[UPDATED!] The Unsung (Female) Half of the D&D Team!

Now that Jennifer Clarke-Wilkes is no longer at WotC, the core D&D design team of eight people (Mike Mearls, Rodney Thompson, Jeremy Crawford, Greg Bilsland, Chris Perkins, Peter Lee, Matt Sernett, Adam Lee) is comprised solely of men. However, it's easy to overlook the other half of the team, which consists of those not so much in the limelight, and who are essential to the game's success - and who include a number of talented female staff. According to Mike Mearls, the following members of the D&D team are female.

This amounts to 9 hardworking, essential people. Mike lists them as follows:

• all of our data collection, polling, research - done by a woman
• our director of publishing, aka the person who decides what we make - a woman
• our marketing senior manager - a woman
• the four person team who created the look of 5e - women
• our licensing director - a woman
• our marketing art director - a woman

I don't know the names of all of them (I've listed the ones in the credits of the books below). I've dropped WotC's Jeremy Crawford a quick line, as he's been helpful with providing WotC staff names and positions before, and I'll update this if I hear back.

The books themselves mention Kate Irwin, Mari Kolkowsky, Melissa Rapier, Shauna Narciso (art directors), Liz Schuh, Shelly Mazzanoble, Hilary Ross, Laura Tommervik, Kim Lundstrom (brand and marketing), and Emi Tanji, Bree Heiss, and Trich Tochum (graphic designers), which is at least 12 women working on D&D!

UPDATE - Jeremy Crawford has responded with an awesome reply which lists many of the people involved with D&D:

We're putting the finishing touches on Princes of the Apocalypse, so I need to keep this short for now.

Many committed, talented people work on D&D products at Wizards of the Coast, both inside D&D R&D and outside it. The D&D team spans multiple departments, and it works on the roleplaying game, video games, licensed products, novels, and more. Regarding the RPG, which is my focus, the credits pages of the three core books show that many people had a hand in forming the new edition of the game.

EN World currently lists the following people being on the D&D team: Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Greg Bilsland, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, Matt Sernett, and Adam Lee.

That list should include Kate Irwin, Dan Gelon, and Shauna Narciso, the art directors who oversee the creation of all art for D&D. The list should also have Bree Heiss and Emi Tanji, who created the gorgeous interior designs of the core books and who worked tirelessly with me, Chris Perkins, and Kate Irwin to lay out those books. Most recently, Kate, Emi, Chris, and I have been collaborating to bring Princes of the Apocalypse to completion. The way we work, art affects text and vice versa.

The list is only complete with Richard Whitters, our amazing R&D concept artist and world builder, who works with Chris Perkins and Adam Lee in shaping the stories and worlds we plan to visit in the coming years. A fun fact: the fabulous condition sketches in the Player's Handbook are by Richard.

The list should name Chris Youngs, Ben Petrisor, Tom Olsen, and Chris Dupuis, members of D&D R&D who work with our video game partners; who work on board games, like the upcoming Temple of Elemental Evil; who review numerous licensed products, like the WizKids miniatures; and who are part of our internal testing of the RPG.

The list needs Nathan Stewart, Liz Schuh, Chris Lindsay, Shelly Mazzanoble, Hilary Ross, Laura Tommervik, Kim Lundstrom, and Trevor Kidd—all members of the D&D brand team. They collaborate with R&D on shaping product plans, creating future stories, gathering playtest data, working with freelancers and outside game studios, planning convention events, and dealing with innumerable other parts of the D&D business.

The list should mention Chris Tulach, who oversees the Adventurer's League and who has participated in many design meetings for the RPG over the years.

I could keep going and going. The core books wouldn't have made it out of the building without the D&D project managers—John Hay and Neil Shinkle—making sure all our departments were working in sync with each other. Our books would never see print without people like Jefferson Dunlap and Cynda Callaway working with our printers. Our gathering of playtest data and potential errata is always helped by Sam Simpson and the rest of our enthusiastic customer service team. We also get feedback and occasional loans of personnel from Magic R&D. For instance, James Wyatt did his final work on the Dungeon Master's Guide while on the Magic team.

And everything we do is in consultation with Bill Rose, the vice president of R&D, and with the rest of the company's executive team.

None of this begins to scratch the surface when it comes to our contractors. People like Michele Carter, Anita Williams, and Robert Schwalb aren't on our staff, but each of them played a key part in creating the fifth edition books. And currently, Dan Helmick is a full-time contractor working for us in-house.

Oh boy, I said was going to keep this short. It's easy for me to get enthusiastic when acknowledging the contributions of the diverse group of people who make D&D what it is today!

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[Frusticolus]

Ok, I have cooled down a bit and realize I was, perhaps, a little too hot headed. With that said, Cam I'm not sure how I feel about your point. The only way anyone finds out who made any kind of product is by doing homework. This is one of the few industries I can think of where people dig this deep to see who does what. When you buy a box of cereal, or a car, or just about anything else do we ever stop and say "Gee I wonder if a woman helped create these corn flakes." Why should it matter? Do you like the car you just bought? If it was created by a team of German men does that diminish its value because no woman contributed to its design? As consumers we want the best of whatever it is we're buying, and if it was made by a diverse group of people, hey, so much the better.

Diversity is great, please don't get me wrong, but it isn't the solution to making everything better every single time. And yes, this hobby is male driven. Why? We are the bulk of the gamer base. Ever see a picture of the Gen-Con doors opening up? That is a sea of dudes punctuated here and there by female gamers. Is that bad? No. Maybe we are trying too hard to see a disparity that might not exist is all I'm saying.

