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.

 

[Mournblade94]

eh, do you think the people that did not like 4e did not find it innovative? There is no relation between the two

Yeah innovation is generally great. But 4e I rejected whole heartedly and it indeed was innovative. Pathfinder 2 is innovative but it is to far away from the AD&D/D20 paradigm for me to enjoy.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm with you mostly, but . . .

There is something to giving fans what they didn't know they wanted.

Nobody wanted D&D in 1973. But Gygax and Arneson created lightning in a bottle and an entire hobby and industry was born.

Admittedly, that's hard to do. Harder to replicate.

I do think WotC is wise to do marketing research and listen to their fans when designing products . . . but every once in a while, I wouldn't mind if the D&D team tried something they thought was cool, even if less than 70% of survey respondents gave it a thumbs up.

Many D&D designers do exatly that. Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet made 13th Age. Rob Schwalb made Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Monte Cook made Numenera. Rodney Thompson made Dusk City Outlaws.

Why must they currently work for WOTC for us to pay attention to the games they clearly wanted to make?

 

[Faolyn]

I feel like you keep making this a binary . . . either we have indie games created out of pure passion, or corporate games driven solely by the need for profit.

I would argue that indie games, corporate games, and everything in between have both of these as factors. You're more likely to get a passion-driven project from an indie designer, but that does not mean they also don't have an eye towards making a little bit of money and meeting an existing fan need/want.

Well, a lot of indie games, especially the games on Itch or on personal blogs, are free or cost like a buck or two and aren't part of any existing system or setting. A lot of them are created in response to contests or challenges. A lot of them are just a couple of pages long. A lot of them are extremely silly games that would never get a mainstream audience. Some of them are effectively free first drafts for games that go on to get kickstarted into fully-fledged games. Some of them are created out of a desire by the author to express their otherness (sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, etc.) through roleplaying.

Corporate projects, like each official D&D book, lean more heavily on the side of, "How does this support the D&D franchise's profit and growth?", but that doesn't mean that passion, creativity, ingenuity, and innovation aren't poured into those projects. It's a balance, and the balance isn't always passion over profits for indie designers or the reverse for corporate designers.

You're really misunderstanding what I wrote and even what I meant in the first place. I've never said that there's no passion in D&D products; I've actively said that I'm sure the creators love what they're doing and giving it their all.

But look, we all know that they won't publish material that doesn't get a 70%+ approval rating. I think it's fair to say that the reason for that is because if the fans don't like it, they presumably won't buy the material. Or worse, that some fans will buy it, dislike the material, create a scathing (and/or whiny) youtube video about it, and turn other fans off. But when you get right down to it, what it means is that the creators are responding to outside pressures which prevent them from producing what they truly want.

I could be wrong; maybe the devs don't have their own vision of what D&D is like but simply want to make what other people want. It's possible. It's also quite possible that there are rules in place where they aren't allowed to produce material that doesn't get that rating because there's too much risk it won't sell.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah innovation is generally great. But 4e I rejected whole heartedly and it indeed was innovative. Pathfinder 2 is innovative but it is to far away from the AD&D/D20 paradigm for me to enjoy.

I think with 4e, the problem was they revamped everything. Not just the rules, but tons of the lore as well, and excluded some of the races and classes, and changed or excluded a lot of monsters, and used icons and unusual formatting, all at the same time. So at that point, you were basically playing a different game, except it was still called D&D. I think that if they had just altered the rules but kept gnomes and bards and whatever else they excluded, it probably would have felt better to a lot of fans.

 

[Parmandur]

I never heard any prognosis from WotC, nor have I seen any actual sales numbers. What I have heard is that they are the fastest selling, I do not doubt that, anything else would be a major failure, but that leaves a wide range

Do you have anything from WotC on what they expected sales to be and what they are in comparison?

In one of those earning calls, they did outright atate that the books were outpacing their expectations.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think with 4e, the problem was they revamped everything. Not just the rules, but tons of the lore as well, and excluded some of the races and classes, and changed or excluded a lot of monsters, and used icons and unusual formatting, all at the same time. So at that point, you were basically playing a different game, except it was still called D&D. I think that if they had just altered the rules but kept gnomes and bards and whatever else they excluded, it probably would have felt better to a lot of fans.

Or they had altered everything, but not called it D&D.

 

[mamba]

In one of those earning calls, they did outright atate that the books were outpacing their expectations.

I wonder how true that is, or whether this is as with Kickstarters where you have a low funding goal so you can brag how fast you 'funded', esp. since D&D revenue basically stayed flat in 2024 compared to 2023.

In any case, I found the quote, so for future reference here is what WotC said about 2024 sales so far in their quarterly statements (and their digital share, which I find interesting as well)

Q2: "Within D&D, we’re seeing solid pre-orders of the 2024 Core Rules book for the revised and expanded Fifth Edition. D&D also shows how we are increasing digitization across our portfolio. Digital revenue already accounts for over half of the mix due to the success of D&D Beyond."

Q3: "For D&D, the updated Player’s Handbook for fifth edition is now our fastest selling product in D&D’s 50-year history, beating plan by over 50%. And our acquisition of D&D Beyond continues to pay off, driving D&D’s total mix of direct-to-consumer revenue from zero at the time of acquisition to 60% today, with registered users more than doubling to 19 million."

Q4: "D&D released the first significant update to 5th Edition since 2014 and closed out the year strong with both the new Players Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide breaking records for the best-selling D&D books ever.

D&D is also set up to continue its recent momentum. This week we released the widely anticipated 2025 Monster Manual with strong initial orders."

 

[Zardnaar]

Honestly this is what I was thinking, was surprised to see so much negativity. Also everybody here acts like you need to have 20 years experience to be a good game designer, which I frankly don't think its true. They have a lot of talents working in their teams that maybe now can have an bigger influence. I am not too negative about this. And until I hear otherwise I just assume the seniors leave for better paying jobs because lets be honest nowadays salary jumps happen through switching companies. They were working for a long time for WotC already.

For a new edition I prefer experience with 2 editions at least lead designer types.

Revision 5 years or so relevant edition. Once again lead designer types.

At least modern versions. Turning AD&D into B/X obviously is a lot easier.

Having familiar names around helps with decisions to invest in new edition imho.

Perkins for example I remember him pre WotC via Dungeon Magazine. Or names on products you like eg Eric Boyd, Monte Cool, Mearls, etc.

Same thing for artists. Easley OK let's look at it. WAR let's not look at it.

 

[Zardnaar]

too early, 5.5 is just barely out the gates, if they are thinking about 6e now (I don’t think they are) then it would have to be an abysmal failure. What is their turnaround time on 5.5, three years?

If it's 3 years we have a new 3.0 trajectory.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe, but Book of 9 Swords was published in (I think 2006). 4th Edition was announced in 2007; released in 2008.

Looking at the contemporary climate, a lot 5.5-related folks are being cut from the company. Most of the Project Sigil Team has also been cut.

Pure speculation on my part, but there appears to be a somewhat radical change in how D&D 5.5 is viewed by the company making it right now.

Somewhat plausible rumors seem to be they're gonna focus more on brand than game. 5.5 apparently selling well but the adfitincome streams have failed (sigil, movies microtransactions, Beyond numbers not increasing that much).

If true might have shirt cycle/lack of product.