Well not so much out of retirement as he’s becoming a rules consultant for the Pathfinder RPG.
What was it you said about Paizo NOT being a Google-emulate? 🙂
Monte Cook Joins the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game™ Team
Co-creator of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons® to act as Rules Consultant
Paizo Publishing®, LLC today announced that Monte Cook, the co-creator of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons and author of the 3.5 PHB and DMG as well as the Ptolus™ campaign setting and the recent Book of Experimental Might™, has joined the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game team as a Rules Consultant.
“This is going to be a lot of fun,” said Monte Cook. “Pathfinder is a fresh spin on a rules system that I love and the guys at Paizo are great to work with. They produce nothing but the highest quality products.”
“Monte Cook is a legend of third edition and of the Open Gaming movement,” said Paizo’s Publisher, Erik Mona. “He’s also a great DM, and has the best mind for mechanics I’ve ever seen. To have one of the original third edition designers helping us with the Pathfinder RPG is like a dream come true. With Monte’s involvement, I am certain that the future of the edition he helped to create will be very long and very fruitful.”
“I am really excited to be working with Monte on this project,” said Paizo’s Lead Designer, Jason Bulmahn. “His advice has been a great help to the Pathfinder RPG. When it comes to rules design and knowledge of the 3.5 system, there is absolutely no one better.”
Monte Cook will also be contributing an introduction to the final Pathfinder Roleplaying Game hardcover, scheduled for an August 2009 release.
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a tabletop fantasy roleplaying game that will serve as the anchor for Paizo Publishing’s popular line of Pathfinder adventures, sourcebooks, and campaigns. Last March marked the beginning of a year-long Open Playtest of the new rules, which are based on the popular 3.5 rules available under the Open Game License. The Pathfinder RPG is designed with backward compatibility as one of its primary goals, so players will continue to enjoy their lifelong fantasy gaming hobby without invalidating their entire game library.
Well Monte chose his camp as he made clear a few weeks ago by saying that 4e was not going to be his cup of tea.
From Monte’s blog:
And in case you were wondering, don’t expect any 4E-compatible material or conversions of our stuff to 4E. (Even if I wanted to do 4E stuff, and to be honest I really don’t, the morass that the current licensing situation appears to be in is not at ALL attractive to me as a publisher.)
It therefore apprears he went with the continuation of the game he designed and the version of the open Gaming movement he preferred.
I wonder if this will change anything in the paths that Paizo’s 3.75 / WotC 4e chose for themselves. Probably not.
I’m sure this is going to make some people very happy and others to go ‘meh’.
For my part, let’s just say I’m happy to know I’ll have a familiar face going over That Other Game should 4e fail to please me.
Also if you missed them he published 2 Book of Experimental Might, PDFs filled with variant D&D 3.5 rules. I haven’t read them as I’m no longer interested but both are smashing successes.
1st one here and 2nd one here.
What say you?
You know, that’s weird, at least by my recollection.
As far as I can recall, Monte left well before 3.5 came out, and he was in fact mildly critical about how quickly it came out considering the relatively minor changes. So calling him the author of 3.5 seems – well, “inaccurate” of Paizo, to say the least.
Unless of course my recollection is flawed. The PH does list Monte as part of the design team, but only Jonathan Tweet for the revision.
Help me out here – am I misremembering?
It is in-inaccurate, he designed 3.0 with Tweet and Williams and he wrote the DMG 3.0…
Since a lot of his stuff remained on the 3.5 DMG it could be fair to see he still was an author.
But that’s stretching it.
Gazza- I’m pretty sure you’re right. He had already moved on to Malhavoc Press and released Arcana Unearthed before 3.5 came out.
I don’t consider Monte to have un-retired… from where I sit, between MC’s WoD, the Malhavoc Press products, and whatnot, it doesn’t seem like he ever stopped, just slowed down.
Dave T. Games last blog post..Inq. of the Week: Play to the DM
Yeah more like a return from an indeterminate break. He technically said he was done, then he could not let it go and did the books of experimental might. The WoD stuff was in the can when he “quit doing game stuff”, but i never really believed that as much as I thought it was his spin on not making any kind of comitment to what was coming with 4th ed.
I like that he is still keeping in the biz to some extent.
Buzzregogs last blog post..Games ..
Wow! That’s a nice addition. Definitely gives Pathfinder some extra oomph. I need to subscribe to Pathfinder…
Interestingly, Cook also predicted back in ’06 that 4e would arrive in ’08. So while it’s not following his direction, he definitely saw the need for it.
I think this is great. Monte Cook is one of my favorite 3.5 authors. Paizo is one of my favorite game companies. So this seems like a match made in heaven for me. Now I’m interested in 4E. But I dont know how quickly I plan on moving away from 3.5. So this may be a good resource, and interesting books to boot.
I’ve been kind of psyched about the directions that 4e was going in, but I’m also a fan of Monte cook. This gives me a bit of pause about 4e. Still, my DND of choice is Eberron and Keith Baker saying that it looked like they were going to be doing a lot of the non core 4e Eberron stuff as DND insider materials also gave me some pause. I’m kind of in the “Lets wait and see what happens with 4E” camp now.
If your D&D of choice is Eberron, 4e has a lot to offer.
I am also a fan of Monte Cook’s design abilities, but while I loved reading and planning with Arcana Unearthed, it has occurred to me lately that I would never want to play with it. Scanning the Book of Experimental Might lately is what brought me to that conclusion.
