April 18, 2025 • 19 mins
Jeremy Crawford and Chris perkins are leaving Wizards of the coast. is this the end of an era or just a change in the chapter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Coming from screen Rant today, Jeremy Crawford and Chris perkinss
to leave Dungeons and Dragons design team. Now, this is
a piece of news that's almost a week old at
this point. I'm I'm a little behind on it. The issues.
You know, everyone kind of sourced back to this screen
Rant article. When you look at the other ones, Kotaku,
ig and all of them, they all link back to this.
(00:22):
So I won't take time make sure I've got the
initial original article and really developed my thoughts on it.
So we're here to talk about it today. Let's just
go through guiding forces of Dungeons and Dragons for the
last decade. Are both departing Wizards of the Coast. Chris
Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have been part of the Dungeons
Dragons design team for decades. If you don't know who
(00:43):
these two are, these are the essentially design design heads
of five E five. Ey was their brain child. They
handled mechanics and storytelling, so I mean they produced Curse
of Straw, they made five y what it was, and
then they recently produced the twenty twenty four. So them
(01:04):
leaving so soon after the twenty twenty four kind of
smells kind of fishy to me. And that's not me
just being like, oh yeah, no, it's kind of where
they're leaving. It's like, no, I know how corporations work
a little bit. I know that when people step down
like this, especially immediately after a project is over, there's
(01:26):
some stuff going on. After leading the design on the new,
revised fifth edition of the New kor Rubooks, both Perkins
and Crawford are stepping away from Wizards of the Coast.
Perkins announced his departure last week, and ScreenRant has learned
that Crawford's last day will come later this month. Okay,
their departures mark and master shift for Dungeons Dragons. Yes,
this is why I think this is news that needs
(01:48):
to be covered, and the fact that I don't see
as many people covering it as they should be is
really impactful, especially within the Dungeons and Dragons community. These
are the people who headed it. If you liked five E,
if you ran five E, these are the people responsible
for it. They are the face of the product. They
are the ones that led the marketing. They are the
(02:10):
ones that handled the press. If you saw releases for
five E, you saw Crawford and you saw Perkins. That's
just who they were. They were the face of this now.
Of course, speaking to screen around about their pairs departure
(02:30):
from the company, the VP of Franchise and Production, Just
Lanzos said that this was something that the company had
prepared for. Both of them have been working on Dungeons
dragons for a long time. It's been it's been a
point of discussion for some time and something that we've
been training everyone for. They feel really good about the
(02:51):
teams they have in place and the legacy they are
passing on. That is an interesting one because that's very
good Corpus for. Yeah, they're passing on. I think the
timing's just fishy what I'm talking about what feels fishy
about this article them leaving after being so long. They've
(03:11):
been at this for over a decade. But they're leaving
as soon as their new rules are out, and they've
seen the response to their new rules. So even even
if they're leaving for you know, normal reasons, if they're
leaving like hey, okay, it's time to retire, it's time
to move on, no one is going Everyone's gonna say, okay,
(03:31):
why are they leaving now? As soon as the monster
manuals out? Why are they leaving as soon as their
core books are out? If they're supposed to be heading
five E, why are they leaving now. I'm wondering if
this has to do with the amount of controversy the
twenty twenty four rules have gotten and the new changes
that have made, especially because these are the brain children
(03:54):
behind five E how five Y lore has been described.
They they're the ones that went into the detas tales
about the cultures and societies within FIVEY and then you
get the new five E books and they're very stripped down.
So it makes you wonder if maybe there's a lot
of corporate manhandling going on where they were essentially told no, no,
(04:15):
that can't be in your new books, No, that can't
be in your new books, and Crawford and Perkins are like, no, okay, fine,
I don't want to work on this anymore. I can retire,
I don't need this. I'm gonna leave. That's just my
thoughts and opinions on that, because I'm like, this feels
like corporate manhandling in and trying to push them out.
(04:35):
I've got a good feeling they were. They had a
lot of pushback of the new books. Just because I
wasn't pressed by their marketing of the new books. That's
because they felt very stale, And that could just be
because they knew they were leaving. It could also be
that there was some corporate stuff involved that told them, hey,
(04:56):
you're not allowed to do these things in your new books.
We need you need to make sure, uh, the cultures
aren't divisive. And I'm like, hmm, okay, that's that's not normal.
