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.

 

[Hussar]

I’m not doing a “4e what could’ve been thread” with you, man. Sorry.

This has nothing to do with 4e. It's about the playtests for 5e. The fandom has 100% stated that they will not permit WotC to make any real changes to the ruleset. This has nothing to do with corporate oversight at all. WotC is absolutely forbidden by the fandom from any innovation.

Good grief, look at the number one requested thing we see all the time. Dark Sun. Y'know that setting that was hugely innovative THIRTY YEARS AGO? Virtually no one is asking for new settings. No one is asking for new systems. No one is asking for any real changes. No. They want WotC to keep right on playing the greatest hits. Bring back Dark Sun. Bring back whatever pet project someone wants from decades ago.

Every single time WotC even suggests trying to colour outside the lines, the fandom comes down on them like a ton of bricks.

You want to know why we don't see innovation out of WotC? Folks just love pointing at Hasbro all the while ignoring the fact that the fandom has 100% shut down any hint of innovation for the past ten years. We had what, 3, 4 years of lead up to 2024? When did they start doing Unearthed Arcana's for 2024? 2022? Somewhere around that. And every single innovative idea got stomped down.

WotC is doing exactly what the fandom demands.

 

[Hussar]

4e to 5e were innovative.

Let's back up to there shall we?

Innovative how? 5e was 100% the "Greatest Hits" edition. That was the stated goal of 5e. To turn back the clock and make an evergreen product that hits the high points of D&D history. With the release of 5e, there was nothing in 5e that hadn't appeared in some form in an earlier edition and that was 100% deliberate. Any new mechanics got squashed in the play tests. The D&D Next version of the fighter looked very, very little like the 5e fighter, for example. Fandom was very clear here in that they had zero interest in innovation.

So, what was the great 5e innovation?

3e? Sure. 3e was innovative as heck. Unified d20 mechanics? That was a huge change in how D&D worked. 1e to 2e though? What was the innovation there? Considering the two systems are backwards compatible, intentionally so, about the only innovation of 2e is cleaning up the rules and reorganization. Mechanically, there isn't a whole lot of change.

 

[TiQuinn]

This has nothing to do with 4e. It's about the playtests for 5e. The fandom has 100% stated that they will not permit WotC to make any real changes to the ruleset. This has nothing to do with corporate oversight at all. WotC is absolutely forbidden by the fandom from any innovation.

Good grief, look at the number one requested thing we see all the time. Dark Sun. Y'know that setting that was hugely innovative THIRTY YEARS AGO? Virtually no one is asking for new settings. No one is asking for new systems. No one is asking for any real changes. No. They want WotC to keep right on playing the greatest hits. Bring back Dark Sun. Bring back whatever pet project someone wants from decades ago.

Every single time WotC even suggests trying to colour outside the lines, the fandom comes down on them like a ton of bricks.

You want to know why we don't see innovation out of WotC? Folks just love pointing at Hasbro all the while ignoring the fact that the fandom has 100% shut down any hint of innovation for the past ten years. We had what, 3, 4 years of lead up to 2024? When did they start doing Unearthed Arcana's for 2024? 2022? Somewhere around that. And every single innovative idea got stomped down.

WotC is doing exactly what the fandom demands.

You’re arguing to yourself now. This has turned into a rant. You keep ignoring the actual words I’ve written to make whatever point you want and I’m not reading all of that.

 

[mamba]

Let's back up to there shall we?

Innovative how?

yes, it was, figuring out the greatest hits (4e showed that they had no idea what ‘songs’ their fans liked) and combining them into a cohesive whole with some new stuff mixed in is innovation too to me.

To stay with the greatest hits analogy, this is a new megamix of the hits that splices them all together elegantly instead of having awkward transitions between songs

Decide what is innovative, you swerve from ‘3pps are not innovative’ to ‘2024 has many innovations’ to ‘but 2014 had none’ as suits your ‘argument’

1e to 2e though? What was the innovation there?

none, which is why I did not have that

 

[soviet]

yes, it was, figuring out the greatest hits (4e showed that they had no idea what ‘songs’ their fans liked) and combining them into a cohesive whole with some new stuff mixed in is innovation too to me.

It's literally the opposite of innovation

 

[AlViking]

WotC hasn’t been an innovator for a long time. They’re taking care of a brand now. Innovation is something that’s going to happen outside of Wizards. What’s the last new game that came out of WotC? Why did guys like Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Rob Heinsoo leave just to go start making games under their own banners? They hit the top end of what they were going to do at WotC. There could be the caretakers of the brand, but creating something new? Not gonna happen there.

Just like small is not necessarily better, innovation is not necessarily better either. A lot of innovative games fall by the wayside because they just don't resonate with people. A lot of other games rely on either the D20 system or PbtA, are they really being particularly innovative? Personally I think settings like The Forgotten Realms are boring which is why I don't use it for my games. For other people it gives them a solid base to start from and they run fantastic campaigns because of the interesting NPCs they add and the adventures that they run.

For me innovation matters at the table, all I want from the publisher is a solid set of rules. YMMV of course.

 

[AlViking]

That’s an iteration of the existing game. That’s not innovation.

Then every game that is based on an established game system is not innovative. All games based on the D20 system, FATE, PbtA are iterations of an existing set of rules. None of them are innovative?

Practically everything we use, every device and application we interface with is just a hopefully improved version of something that came before. The flat screen TV in my living room is just an iteration of devices going back to the early 20th century even if no one would have imagined it being possible back then.

Being an iteration does not mean it can't be inventive.

 

[KYRON45]

by the time you start the game, you own it already, I thought you said marketing....

View attachment 402256

If you looked into this game at all and you still did miss that it is a D&D game, then that is on you

Has anyone considered that there are people who don’t care that BG3 is D&D?
Sometimes people just want to play a game and don’t want to crawl into the weeds on who made it and where the rules come from.

I know I don’t care where the D&D rules come from when I’m playing actual D&D.

 

[TiQuinn]

Then every game that is based on an established game system is not innovative. All games based on the D20 system, FATE, PbtA are iterations of an existing set of rules. None of them are innovative?

Unless they are creating some new set of rules to improve on something and make it work better, largely no. That’s not to say they aren’t good, or popular or fun.

Practically everything we use, every device and application we interface with is just a hopefully improved version of something that came before. The flat screen TV in my living room is just an iteration of devices going back to the early 20th century even if no one would have imagined it being possible back then.

Those all brought new technology used in new ways. But even with smart phones, and televisions, and computers, there comes a point where what is being released as the new model with a slightly better screen or slightly better camera is not being particularly innovative - they are not always creating something new.

 

[Minigiant]

Every single time WotC even suggests trying to colour outside the lines, the fandom comes down on them like a ton of bricks.

The Fandom has Topple Mastery.

Even when the fans like a new idea, they don't realize it was they who killed the idea earlier with a previous knockdown.

I'm sure Crawford wanted to make many changes that the community wanted that were knocked down by the demands of the same community.

All the people whining about ranger forgetting that earlier complaining locked them into only a few options