Dungeons & Dragons Exec Teases Stranger Issues Forward for Fiftieth Anniversary
Jess Lanzillo rolls deep with Dungeons & Dragons—and never simply together with her trusty D20 die.
“I sort of backward engineered my method into D&D,” Lanzillo reveals to ADWEEK in her first interview as the brand new vp of franchise and product for the long-lasting technique sport, which celebrates its Fiftieth anniversary this 12 months.
The Indiana-born gamer recollects how a childhood spent taking part in King’s Quest and different story-based Sierra Video games titles gave strategy to a tweenage fascination with early ’90s bulletin board techniques, adopted by a highschool profession full of Magic: The Gathering and D&D periods at her native comics store.
And he or she didn’t give up her D&D character sheets after receiving her diploma. Her love for the sport adopted her to varsity and into her early profession in promoting at corporations like Havas and Publicis Seattle.
“It wasn’t only a strategy to blow off steam on weekends—it additionally saved my artistic pondering sharp,” she says.
Not for nothing, however it additionally immediately led to her job at tabletop gaming large Wizards of the Coast, which acquired the D&D model in 1997 from TSR, Inc., the writer established by the sport’s creators, Gary Gygax and Don Kaye.
After shifting to Seattle to work at Publicis, Lanzillo grew to become a daily at a gamer bar within the Capitol Hill neighborhood and matched Magic decks with a number of Wizards staff, who recruited her for an open position on their group. Becoming a member of as an R&D design supervisor for that collectible card sport, she steadily moved up the ladder to achieve chief of employees.
This previous February, she traded her Magic playing cards for multi-sided cube and stepped into her present vp position overseeing the sprawling Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
“So right here I’m,” she says fortunately. “I get to stay the dream. And I’m excited to be right here at such a vital time for D&D. It’s a enjoyable problem and alternative—I couldn’t be extra excited.”
In a full of life interview, Lanzillo previews a few of D&D’s Fiftieth anniversary releases, reveals how the model balances a number of generations of followers and shares how D&D is collaborating with Netflix’s Stranger Issues—together with teasing what she is aware of concerning the fifth and ultimate season.
(This interview has been edited for size and readability.)
ADWEEK: We’ll get to the mutually helpful relationship between Dungeons & Dragons and Stranger Issues in a bit. However first off, I’ve to notice how extremely acceptable it’s for the sport’s new vp to even be a D&D obsessive from Indiana.
Lanzillo: Very a lot so! I really like D&D, and I additionally come from a really punk rock background—I am Eddie Munson! [Laughs] These are the 2 issues I all the time cared about rising up, and so they have the identical factor in widespread, proper? They’re each about asking: “How can we make cool stuff with our buddies?”
You’re stepping again into D&D at an auspicious time, given the Fiftieth anniversary. Was that a part of your cause for accepting the brand new position?
Completely. I had simply gone by the thirtieth anniversary of Magic: The Gathering, so to show the nook and notice that 2024 was 50 years for D&D was superb. And it’s not simply concerning the sport itself, but in addition the way it’s influenced all the tradition round it. You may see it mirrored within the ebook we printed this 12 months concerning the making of the unique sport—there’s all this correspondence between people who’re co-creating one thing collectively and so they’re simply riffing on an idea. You may see the throughline of that thus far.
When a model hits the large 5-0, it sometimes finds itself between a number of generations of followers—those that have been taking part in it for years or many years and those that are simply moving into it now. How do you stability nostalgia with the necessity to hold the sport contemporary?
The Wizard portfolio at massive has a multi-generational method. You may attain forwards and backwards all through historical past, so a participant like myself who has been taking part in for 30-plus years can have a dialog with a participant who bought into it by Stranger Issues or Crucial Position. We’ve got a foundational language that breaks down generational limitations. We even have a shared play expertise the place you’re co-creating one thing collectively, which helps as you’re wanting in the direction of the longer term.
Additionally, by D&D Past, we’ve got a platform for everybody to take part digitally collectively, and that modifications the panorama of how folks expertise the sport.
Gatekeeping and toxicity are identified issues in different fandoms, however D&D appears to have sidestepped these sorts of points.