That's not normal unless you're being pushed out. Streamline also
confirmed with Lanslow that both Perkins and Crawford's departures were
(05:17):
on their terms and not part of some wider corporate move. Really,
the the VP of Franchise and Product at Dungeons and Dragons,
said this was not a corporate move. I don't believe you.
(05:39):
The The reason is why would they Why would they
head up put their names on the new stuff. Why
And the fact that they had to state this most
of the time, you don't have to state this. This
is kind of one of those situations where they're like, Okay, no,
(06:00):
it's not a corporate move, or it's or they're saying, no,
we don't want it to be treated like it's a
corporate move, and my opinion is I'm very skeptical of
these things. These vts, their job is to sell the products,
and if people feel like Crawford and Perkins were forced out,
that would hurt their sales even more. You know, we
(06:20):
still don't have sales data on the new twenty twenty
four books, despite them saying it's the most popular five
y releases they've had. We don't have sales numbers yet.
Why not. I've seen them on bookshelves. I don't see
people picking them up. So there's some funkiness going on
at Wizards of the Coast, especially because they just scrapped
(06:40):
Sigil essentially essentially scrapping scrapped it. They cut ninety percent
of the team for their VTT, the changes to D
and D beyond that, they tried to make the OGL disaster.
Wizards of the Coast has not been in a good
place to frustrate their community because their community is already
(07:05):
treating them like they're on thin ice, and the twenty
twenty four rules didn't help, and the changes they made
really ticked off the fan base. Okay, let's go into
what Lenzillo actually said about this. It's one of those
things where you finish a major keystone creative project and
you ask yourself, Okay, do I have the next one
(07:26):
in me for right now? Do I want to do
something a little bit different? I think any creative can
identify with that. No, Okay, I'm here. I'm creating videos.
I also write and do other things and run campaigns.
(07:46):
I am a creative person. I'm going No, you really
don't get that, Like there's creative burnout. I get that.
Like creative burnout, I've been there. Creative burnout is one
of those things where you're just like, oh my gosh,
I need to step away from a moment. Let my
emotions settle, Let my feelings settle about this project, let
myself reset. But creative works are very much at the
(08:09):
whims of inspiration, bolt from the It's like a bolt
from the heavens that comes and goes very quickly. And
I'm like, this is not coming from a creative This
is as far as I can tell. Innzillo is corporate
VP of franchise and product Okay, not VP of marketing. Interesting,
(08:33):
you think this has come through from the marketing. Why
did they go to them in the immediate future? No,
one will step in to replace Perkins. However, Lindzilla mentioned
that James Wyatt and West Schneider, principal designers who have
been part of it for years, have a bigger place
at the table. Interesting, so they're not filling their roles,
which means they were not ready for them to step down. Again,
(08:58):
this leads into the corporate thing. Did Crawford and Perkins
get the drop on Wizards of the Coast Did they go, Okay,
they're going to force us out. We know they're going
to force us out if we leave. Now they don't
have that role to fill. And this is a really
bad time for D and D to lose its face,
for five E to lose the face in Wizards of
(09:22):
the Coast. This is a really bad time monster manual.
I've seen some of the monsters in it. I'm not
impressed the Dungeon Master guys. I've started reviewing it. You
can catch me on Twitch shameless self promotion. We're doing
it on Tuesday's ten thirty mountain time mountain time, which
is I believed twelve pm Eastern, And so I'm reading
(09:47):
the books. I know these books. I wasn't impressed by
the PHB. I went through the entire PHB on air,
reading through it live. I'm not impressed with the new books.
I was actually bored out of my mind with the
DMG and I'm like, I posted a clip. I'm like, hey, no,
I they're not They're not producing the dms. They're having
problems with the game, is what I'm getting at. They're
(10:09):
having a lot of problems with the game, and to
lose its public face now is a horrible thing you
can do, because losing your public face now means that
there's nobody there that the people can latch onto. Who
are we going to latch onto? I believe critical roles
moving towards their own format. A lot of groups are
moving towards their own D twenty systems. Third party sources
(10:33):
are more popular than ever, and five E is just
going to start repeating the books they did. I've got
no doubt that there's a new Raven Loft coming out.
I've got a no doubt that there's a new Horde
of the Dragon Queen or Descent into Verness. They're just
going to keep repeating their projects. I'm not convinced that
the books are going to move forward, or that five
E really has a plan for the future outside of
(10:56):
Crawford and Perkins. Again, they were the ones steering the
ship and they don't have a plan. Crackpot conspiracy theory.
