Monte Cook leaving 5E

[RobbyPants]

Monte says here that he's leaving his contract position at WotC due to "differences of opinion with the company", although he's not blaming this on his co-designers.

All in all, I'd call this a bad thing. I guess we'll see how it all pans out.

[Lago PARANOIA]

My only real regret is that the 5E D&D fiasco is probably going to take down Schwalb despite also having the welcome side effect of getting rid of Wyatt, Mearls, and Cordell. Of course it might come at the side effect of getting rid of D&D as a TTRPG, too, but hey. I'm sure Magic or Final Fantasy or Warhams or whatever will pick up the pieces. Hopefully Schwalb will be just far enough down the food chain so that he gets the benefits about working on a big-name failure while not getting hit with the blame.

[shadzar]

its a good thing. the flagship designer of 3rd is leaving, there is nobody form previous editions working with 5e, it is all 4th edition designers and people who started with 4th.

5e will fail quicker than 4th did, D&D will tank and finally the garbage produced by WotC trying to sell the brand like LW did will cease and D&D can rest in peace like the vampire that was turned but tired of living just walking out into the sun for a respite from his damned life.

hopefully these so-called designers will create new games without the name D&D like Tweet is doing, and in the future D&D can be revived as D&D an no longer try to be a new game that D&D never should have been turned into, because people have learned it doesnt need to have the D&D name on it to be an RPG.

[ishy]

Didn't monte say in one of the articles that he his job in 5e was not design but research?

[hogarth]

All in all, I'd call this a bad thing. I guess we'll see how it all pans out.

As I said in the other thread, I've seen a version of D&D where Monte had full rein (Arcana Evolved), and it was mostly worse than the source material (3.0E D&D).

[erik]

All in all, I'd call this a bad thing. I guess we'll see how it all pans out.

As I said in the other thread, I've seen a version of D&D where Monte had full rein (Arcana Evolved), and it was mostly worse than the source material (3.0E D&D).

I think where AU mostly suffered wasn't in mechanics, but the classes were too specified and the setting was again too specific without the pre-existing popularity to drive interest into that niche.

I thought it was comparable to 3e except that the classes were too nichey. 3e classes were so generic that I could mix them up and do all sorts of different concepts with them. I didn't get that feeling from AU characters at all. Sure, several classes had different templates but within those templates, I dunno it wasn't enough variety still.

[hogarth]

I think where AU mostly suffered wasn't in mechanics, but the classes were too specified and the setting was again too specific without the pre-existing popularity to drive interest into that niche.

It didn't suffer much in mechanics because it started with pretty good mechanics (3E) and just randomly dicked with them (e.g. it made a few things better, a few things shitter and a bunch of things just slightly different, a la Pathfinder).

I don't think 5E has the luxury of being another version of "3E + Brownian motion" like AU/AE or PFRPG.

[CapnTthePirateG]

On a related note, Mearls took the opportunity to announce that the public playtests will start on May 24.

So there's that.

[Endovior]

I'd be inclined to say that it'd be nice if they could get on with it quicker, fail as horribly as it looks like they will, and let the license pass out of the hands of Hasbro/WotC to someone who could actually do something worthwhile with it.

Problem is, even if the license were up for grabs, I can't see anyone but Paizo being both in a position and interested in picking it up, and I suspect that they probably can't put together a worthwhile edition from scratch. Do better then WotC has recently, for sure. Do well enough to turn things around, or even well enough that I'd rather play whatever they wind up turning out then 3E? Unlikely.

[sake]

Problem is, even if the license were up for grabs, I can't see anyone but Paizo being both in a position and interested in picking it up, and I suspect that they probably can't put together a worthwhile edition from scratch. Do better then WotC has recently, for sure. Do well enough to turn things around, or even well enough that I'd rather play whatever they wind up turning out then 3E? Unlikely.

If it went for cheap enough, I wouldn't be surprised if Atari or Turbine tried to grab it just for the sake of simplifying their licensing arrangements and to fuck over the other.

[K]

I sometimes wonder if various game companies hire old designers on a temporary basis just to keep their friends off welfare and prevent all the bad press that this would sent to the potential talent pool.

It's not like "RPG game designer" is something that can get you a job outside of RPG game design.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Supposedly it's not because of Mearls.

Supposedly.

[Endovior]

If it went for cheap enough, I wouldn't be surprised if Atari or Turbine tried to grab it just for the sake of simplifying their licensing arrangements and to fuck over the other.

Right; gobbling up IP for the explicit purpose of fucking the competition. Forgot about that one. Yeah, that'd probably be worse; if the license passes to a company that doesn't do PnP at all, that'd basically be the last nail in the coffin.

[Koumei]

Indeed, I imagine if the IP went to Atari (or whatever) we'd see a bunch of games with the "Dungeons and Dragons" logo (or just called Dungeons and Dragons) that have as little as possible to do with the tabletop games. Best-case scenario would be NWN-style stuff where it's still basically an RPG that has all the things from the game that you recognise (even if they're different) and has module-builders. Worst-case is a hack-and-slash Diablo clone with a dragon at the end.

