D&D General Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager.

D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently owned by Fandom (previously known as Wikia), after it acquired the company in 2018 from previous owner Curse, a Twitch subsidiary.

According to Cam Banks, creator of DDB owner Fandom's Cortex, all three received offers elsewhere which they could not turn down.

 

[Nikosandros]

Adam said that he's joining a technology startup, so he's definitely not going to work for WotC.

 

[delericho]

Be unsurprised if it's WotC.

If it is, expect 6E sooner rather than later.

If it was WotC wanting to get into the field, surely it would be more efficient to buy the whole company - getting the people can help, but getting the platform would potentially save years of rebuilding effort.

 

[Faolyn]

Be unsurprised if it's WotC.

If it is, expect 6E sooner rather than later.

That seems unlikely. 5e is still doing quite well. It could be a 5.5, but it doesn't look like they're going for the same sort of major overhaul like they did for 3.5--just dribs and drabs put out in new books, not radical changes.

 

[Mind of tempest]

something odd is happening lately with D&D.

 

[AmerginLiath]

My first though, oddly enough, would be something in the enterprise sector. The growth in work from home has led to a explosion in new tools for off-site collaboration. The development on online virtual tables seems very portable to virtual offices in various ways.

 

[Minigiant]

Seems the D&D is at the level were it is stable enough that "bribing" major figures is no longer neccesary or sensible with the numbers of outside offers.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

DND Beyond and the backend team was, I believe, originally developed by Cursed...which was bought by Twitch...which was bought by Amazon...which sold Cursed to Fandom. So Adam for one is likely going elsewhere in tech. Which seems well deserved as he's done a great job with DDB. I hope he gets showered with money. Not sure where James, Todd, and Lauren are headed...but there are lots of places outside TTRPG where they'd be a natural fit.

 

[Cistern]

I find the whole thing just plain odd. I watched the dev update today completely slack jawed. They had montage clips for Lauren and Todd meaning it's been in the works for a bit, I'd assume. I don't think it's WoTC poaching, but I do think they'll all end up at the same place. Perhaps Fandom just become too corporate, since I doubt it was an issue with declining sales. Corporate culture can really be stifling sometimes and it wasn't in their plans to get bought in the first place. I dunno. Something doesn't add up and it's sad that folks who were the public face of the platform for years are all leaving at the same time. I feel like a few characters have died in the party. I just hope they weren't forced out, because that would piss me off enough to ditch my DDB subscription. Such a wonderful platform that's made playing DnD so much better. Fandom, I just hope you didn't naughty word something up here.

 

[darjr]

Todd is revving his old YouTube channel back up. I think.

it doesn’t quite look like they are all going to the same place? But what do I know?

 

[jgsugden]

When staff leaves, especially en masse, there is often very little truth revealed behind why people are leaving. The employees want it to look like their choice, as do the employers, regardless of whether that is true or not.

Actions speak louder than words - I will wait to see what happens to D&DB in the next few months - they need to be on their A game to maintain their customer confidence.