I said it before, and I'm gonna put all of
my thoughts together on this crack pop conspiracy theory after
I finished the quotes, because that's that's really important. It's
really important that we get the full story before I
(11:18):
go full conspiracy theorist. According to Lenzo, the D and
D team is shifting to match existing team member strengths.
Right now, we have folks in principle and lead roles
that are escalating, escalating to take on more responsibility. We're
looking at the team and our needs and to figure
out how to really construct the team in a way
(11:39):
where we can work to everyone's strengths. Wait, you guys
don't have anybody who can fill the role. That's what
that reads to me. We don't have anybody that can
fill the roles everybody's taking on. We're trying to play
to our strengths. That's not okay, we have a plan
without them. That's oh no, we're rambling. That's what that
(12:02):
reads to me. And everybody can have a difference of
opinion on that. Attending the press release, Tensions discussed a
five year plan for future releases. They have a five
year plan. It will not be impacted by any of
the changes. We have already set up the leads for
all those future projects. Chris and don't don't need any
substitutes at this moment because they were both in very
(12:23):
high level road mapping roles in cap capacities. For the
last year. They've been helping us gather that gather that strategy,
set it together, help us figure out the correct casting
for everyone in particular. Rule is good about it. We're
really happy that they're able to contribute in setting a
plan for the future. Okay, so essentially we're just going
to follow their plan. So Linzillo wanted to express her
(12:43):
anticipation that all that Crawford and Perkins have brought to Dandy.
I joined them the team a little over a year ago.
Oh so this is not somebody who's old in the role.
This is not somebody who has worked with them for
a long time. This is somebody who who who's just
knowing them the v VP. A year as a VP,
that's like, okay, you barely get to know everybody you're
(13:06):
learning to do the job properly. That's not a good sign.
And working with has been one of the privileges of
my career that that's very diplomatic. They are fantastic people
along with being fantastic creatives. I've learned so much from
them that they that goes through the same for the
rest of them. They've been just so generous at sharing
their decades of knowledge with us that could move forward
(13:27):
in this moment and really kind of let other people
step forward and bring their cool, new weird ideas to
the tape. Ooh ooh, yes, Okay, this is where my
this is where my like conspiracy theorist brain just starts
latching onto corporate speak because I speak corporate I love
speaking corporate buzzwords. Breaking them down and translating them back
(13:48):
is one of the joys in my life. I'm just
gonna go over a little point here that that this
person says they been so generous at sharing their decades
of knowledge that we can move forward in this moment
and really let other people step forward and bring their cool,
(14:08):
new weird ideas to the table. Okay, which means Jeremy
and Crawford was holding some editorial decisions back again. Now
putting now that we're kind of at the end of
this article, I can put my conspiracy theory altogether and
kind of how this reads to me and how I
interpret it. I think Hasbro was making a planning to
(14:31):
make a move against Crawford and Perkins. I think they
were holding back from a lot of the changes Hasbro
wanted to see with five. I think there was a
lot going on. They either wanted a scapegoat for their
new books failure. They either wanted them to make way
different decisions based on different goals I'm not going to
say political goals, but different goals of the company. Or
(14:55):
they wanted them to let the teams run rough shot
over them instead of taking it on the chin or
pushing back. Crawford and Jeremy said, uh not. Crawford and
Jeremy sorry. Crawford and Perkins both said no, and they
caught Hasbro, uh half footed, half footed, flat footed, flat footed.
(15:19):
They caught them flat footed and by stepping down very abruptly,
I might you know, one of them left like a
week ago, and this was saying he's leaving at the
end of the month. So this wasn't planned future. I
think Crawford and Perkins planned to leave. I think they
didn't tell Hasbro and that they caught Hasbro and Wizards
(15:43):
of the Coast flat footed. This is what that really leads.
