An email from Thomas Reid had been posted on Dragonsfoot about why Monte left WotC. The exact contents are now gone, because he's backpedalling like mad and has asked the various forums where the email had been posted to remove them. Sadly, RPGSite's moderation dropped the ball and went in direct contradiction to their purpose of not censoring things, and deleted the email as well.
I don't have the exact text anymore, but the general gist is that Reid is a friend of Monte's (they both worked for WotC in the past), and one of the reasons Monte left WotC was the company has been insisting that modifiers for every little thing be kept in the game, even if it makes the game more complicated than necessary. Apparently, Monte was disillusioned with the progress on the game because of this, and Reid and others were aware that he was unhappy and likely to leave.
Now maybe Reid was full of crap, but that was the general intent of his email. He didn't know it was going to be made public, so I suspect it may be correct.
7 comments:
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but I'm playtesting too. I can't see where all the modifiers are, myself, and this is pretty close to what I've always wanted in D&D. For a sense of my tastes I'm a big fan of AD&D1E, S&W and really looking forward to Blood & Treasure. I pretty much walked away from 3.X do to complexity and 4E due to feeling like I was playing a wargame.
There are some changes to where modifiers are applied, but I wouldn't lump them as being anywhere near as complex as 3.X or 4E.
This seems really strange. It is very bad form to begin with, both as a "friend" and as a playtester. And then it just seems off. Then again, I'm a playtester and I can't comment on things that aren't public... but it sure doesn't sound like what was shared publicly. Even if it was... a lot of gamers like bonuses, like tactical play, etc. I guess I go back to the "very bad form" and leave it at that.
I'm curious to know who that email was intended for... and who posted it in public.
I agree completely with Mark. Mostly because he mentioned Blood & Treasure. :)
A poster named "Stronghold" had put it up on Dragonsfoot days ago.
As I understand it, the playtesters have been playing "Core". Perhaps the "too many rules" refers to the expanded versions? Also, see this post:
Yikes
I have removed the actual text of the email, since I was asked nicely, but I'm leaving up my post commenting on it's contents.
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