Jeremy Crawford talks about what inspired his work revolutionising D&D
The second day of San Diego Comic-Con Malaga continues to unfold in an atmosphere of feverish excitement. And at around 14:00 CEST, the panel that role-playing and fantasy fans were (if possible) even more eagerly awaiting begins: The Rebirth of Dungeons and Dragons, hosted by none other than Jeremy Crawford.
The game designer, known for being part of design team of the fourth edition of the game, as well as the chief designer on the fifth edition and the current "new fifth", began his panel by reviewing not only his role in the creation of the game's rules, but how they sought new sources of inspiration that would not only keep the game afloat, but raise it back to new heights of popularity not seen in decades. "We needed to give you all our undivided attention," Gordon Bellamy, who in addition to working on the Madden series of games, is also an absolute Dungeons and Dragons fan, told moderator Gordon Bellamy.
"To design a new game" (such as Daggerheart, his current project with Critical Role at Darrington Press) "as to redesign one like D&D, the first thing is to listen to the players. Listen to their proposals, but also to their complaints. Accessibility was one of the keys".
"When designing D&D I looked to the past, present and future, to what inspired Gary Gygax and his friends to create their worlds. The Lord of the Rings, Lovecraft, Conan.... Now in Daggerheart it's the same".
Crawford has also spoken to how Dungeons and Dragons draws from the experiences of every gaming group, wherever they're from. "When I travel to other places, I usually take a book from that place with me. At this SDCC Malaga I brought a book about medieval occultism in Spain," he commented with amusement.
And even though he now works for Darrington Press, Crawford is still innovating strongly in game design, and specifically how communication now with D&D and other games in particular is turning it into the mass phenomenon they've always dreamed of. "I can't wait to show you what we're building and creating at Critical Role. And it's something that's going to further fuel this new revolution of people discovering TTRPGs. Now you can see (on YouTube, Twitch, etc) how the game is progressing, what the game manual looks like. But these shows help a lot to connect with the game from the outside." And he adds that Critical Role Campaign IV will be a big event for the hobby: "For the first time, the game designers work side by side with the show hosts."
However, when asked directly about what new features they are introducing in the Critical Role game, Crawford was more mysterious: "Like any D&D campaign, you're going to have to go deep into the dungeon to find out what's coming.