Those of you who've been around for a while might remember Sean K Reynolds. He worked on various D&D products for TSR and WotC before moving on to Paizo. However, it looks like he's back at WotC again, if this Facebook post is anything to go by. He doesn't say if he's specifically working with the D&D team, but given his past experience, that seems most likely. EDIT: He's updated the FB post so it now reads: "I've taken a contract position at Wizards of the Coast to help manage lore and other content for D&D and FR, in order to make it easier for WotC and licensors to make stuff."
For anyone who doesn't remember Sean, he's written (and contributed to) a not insignificant number of AD&D/D&D 3e and Pathfinder books. See here. I can't say I'm intimately familiar with the vast majority of what's on that list, but I do quite like the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
p.s. Thanks to Fildrigar at EN World for the scoop.
I enjoyed Sean's Core Beliefs articles in Dragon. Somewhere in the mid #330 to 350 range (late in the print run --right before the mag got pulled).
Off the top o' my head some of the deities covered: Vecna, Heironeous, Boccob, St. Cuthbert, Olidammara, Hetxor, maybe a couple more I'm forgetting. He did similar work for the Pathfider Adventure Paths but I only saw those in passing.
I enjoy SKR's work. Glad to hear he's back in some capacity at WotC.
Looking at his stuff on kickstarter, it looks like he has been moving away from the high system mastery style of game like Pathfinder. Kind of reminds me of 13th Age...at any rate, his current design sensiblity seems pretty compatible with 5e.
I am curious about his role in WotC will be, but it is hard to say having another respected veteran game designer on staff won't be a boon to them.
Zardnaar wrote:
Bad news for monks!
(This post is a joke.)
ankiyavon wrote:
There are a LOT of books on his list of works that I haven't read at all (I can only count three of them that I have read).
He replied to the tweets he was getting about what work he would be involved in:
lawrencehoy wrote:
As long as he doesn't take over Sage Advice.
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
SKR organizing and clarifying stuff so that the people that need to know it don't find the wrong info? Sounds great.
Even if I don't agree with his stance on various rules and design choices, I've not known him to produce half-effort and disorganized work (by which I simply mean that if I don't like something he's done, it's because it's not my cup of tea, not because he screwed it up).
He's a thoughtful man. He is open to new ideas and after he makes up his mind, he goes deep with his design. He will make you feel like he really was in the game world.
I prefer Eric Boyd when it somes to FR fluff but its not part of his main job yet.
A month or so ago I checkjed out how many TSR alumni are still involved in RPGs and a few of the old names still keep turning up in the modern era. It seems if you want something done right in D&D/PF/clones you hire an ex TSR staffer.
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
[quote="JohnLynch"]
Zardnaar wrote:
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
Strange to think that some people make a living as 'lorekeepers'. The fantasy equivalent of librarian I s'pose 
.
If this hire had been made during the playtests half the forum here would be yelling that the sky was falling.
So he's not doing game design. Yet. For now.
I don't want 3e or Pathfinder redux, but neither do I want 4e influence to spread deeper into 5e for future products, including adventure settings. The 4th edition campaign settings were quite awful compared to older stuff let alone Pathfinder society. I want as little 4e mentality as possible, going forward. Neither in game design, nor in adventure design. Total shut out. Hiring SKR is another step in that direction.
Bravo Wizards! And good luck Sean! I wouldn't bother posting in this forum, most of the people here are against old school D&D, or having TSR era veterans on deck for the new D&D era. 2nd edition was the best ruleset until 5th, in my opinion. I'm very happy at the way things turned out. And are turning out. The old schoolers won basically 95% of the design debates, which is probably why 5th ed is so commercially successful.
DaomSlayer wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
After reading his general stance on the power of different feats, I hope they lock him out of access to the R&D departments, his designs seem overly biased infavor of magical focused classes over the 'mundane'.
Bluenose wrote:
Well, SKR ("Vegepygmy") did lot of work on Greyhawk in the later years of 2e (both officially, and as a fan of the setting), and on FR in 3e. He definitely has the qualifications to be a fluff lorekeeper to keep 3rd parties on track.
Apparently its his face on this module.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Gods
Sean K returning home is awesome news for the table-top brand. Im a big fan of his work and this shows that Wizards is slowly building its D&D team after the sucess of 5e. Congrats, looking forward to what he delivers. 