the instrument gives you a bonus to reaction/charisma rolls with nonhostile beings able to appreciate music. Failure gives you a minus.

Physics don't fucking enter into it. The party is now wandering minstrels who play their theme song before talking to any npc, because everyone has dex and all NPC interactions are improved by a successful check. The "we don't write for assholes" club is quick to say that this logical use of the rules is assholish behavior, because they can't be bothered to do their fucking job.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Ask him if working on 5e for ~7 months was unpleasant enough to wash the taste of his then-recent divorce out of his fucking mouth.

[Leress]

Ask him if working on 5e for ~7 months was unpleasant enough to wash the taste of his then-recent divorce out of his fucking mouth.

That seems a little far, I think shitting on his ego as a designer is enough.

[OgreBattle]

"Why are rules needed when my friends and I can tell a story with our imagination?"

[Prak]

I put a link in the OP. Because I got the email from RPG News and Reviews and am not particularly interested in making an EN world account.

[Previn]

Basically, I left WotC in 2001 for many reasons, but mainly because it had become very corporate and political. No big grudges or anything--it just wasn't for me. When WotC approached me to come back for 5e in 2011 (as a contractor), I was told everything was different. I was told that the environment was totally free of any of the corporate bs of the past and a great place for creativity. I was told we'd be revitalizing the whole game, and that this included amazingly cool things like bringing back Dragon magazine to print, reestablishing ties with the old guard (Zeb Cook, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubb, etc. maybe as consultants), beefing up the in-house staff (primarily with hiring back people with a lot of solid experience), and creating an aggressive initial release schedule with high-quality adventures and other products created by an in-house staff. In short, focusing specifically on the tabletop D&D experience, and not on licensing to video games, movies, and other things.

It was within a year there that I discovered that none of this was actually going to happen. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying I was lied to. I'm a realist and I know plans change. But a complete reversal of that initial plan--that is to say, a focus entirely on licensing the brand and turning D&D from a game and into a property--that wasn't something I wanted to be a part of, particularly in what turned out to be a disappointingly difficult (extraordinarily political) work environment.

Again, no big grudges at the time (other than, as a lifelong fan of the D&D game, I'm deeply saddened by the change of focus... but in retrospect they might have been inevitable). It just wasn't for me.

Suppose there's a lot to read into there about 5e as well and the future we can expect for it.

[Whipstitch]

..for the purpose of playing a game, not writing a world physics simulation model.

Missing that point is like saying all rpgs are silly because they dont have stats for anal circumference and elasticity.

You're a disingenuous moron. Shitmuffin and Monte Cook's collective bitch fit wasn't a case of the mean old Gaming Den hating on people for not having exhaustive and painstakingly specific rules. It's a case of the Gaming Den laughing at them for complaining that people often respond to incentives. Our stance on this issue is simply that you shouldn't give people incentive to do things if you don't actually want those things to happen. Hell, from a pure design perspective this is actually an area where I would argue that their strawman rule erred by being too specific. I'm totally cool with characters succeeding more often when they make use of appropriate bribes, props and supporting evidence when dealing with NPCs. However, that doesn't mean each item needs a fucking write up. It just means that sometimes you want a lute when you're offering to perform for your supper and sometimes you want to buy a round of beers when you're trying to pump the locals for information.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Damn, apparently working on 5e is Monte's biggest regret.

[Josh_Kablack]

Basically, I left WotC in 2001 for many reasons, but mainly because it had become very corporate and political. No big grudges or anything--it just wasn't for me. When WotC approached me to come back for 5e in 2011 (as a contractor), I was told everything was different. I was told that the environment was totally free of any of the corporate bs of the past and a great place for creativity. I was told we'd be revitalizing the whole game, and that this included amazingly cool things like bringing back Dragon magazine to print, reestablishing ties with the old guard (Zeb Cook, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubb, etc. maybe as consultants), beefing up the in-house staff (primarily with hiring back people with a lot of solid experience), and creating an aggressive initial release schedule with high-quality adventures and other products created by an in-house staff. In short, focusing specifically on the tabletop D&D experience, and not on licensing to video games, movies, and other things.

It was within a year there that I discovered that none of this was actually going to happen. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying I was lied to. I'm a realist and I know plans change. But a complete reversal of that initial plan--that is to say, a focus entirely on licensing the brand and turning D&D from a game and into a property--that wasn't something I wanted to be a part of, particularly in what turned out to be a disappointingly difficult (extraordinarily political) work environment.

Again, no big grudges at the time (other than, as a lifelong fan of the D&D game, I'm deeply saddened by the change of focus... but in retrospect they might have been inevitable). It just wasn't for me.

So, Monte, could you possibly hedge your bets any harder? Maybe tell us how you hated working there but don't want to offend a company that is likely to pay you for projects in the future?

[Previn]

So, Monte, could you possibly hedge your bets any harder? Maybe tell us how you hated working there but don't want to offend a company that is likely to pay you for projects in the future?

