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.

 

[Remathilis]

What leads you to believe there is going to be anything other than a monthly pseudo-playtest document and two annual adventures with possible accompanying 25 page player document? That's all they've committed to publicly.

Then Table-Top D&D is effectively dead. I'm all for letting Neverwinter, Sword Coast Legends, and other digital content run with the D&D name, but I don't want at the exclusion of a thriving game. Two modules a year is not thriving, its legacy support. I don't care about their adventures, I tend to make my own. I own the Core books and DM Screen. I even have the starter set. WotC is effectively telling me "Great! You bought all the D&D stuff we can sell you! Have fun with it until 6th edition!"

I love 5e. I think its the best edition we've gotten in a while. I don't want to see it fall to neglect with only a twice-annual AP as its only support. If that's what TT D&D is, than perhaps its time to pack the whole thing in.

 

[Charles Wright]

Anyone else unable to get to the original article?

 

[Jeff Albertson]

I think the days of D&D as we knew it, are gone. I am digging the new approach, though, nice and cautious.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

"These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not fully tempered by playtests and design iterations. They are highly volatile and might be unstable; if you use them, be ready to rule on any issues that come up. They’re written in pencil, not ink."

People are saying that they won't use fan created content, because they don't want to put in the work and they want the material to be properly playtested. That takes time, especially when you've got ~8 guys on the D&D development team, and they're all working on other projects.

Old Wizards of the Coast would have just published the exact same stats in a splatbook without the above disclaimer.

This time, they've put it up online with a warning that it's not yet had all the bugs ironed out yet. I see that as a good thing, frankly, and it's about as good as anyone's going to get from Wizards between major product releases.

The number of times posters have said "WotC is not your bitch" indicates otherwise.

Again, that's not in reply to the asking, but to the constant complaining that comes after WotC doesn't comply with fan requests after having been asked nicely.

Asking nicely doesn't magically make a product offering viable. Neither does harping on the matter with constant negativity, after asking nicely has failed to accomplish the task.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sure plenty of people bought those 4E setting books. The question is: did enough people buy those books? I don't have Wizards' sales figures, but only a fraction of the player base is ever going to buy a Forgotten Realms book, or an Eberron book, or a Dark Sun book.

I think the definition of 'enough' has likely changed by now.

Judging by the size of the D&D team and the product release schedule so far, I don't think it's a matter of producing a campaign setting book in addition to the adventure paths - it's a matter or producing one instead of the other.

Nod. The smaller staff and slower release point to lower costs and lower revenue targets than in the past. 'Success' - sufficient to keep 5e in print and AL active - should be easy to sustain. That's /good/ news.

Everyone's definition of "something" is different. You're asking for setting stuff. What happens if they release Eberron first? The Dark Sun fans will scream bloody murder. Put out Dark Sun next? Now the Planescape fans are upset. Release Planescape? Now the old-school crowd is hammering them for abandoning they've been neglecting Greyhawk this whole time. And the Dragonlance crowd... are honestly probably used to being the red-headed stepchild by this point and have just adapted the old adventures to 5E themselves, so good on them I guess.

Nod. The fanbase has pretty conclusively proven that WotC can't ever really please them, as a whole.

Still others are insisting that what Wizards needs to do is introduce 4E-style tactical combat and bring the Warlord back. And how could Wizards' have possibly been so arrogant to ignore the demands of the fans who wanted to see psionics rules in the PHB on day one?

There's already a tactical module in the DMG, and it's not like a game with range/area spelled out to the foot can't be easily adapted to TT tactical play, anyway. But, yes, the absence of both the Warlord (in the 4e PH1) and psionics (in 1e PH) legitimately feels like a betrayal of the promised 'inclusiveness' of 5e, as far as fans of each are concerned.

It's a strange game, this "communication" you're asking for. The only winning move is not to play.

heh

 

[Nellisir]

it's about as good as anyone's going to get from Wizards between major product releases.

And that's the problem, right there.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

But, yes, the absence of both the Warlord (in the 4e PH1) and psionics (in 1e PH) legitimately feels like a betrayal of the promised 'inclusiveness' of 5e, as far as fans of each are concerned.

I'll give you Warlord, as it was a class in a PHB 1, but there has never been a Psionic class in a PHB 1, psionics is an appendix in the 1st Ed PHB, that can be applied to any character. Maybe a Psionic Feat should have been included (I remember them mentioning an Awakened feat, early in the playtest).

 

[Nellisir]

It may be worse for Fantastic Four fans...

In a sense, probably. I wouldn't presume to speak for them. I will say that Marvel's line there seems to be a bit clearer (no FF), it's a smaller franchise, and it's been marginal for years. And they don't seem to be outright replacing it. X-Men, at this point, seems to be actively being undermined and sidelined, and the role of mutants being replaced with Inhumans, to the extent that they're debuting an Uncanny Inhumans title soon.

Then again, you can still buy back issues in digital form, so golly gee willikers....

 

[aramis erak]

What this reminds me of is the period in...1997? when TSR shut down. No news, no information, no nothing. I don't think it's the same circumstances, but I do think there's a problem at WotC. We're not arguing about good content vs bad content, we're arguing about whether or not there is even going to be content. That's not how you keep an audience, and it's certainly not how you attract one.

the news was out there - if you knew where to look. The internet landscape was VERY different back then. Dragon was still going; So was Dungeon; both in paper only. That TSR was in dire straights wasn't public, but that there was trouble was known. the usenet and email lists were awash with the news that TSR was being bought - as were the game trade newspapers. And everyone who paid attention was pretty much cued in to WotC's prior bad habit of "Buy to eliminate the competition"... Including the FTC. The big concern was whether WotC was going to shutter TSR and kill D&D... and TSR wasn't talking. And there wasn't much product except Dungeon and Dragon magazines. But it soon sorted out.

One just had to know where to look.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

In a sense, probably. I wouldn't presume to speak for them. I will say that Marvel's line there seems to be a bit clearer (no FF), it's a smaller franchise, and it's been marginal for years. And they don't seem to be outright replacing it. X-Men, at this point, seems to be actively being undermined and sidelined, and the role of mutants being replaced with Inhumans, to the extent that they're debuting an Uncanny Inhumans title soon.

That sounds fortifying, Black Bolt, ain't, no goddamn mutant, within human circles.