Hasbro had a plan to make these to the again
opinion conspiracy theories and how kind of how cut for
corporations like this work. I think they planned on making
these two their scapegoats for the failure of the New
five E and instead of letting themselves be set up,
(16:05):
they caught them flat footed, said we're resigning and stepped back,
and now Hasbro has to scramble. How can you follow
their five year plan and write these books because they're
not gonna come off the same, because you're gonna have
new people in editorial decisions. I'm wondering if they took
their hands off the gas for the old these New
(16:27):
five E books and said let their teams do it,
and that's why they turned out poorly. They said, okay,
now we'll let them do their own thing. See how
they operate. They step down, and now this team is
now scrambling. They don't have somebody that's the face of
D and D. These people talked at conventions, these people
talked on their publicity, they introduced monsters, talked about them
like they were their creations. You just lost them, and
(16:50):
they're talking like, oh, they were just some creatives that
were doing their jobs. No, no, no, you don't understand. You
lost your face of your product. You have all this
stuff in there, but you lost the face of your product.
And now you have to one find somebody who's just
as capable, just as enthusiastic to fill that role, and
they already said they can't. Conspiracy theory minded. This is
(17:13):
how this reads to me, and I am not convinced
that five E as as good of a future. You're
replacing the lead designers. You're replacing the people who made
five E what it was and made it, explained it
to us, and their ideas behind it. You just lost
(17:33):
all of that wizards and you don't even this person
doesn't even realize it. The fact this is not head
of marketing, and I haven't seen something from head of marketing,
which means I'm not convinced they were ready for this
step down. And so I got a bad feeling that
five E is in a rough hatch right now. The
future is not looking right for them because five E
(17:53):
is going to be changing gears not good. And if
they're changing years to keep going down the path they are,
they're going to expect a lot more fan backlash. That's
pretty much all I've got for this. It's a short,
sweet article about an interview from the product VP of
(18:15):
product from Wizards of the Coast, not marketing, and this
just reads like there are a lot of issues going
on that we're not aware of. So I guess if
you want to see more on five EY what I
think of the DMG, you can hop over to Twitch.
Hop over to Twitch. It's on the profile, hit that subscribe,
(18:36):
hit that like button. I mean, you're at the end here,
You've been here for eighteen minutes. You obviously liked my commentary,
and if you want to hear more on it, or
you want these little twenty minute segments to go daily,
or you want me to do daily shows like this,
let me know. I'm more than happy to do it.
You can tell me by hitting that like button leaving
a comment. Do you think Wizards of the Coast was
(18:57):
ready for this? And why? Everything that I've got for you.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your
week and enjoy your days and of course give me
a Christmas saving throw
Coming from screen Rant today, Jeremy Crawford and Chris perkinss
to leave Dungeons and Dragons design team. Now, this is
a piece of news that's almost a week old at
this point. I'm I'm a little behind on it. The issues.
You know, everyone kind of sourced back to this screen
Rant article. When you look at the other ones, Kotaku,
ig and all of them, they all link back to this.
(00:22):
So I won't take time make sure I've got the
initial original article and really developed my thoughts on it.
So we're here to talk about it today. Let's just
go through guiding forces of Dungeons and Dragons for the
last decade. Are both departing Wizards of the Coast. Chris
Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have been part of the Dungeons
Dragons design team for decades. If you don't know who
(00:43):
these two are, these are the essentially design design heads
of five E five. Ey was their brain child. They
handled mechanics and storytelling, so I mean they produced Curse
of Straw, they made five y what it was, and
then they recently produced the twenty twenty four. So them
(01:04):
leaving so soon after the twenty twenty four kind of
smells kind of fishy to me. And that's not me
just being like, oh yeah, no, it's kind of where
they're leaving. It's like, no, I know how corporations work
a little bit. I know that when people step down
like this, especially immediately after a project is over, there's
(01:26):
some stuff going on. After leading the design on the new,
revised fifth edition of the New kor Rubooks, both Perkins
and Crawford are stepping away from Wizards of the Coast.
Perkins announced his departure last week, and ScreenRant has learned
that Crawford's last day will come later this month. Okay,
their departures mark and master shift for Dungeons Dragons. Yes,
this is why I think this is news that needs
(01:48):
to be covered, and the fact that I don't see
as many people covering it as they should be is
really impactful, especially within the Dungeons and Dragons community. These
are the people who headed it. If you liked five E,
if you ran five E, these are the people responsible
for it. They are the face of the product. They
are the ones that led the marketing. They are the
(02:10):
ones that handled the press. If you saw releases for
five E, you saw Crawford and you saw Perkins. That's
just who they were. They were the face of this now.
