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.

 

[darjr]

I’m not sure when maps was started. I do think it was paused at some point.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Ya know, most people when they are loud and insistent and repetitive about their opinion, have the good sense to actually have some kind of argument or reasoning behind the opinion when it gets challenged.

It is the normal usage. It is the only remotely common usage when someone says that someone leaving an organization isn’t for ye stated reasons, but instead “rats fleeing a sinking ship”.

No one says that phrase without at least a little disdain for the “rats”, but especially not when using the phrase to indicate that the stated reasons for leaving an organization aren’t as benign as has been indicated previously.

I stated my opinion and gave examples you don't agree, fine let it go and stop trying to pick a fight where there isn't one. I will not be goaded into a debate. harassing me is not cool.

Look, you win, I am disengaging. There is no discussion here. We can't agree on a definition so nothing either of us say matters.
Good Day.

 

[kapars]

That's true and there was something of an uptick later, with products like Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd being better regarded. XGTE was a high point. But then it seemed to get worse again with the very weak later stuff like Spelljammer and Dragonlance. And many 3rd party publishers did much better work consistently over years. WoTC have nothing to compare with Odyssey of the Dragon lords or Primeval Thule. And Kobold Press is consistently at a higher standard IMO. Paizo arguably also.

Could you cite some examples in terms of Kobold Press? I’m using their products but I’m not seeing better quality. I experience issues with layout and balancing in particular.

 

[Minigiant]

Half a year's profit of D&D or of all of WotC? I don't think it was the latter, and they threw more than that at DDB..

Half of D&D.

Project Sigil costed half of D&D's profits in its good years.

Lockdowns, Stranger things, and CR boom are over. BG3 is done. And the other half of Hasbro is in the tank.

WOTC from before 2015 and after 2024 is running on Magic Cards. And even within that time when D&D made oodles of money, WOTC didn't understand it enough to bet on it without MTG money

Stuff is gonna just get more unreliable.

 

[JDR]

I stated my opinion and gave examples you don't agree, fine let it go and stop trying to pick a fight where there isn't one. I will not be goaded into a debate. harassing me is not cool.

Look, you win, I am disengaging. There is no discussion here. We can't agree on a definition so nothing either of us say matters.
Good Day.

FWIW I side with you. I've always understood that phrase to mean "individuals leaving a bad situation while they still can" and not an insult to said individuals.

 

[Aldarc]

FWIW I side with you. I've always understood that phrase to mean "individuals leaving a bad situation while they still can" and not an insult to said individuals.

And here is a little bit of history about the idiom.

 

[Mistwell]

D&D books are not made with Chinese materials as far as I know.

Printing and books are also not included in the tariffs.

 

[mamba]

Looks like it may have been before 2020.

which was close to the height of 5e

 

[mamba]

Project Sigil costed half of D&D's profits in its good years.

so clearly something D&D could finance without having to fall back on MtG profits then

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I wish more companies cares about their games as GAMES and not just PRODUCTS from which to squeeze REVENUE. I honestly think we get better games that way.

Everyone wants this.

What’s weird to me is that you treat this as a new thing. You and others regularly act like all new 5e books are soulless and only made to sell money. As if all of 5e transitioned away from “art” into “corpo-slop” . . . when do you folks draw the line? Is it still “Tasha’s.”

When did D&D 5e “sell out”? Do you think the early 5e books weren’t designed as “products”? In my opinion, some of the early books are the weakest in all of 5e. Princes of the Apocalypse, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat.

What makes Tasha’s and Xanathar’s so different? Or Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons? Ravnica vs. Ravenloft?

In my opinion, 5e didn’t even really find its footing until 2016-2017, with release of the 5e SRD, Curse of Strahd, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tomb of Annihilation. And it wasn’t until Ravnica that they found their main model for releasing setting books to great success.

There have been recent books that have received a lot of praise (Planescape, Book of Many Things, the new core books). There were early books that were clearly underdeveloped and not well received. And vice versa. There are early 5e products I have a lot of praise for and newer ones that I have a lot of criticism of. Most of the newer ones that you folk bemoan as the herald of 5e’s doom (Tasha’s, Van Richten’s, the new core books) . . . have mostly glowing reviews. Clearly there are a lot of people that enjoy the newer direction. Making this grand-standing statement about how you think the game should be treated like art and not a product when you mean “they changed the direction and I don’t like it” is practically accusing people that do like the new direction and books of being corpo shills.

Also, to bring this back around to the topic of the thread, Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins were around for all of that. They were the leads of the D&D 5e design team for the past 10 years. If you were to grab a random 5e book off your shelf, their names are probably credited on its first page.

What do you think their role was in the shift towards “product-ification” you think happened? If the shift in quality was so drastic, where were they?