Jess Lanzillo Departs Wizards of the Coast

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!

 

[Junkyard Tornado]

Okay when they lost Perkins and Crawford I wasn't really worried about it because they still have quite a bit of talent in the building. Now Lanzillo bites the dust and on the same day the news comes out that Kendrick is gone. I'm starting to get worried (or hopeful maybe?) that this may be moving in the direction of cutting as much as you can before you sell something.

I would guess licensing out D&D at some point would be more Hasbro's style. How Games Workshop does with Cubicle 7 for their RPGs.

 

[Burnside]

I'm not saying there's a large chance, but I am also a Magic the Gathering player. Magic is the only product line I don't think Hasbro would sell. It makes 7 to 10 times the revenue of D&D with far less costs. D&D has been difficult to monetize because of it's replayability using the same materials over and over. I think Wizards is figuring out D&D is never going to be a major revenue stream. Honestly, the only reason I think they haven't already sold it is because they haven't found a buyer that will give them the right price.

You’re overlooking the huge amount of money in D&D licensing fees WotC/Hasbro made from Baldur’s Gate 3. They want to repeat that.

 

[JamBaum]

There's a slight issue that WotC is the biggest and best paying company in the tabletop RPG space. So if you want to advance your career by switching jobs you need to move to another industry.

That's just not true anymore. Critical Role, and respectively Darrington Press, have almost the same exact audience, and they pay better and give you better hours, allow you to work however you need to be productive, no crazy unreachable deadlines. Why do you think Chris and Jeremy went there?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

That's just not true anymore. Critical Role, and respectively Darrington Press, have almost the same exact audience, and they pay better and give you better hours, allow you to work however you need to be productive, no crazy unreachable deadlines. Why do you think Chris and Jeremy went there?

Critical Role is in the "steaming entertainment" business, not the tabletop gaming industry. They may be publishing an RPG but the actual business is something else.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hasbro selling off D&D? Can't see it.

One can dream, but yeah it's unlikely.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's just not true anymore. Critical Role, and respectively Darrington Press, have almost the same exact audience, and they pay better and give you better hours, allow you to work however you need to be productive, no crazy unreachable deadlines. Why do you think Chris and Jeremy went there?

I don't know...Daggerheart and any version of official D&D (including WotC's current offering) are quite different games. I don't think you can fairly say they have the "same exact" audience.

 

[dave2008]

That's just not true anymore. Critical Role, and respectively Darrington Press, have almost the same exact audience, and they pay better and give you better hours, allow you to work however you need to be productive, no crazy unreachable deadlines. Why do you think Chris and Jeremy went there?

And you know this how? Do you have insider information? Is this publicly available information I just haven't seen? I mean we know the salary range of the new D&D jobs (200K), but I have no idea what Chris & Jeremy would be making at CR.

 

[mamba]

Critical Role is in the "steaming entertainment" business, not the tabletop gaming industry. They may be publishing an RPG but the actual business is something else.

A business can have more than one product, see WotC with MtG and D&D

 

[Scribe]

One can dream, but yeah it's unlikely.

To who? Disney? lol

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To who? Disney? lol

Yeah, any potential buyer is likely to be much, much worse.