D&D General Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager.

D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently owned by Fandom (previously known as Wikia), after it acquired the company in 2018 from previous owner Curse, a Twitch subsidiary.

According to Cam Banks, creator of DDB owner Fandom's Cortex, all three received offers elsewhere which they could not turn down.

 

[Dire Bare]

There's a lot of Chicken Little's claiming the sky is about to fall with D&D Beyond in this thread (likely elsewhere on the intertubes as well).

Relax.

The D&D Beyond team IS losing some good people . . . but we have zero evidence that this is anything to be concerned about. People change jobs all the time. Sometimes, coincidentally, a bunch of folks do it all at once.

If D&D Beyond starts to experience problems rolling out new features, maintaining the site, or anything like that . . . then I'll start to worry.

 

[Mistwell]

Here is my suspicion as to what happened:

1) 2020 was a very strong year for them, and a very large bonus just vested on January 1 or February 1 or thereabouts (whether cash, stock options, or both); and
2) They gave 30 days notice as required by their employment contracts after the bonus vested, or otherwise the timing of this lines up with the bonus vesting.

That's it. That's my suspicion - this was simply a good moment to leave, as leaving earlier would have meant leaving a lot of money on the table. I think they're just doing what they said they're doing - each going to a higher paying job, after taking a large bonus from last year's higher profit.

 

[MGibster]

Damn Australians.

I know, right? It's like, be an island or a continent but don't try to be both.

 

[darjr]

It's always good to be reminded that we're not privy to what's going on behind the scenes. A few years back my own department at work experienced a lot of turnover in a relatively short period of time. It was a combination of retirements, people leaving for different careers, cities, or employers, and one termination for cause. Turnover in my department is historically low and this threw up a red flag prompting our VP to meet with everyone one-on-one to assess the situation. It turns out there wasn't any deep seeded serious problems that prompted the turnovers it was just a confluence of the stars or something. Sometimes change happens and it's not always for nefarious reasons.

I get that. It’s the obvious axe grinding and dire speculation in bad faith is what’s got me down.

 

[Emirikol Prime]

I can see Cindy Crawford coming to her senses and begging me to run away with her, but there's no real evidence that either of these things are true.

The D&D Beyond license appears to have benefited both parties and WotC still pushes it heavily. If there's a reconsideration, it'll come with 6E/the Anniversary edition.

You do you sweetie.

 

[Marandahir]

Fandom has always been very corporate and a difficult company, as wiki users know.
I wouldn't be surprised if it just got too much, or if WotC is creating in-house integration.

D&D Beyond has been one of my fav channels for years just to watch these three chat about the new content. I'll miss them.

A D&DB sunset/Paizo style splinter though would suck for me, bc I have physical copies AND BBD digital copies and I don't like the idea of having bought tons of books online for ease of reference and then it getting locked out from future releases or closing down or something.

Something definitely smells corporate-like.

 

[IndigoTraveler]

Their clips were interesting to watch.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That seems unlikely. 5e is still doing quite well. It could be a 5.5, but it doesn't look like they're going for the same sort of major overhaul like they did for 3.5--just dribs and drabs put out in new books, not radical changes.

Yeah, it seems unlikely to me too.

But if they all/mostly turn up as WotC I don't for a second believe we're not getting at least a 5.5E, and quite possibly a 6E, in the next year or two.

I think it's more likely they'll all turn up at some other gaming site.

If it was WotC wanting to get into the field, surely it would be more efficient to buy the whole company - getting the people can help, but getting the platform would potentially save years of rebuilding effort.

Definitely, and that's what I'd expect. It's possible Fandom was being unreasonable though, especially as they pretty much just bought DDB.

 

[Michael Linke]

My first guess was that Fandom wants to push its own Cortex Prime vtt and isn't interested in D&D Beyond any longer.

 

[darjr]

My first guess was that Fandom wants to push its own Cortex Prime vtt and isn't interested in D&D Beyond any longer.

I’m not saying your wrong.... but that would be like killing the golden goose. And I think they know it.