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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's called being aged out the target audience

If the book's reading level has dropped since you were first introduced to the brand (which IMO it has), it's actually the opposite of aging out.

 

[Morrus]

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

Two in one week? Have you not yet figured out this is not the place to wage your culture war? Please re-read the rules and follow them.

 

[Minigiant]

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?

The young audience wants a narrative heroic fantasy game.

The older audience wants a simulationist greedy grounded game.

People have been saying this for almost a year now but the older audience is convinced that since they liked a greedy game when they were young then the people who are 20, 30, 40 years younger than them would also like a greedy game and ignore the changes in media in the fantasy genre that they don't experience anymore due to the generation shift.

It's like when I a 40-year-old man insert anime characters as examples of D&D archetypes on conversations here or in other places, I often get responses of "who's that" or "I don't know what that is?". And I'm not even "young".

Or like back when I played hearthstone, blizzard had to actually hire designers who favored each of the classes because on their team they didn't have fans of every class in the card design team. So they would ended up keep designing cards that the fans of those classes didn't like until they hired people like those things.

Perkins and Crawford are both very good DMs and designers. But their styles don't match the majority of 5e fans anymore.

 

[Umbran]

@Umbran boot me from this thread please. I dont have time to waste all day on it.

Okeydoke.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not one of the new fans, so I won't pretend to speak for them. But what I do know is the older fans apparently want Shadowdark with D&D branding and IP (some exclusions apply).

Homebrew and a deep library covers that particular desire for me.

 

[SteveC]

The young audience wants a narrative heroic fantasy game.

The older audience wants a simulationist greedy grounded game.

People have been saying this for almost a year now but the older audience is convinced that since they liked a greedy game when they were young then the people who are 20, 30, 40 years younger than them would also like a greedy game and ignore the changes in media in the fantasy genre that they don't experience anymore due to the generation shift.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I don't know if you can make that broad of a statement. I still play with some young players (sons and daughters of my friends and their friends) and greedy play is very much on the table for them. Getting all the stuff is very exciting. And heroic fantasy? I'm not sure they even know what that is. Heroic characters are classics and I don't see a lot of that in current pop culture.

And older players? Where do you think the audience for PbtA or similar games came from? It's all older players, or younger ones who were introduced by older players.

I'm certainly not saying you're wrong with this by any means, but I think it's not that simple. I know that I, and all of my older player friends, have been running away from greedy grounded games for our whole lives. But then I liked 4E, so there you go.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Netflix!She-Ra is absolutely amazing and perfect. I'll take She-Ra over Conan any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

oh I agree completely. And I look forward to seeing what they make going forward, though I don’t like Wes Schneider nearly as well as I like JC or Perkins. Armin is cool, and hopefully Makenzie De Armas has a leadership role eventually because they’re brilliant. And of course Wyatt deserves his time in the sun for sure.

 

[AlViking]

I didn't have time to read the entire thread (something I normally try to do), but according to the article, they are leaving on their own accord because they've achieved what they want.

I get it. I like having a challenge and they've been doing this stuff for a long time. Maybe they just felt like it was time to move on. I've done that myself once or twice, I wasn't forced out, could have stayed where I was but I just wanted something new.

I wish them luck in their new endeavors.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

Can kitchen sinks not have “mature” content? Weren’t you just praising BG3 for exactly that?

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.

5e books have slavery. 5e books have body horror. 5e books have violence and some gore. 5e books have swearing. I’m having a hard time recalling specific instances of genocide in 5e books, but I’m sure it’s been referenced before. There’s even a bit of nudity in some art work, like the Harpy and Sea Hag.

The reason why people bring up Book of Vile Darkness is because that’s what it sounds like you want. An edgy, dark book that takes itself too seriously and goes so much into “mature” themes that it ends up being cringy and just bad. There is a ton of media out there that ended up being immature by trying too hard to be mature. The way you talk about and complain so much that the 5e books aren’t “mature” enough, that’s what it sounds like you’re asking for.

 

[The Soloist]

I'm not one of the new fans, so I won't pretend to speak for them. But what I do know is the older fans apparently want Shadowdark with D&D branding and IP (some exclusions apply).

Euh? No! I don't like Shadowdark and I'm 60. I like 5.5 just fine. It does what it does well. When I want a simple and lethal system I play Dragonbane.