Of course, speaking to screen around about their pairs departure
(02:30):
from the company, the VP of Franchise and Production, Just
Lanzos said that this was something that the company had
prepared for. Both of them have been working on Dungeons
dragons for a long time. It's been it's been a
point of discussion for some time and something that we've
been training everyone for. They feel really good about the
(02:51):
teams they have in place and the legacy they are
passing on. That is an interesting one because that's very
good Corpus for. Yeah, they're passing on. I think the
timing's just fishy what I'm talking about what feels fishy
about this article them leaving after being so long. They've
(03:11):
been at this for over a decade. But they're leaving
as soon as their new rules are out, and they've
seen the response to their new rules. So even even
if they're leaving for you know, normal reasons, if they're
leaving like hey, okay, it's time to retire, it's time
to move on, no one is going Everyone's gonna say, okay,
(03:31):
why are they leaving now? As soon as the monster
manuals out? Why are they leaving as soon as their
core books are out? If they're supposed to be heading
five E, why are they leaving now. I'm wondering if
this has to do with the amount of controversy the
twenty twenty four rules have gotten and the new changes
that have made, especially because these are the brain children
(03:54):
behind five E how five Y lore has been described.
They they're the ones that went into the detas tales
about the cultures and societies within FIVEY and then you
get the new five E books and they're very stripped down.
So it makes you wonder if maybe there's a lot
of corporate manhandling going on where they were essentially told no, no,
(04:15):
that can't be in your new books, No, that can't
be in your new books, and Crawford and Perkins are like, no, okay, fine,
I don't want to work on this anymore. I can retire,
I don't need this. I'm gonna leave. That's just my
thoughts and opinions on that, because I'm like, this feels
like corporate manhandling in and trying to push them out.
(04:35):
I've got a good feeling they were. They had a
lot of pushback of the new books. Just because I
wasn't pressed by their marketing of the new books. That's
because they felt very stale, And that could just be
because they knew they were leaving. It could also be
that there was some corporate stuff involved that told them, hey,
(04:56):
you're not allowed to do these things in your new books.
We need you need to make sure, uh, the cultures
aren't divisive. And I'm like, hmm, okay, that's that's not normal.
That's not normal unless you're being pushed out. Streamline also
confirmed with Lanslow that both Perkins and Crawford's departures were
(05:17):
on their terms and not part of some wider corporate move. Really,
the the VP of Franchise and Product at Dungeons and Dragons,
said this was not a corporate move. I don't believe you.
(05:39):
The The reason is why would they Why would they
head up put their names on the new stuff. Why
And the fact that they had to state this most
of the time, you don't have to state this. This
is kind of one of those situations where they're like, Okay, no,
(06:00):
it's not a corporate move, or it's or they're saying, no,
we don't want it to be treated like it's a
corporate move, and my opinion is I'm very skeptical of
these things. These vts, their job is to sell the products,
and if people feel like Crawford and Perkins were forced out,
that would hurt their sales even more. You know, we
(06:20):
still don't have sales data on the new twenty twenty
four books, despite them saying it's the most popular five
y releases they've had. We don't have sales numbers yet.
Why not. I've seen them on bookshelves. I don't see
people picking them up. So there's some funkiness going on
at Wizards of the Coast, especially because they just scrapped
(06:40):
Sigil essentially essentially scrapping scrapped it. They cut ninety percent
of the team for their VTT, the changes to D
and D beyond that, they tried to make the OGL disaster.
Wizards of the Coast has not been in a good
place to frustrate their community because their community is already
(07:05):
treating them like they're on thin ice, and the twenty
twenty four rules didn't help, and the changes they made
really ticked off the fan base. Okay, let's go into
what Lenzillo actually said about this. It's one of those
things where you finish a major keystone creative project and
you ask yourself, Okay, do I have the next one
(07:26):
in me for right now? Do I want to do
something a little bit different? I think any creative can
identify with that. No, Okay, I'm here. I'm creating videos.
I also write and do other things and run campaigns.
(07:46):
I am a creative person. I'm going No, you really
don't get that, Like there's creative burnout. I get that.
