Monte Cook Leaves Dungeons & Dragons Next

[Greg Tito]

Monte Cook Leaves Dungeons & Dragons Next

The prominent designer left because of a difference of opinion.

Monte Cook is one of those names in tabletop RPG development that I always associate with creative design. Along with Skip Williams and Jonathan Tweet, he was instrumental in shaping the rebirth of Dungeons & Dragons third edition in 2000, but he's been designing games and writing adventures since 1988. Over the last decade, Cook worked on various D20 projects, including Arcana Unearthed and Call of Cthulu. Last year, Cook surprised the RPG community when he returned to the fold, so to speak, to help Mike Mearls and the team design the next version of D&D. Yesterday though, he announced he was leaving Wizards of the Coast because of differences of opinion with the direction the company was taking.

"Last week I decided that I would leave my contract position with Wizards of the Coast," he wrote on his blog [http://montecook.livejournal.com/251404.html]. "I am no longer working on Dungeons & Dragons, although I may provide occasional consultation in the future. My decision is one based on differences of opinion with the company."

He didn't go into details, because he "hates drama" but Cook stressed that his fellow designers were not the reason for his departure, calling out Rob Schwalb and Bruce Cordell and the work of Mearls' team. "I enjoyed much of my time working with everyone who's been involved with the new edition of D&D," he said. "The WotC RPG R&D department is full of talent.

"I enjoyed every moment of working with them over the past year. I have faith that they'll create a fun game. I'm rooting for them," he continued.

Mike Mearls seems to have been blindsided by Cook's resignation, as he pointed out in the Legends & Lore column vacated by Cook [http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20120425a]. "I am surprised, and frankly saddened, by Monte's decision to leave the D&D Next design team. I'd like to thank him for his contribution, and we all wish him well," Mearls said.

It's hard to say what Cook's departure will mean for the future of Dungeons & Dragons, but losing a key member of the team at this juncture doesn't bode well. Wizards and Mearls used the opportunity of this news to announce the playtest period for D&D Next, as they are still calling the new iteration, will go public next month, so it seems the company wants fans to know that this won't impact development.

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[Scars Unseen]

The worst part of this news is that if Monte has a problem with the way the company is doing things, but not with the designers, then we are probably looking at corporate(i.e. Hasbro) meddling. And having the money men calling the shots in a creative work never bodes well for the final product.

That or he just thinks that the new artists aren't putting enough leather straps in the armor illustrations.

 

[Fappy]

Here's hoping Paizo picks him up for Pathfinder 2.0!

 

[MDSnowman]

I always got the vibe that Monte had issues with the corporate (read: Hasbro) side of the Dungeons and Dragons. He went off and did his own things during 3.X and came up with some good products (I always thought Arcana Unearthed and Iron Heroes were pillars of sound game design). So this isn't really surprising news, I can only assume that Hasbro was influencing game design a little too much for his liking.

 

[MDSnowman]

Didn't 4.0 only come out, like, 3 years ago? Seems a tad soon to be making another iteration, especially considering the shelf-life of 3.5

Yeah, by and large 4.0 was a bit of a flop with a lot of fans. Gave them an excuse to go back to the drawing board early.

 

[pffh]

I must say I'm optimistic about this. Cook has always had weird and often very bad design ideas.

 

[Falseprophet]

I think I'm beyond caring at this point. Both 3.5/Pathfinder and 4E have their strengths, but both still suffer from the randomness of the d20 mechanic and excessive hit point creep at higher levels. If those aren't addressed or at least mitigated, I think I'll stick to other systems.

 

[mattaui]

That sure didn't last long at all. D&D Next (which is such a worthless newspeak name) will have to do quite a lot to pull me away from Pathfinder. It's far from a perfect system, but it's D&D at its core, and there will always be a place for that, I think.

 

[0over0]

Personally, I think Monte Cook is an overrated, insecure jackass--but he is good at self-promotion. After a year, though, he's probably already done his damage. Shame.

 

[malestrithe]

Mores the pity, I guess. Monte Cook made some of my favorite settings and worlds. I like Ghostwalk. World of Darkness D20 is fun. I like some of his gurps settings. I even like some of the adventures he's written.

My preferred version is AD&D because I'm most familiar with it, but I do like some of the 3.0 stuff as well, even though you had to work harder to maintain some balance.

I'd say that 4th edition only works if you have enough people that understand the rules.

 

[MDSnowman]

I think I'm beyond caring at this point. Both 3.5/Pathfinder and 4E have their strengths, but both still suffer from the randomness of the d20 mechanic and excessive hit point creep at higher levels. If those aren't addressed or at least mitigated, I think I'll stick to other systems.

You might want to try Mutants and Masterminds, its a flexible system you can play dang near anything with and the Toughness save Mechanic really makes it so any one hit can put you out of a fight if you roll poorly enough (or you feel like giving your GM an excuse to feed you hero points). Also its point based, so you can do some really fun stuff... like a Barbarian whose rage causes a localized blizzard centered on himself.

All the same, I'll stick with Pathfinder. It smooths out a lot of the issues I had with 3.X, namely, non spell-caster/low casting classes being very samey and non-interesting.