Jeremy Crawford Also Leaving D&D Team Later This Month

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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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

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.


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.
You still, IMO, seem to be characterizing this as either/or. Yes, WotC does rely heavily on survey feedback. And yes, this can be limiting. But it doesn't mean the D&D team is constantly forced to make products they don't want to. I doubt Perkins or Crawford would characterize things that way.
 

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So let’s try to fix that problem.

It's not a problem though. I also don't have the time.

Sunday afternoons already booked out for D&D 5E 2 groups. Thursday night bi weekly is 2E.

Saturday unavailable for most part (well I am others are not) and we are playing Thursday because it's the only time slot that fits everyone. Weeknights are bad in general.
 
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Staying flat with lowering BG3 sales seems pretty huge.
those are two different categories

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"Tabletop gaming sales in the Wizards of the Coast segment were down 3% for the year, from $1,072.5 million in 2023 to $1,039.6 million in 2024. Magic: The Gathering sales were down 1% for the year"

"Wizards of the Coast tabletop revenues, which would have included substantial sales increases for Dungeons & Dragons, were down 22%, to $207.0 million from $265.6 million in Q4 2023"

Much of the Q4 drop is MtG, would be interesting to know what D&D actually did
 
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Because even if you buy them finding players is a PITA.

Numenera made a beautiful book end. Fantastic condition never used.
Whereas I have played 3 year-long+ campaigns with Numenéra, and maybe 5 with 13th Age; and I have only played maybe 5 total games with 5e. It might be harder to find casual players, but my experience has been that the players are more committed. YMMV
 

It's not a problem though. I also don't have the time.

Sunday afternoons already booked out for D&D 5E 2 groups. Thursday night bi weekly is 2E.

Saturday unavailable for most part (well I am others are not) and we are laying Thursday because ots the only time slot that fits everyone. Weeknights are bad in general.
Ugh I wish I could get my group together bi weekly. My daughter gets bi weekly with the wonderful librarian at our public library. She would get it EVERY week, but the response was so high she had to split the group into Teens and Elementary/middleschoolers.
 

You still, IMO, seem to be characterizing this as either/or. Yes, WotC does rely heavily on survey feedback. And yes, this can be limiting. But it doesn't mean the D&D team is constantly forced to make products they don't want to. I doubt Perkins or Crawford would characterize things that way.
Sigh.

OK, I can't make you understand what I was writing, so never mind then.
 

Ugh I wish I could get my group together bi weekly. My daughter gets bi weekly with the wonderful librarian at our public library. She would get it EVERY week, but the response was so high she had to split the group into Teens and Elementary/middleschoolers.

I wanted to play weekly but schedules. Started another group. Playing in public makes recruiting a lot easier.

Thinking of a super group. Most reliable players from 3 groups.iDK.
 

Which, honestly, is exactly what people would say about any shorter product: so maybe this is an example of why they don't?
I never suggested a shorter product. I suggested using the space for things other than level-grind to make it go from 1-12 or 15. What I'm talking about is sort of what they attempted to do with Waterdeep Dragon Heist. You might argue that that book wasn't very well received, but I think we all know that the main reason for that was that it wasn't a heist. I'm not sure that I've ever heard many complaints about it only covering five levels or that there were (what was it, three?) completely different paths to complete it.

I'm talking about like that, but you know, with more practice. And with an adventure that does what it says on the tin.
 

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