Jess Lanzillo has an ambitious vision of Dungeons & Dragons and what it could be in the coming [...]
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In recent investor calls, Hasbro CEO has mentioned the potential of more
Dungeons & Dragons crossovers, similar to
Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond line. When asked about the possibility of similar crossovers coming to
Dungeons & Dragons, Lanzillo stated that she was open to them, but it would have to be a franchise that makes sense and it would have to be additive. "There's so much rich content that has been created for
Dungeons & Dragons over the last 50 years, but in reality, most players are playing with their own IP anyway," Lanzillo said, referencing the many homebrew worlds of players. "Obviously, people play different kinds of RPGs in different IPs all the time. D&D is currently doing its own thing. We've done collaborations in the past with
Stranger Things and the
Rick and Morty one from a few years back. So, it's not like we're strangers to it."
Still, Lanzillo said that the process for any new crossover needs to be dliberate. "It's not just slap and dash, like, 'Oh, let's just put a fantasy IP on D&D and just sell it,'" Lanzillo said. "That doesn't give us anything novel or new. But what are new and novel experiences that we aren't really able to generate on our own? And that could be things that are more globally adjacent, whether that's things that speak to more anime culture, or things outside of our traditional scope. I think of things like I just did a LARP that was a
Downton Abbey-style LARP. So, it's just, how do we find ways to create new experiences? And maybe there's a partner there that can help us do that better than we can do on our own."
Lanzillo also said that she's open to exploring crossovers that don't necessarily fit within the traditional mold of D&D. "If you come to me, and you say, "I want to make... I don't know,
Interview with the Vampire," Lanzillo said. "I don't know if that works for us as a business, but let's talk about it. Let's make sure our rules and our frameworks accommodate that. If that's the experience you want to have...I don't want to take it off the table. It goes back to our digital and analog conversation. We're not Gary Gygax. We don't get to tell you the right way to do it. The fans and the players are going to tell us what they want to do, and then we're going to say 'That sounds cool.' And we're going to have some cool, sick ideas, and we're going to do those, too."
The mentions of
Downton Abbey and
Interview With a Vampire led us down a different road, as we asked how
Dungeons & Dragons planned to support more roleplay and social encounters in the years ahead. "It goes back to your questioning around Universes Beyond," Lanzillo said. "It's not necessarily specifically about finding a blockbuster IP and doing a thing.
