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.

 

[Minigiant]

Exactly this. Is this attitude more common with niche hobbies or just a natural reaction to getting older.

My guess is both.

Niche hobbies tend to start with a very very homogeneous demographic. So at first the companies home in on them hard.

But if the hobby makes money, the companies plateaus unless they branch out.

And if the original demo ages, the companies need to replace them with someon

I'm trying to be self-aware, but I don't recognize this attitude in myself. I enjoy a lot of the new stuff and still have access to and enjoy playing the old stuff that made me fall in love with the hobby. There is so much available content for all tastes, world views, and pocket books in the TTRPG hobby these days, it seems like a waste of mental energy to get worked up about changes in audience tastes in one segment of it.

I'm I guess lucky enough to be used to rarely being a target demographic that my hobbies shifting doesn't bother me

 

[Faolyn]

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).

Admittedly I only have the quickstart rules for Shadowdark, but most of those spells and monsters were already straight outta D&D.

 

[MNblockhead]

Yes because it's pretty interesting how bisexuals are commonly visually coded in media.

Well, I learned something new today. Looked it up. Now I'll need to re‑watch Atomic Blond and Blade Runner 2049 with that in mind.

 

[Faolyn]

No Thank You, Evil! is a GREAT game to introduce younger children to TTRPGs. It is also the only non-gamer-parent-friendly TTRPG I've encountered. I can't really think of anything to complain about other than the game's name.

Have you read Magical Kitties Save The Day?

 

[mamba]

Not on the console box art, and even the PC box art "Dungeons and Dragons" was much smaller than "Baldur's Gate" and only on the back. D&D was not the main driver of that title.

I don’t know, since BG1 it has always been very clear to me that this is a D&D game, regardless of how big the font is for ‘Baldurs Gate’ vs ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. You must live under a rock to not know the two are associated imo

 

[Aldarc]

It turns out that evergreen editions don't need evergreen designers.

 

[SkidAce]

WOTC posted the data.

The plurality of 5e players:

1. Are under 45 years old
2. Had 5e as there first edition of DND

It might be majority by now.

My apologies, I wasn't clear.

It wasn't the age demographics that I disagreed with, it was the "The young audience wants a narrative heroic fantasy game. The older audience wants a simulationist greedy grounded game."

I see plenty of both groups liking both or either styles of play.

 

[mamba]

I see SD as more if a fun option among many for OSR play. I still like other games with similar style sensibilities.

if I were interested in OSR, SD would probably be the way to go. I just can’t be bothered with the 1e / 2e / BX rules any more.

I am somewhat curious about Vagabond but have not taken a closer look yet. Seems to sit in a similar spot to SD. The one I am most interested in right now is what Mearls is doing, he appears to check a lot of my boxes and has similar design sensibilities from what I can tell so far

 

[SkidAce]

Everytime someone posts about what the older fans "want" . . . it rarely seems to match up with any of the older fans I know, IRL and here on the forums.

When the post about what the younger fans "want" . . . it doesn't match up with any of my middle-school students who love D&D.

Exactly.

To be fair, its probably because we all live in such wide and varied spaces, styles in more than just games are going to be varied.

But we only see whats around us.

 

[MNblockhead]

Have you read Magical Kitties Save The Day?

No. When I got back into the hobby and my kids were still young, the first TTRPG I ran for them was Hero Kids. The main fun of hero kids was the craft aspect of it. Cutting out and gluing the standee miniatures, cutting out the geomorphs and making a cave system, etc. The rules didn't do much for me, but it was easy for the kids to pickup.

Then I started running kid-friendly 5e adventures from Playground Adventures. Some good adventures, but really geared for parents who were already familiar with 5e.

No Thank You, Evil! was the first game that was the whole package. It was well designed both in rules and components. Came in a box with pleasant and easy to digest rules and scenarios. A parent who never played a TTRPG in their life could buy the game at Target and run it for their kids.

Looks like Magical Kitties Save the Day was first published in 2020, my kids were to old by then to likely be interested. My older son is not as into TTRPGs as he gets ready to go to college. My younger soon has been playing 5e with several groups and just started to DM his own game of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4th Edition. So simpler, child-friendly games is not what he's looking for.

But I think it is great that there are even more options available and from my brief browsing of Atlas Game's website, it looks like a very well designed and attractive game.