Jess Lanzillo Departs Wizards of the Coast

The VP of D&D has departed the company.
jess lanzillo.jpeg

Another high profile name is departing Wizards of the Coast. Over the weekend, Jess Lanzillo announced she was departing Wizards of the Coast. Lanzillo was the VP of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, a position that she held since February 2024. Lanzillo did not provide details about her next role.

During her tenure overseeing the D&D franchise, Lanzillo oversaw the launch of D&D's revised Fifth Edition as well as pushing it into a new direction. Several longtime leaders of the D&D team - Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins - also departed under her tenure. Recently, Wizards of the Coast posted two high-profile development roles seemingly to replace the pair.

Lanzillo's full post can be found below:

After eight years at Wizards of the Coast, I have made the totally reasonable decision to leave a job where I got paid to argue about whether fictional lizard people can have tails. (Of course they can.)

My trajectory at Wizards has been wonderfully unhinged: leading creative during an absolutely wild ride with Magic: The Gathering, doing business things as Chief of Staff, and finally, getting to be the VP of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise — which is either the best job title ever invented or proof that late-stage capitalism has finally achieved absolute absurdity. Take that, liberal arts naysayers!

Wizards turns imaginary worlds into real communities, which sounds fake but is actually the most satisfying work in the world. To everyone who let me champion this mission while constantly asking "can you add more glowies?" — you are perfect and I love you.

I've been ridiculously fortunate for these eight years, and now I'm lucky enough to, yet again, get to choose my own plot twist. The best part about having super specific creative obsessions is that occasionally the universe decides to reward you for them. More soon!
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

The problem with that definition (in addition to the moral judgment leveled on your rhetorical opponents) is that it suggests that no business should ever fail for any reason, because business failure nearly always leads to some good, hardworking people losing their jobs.
I don't think they said that "no business should fail", just that they don't feel they should get excited about it.
 

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The problem with that definition (in addition to the moral judgment leveled on your rhetorical opponents) is that it suggests that no business should ever fail for any reason, because business failure nearly always leads to some good, hardworking people losing their jobs.
No it doesn't. I am not suggesting business should not fail. I simply stating that someone losing their job is generally not a good thing and not something I can feel happy about. Try not to read more into than necessary.
 

That might be Occam's razor for this specific use case where we know extra details, sure. (Although if we have to start adding a bunch of details, we're kind of ruining the idea of Occam's Razor. :) )

As a general rule, seeing multiple high-level individuals leave fairly quickly from any company is a red flag.
And there we go, the big personal reason she left to pursue advancing her career. Same as Perkins & Crawford, as I said was the Occam's Razor explanation based on ehat was known:

 

Another data point of the game doing well… just saw the baldman game virtual game weekend this weekend. 23 5 person (115 spots) sessions for today, 112 filled at $20 a person. That’s pretty good for something I didn’t even know about until the last minute so those who did sign and paid up to play. Anyone here play and if so, how was the game play.
 

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