Jeremy Crawford On The Dark Side of Developing 5E

WotC's Jeremy Crawford spoke to The Escapist about the D&D 5th Edition development process and his role in the game's production. "There was a dark side where it was kind of crushing. The upside is it allowed us to have a throughline for the whole project. So I was the person who decided if what we had decided was important two years prior was still being executed two years later."


You can read the full interview here, but below are the key highlights.

• Mike Mearls started pondering about D&D 5th Edition while the 4E Essentials books were being worked on in 2010.
• There were "heated discussions" about the foundations of 5E.
• Crawford is the guy who "made the decision about precisely what was going to be in the game".
• Crawford considers D&D's settings as an important pillar.

For another recent interview, see Chris Perkins talking to Chris "Wacksteven" Iannitti.

 

[Sonny]

IMHO, I think what he's referring to is that those 2e settings began as supplements to the core game, but as the years went on, they veered down the rabbit hole, and each setting became almost a separate game by itself (q.v. Dragonlance's Fifth Age, RL's Domains of Dread). So a RL supplement had little use to a DS player, and vice-versa.

Pretty much this. They have consistently talked about the multiverse being a big part of 5e, and D&D in general. This isn't a change in messaging or change in direction to a 4e generic setting format.

 

[I'm A Banana]

IMHO, I think what he's referring to is that those 2e settings began as supplements to the core game, but as the years went on, they veered down the rabbit hole, and each setting became almost a separate game by itself (q.v. Dragonlance's Fifth Age, RL's Domains of Dread). So a RL supplement had little use to a DS player, and vice-versa.

Yeah, the way forward isn't entirely clear.

Like, for me, I don't know why an RL supplement should be useful to a DS player. If I'm playing a DS campaign this year and I am buying books on psionics and books on desert travel and books on mutant wildlife and books on druids and whatnot, a supplement on gothic castles and mad science isn't going to be high on my list o' things to buy (not that I couldn't use it in some creative way, just that it's not a big target). Likewise, if I'm playing in RL, desert travel and psionics is going to be less useful to me than a supplement about occultism or an adventure-book about a Victorian-era city.

It's pretty clear form history that WotC shouldn't be investing a lot of money in developing lines without much crossover - not every city-state on Athas needs a splat, not every domain in the Mists needs a sourcebook, there's rapidly diminishing returns for that. But if all I'm interested in is DS, you're just not going to be able to make an RL book that appeals to me, and trying to do that would just hurt the distinctive vibe of RL ("you can do sand & sorcery in this realm of gothic horror, too!" weakens what RL does best!).

The worst-case scenario is trying to shove every differently-shaped D&D peg through one round generic "fantasy adventure" hole. If playing Dark Sun and Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms all felt like the same kind of experience mechanically, there wouldn't be much value in the new coat of paint (orange or gray!).

I imagine the best case scenario is to use he settings to enhance the breadth of D&D - to take someone with one round hole, and give them more holes. Even if I'm not playing Ravenloft, I might loot an adventure for a Halloween one-off, or grab a sourcebook for my Victorian-themed island in my steampunk setting, or grab Strahd and Castle Ravenloft and plunk it down in Greyhawk for a month's worth of play. Even if I'm not playing Dark Sun, I might run a John Carter-style campaign where psychic poison desert-lizards are on mars, and I could use a lot of Dark Sun monsters, or some psionics rules. And maybe someone will play Ravenloft one year and Dark Sun the next, and that'll be good, too.

The settings can be used as vehicles to shape your play experience, to change it up and make it different - not so much deep lore dives, as new rides at the park. This might be described as "different games," but using the park analogy, The Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain are different rides, different experiences, but they're all contained within the same park. They don't all appeal to everyone, and someone obsessed with one might not have any desire to go on the other.

....and now I want a D&D-themed theme park where I can go on a ride through the Tomb of Hororrs....but I'm weird.

