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.

 

[mamba]

They worry that anyone who doesn't have an extant party of 8th level characters won't buy the book without Levels 1-7. I'm not sure that is worth worrying about, though.

if they have enough 1-7 and 8-12 modules, that issue goes away. They still might sell fewer of the latter however

 

[Faolyn]

I don't believe it will produce a better product just by being "indie". The only thing I judge a book by is the contents. I don't judge it by it's cover or what the organizational structure was in place for it's production. There are always restrictions and limitations of time, budget, feedback, art and other factors. Of course there's also the simple fact that what someone creates, no matter how innovative, will simply not resonate with me.

Edit - having to do everything yourself or only with a couple other people is a massive restriction on what can be done. Very few people are good at art, writing rules, editing, organizing and so on. When I was on bigger teams I often set the direction for the project but different people were able to focus on things they were good at where I lacked the skills. Big, small, in-between size groups can produce great, awful and in-between products.

I didn't say it would automatically produce a better product. I was specifically talking about labors of love versus products put out because of a desire for profit.

 

[Mournblade94]

Bollocks. That's just not true. Good grief, I've got 3 brand new core books sitting on my desk right now that are just chock a block with innovations and new ideas for D&D. Bastions, new monster rules, new mechanics, rewritten classes. An attempt at a full 3d VT suite. Numerous crossovers for settings. Video games. Tons of other stuff. How is that not innovation?

The three 2025 Books? Other than the Layout and lessons in the DM Guide I don't see any innovation, I see change for change sake and maybe chasing a different audience. Bastions is an innovation. MCDM did it better years ago. Theres nothing innovative about it. The Pathfinder Campaign Guide did it better years ago.

TTRPG's aren't graphics cards. Castles and Crusades did the weapon proficiency abilities 2 years ago. Settings aren't innovations. A quality of a good DM is knowing how to integrate worlds.

I fully admit the DM's Guide is the only book I did not sell back but only because it really DID innovate on presentation. The classes, species, Backgrounds, all a step back. Why are Backgrounds even there. They made Backgrounds worst. That is not innovation.

I have no idea if Corporation had anything to do with the things they made worst, but this is not even as good as 5e in my opinion. IF there is any "innovation" in 5.5 it was ripped off from people that did it first in Troll Lord Games or MCDM.

 

[Mournblade94]

Whatever dude, agree to disagree.

WotC actually does have a new game coming out, Exodus. It's a sci-fi game that does use the 5E engine. But it's hella innovative within that framework and I'm really excited about it.

Can a product designed to work with or be compatible with D&D 5E be innovative, whether published by WotC or a third-party company? YES.

Innovation does not necessarily mean, new rule set for new game.

I do think it's a shame that WotC doesn't publish RPGs other than D&D anymore, as I am a big fan of some of their earlier, not-D&D releases. But the profits vs resources equation of not-D&D compared to D&D never really worked out for WotC, or for TSR before them. It's also the reason why so many game companies publish D&D compatible products, they tend to be significantly more profitable.

There have been some really innovative and different not-D&D games published over the past decade or so that have had some amazing success . . . but not D&D levels of success, that's tough to crack.

Exodus is going to be fantastic at least because the original Mass Effect Developers are behind the Exodus Video game. I'm looking forward to Exodus the Video Games and hopefully they pull off this TTRPG. If its good, it could shake me from Traveller for awhile. The only sci fi game able to do that was TSR's Alternity.

 

[AlViking]

To me the questions is, is the person or people who holds the purse strings also a driving part of the actual process, or do they just tell those people what to work on? If the owner of the company is also the driving creative force (or at least an important one of them), I have more faith that they will create a creative passionate project that is more about GAME than PRODUCT.

We disagree. I don't care about "passion" because to me it means nothing. Far too often "passion" is just meaningless PR or someone trying to give their personal opinion more justification.

People can be passionate while producing something I don't like or coldly clinical while producing something I love.

All I care about is whether or not the end product works for me.

 

[AlViking]

I didn't say it would automatically produce a better product. I was specifically talking about labors of love versus products put out because of a desire for profit.

Still don't care. I judge the product on it's merits nothing else.

 

[Mournblade94]

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.

You're also saying that D&D 2025 is innovative. How can you think that is innovative and 5e was not. For me I love that 5e went back to the earlier design sensibilities. 5.5 though didn't really do anything modern except make photorealistic art. I don't see the improvement in 5.5 except for Weapon Abilities and Troll Lord already did that better.

I'll take that back though in the DMs Guide Usefulness. I kept that book because it really is the best for beginning DMs.

 

[Mournblade94]

We disagree. I don't care about "passion" because to me it means nothing. Far too often "passion" is just meaningless PR or someone trying to give their personal opinion more justification.

People can be passionate while producing something I don't like or coldly clinical while producing something I love.

All I care about is whether or not the end product works for me.

Oh Totally! I am way more interested in the final product.

 

[Mournblade94]

Which is why I also said "Indie stuff." There are no restrictions on what you write if your company consists of 1-3 people. Check out some of the games on places like Itch. There's some pretty cool things there that have a lot of potential.

I have checked out alot of the games on Itch. Some are games, but some are just like social exercises I get at annoying Education Development conferences.

 

[Faolyn]

Still don't care. I judge the product on it's merits nothing else.

...

I think you may want to go back to my original post so you know what I was actually talking about.