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DnD fans have secretly been playing the lead designer’s campaign this whole time

Dungeons and Dragons game director Jeremy Crawford has snuck several details from his homebrew campaign into published fifth edition books.

Wizards of the Coast marketing image of DnD game director Jeremy Crawford

If you’ve kept up with Dungeons and Dragons’ fifth edition releases, chances are that you’ve played with material that originated in the homebrew campaign of its game director, Jeremy Crawford. Crawford shared this fact with Wargamer at a press event on October 25 while running a game to show off the new Dungeon Master’s Guide, which releases worldwide on November 12.

Wizards of the Coast has been extremely busy working on the three new core rulebooks, which feature said DMG, plus an already-released 2024 Player’s Handbook and the still-upcoming 2025 Monster Manual. After the dust has settled on the new rules, Crawford mentions “I’m looking forward to restarting my home game soon”.

This home game has been running since Jeremy Crawford was in high school, and “all my campaigns are sequels to the high school campaign”. He adds that a sizable chunk of his homebrew went into the Ravenloft books, notably Curse of Strahd and Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

Death House is an original creation from Crawford’s campaign, for example. The Priests of Osybus and the Ulmist Inquisition, who appear in the Ravenloft chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, are also a Crawford campaign creation. Crawford says his homebrew is due to influence even more DnD books in future, but he naturally can’t give any details at this time.

“The way we create [Dungeons and Dragons] is very similar to how we DM it”, Crawford tells Wargamer. “It’s authentically grown out of the soil of our games.” Crawford describes Wizards’ design philosophy as “play first”, saying “we are DMs for DMs, creating materials for other Dungeon Masters”.

We’ll be sharing more about what it’s like to have Jeremy Crawford as your Dungeon Master – keep an eye on Wargamer for more details. For more on Dungeons and Dragons right now, here’s everything you need to know about DnD classes and DnD races. Or, for more on the new rules, here’s our 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide review.