. 5e openly embraces all of D&D history, in spirit if not in specific product support, unlike previous editions. Chris Perkins has said on Twitter that the default setting of 5e is "the D&D multiverse."

Yeah, the risk there is that D&D becomes one thing - that in fighting against the settings being "different games" it all becomes the same game, the same thing, just slightly different. Which isn't that appealing to me. Yeah, you can do a dungeon crawl in Ravenloft, but that's not using what is interesting or unique about Ravenloft to its best effect.

I'm confident that 5e folks CAN avoid that fate, but I'm paranoid - I'm a big fan of different settings, and I hate to see their interesting edges filed off to fit more tightly in a narrow paradigm of what the "D&D multiverse" is.

...I mean, Eberron doesn't care about the Great Wheel, nor should it.

 

[Klaus]

Like, for me, I don't know why an RL supplement should be useful to a DS player. If I'm playing a DS campaign this year and I am buying books on psionics and books on desert travel and books on mutant wildlife and books on druids and whatnot, a supplement on gothic castles and mad science isn't going to be high on my list o' things to buy (not that I couldn't use it in some creative way, just that it's not a big target). Likewise, if I'm playing in RL, desert travel and psionics is going to be less useful to me than a supplement about occultism or an adventure-book about a Victorian-era city.

One possibility is focusing on themes, like Heroes of Horror and Heroes of Battle did. I agree with not wanting all settings to feel the same, but perhaps taking an element and showing how it can be used in several settings. Psionics + Madness can be found in RL (Bluetspur), Eberron (Quori), Dark Sun, for instance.

 

[Gundan Shadeslinger]

It seems to me like they are trying to basically be a big "cheap skate".

Ever hear of people who hang their used tea bags out on a line to dry so they can be reused?

This is the impression I am getting. Unfortunately, D&D is not in the position to pull that off successfully. Pathfinder has it easier because they have only one campaign setting while D&D has several. If they aren't going to go the route of actual support for most of their popular worlds and stop worrying so much about earning that extra buck, then their best bet would be to drop the other worlds and focus on the Forgotten Realms.

Trying to encompass everything under one roof is only going to lead to disaster.

 

[Umbran]

Like, for me, I don't know why an RL supplement should be useful to a DS player.

Here's why - making supplements setting-specific turns them into niche-of-a-niche products.

At first glance, we may still find this okay, as the end-user is focused foremost on what he or she needs of the moment. The person playing in a given setting knows he or she will use that setting's books.

However, for the business, it means higher development and production costs and smaller print runs - higher costs per unit - and that becomes generally decreased profitability. Decreased profitability means they likely produce *less* content, even within your niche. When you sum up content over the whole line, you may ultimately get less overall support for your particular setting from a setting-specific release strategy than from one that has books applicable across settings.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, the risk there is that D&D becomes one thing - that in fighting against the settings being "different games" it all becomes the same game, the same thing, just slightly different. Which isn't that appealing to me. Yeah, you can do a dungeon crawl in Ravenloft, but that's not using what is interesting or unique about Ravenloft to its best effect.

Agreed. In my ideal world, the D&D settings would be more like the different Final Fantasies. There are certain gameplay elements that are constant, and certain repeated motifs, but every game has its own setting and own gameplay.

 

[Mercurius]

One way they could go is to have separate core setting books, which would be a kind of "all-in-one" to get you started in that setting, with the usual world overview but also a more detailed section on one area (e.g. Greyhawk and environs, the Dalelands or Sword Coast, etc). And then any and all supplements would be setting-neutral, or rather "setting-inclusive." So you might have a theme book or a treasure book or a monster book with guidelines on how to use it in specific worlds - but no Invertebrates of Athas or Gothic Mansions of Ravenloft type books.

I've always seen settings as no more or less than WotC saying, "This is one way to create a D&D world - make of it what you will." And then you have two general camps, those that actually use run the setting as a campaign--whether as written or tweaked--and those that just use it for idea-mining, bits and pieces, or just reading enjoyment. A comprehensive crunch-lite setting book would please both camps; when you add in too much crunch it makes the product less interesting to the latter group and cut into the needed space to really flesh out the world for the former group. And then the supplemental books can be used as desired - they're useful for both types as they can be customized either to specific published worlds or homebrews.

