Leon Barillaro Joins Wizards of the Coast as D&D Designer

Leon Barillaro has also joined Wizards of the Coast as part of the D&D design team. As announced on their social media page, Barillaro is an experienced RPG designer with numerous third-party supplements on DMs Guild. They have design credits with MCDM, Renegade Games Studios, and EN Publishing as well. Per their Linkedin, Barillaro is working as a game designer for the D&D team.

Barillaro joins James Haeck as a new employee at Wizards of the Coast, with Justice Arman also receiving a recent promotion within the company as well. All three have similar resumes, having built up their resumes on DMs Guild material and third-party work before hopping over to join Wizards of the Coast in an official capacity.

 

[Dire Bare]

This kinda disappoints me, because it’s not likely to happen again this way. Today if some kid wants to break into the industry, they’ve gotta throw their stuff into the ocean of content on DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG and then self-promote on social media and hope it gets traction somewhere (not to mention compete against the flood of AI slop). Far more kids are able to get their stuff “published”, but getting “published” is now trivially easy and doesn’t indicate even the slightest editorial oversight anymore. And there’s no guarantee anyone will even look at it. At least in the magazine days, if you got published that was a guaranteed stream of eyeballs on your work.

Idk, I’m just wistful for aspects of pre-digital life. I never submitted anything for publication (that I recall; I’d probably remember that, right?) so maybe the way things are today aren’t truly so different

The venue and shared experience of Dragon Magazine is gone, and I miss it.

But also a lot of the gates between creatives and getting their work out there are lowered significantly in this new digital age.

Dragon Magazine allowed younger creatives to get published, but they are curated submissions . . . not everybody got published. Which is both good and bad. Today, there isn't much in the way of getting published if you want to . . . of course, that does mean a lot of low quality stuff is swamped out there. But if you are good, or willing to learn and improve to get good, there is a lot of opportunity today.

 

[mamba]

Anyone else getting the idea that this might be the absolute very first step, or maybe zeroth step, as in "forget the planning stages, we're preparing to plan for the planning stages" levels of we-are-just-warming-up, toward 6e?

too early, 2024 hasn’t tanked enough for them to think about 6e, as much as I would like them to

 

[bedir than]

too early, 2024 hasn’t tanked enough for them to think about 6e, as much as I would like them to

Remember, when DaggerHeart sells much faster than anticipated it's taken as wildly positive, but when WotC sells out of both current boxed sets it means the 2024 version of D&D is a failure.

 

[Dire Bare]

Anyone else getting the idea that this might be the absolute very first step, or maybe zeroth step, as in "forget the planning stages, we're preparing to plan for the planning stages" levels of we-are-just-warming-up, toward 6e?

No.

I would be very surprised if a "6th Edition" (or whatever the next revision will be called) is on anyone's radar at WotC other than casual conversation by the water cooler.

 

[Zardnaar]

Remember, when DaggerHeart sells much faster than anticipated it's taken as wildly positive, but when WotC sells out of both current boxed sets it means the 2024 version of D&D is a failure.

We have no idea of print runs etc.

I dont think 5.5 tanking myself. It was starved of product for a bit then a glut near Christmas.

 

[Staffan]

No.

I would be very surprised if a "6th Edition" (or whatever the next revision will be called) is on anyone's radar at WotC other than casual conversation by the water cooler.

If I were in charge of the game side of D&D, I would have started thinking about 6e back in early 2014. It probably wouldn't be much more than a folder with loose ideas though.

 

[Parmandur]

If I were in charge of the game side of D&D, I would have started thinking about 6e back in early 2014. It probably wouldn't be much more than a folder with loose ideas though.

They did...Crawford had a file he kept based on the pain points he was getting from Sage Advice. That's what lead to the 2024 rules.

 

[TiQuinn]

If I were in charge of the game side of D&D, I would have started thinking about 6e back in early 2014. It probably wouldn't be much more than a folder with loose ideas though.

This. I don’t see this as a bad thing, or a statement on the current edition either.

 

[doctorhook]

They did...Crawford had a file he kept based on the pain points he was getting from Sage Advice. That's what lead to the 2024 rules.

6E confirmed /s

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition!

That's all I know to be excited for what they may bring to the 5E space!