D&D: Jeremy Crawford To Step Down From WotC Later This Month
It is the end of an era at WotC. A new announcement reveals Jeremy Crawford will join Chris Perkins in leaving the D&D team later this month.
Two of the most familiar faces at WotC, Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford, are leaving the D&D team and Wizards of the Coast. Per reporting from Screen Rant, Jeremy Crawford, D&D’s Game Director, will be leaving at some point in April.
You’ve doubtless seen both of them in WotC’s videos, talking about upcoming books, or running livestreamed games at various conventions, or answering questions in panels – for more than a decade, before the launch of 5th Edition, even both Perkins and Crawford have been intertwined with WotC’s direction. From the transition of 4E to 5E to the new core rulebooks, the two have been some of the most public faces of D&D.
Their departure comes after the new core rulebooks have been complete; leaving on a high note as it were.
Jeremy Crawford To Step Down From D&D Design Team
Per Screen Rant’s reporting, Jeremy Crawford’s last day will come “later this month.” Screen Rant spoke with WotC’s VP of Franchise and Product (Dungeons & Dragons), Jess Lanzillo, about the two big departures:
“Both of them have been working on Dungeons and Dragons for a very long time. It’s been a point of dicussion for some time and something that we’ve been training up everyone for. They feel really good about the teams that they have in place and the legacy that they’re passing on.”
Their legacy includes seeing D&D skyrocket in popularity over the last decade. The 5th Edition ruleset’s accessibility, coupled with the rise of tabletop streaming, and a dash of retro nostalgia (thank you Stranger Things) have all contributed to D&D being more popular and widely played than ever before. There are live events featuring celebrities playing D&D for charity as well as just, as a career.
Crawford has markedly impacted D&D, coming in as a designer and later rules manager for the 4th Edition. As the transition to 5E happened, Crawford, along with Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls were co-lead designers. Crawford was also Lead Rules Developer and Managing Editor – which often meant being the one who decided if the things that the WotC team thought were important when they began, were still important enough to be executed on as development proceeded down its lengthy pipeline.
Many D&D players will doubtless be familiar with Crawford’s Sage Advice rulings, or at least his answers to rules questions on Twitter, which sometimes ended up as official answers. And other times ended up as the source of rules arguments at the tabletp, or more often, in online forums.
Screen Rant points out that the departures were intentional and on both Perkins’ and Crawford’s own terms rather than some corporate reshuffling. It is the end of an era, and with the launch of a new edition and more books on the way, the start of another.
What will the next decade of D&D be like? Who will become the new faces of WotC?