Like creative burnout, I've been there. Creative burnout is one
of those things where you're just like, oh my gosh,
I need to step away from a moment. Let my
emotions settle, Let my feelings settle about this project, let
myself reset. But creative works are very much at the
(08:09):
whims of inspiration, bolt from the It's like a bolt
from the heavens that comes and goes very quickly. And
I'm like, this is not coming from a creative This
is as far as I can tell. Innzillo is corporate
VP of franchise and product Okay, not VP of marketing. Interesting,
(08:33):
you think this has come through from the marketing. Why
did they go to them in the immediate future? No,
one will step in to replace Perkins. However, Lindzilla mentioned
that James Wyatt and West Schneider, principal designers who have
been part of it for years, have a bigger place
at the table. Interesting, so they're not filling their roles,
which means they were not ready for them to step down. Again,
(08:58):
this leads into the corporate thing. Did Crawford and Perkins
get the drop on Wizards of the Coast Did they go, Okay,
they're going to force us out. We know they're going
to force us out if we leave. Now they don't
have that role to fill. And this is a really
bad time for D and D to lose its face,
for five E to lose the face in Wizards of
(09:22):
the Coast. This is a really bad time monster manual.
I've seen some of the monsters in it. I'm not
impressed the Dungeon Master guys. I've started reviewing it. You
can catch me on Twitch shameless self promotion. We're doing
it on Tuesday's ten thirty mountain time mountain time, which
is I believed twelve pm Eastern, And so I'm reading
(09:47):
the books. I know these books. I wasn't impressed by
the PHB. I went through the entire PHB on air,
reading through it live. I'm not impressed with the new books.
I was actually bored out of my mind with the
DMG and I'm like, I posted a clip. I'm like, hey, no,
I they're not They're not producing the dms. They're having
problems with the game, is what I'm getting at. They're
(10:09):
having a lot of problems with the game, and to
lose its public face now is a horrible thing you
can do, because losing your public face now means that
there's nobody there that the people can latch onto. Who
are we going to latch onto? I believe critical roles
moving towards their own format. A lot of groups are
moving towards their own D twenty systems. Third party sources
(10:33):
are more popular than ever, and five E is just
going to start repeating the books they did. I've got
no doubt that there's a new Raven Loft coming out.
I've got a no doubt that there's a new Horde
of the Dragon Queen or Descent into Verness. They're just
going to keep repeating their projects. I'm not convinced that
the books are going to move forward, or that five
E really has a plan for the future outside of
(10:56):
Crawford and Perkins. Again, they were the ones steering the
ship and they don't have a plan. Crackpot conspiracy theory.
I said it before, and I'm gonna put all of
my thoughts together on this crack pop conspiracy theory after
I finished the quotes, because that's that's really important. It's
really important that we get the full story before I
(11:18):
go full conspiracy theorist. According to Lenzo, the D and
D team is shifting to match existing team member strengths.
Right now, we have folks in principle and lead roles
that are escalating, escalating to take on more responsibility. We're
looking at the team and our needs and to figure
out how to really construct the team in a way
(11:39):
where we can work to everyone's strengths. Wait, you guys
don't have anybody who can fill the role. That's what
that reads to me. We don't have anybody that can
fill the roles everybody's taking on. We're trying to play
to our strengths. That's not okay, we have a plan
without them. That's oh no, we're rambling. That's what that
(12:02):
reads to me. And everybody can have a difference of
opinion on that. Attending the press release, Tensions discussed a
five year plan for future releases. They have a five
year plan. It will not be impacted by any of
the changes. We have already set up the leads for
all those future projects. Chris and don't don't need any
substitutes at this moment because they were both in very
(12:23):
high level road mapping roles in cap capacities. For the
last year. They've been helping us gather that gather that strategy,
set it together, help us figure out the correct casting
for everyone in particular. Rule is good about it. We're
really happy that they're able to contribute in setting a
plan for the future. Okay, so essentially we're just going
to follow their plan. So Linzillo wanted to express her
(12:43):
anticipation that all that Crawford and Perkins have brought to Dandy.
I joined them the team a little over a year ago.
Oh so this is not somebody who's old in the role.
This is not somebody who has worked with them for
a long time. This is somebody who who who's just
knowing them the v VP. A year as a VP,
that's like, okay, you barely get to know everybody you're
(13:06):
learning to do the job properly. That's not a good sign.