[Kaelik]

It is actually possible that Atari would license out the PnP part of the license to someone who wanted to make a PnP game though. Eventually, they'd sort of have to, as otherwise slapping the IP on a bunch of games would be less and less useful.

Also, why can't they make ToEE like games instead of endless real time trash? Does no one in the entire universe understand that rules made for turn based combat work better in turn based combat?

[Koumei]

Because a great many gamers - particularly here in the West* - don't like turn-based stuff, they want real-time. And they're idiots for wanting that.

You could probably get a bit more success with a turn-based D&D game in Japan (what with FFT, Disgaea, Tactics Ogre, SRW and so on being rather popular over there and niche games over here), but then you wouldn't have (much) D&D brand recognition.

*Well I say "here" in the West. What with the world being spherical, Australia is actually to the East of Japan.

[Aryxbez]

So why is liking real time action gameplay bad, or otherwise viewed as idiotic? I guess because trying to make such a game doesn't pan out to make an RPG so much, despite the work put into it (much like the route of Skyrim and Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning)?

[Koumei]

Because I prefer turn-based, duh.

[Leress]

So why is liking real time action gameplay bad, or otherwise viewed as idiotic? I guess because trying to make such a game doesn't pan out to make an RPG so much, despite the work put into it (much like the route of Skyrim and Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning)?

Real time isn't bad, but for Dnd, which is turn based, why not just keep it turn based.? The last time they did that was DnD Tactics for the PSP.

[shadzar]

So why is liking real time action gameplay bad, or otherwise viewed as idiotic? I guess because trying to make such a game doesn't pan out to make an RPG so much, despite the work put into it (much like the route of Skyrim and Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning)?

TTRPG and PNP games can not be realtime. you would need a DM for each player, which essentially is what computer games have and each individual computer is part or the DM group for those playing.

while MMOs are real time, they actually arent RPGs in any more sense of the word than domination sex play is. MMOs are actually real time quest adventure games.

to have the level of roleplaying D&D has always had needs someone able to make constant changes to the games environment, and that can not be done in real time, but elapsed time which is what turn based is.a pre0defined script is too limited for actual roleplay.

[PhoneLobster]

So why is liking real time action gameplay bad, or otherwise viewed as idiotic?

Because Turn Based computer games used to be a thing. A genre in their own right with their own separate and dedicated fan base.

Numerous developers have over the years declared Turn Based gaming to be dead.

Then they decide they want to tap into a turn based fan demographic with a modern sequel to a major turn based title.

So they make it an RTS. Because, hey turn based is dead and there isn't anything you can do in Turn Based that you can't do better in RTS... right?

Then virtually every one of those RTS sequels kills the franchise.

And the developers act fucking surprised every damn time.

It's pretty simple. Turn Based games do things that Real Time games can't. And us turn based fans get to call RTS games stupid and shallow because they are and the developers that have pushed them are. The results speak for themselves.

[fbmf]

And us turn based fans get to call RTS games stupid and shallow because they are and the developers that have pushed them are. The results speak for themselves.

I was with you until this part.

I can't imagine StarCraft or WarCraft as a turned based game, but neither are they stupid or shallow.

If you mean the RTS sequels to turn based games are stupid/shallow, I can see that.

Game On,
fbmf

[Dogbert]

So they make it an adventure/dungeon crawler

Fixed that for you.

I mean, Starcraft is a RTS, and it has nothing to do with crap like the Daggerdale XBLA game.

[PhoneLobster]

If you mean the RTS sequels to turn based games are stupid/shallow, I can see that.

Yes. Because for the most part the only examples we have go in that direction and not the other.

I can't imagine StarCraft or WarCraft as a turned based game, but neither are they stupid or shallow.

You clearly lack imagination.

If every example we have of a Turn Based Strategy/RPG turned to an RTS version turned out to be massively dumbed down and generally problematic can you not imagine that a Turn Based Strategy game based on the RTS fiction franchise of your choice might not reasonably be expected to be more complex and engaging in exactly the same way as all our reverse examples?

I mean it's stupid to do because I hate your sample RTS choices, but also for the same reason that the great "lets kill TBS franchises" thing is bad.

What RTS games do and how they appeal to their fan bases involves being "good" at substantively different (and more shallow ) things than TBS. A turn based Star Craft game would clearly have more potential to be complex and thinky instead of (comparatively) mindless and clicky like it's predecessors, but would have about as much chance of appealing to its existing fans as the horrendous new RTS version of Jagged Alliance.

And PS when the modern computer game industry gets it's hands on an old franchise that was already one of the great names in RTS games, they don't turn it into an awesome TBS version of Dune 2, sadly, instead they turn Syndicate into a stupid fucking FPS as a transparent rushed attempt to ride the coat tails of a recent Deus Ex release. Since fucking when is SYNDICATE supposed to ride that fucking franchises coat tails instead of the other way around? Damnit.

[Falgund]

As an example you can look at Cyanide Bloodbowl which has a turn based mode and a real time mode.