I find the news of Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins leaving to be interesting.

I’ve been paying attention to the TTRPG news for the last couple of weeks, but I haven’t said anything because people almost expect me to come off as negative about WotC. Here’s the new deal: All of the people I said I wanted to see depart from WotC are now gone! Cynthia Williams, Kyle Brink, Chris Cao, and Jeremy Crawford have all left the building. I don’t care why or how. They’re gone.

That means I’m happy to become a Dungeons & Dragons fan again. I won’t abandon Dragonbane for anything, but I don’t have to look at D&D with my eyes full of scorn toward the designers any more. The company has more or less up righted itself from the creative staff that was dragging the game down and the management that was completely clueless.

You guys already know I consider “woke’ a compliment. It was never about that or even Crawford, really. Yes, Crawford did let some kinda silly stuff run out of his mouth at times. I don’t care anymore. I hope he goes to work for Evil Hat or some company more in line with his values. I don’t even care if WotC continues on their current trajectory of virtue signaling and whatnot. Pfft Good for them.

What really set me off were the events of January 2023.

The great Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License Debacle of 2023 came and has finally gone. All the way gone forever, we hope. The people that masterminded that absolute garbage plan to ruin the livelihood of Third Party Publishers are gone and hopefully never coming back. Regardless of what the Reptilian Overlords at Hasbro cook up next for D&D, we’ll be ready.

The poor people they threw under the bus at WotC who then exacerbated the blunders are gone as well. Somewhere in there, probably with the WotC CEO change, the company figured out how to basically keep their mouths shut every time something stupid came up. No more, “You won, but so did we” garbage ever again out of the mouths of WotC execs.

Tinfoil Hat moments incoming.

I have predictions for the future of D&D as well as their parent company, WotC. First, I’ll echo the OG GM when I say Ginny, Ted, Bob, and any of the other super loyal DungeonTubers are probably done getting free product. They might get cut off cold turkey. WotC needs to start making money again and they need to ask themselves whether blowing profits is worth the advertising they get on YouTube, especially when so much negativity flies every time they try it now.

I think Wizards of the Coast will be hiring staff at a fraction of what Crawford and Perkins were getting paid. Again, they have to start showing profit or they’ll be shown the door. I don’t care what their PR people told Screen Rant or whoever. Hasbro wants WotC to start making money or else. Is WotC “training up” the old skeleton crew for D&D to fill the top slots? I doubt it, but we’ll see.

Magic: the Gathering will likely remain unphased at WotC for the time being. They need it to make piles of money. If Magic falters, WotC will likely cease to be its own entity and get rolled into Hasbro proper. I expect D&D is going to become a footnote at WotC when compared to everything else at Hasbro. They’re going to be on a skeleton crew trying to get D&D noticed again at best.

2027 might prove to be the year Hasbro releases a D&D Basic style game like the Beginner’s Box. If new players want to level past 3rd, they’ll either have to go online to D&D Beyond or just make it up. Between now and 2027, we’ll be lucky if there is such a thing as a physical release. That’s just my opinion, though, and a lot can happen between now and then to change it.

The dumpster and toilet fires are extinguished for now.

Will the next iteration of Wizards of the Coast screw up as bad as the previous regime? Maybe. But given their CEO worked at Blizzard Entertainment and most of the rest of the staff we’ve heard about coming in so far seem pretty mellow. No massive controversies yet and I suspect it will stay that way.

Right now WotC has to be all about making money. I fully anticipate the 2026 release schedule for D&D to be a shell of its former self. We’ll be lucky if we see three adventures and a supplement. That’s assuming they don’t turn around and farm the entire Intellectual Property out to Renegade Game Studios or Kobold Press.

Meanwhile, I’m sure D&D Go, or D&D the MMORPG video game are in the works. Possibly both. With video game people at the helm who know how to put out video games, the “Electronic Games” portion of Wizards of the Coast is likely to do very well. Oh yeah, and they have that D&D Beyond website almost as a complete afterthought.

D&D the Game will continue for decades to come.

We’ve made it over 50 years in the hobby with Dungeons & Dragons as the frontrunner. The names might change. The editions or versions might come and go. A new frontrunner might appear and then fade. (Remember Pathfinder when D&D 4E came out?) We’re still going to be here gaming regardless of what it’s called.

I’m back to being open to playing/running D&D 5E. I never hated the game itself. I wasn’t fond of WotC’s approach to D&D from 2022 until recently. They had a string of gimpy products and public relations flubs that go back to 2021. The winds have changed, however. I’ll wait and see what this “new” WotC does before I say much more of anything about them.

Also, there’s the rich, wholesome mirth and mayhem that is Dragonbane RPG. I’ll still be converting D&D monsters and settings as needed over to Dragonbane. If I publish any fantasy supplements or adventures, they will still be using the Dragonbane rules. Wizards of the Coast is officially off my sh*t list for now. Yay. Blank slate.