Of course all of this may be a moot point, as there's no certainty that WotC plans on publishing any setting material. Yet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's why - making supplements setting-specific turns them into niche-of-a-niche products.

2e showed that this happened if you continued down the rabbit-hole, but there's nothing I can point at that shows that a smaller-scale release (a la 4e's "dip-in-and-get-out" strategy) would suffer the same fate. Can't get a niche of a niche if all you're making is one board supplement for any D&D game.

One possibility is focusing on themes, like Heroes of Horror and Heroes of Battle did. I agree with not wanting all settings to feel the same, but perhaps taking an element and showing how it can be used in several settings. Psionics + Madness can be found in RL (Bluetspur), Eberron (Quori), Dark Sun, for instance.

That has some promise - you can take the psionics rules and show how they might be expressed in different ways and in different settings. Take some "horror" themed mechanics and tie them all together and put a bow on 'em. Show how the settings that do this well do it, and show other takes on it -- that'd certainly be in line with 5e's style, and it wouldn't marry anything too tightly to a given setting.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And isn't this "themeing" pretty much what they did with Princes of the Apocalypse? They wrote an elemental-themed adventure book, placed it ostensibly in the Realms for ease-of-use in the AL, but then went into the ways these elemental-themed adventures and hooks could be used in the other settings. So even though ToEE is classically thought of as a "Greyhawk" product... the themeing could bring it cross-setting.

By the same token... if the rumored Dungeonland / Beyond The Magic Mirror style adventure book gets produced... it's again not a specific Realmsian concept but due to it probably being a Feywild-themed product, it can find a place to be set in the Realms, and Greyhawk, and Eberron, and Dragonlance, etc. because the Feywild-themeing goes cross-setting.

Eventually... a Shadowfell/horror-themed book could come out that would be an obvious use to Ravenloft fans, but also be able to be placed somewhere in the Realms, and Greyhawk and all the rest. Because horror isn't specifically Ravenloft-- any setting can have horror elements and be found to have a place for it.

A place can be found for any of these themed adventure paths they produce. It's just a matter of thinking creatively and not getting too hung up on any element having to be a setting-specific thing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That the DMG is almost all optional while the PHB is all the core mechanics shows that Essentials wasn't a complete flop, either.

Really, 5E can play beautifully with just the PHB and MM. It's playable with just the PHB, if one restricts to relatively settled settings.

I don't see what that has to do with Essentials. 3e shifted most of the rules to the PH and 4e continued that trend, even putting magic items in the PH1 (since, like 3e, it had player-useable rules to make/buy magic items).

And Essentials wasn't a complete flop, it's just that, unlike 4e and 5e, it lost the number 1 spot to Pathfinder for several quarters, by one (IcV2) measure. Aside from that, it continued the Encounter programs and added Lair Assault. My personal experience was that Essentials did fine at the FLGS where I played Encounters, with no drop off in regular players and new ones continuing to show up, but that it never made an appearance at local conventions, with Pathfinder dominating those venues after WotC cut ties with LFR.

2e showed that this happened if you continued down the rabbit-hole, but there's nothing I can point at that shows that a smaller-scale release (a la 4e's "dip-in-and-get-out" strategy) would suffer the same fate. Can't get a niche of a niche if all you're making is one board supplement for any D&D game.

In the 90s, settings were big. Battletech and Storyteller had done very well, putting out supplements for their settings at an unprecedented (at the time) pace. 2e jumped on that bandwagon, and while TSR might not have held up the business end, those setting spawned a lot of devoted fandom.

Setting seem to have generally been good for games that developed a signature setting. Even when a game tried to be generic, it could end up developing a de-facto setting just from the examples and pre-builds it presented over the years - that happened with Champions! for instance.