Monte’s great for mechanics.
He’s not so great for making those mechanics simple and streamlined.
I liked BOXM 1, and I’m looking forward to seeing BOXM 2. Given the choice between upgrading my game to 4E, staying with the core PHB and DMG (I’m already using the MIC and other monster books), expanding the core game with PHB2, DMG2, Complete This, Complete That etc., or expanding the core game with BOXM 1 & 2, I’ll go with the last choice. Somehow the two intrigue me.
Alex Schröders last blog post..2008-05-12 Sleeping God’s Soul
Just so we’re clear (and that Monte doesn’t barge in here telling me off) he’s only a rules consultant on the RPG for the moment. He’s not employed by Paizo.
And know also that he sits on the Gleemax board of directors (or the equivalent).
I think he’s still very much into writing novels and other creative projects… Bt something tells me he was exceedingly surprised to see how well the Book of experimental Might did and he may feel the urge to re-visit a business practice in which he excels.
As for complexity of rules Graham, let’s not forget that Monte worked on Rolemaster a lot, so he really likes crunchy bits and maybe he’s not all that keen on rules optimization…
Although as I write this, I recall he did write the Hero Cliks rules which, in my mind, D&D 4e is borrowing heavily from in term of combat mechanics philosophy.
Hmmm… I would have to read the BoExpM to judge it better…
Monte was part of the Design team for 3.0, mechanics, DMG, etc. 3.5 is a revision to 3.0, and the mechanics, DMG stuff, etc are all the same so it isn’t a stretch to say he is a principle designer of 3.5 too. Just becasue they added tweaks here and there doesn’t mean he loses the right to say he is a designer of the system. In fact WOTC should be crediting him more. If someone invents the ice cream cone you can’t say they didn’t invent the ice cream cone with a cherry on top. (ouch… sorry)
Oh yeah, BTW I’m a Monte Cook Fanboy 🙂
I have both Books of Expirimental Might. He was out of it, but after he mentioned in his message board he was running a 3.5 game for friends and he had a bunch of house rules he was trying out, his message board readers really wanted to see them and offered him money for them (since putting them together was going to be a time consuming effort). So he went ahead and did it, and it sold amazingly well. It was geared towards magic users, and the message board readers then said they wanted to see some similar stuff for fighters, so he threw something together for that. Whether they were house rules he was already using or some he came up with because he saw demand (ie profit) I don’t know. Again, it sold really well.
Now he is dabbling more and more, and I believe he said he’s only going to do it as long as it is fun. He is retired from Gaming, but he’s still a gamer, and he can’t quite stay completely out so he continues to work on stuff, but on his own terms.
He is the perfect person for the job of Game Consultant on Pathfinder. He has done this before! Arcana Unearthed was essentially a 3.0 revision with different classes, slightly modified mechanics, but still 3.0 and not tied to the D20 license. Pathfinder is trying to accomplish the same thing, although not such an extreme case as AU was.
I was wondering if they would pull some of the OGC from BOXM into pathfinder, in fact I still wonder it, but I am really looking forward to whatever they come up with. I am really glad Jason has someone of Monte’s caliber giving him guidance, the job is really big and another set of experienced eyes can only make the product better.
Another impact is that Monte’s involvement kind of gives the project legitimacy. There are bound to be a bunch of 3.5 “spinoffs” and this gives Pathfinder the appearence of being the true heir to 3.5. Hopefully those companies that were looking to make new 3.5 compatible products instead begin making Pathfinder compatible products. (Before you say that’s crazy talk, look at the current support for Arcana Evolved). it is better to make support productsfor books that are on the shelvs than books that are out of print.
So, if you can’t tell, I’m excited by this announcement. I look forward to seeing the beta release of Pathfinder soon. But also, I hope that Jason and the other designers learn from Monte. Monte’s been in the business a long time, and the more new designers he shares his experience with the better for the industry as a whole.
But I stand by my belief that I have room in my life for Pathfinder and 4E. They are two different games with different play styles and there are things I will enjoy with each.
shadow145s last blog post..4E mechanic of the Moment: The Archmage & Epic Destiny
@Shadow145: I too am a big Monte Fanboi. I read/played most of his 3.X adventures and I still think the 3.0 DMG is the best one ever written so far, a true heir to Gary’s (Better organized too).
In fact were it not for 4e, I’d have given Arcana Evolved a shot!
Do you go by the same moniker on Okay…Your Turn Shadow? I used to spend a lot of time there before I started this blogging things.
Yep, I go by the same handle on Monte’s Boards, but I’m more of a lurker there. I keep an eye on the 4E, Book of Might, and Line of Sight Forums lately. I lurk on the Paizo boards too, the 4E forums mostly and anything that stirs my interest that pops up on the Main Page. I like EN World but I do most of my browesing while at work and I can’t get that site.
I’m finding I have less and less time to monitor forums anymore.
shadow145s last blog post..4E mechanic of the Moment: The Archmage & Epic Destiny
Yeah I hear you… I stopped going over forums some time ago. it’s a shame because some seriously brilliant stuff occurs in them.
Hmmm maybe a RPG blog focused on fishing Forum threads of interest and commenting on them could fly…
Any takers?
I’m all about Pathfinder! I’m glad Monte Cook is onboard as a rules consultant. Jason Buhlman also stated some of the BoXM rules might make it into Pathfinder (not the 20 spell levels).