I think it's worth asking why the hobby is so male dominated though. Women, generally/demographically speaking, are just as interested in games as men are. In listening to a fair number of women talk about their experiences, many feel pushed away from games because the space is so male dominated. So the problem reinforces itself, yeah? In my eyes, if we want the hobby to grow (I don't think anybody could argue that tabletop games getting even smaller would be a good thing at all), then it's important to understand and do something about why such a large portion of people don't feel welcome.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Is it wrong that I think much of the response to this thread illustrates exactly why this hobby is pretty well male dominated? The very idea that it is a good thing that so much of the D&D team is women is so abhorrent to many in this hobby that the response to it probably drives many women away from the game.

I applaud Mike Mearls response too. He was rightly taken aback by the thought there were no women on the D&D team. Yes, no cover credits as of right now, but let's not pretend this is a new phenomenon.

 

[Morrus]

Yes, no cover credits as of right now, but let's not pretend this is a new phenomenon.

Nobody is on the cover. Everyone is listed on the credits page, though. Dozens of people.

 

[Phaide]

I think it's worth asking why the hobby is so male dominated though. Women, generally/demographically speaking, are just as interested in games as men are. In listening to a fair number of women talk about their experiences, many feel pushed away from games because the space is so male dominated. So the problem reinforces itself, yeah? In my eyes, if we want the hobby to grow (I don't think anybody could argue that tabletop games getting even smaller would be a good thing at all), then it's important to understand and do something about why such a large portion of people don't feel welcome.

Why is it a male dominated hobby? Simple. It has a lot of things guys like. Swords, dragons, magic, etc. A lot of us got in to this hobby as teens and for a teenage guy that's all pretty cool stuff. Do girls like this stuff? Sure, and that's why we're seeing a growing female player base. But the way you are couching your comments make it sound like we males are going out of our way to tell female players to stay out. We're not. Some might, but the majority of us are simply not that uptight.

Another simple answer, and the one I feel a lot of people overlook is guys and girls like different things. On occasion those interests cross over. I know guys who like the Twilight movies and girls who like Godzilla movies but that isn't the societal norm. I also have a daughter and a son who are free to play with whatever toys they want. They gravitated towards the things that are made for their respective genders. Was this foisted on them? No. Even at a very early age, before peer pressure would even play a factor, my son loved trucks and my daughter loved dolls. Cliche' true, but as parents we never told them what to play with.

If a majority of women like one thing and a majority of men like another thing this isn't a problem that needs correcting.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Nobody is on the cover. Everyone is listed on the credits page, though. Dozens of people.

*pulls out PHB* Withdrawn.

 

[Phaide]

Is it wrong that I think much of the response to this thread illustrates exactly why this hobby is pretty well male dominated? The very idea that it is a good thing that so much of the D&D team is women is so abhorrent to many in this hobby that the response to it probably drives many women away from the game.

I applaud Mike Mearls response too. He was rightly taken aback by the thought there were no women on the D&D team. Yes, no cover credits as of right now, but let's not pretend this is a new phenomenon.

These are ugly generalizations that are simply not true. If you keep looking hard enough to find the kind of behavior you're looking for you will find it, but like many examples of bad behavior it is usually a few that ruin it for the bulk of us who do want women in the hobby.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Is it wrong that I think much of the response to this thread illustrates exactly why this hobby is pretty well male dominated? The very idea that it is a good thing that so much of the D&D team is women is so abhorrent to many in this hobby that the response to it probably drives many women away from the game.

I applaud Mike Mearls response too. He was rightly taken aback by the thought there were no women on the D&D team. Yes, no cover credits as of right now, but let's not pretend this is a new phenomenon.

I would say that, in this thread at least, the outrage is the minority opinion however. There seems to be a lot of good will toward Wizards of the Coast in general as well for their attempts at making the game accessible to a wider variety of demographics.

That it could be construed as a bad thing by even a minority of people is pretty depressing, however.

 

[Saxon1974]

Yep. I'm out. I'm tired of feeling bad about being white and male because of things I've never done or perpetuated. I've never met another white male gamer who was any different than I am on that point. I loathe this perspective of discrimination that keeps getting perpetuated. Not once have I or anyone I know told a woman who was interested in gaming with us to hit the bricks. Isn't it possible that due to its subject matter the hobby might actually appeal more to males in general? That doesn't mean it discriminates. Plumbers are mostly male. Graphic designers tend to be female by the numbers. Some hobbies and careers attract more of one gender than the other. Why is this perceived as something that needs to be "corrected"?

I don't care who writes or illustrates my books. Just be good. I want quality and equality but not if one sacrifices the other so we can all pat ourselves on the back and tell people how progressive we are.

Great post, agree 100%.

 

[Dausuul]

I work in a large IT department. Today, a question came up about security in one of my projects.

I was reasonably confident that I had an answer that would address the issue without compromising security (and, as it happened, I was right). However, I did not just go with my answer. Instead, I brought in a couple of folks from the Information Security group to discuss it. Why? Because they deal with this stuff all day, every day. They might have spotted something I overlooked.

That's why, if you want D&D to be welcoming to women, it's important to have women on the team.

 

[Frusticolus]

Why is it a male dominated hobby? Simple. It has a lot of things guys like. Swords, dragons, magic, etc.

This statement is as true as blue being a boy's color/pink being a girl's color.