I feel that’s as a result of all the foundational premise of the sport is that you must collaborate to create this expertise. And in the event you’re not doing that, at a sure level, you’ll be uninvited out of your desk!
Stroll us by a few of the Fiftieth-anniversary merchandise which might be already available on the market or being launched quickly—there are new rulebooks, new adventures and up to date variations of classic adventures.
Quite a lot of what we checked out after we have been creating the brand new suite of core guidelines is how will we make these approachable and arranged in a method the place you possibly can choose them up and get into the sport, and the way will we make them implementable in our digital instruments. That’s the foundational premise. We wish to give folks the chance to see themselves within the sport, whereas additionally giving them a greater person expertise.
With [the updated] Quests from the Infinite Staircase, it was actually vital for us to not give this sense that we have been changing or erasing what’s come earlier than, simply replace it for contemporary play types. There are digital play instruments and choices to interact with the adventures in methods which might be resonant for you. Everybody desires to have that sense that they’re being introduced alongside for the journey, so accessibility is basically vital to us.
D&D looks like a reasonably AI-proof sport, however are you taking a look at integrating it in any capability going ahead?
What makes D&D distinctive is the 1000’s of strange choices and experiences that an individual has after they make their character, generate a chunk of art work or write an journey. That may’t be summed up in a immediate. AI is all the time altering, however we’re staying fairly handbook and humanized in our creation course of proper now. [Editor’s Note: You can read D&D’s official FAQ about Generative AI Art here.]
By way of model extensions and tie-ins, Stranger Issues is all the time nice publicity for D&D. What different issues are you exploring in that realm?
We did a Lego set this 12 months—Lego is large for us. We’ve executed Future and Useless by Daylight activations, which went swimmingly effectively and speaks to us being related to digital video games. A way of neighborhood is all the time big for us since that’s what D&D is all about. And, in fact, Stranger Issues is large for us.
Coming from an promoting background, are you on the lookout for methods to combine manufacturers into the gameplay?
We’ve executed it earlier than with the Rick & Morty set and with Crucial Position as effectively. We speak to people about it on a regular basis, however it’s about discovering the correct match as a result of there’s a really particular method the sport is constructed.
The Dungeons & Dragons film Honor Amongst Thieves got here out final 12 months and met with a combined reception on the field workplace. Followers embraced it, although. Do you hope to strive one other film or TV collection in some unspecified time in the future?
The film ended up being on the prime of the streaming chart for weeks, so we all know it’s super-beloved. We’re all the time considering what we are able to do in leisure, so there are many issues being explored in each live-action and animation. A part of that can be saying to creators: “Hey, we’re right here to assist you. What do you want?” Like with Stranger Issues, they may say, “We want some visible growth round Vecna.” We may also help them on the market, whereas additionally giving them the flexibility to inform their tales in the best way they need.
Does that imply you’ve gotten some spoilers for Stranger Issues Season 5?
We purposely guarantee that we don’t know an excessive amount of. Effectively, we do know some issues—and I’m not going to inform you. [Laughs] We’ve got a collection of Stranger Issues adventures and tie-ins that we’re going to be doing, so we all know what we have to know for all of that. That’s how we prefer to work with folks: Make your individual factor and tell us how we are able to create cool play experiences for folk round it.
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What’s in retailer for the remainder of this Fiftieth anniversary 12 months and past?
The remainder of this 12 months goes to be about us rolling out the superb suite of core guidelines. We even have these instructional and library applications that we’ve rolled out with big success to herald an entire new era. Educators have tell us how foundational that is to bettering studying scores and bettering social stability of their colleges. Trying again at 50 years of D&D, it’s supplied this framework by which individuals can work collectively throughout all types of variations. It’s introduced folks collectively by letting them say, “I’m a bizarre elf!” [Laughs]
Transferring into the subsequent 50 years, our energy is that the model has been quite a lot of various things. I’ve mentioned earlier than that it’s the Kleenex of RPGs—you don’t say, “I’m going to go play a role-playing sport.” You say, “I’m going to go play Dungeons & Dragons.”
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