Jeremy Crawford Also Leaving D&D Team Later This Month

Jeremy Crawford is leaving Wizards of the Coast later this month. Screen Rant (via me!) had the exclusive announcement. Crawford was the Game Director for Dungeons & Dragons and was one of the guiding forces for D&D over the past decade. In the past year, Crawford has focused on the core rulebooks and leading the team of rules designers. He has also been a face of Dungeons & Dragons for much of 5th Edition, appearing in many promotional videos and DMing Acquisitions Incorporated Actual Play series.

He joins Chris Perkins in leaving the D&D team in recent weeks. Perkins, who was the Creative Director for D&D, announced his retirement last week. Both Perkins and Crawford appear to have left Wizards on their terms, with Lanzillo very effusive with her praise of both men and their contribution in our interview.

On a personal note, I've enjoyed interviewing Jeremy over the years. He was always gracious with his time and answers and is one of the most eloquent people I've ever heard talk about D&D. I'll miss both him and Chris Perkins and look forward to their next steps, wherever that might be.

 

[Greg K]

Probably none. All the knowledge has been written down. All that's been lost is Perkins' and Crawford's style.

Institutional knowledge can still be lost. We have seen it before. That said, while I wish Perkins and Crawford the best, I won't miss their style while simultaneously having reservations if Wyatt is going to be in charge.

 

[Mournblade94]

But not to WRITE the game.

They are indeed vague on how it would manifesr

 

[kapars]

Thank you for all you've done Mr Crawford, I've greatly enjoyed your work.

 

[Mournblade94]

Note: this is more of a comment on American society than you, specifically, as a father or a person.

It always baffles me how the "age filters" always focus on nudity, sex and swearing, and almost never violence.

I grew up on an animal farm. We bred animals. The first time I had to help with a boirth I was 8 years old. We often had to shower off naked in the yard after cleaning stalls before let back inside. My brothers and I discovered girlie mags in the foreman's trailer of the gravel pit up the road when I was 10.

Sex and nudity is a LOT less damaging to kids than violence.

That is a discussion FAR beyond enworld but yes.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

One thing the last decade taught me is there is a large contingency of fans in many fandoms who cannot accept not being the main target audience.

So when companies need more money and shift to younger or other demographic audience, they remain but grow very vocally angry about the change

Hence the swing back through part of my post.

 

[Remathilis]

One thing the last decade taught me is there is a large contingency of fans in many fandoms who cannot accept not being the main target audience.

So when companies need more money and shift to younger or other demographic audience, they remain but grow very vocally angry about the change

100%.

I keep missing the memo because as a 45 year old fan, I was apparently fired by Marvel, Star Wars, Doctor Who, D&D, and Nintendo as a fan all within the past 20 years, but I still like all of them.

 

[SteveC]

It's called being aged out the target audience

I think this is a really important point to make because that really does seem to be a lot of the goals for the current think of WotC. There is a huge part of the fanbase who's thinking this, and WotC is looking at the people who've started playing since 5E and saying, "these people are our market."

But there are a couple of problems with that. The first is that a lot of people start playing RPGs and, for lack of a better way to explain it, just exhaust their interest with it. It happens with so many hobbies that people can be casual or intense fans of.

The second is that the old fans have a huge number of "whales" in them. By that I mean people who buy everything and anything for the game. Whether they play it or not. And if they are unhappy, you lose the money they spend, but you also make them grumpy. And there's nothing like someone who's loved something with all their heart and had it broken to complain loudly and angrily. And in 2025 it's easy to amplify those voices.

I think it's perfectly possible to write a version of D&D that keeps the majority of the old and new fans happy. 5E's initial fanbase came from people who left the game during the 4E era. It's only since then that we've had this issue of trying to make the new audience happy.

And my question, which is a much deeper one, is: what does this new audience want that's incompatible with the old one? I think the issue is that there isn't a clear set of design principles or overall "wants" that this new audience has. Remember that 4E was the last attempt at giving people what they wanted and, that didn't work out, did it?

 

[Mournblade94]

+1 for No Thank You, Evil. It's exactly the kind of scope and tone that the Cypher system is actually pretty good at. Also they add a fourth stat called "Cool" which basically boils down to "how good you are at helping other people" and that's such an awesome apapproach.

Shana Germaine is amazing. She did such a good job with that game and I used to tweet my daughter and her friends excitement to her.

 

[Scribe]

I mean... there's a lot of different ways presented to approaching Eberron. Baker himself deliberately calls out how the Emerald Claw were invented just to create the possibility of the players doing heroic things for good and justice. The core ideas of the setting though have always been the noir trappings of the political and economic corruption and skullduggery. Of shades of grey resisting the simplicity of describing things as black and white (See the Valenar, Shadow Marches, Droaam, the Blood of Vol, and do not get me started on the Church of the Silver Flame...). The nominally good Queen is utilizing her underhanded secret service to restart a devastating war while the nominally evil secret vampire King is working his butt off to keep the peace.

You can punch evil fascists Indiana Jones-style all day long if you like, but the primary tone and thrust of Eberron has always been closer to Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

This was my understanding of the setting as well, but I also know (believe?) that it can pretty much be anything to anyone, just based on Bakers guidance and the breadth of regions and material. Its still a kitchen sink, but its a different kitchen sink than FR.

It's not until I had a daughter that I could empathize with George Lucas on why he made Greedo Shoot first.

Why?!

What sort of things are you looking for? Violence? Gore? Sex? Swearing? Genocide? Slavery? Taboo subjects? Body horror?

All of that stuff is better done by smaller companies who don't get the same blowback WotC would get trying to put adult stuff in a D&D book.

And there you have it. There is no real reason here, other than to avoid controversy. Please do not leap to BoVD, unless we are going to on the other end call modern D&D "Baby's First RPG".

There is a gulf between 'traditional sword and sorcery' and BoVD that cannot be crossed.

 

[Mournblade94]

I think this is a really important point to make because that really does seem to be a lot of the goals for the current think of WotC. There is a huge part of the fanbase who's thinking this, and WotC is looking at the people who've started playing since 5E and saying, "these people are our market."

But there are a couple of problems with that. The first is that a lot of people start playing RPGs and, for lack of a better way to explain it, just exhaust their interest with it. It happens with so many hobbies that people can be casual or intense fans of.

The second is that the old fans have a huge number of "whales" in them. By that I mean people who buy everything and anything for the game. Whether they play it or not. And if they are unhappy, you lose the money they spend, but you also make them grumpy. And there's nothing like someone who's loved something with all their heart and had it broken to complain loudly and angrily. And in 2025 it's easy to amplify those voices.

I think it's perfectly possible to write a version of D&D that keeps the majority of the old and new fans happy. 5E's initial fanbase came from people who left the game during the 4E era. It's only since then that we've had this issue of trying to make the new audience happy.

And my question, which is a much deeper one, is: what does this new audience want that's incompatible with the old one? I think the issue is that there isn't a clear set of design principles or overall "wants" that this new audience has. Remember that 4E was the last attempt at giving people what they wanted and, that didn't work out, did it?

It absolutely is. But you have to stop listening to the social media critics that think everything is a microagression.