I doubt he has any need to work for WotC for any project unless they throw literal heaps of money at him. He probably pulled in at least 200,000 in profit from his Numenra kickstarter, and I'm pretty sure he's hit the 1000 true fans already to keep adding on top of that with Cypher system stuff.

[CapnTthePirateG]

He also straight up said he would not be doing any work for 5e in that thread.

[MisterDee]

I have to say, while I find the hints about how mismanaged D&D really is at WotC hilarious, I find it mindboggling that someone like Cook, who I thought had some business savvy, has blinders big enough to think that "publishing the tabletop RPG and only that" is a recipe for meaningful success.

[Starmaker]

I have to say, while I find the hints about how mismanaged D&D really is at WotC hilarious, I find it mindboggling that someone like Cook, who I thought had some business savvy, has blinders big enough to think that "publishing the tabletop RPG and only that" is a recipe for meaningful success.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/in ... f-numenera

[Username17]

I have to say, while I find the hints about how mismanaged D&D really is at WotC hilarious, I find it mindboggling that someone like Cook, who I thought had some business savvy, has blinders big enough to think that "publishing the tabletop RPG and only that" is a recipe for meaningful success.

The math they presented at the beginning of 4th edition still holds. There are like twenty million people in the RPG demographic and a game with strong penetrance could sell to eight million of them. The profit margin per book is actually pretty large, like ten bucks a book. And while you won't sell a copy of Bane Mires to eight million people, you might sell eight million Players Handbooks and there will be a power function where you will sell proportionately less expansion books. So if the biggest RPG in the world was doing well, it's not unreasonable that it might pull in a hundred million dollars profit in a year. Less than that for subsequent years of course, but if you had a real content parade you could probably keep a quite respectable million people paying fifty bucks a year for internet subscriptions, leaving you to figure out how to produce daily content and keep your servers running on a budget of thirty million dollars to pocket twenty million every year just from that.

That's not Disney-Marvel piles of money, but it's real bling. The D&D game could be a content empire taking in tens of millions of dollars profit every year for the next decade. But it's not going to be.

Think about how weird it was that DDI didn't have a story, a painting, a new monster, and some player-side powercreep every day. There were weeks that they missed their update schedule. Why? How? They should have had two hundred artists commissioning pieces to put up new pictorial content every day. They should have had fifty writers hammering out D&D stories to give people D&D story content to read every day. And so on. And of course, 4th edition D&D should have been "not bullshit".

4th edition had a production cost of over ten million dollars. And that sounds like a lot, but consider what people would say about a movie that had a production cost of less than twenty million and gross sales of a quarter billion or more. That was what the 4th edition team was promising corporate, and the only reason they didn't pull it off is that their actual writers are a bunch of chuckle fucks who couldn't deliver the quantity or quality of content promised to the consumers.

If you're a major D&D fanboy, that's still the dream. Daily, high quality content. A multi-million dollar industry supporting hundreds of artists and writers. Something that will never ever happen as long as WotC's content generation is left to "Guys in the Tacoma area that James Wyatt knows."

-Username17

[MisterDee]

I get all that - but producing that much content means outsourcing a lot, which apparently Cook was against. And D&D right now isn't the big name in the market, so a lot of work would be needed to get back that #1 RPG slot.

If we were still at the end of the 3.5 era, then maybe it'd be a credible plan.

But today (well, two years ago?) Hoping to write an RPG so awesome that people just flock back into the fold is not a credible approach. D&D needed to reassert its relevance in addition to making a great game.

[K]

3. I apologize if this is a rude question, but how much money do game designers at WotC make? Did making your own game company turn out to be the better option financially? Is licensing a tabletop game to a video-game a good way to offset the diminishing sales of tabletop products?

4. As a designer, did you find it restricting to work with the "sacred cow" mechanics of DnD like +1 swords that seem a little archaic now?

3. I haven't worked there for quite some time, but as my friend Bruce Cordell said recently in a podcast, enough to live a very comfortable middle-class lifestyle, even in Seattle, which is a very expensive city. However, when I left WotC in 2001 to create Malhavoc Press, this was a good choice financially, and even though they paid me as a contractor in 2012 much more than they did as a designer in 2001, when I left and created Monte Cook Games, this was also a step up financially. Particularly because of the license to do the video game, but that was really sort of icing on the cake in that regard. But honestly, how much money I make is far less important to me than the work I get to do and the environment in which I get to do it. I would never have gone back the second time if it weren't for the fact that D&D meant so much to me on a really fundamental level.

4. No. I love D&D and all its core elements.

I think these two questions answer the question of whether he's a fanboy or not.

Not surprised, but he also did weasel on the money issue.

[Previn]

Not surprised, but he also did weasel on the money issue.

If his statement is true, it's between 51,000 on the low end and about 75,000 give Seattle's incomes.