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.

 

[RSIxidor]

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

D&D Beyond is likely keeping them going financially well enough that projects like Cortex Prime are even possible.

 

[Marandahir]

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.

Just the other week Lauren Urban downplayed Todd Kenrick's comment that the new UA would get into DDB soon. I imagine she did so out of concern that things wouldn't move so quickly at least in the short term when all three of them were leaving (and so quickly after James did).

 

[Morrus]

D&D Beyond is likely keeping them going financially well enough that projects like Cortex Prime are even possible.

Fandom is a pretty major entity. DDB is one of the jewels in its crown, but it has a pretty big crown.

 

[RSIxidor]

Fandom is a pretty major entity. DDB is one of the jewels in its crown, but it has a pretty big crown.

I somehow didn't realize this was the same Fandom that does the fan wikis. That makes sense. Still, I have to imagine D&DB is a strong revenue source.

 

[Burnside]

Fandom’s stock is in the toilet right now. It’s been quite a year.

 

[Marandahir]

Fandom’s stock is in the toilet right now. It’s been quite a year.

Sounds like an opportunity for Wall Street Bets, yah?

 

[Azzy]

Y'know, I've had the same feeling. Seems like there's something in the air.

That's just Thunderclap Newman.

 

[Azzy]

Regardless of the actual reasons for them leaving (and I think Mistwell theory may be correct of all the speculation here), they really need to get some serious PR bandaids on this. As this thread provides ample evidence, people tend to jump to the worst conclusions first.

Still, it sucks. They were cool people.

 

[Morrus]

As this thread provides ample evidence, people tend to jump to the worst conclusions first.

Don’t think it matters. It’s not going to make them cancel their accounts en masse, and we’ll have all forgotten about it next week.

 

[bedir than]

Just the other week Lauren Urban downplayed Todd Kenrick's comment that the new UA would get into DDB soon. I imagine she did so out of concern that things wouldn't move so quickly at least in the short term when all three of them were leaving (and so quickly after James did).

Three of the people they lost had little to nothing to do with product development and integration. Todd was the head of creative (a marketing role), not the guy who makes certain the tools work.

If Tesla (for example) lost their PR staff that's not an indication that the engineers stopped working on cars and batteries