And working with has been one of the privileges of
my career that that's very diplomatic. They are fantastic people
along with being fantastic creatives. I've learned so much from
them that they that goes through the same for the
rest of them. They've been just so generous at sharing
their decades of knowledge with us that could move forward
(13:27):
in this moment and really kind of let other people
step forward and bring their cool, new weird ideas to
the tape. Ooh ooh, yes, Okay, this is where my
this is where my like conspiracy theorist brain just starts
latching onto corporate speak because I speak corporate I love
speaking corporate buzzwords. Breaking them down and translating them back
(13:48):
is one of the joys in my life. I'm just
gonna go over a little point here that that this
person says they been so generous at sharing their decades
of knowledge that we can move forward in this moment
and really let other people step forward and bring their cool,
(14:08):
new weird ideas to the table. Okay, which means Jeremy
and Crawford was holding some editorial decisions back again. Now
putting now that we're kind of at the end of
this article, I can put my conspiracy theory altogether and
kind of how this reads to me and how I
interpret it. I think Hasbro was making a planning to
(14:31):
make a move against Crawford and Perkins. I think they
were holding back from a lot of the changes Hasbro
wanted to see with five. I think there was a
lot going on. They either wanted a scapegoat for their
new books failure. They either wanted them to make way
different decisions based on different goals I'm not going to
say political goals, but different goals of the company. Or
(14:55):
they wanted them to let the teams run rough shot
over them instead of taking it on the chin or
pushing back. Crawford and Jeremy said, uh not. Crawford and
Jeremy sorry. Crawford and Perkins both said no, and they
caught Hasbro, uh half footed, half footed, flat footed, flat footed.
(15:19):
They caught them flat footed and by stepping down very abruptly,
I might you know, one of them left like a
week ago, and this was saying he's leaving at the
end of the month. So this wasn't planned future. I
think Crawford and Perkins planned to leave. I think they
didn't tell Hasbro and that they caught Hasbro and Wizards
(15:43):
of the Coast flat footed. This is what that really leads.
Hasbro had a plan to make these to the again
opinion conspiracy theories and how kind of how cut for
corporations like this work. I think they planned on making
these two their scapegoats for the failure of the New
five E and instead of letting themselves be set up,
(16:05):
they caught them flat footed, said we're resigning and stepped back,
and now Hasbro has to scramble. How can you follow
their five year plan and write these books because they're
not gonna come off the same, because you're gonna have
new people in editorial decisions. I'm wondering if they took
their hands off the gas for the old these New
(16:27):
five E books and said let their teams do it,
and that's why they turned out poorly. They said, okay,
now we'll let them do their own thing. See how
they operate. They step down, and now this team is
now scrambling. They don't have somebody that's the face of
D and D. These people talked at conventions, these people
talked on their publicity, they introduced monsters, talked about them
like they were their creations. You just lost them, and
(16:50):
they're talking like, oh, they were just some creatives that
were doing their jobs. No, no, no, you don't understand. You
lost your face of your product. You have all this
stuff in there, but you lost the face of your product.
And now you have to one find somebody who's just
as capable, just as enthusiastic to fill that role, and
they already said they can't. Conspiracy theory minded. This is
(17:13):
how this reads to me, and I am not convinced
that five E as as good of a future. You're
replacing the lead designers. You're replacing the people who made
five E what it was and made it, explained it
to us, and their ideas behind it. You just lost
(17:33):
all of that wizards and you don't even this person
doesn't even realize it. The fact this is not head
of marketing, and I haven't seen something from head of marketing,
which means I'm not convinced they were ready for this
step down. And so I got a bad feeling that
five E is in a rough hatch right now. The
future is not looking right for them because five E
(17:53):
is going to be changing gears not good. And if
they're changing years to keep going down the path they are,
they're going to expect a lot more fan backlash. That's
pretty much all I've got for this. It's a short,
sweet article about an interview from the product VP of
(18:15):
product from Wizards of the Coast, not marketing, and this
just reads like there are a lot of issues going
on that we're not aware of. So I guess if
you want to see more on five EY what I
think of the DMG, you can hop over to Twitch.
Hop over to Twitch. It's on the profile, hit that subscribe,
(18:36):
hit that like button. I mean, you're at the end here,
You've been here for eighteen minutes. You obviously liked my commentary,
and if you want to hear more on it, or
you want these little twenty minute segments to go daily,
or you want me to do daily shows like this,
let me know. I'm more than happy to do it.
You can tell me by hitting that like button leaving
a comment. Do you think Wizards of the Coast was
(18:57):
ready for this? And why? Everything that I've got for you.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your
week and enjoy your days and of course give me
a Christmas saving throw
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