WotC D&D's Christopher Perkins Promoted to Creative Director

On Twitter WotC's Christopher Perkins clarified queries about his new role after it was revealed that the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide would be his last book as Product Lead--he is now D&D's Creative Director, which looks like a broader, more overview-type job. Creative Director was the role that Mike Mearls held until 2018 before moving over the Magic: The Gathering, and George Krstic held a similarly named role until August this year.

Not true. I was a Game Design Architect. Now I’m the Creative Director, which is a more “behind the scenes” gig that lets me play quietly in a bunch of different sandboxes. #wotcstaff

 

[Parmandur]

yes, that helps distributing the fixed costs over more copies than the print run, I would expect WotC to reach a big enough volume with just their print run however.

Better yet if they finally started offering PDFs, I am tired of them not doing so

Thing is, why should they use their resources to make more, smaller books that will sell less...when they can make one big book woth 10 big dungeons themed around dragons, that will sell more?

The economics of small modules just don't make sense.

 

[mamba]

Thing is, why should they use their resources to make more, smaller books that will sell less...when they can make one big book woth 10 big dungeons themed around dragons, that will sell more?

I agree with the opportunity cost, I am not expecting WotC to start creating short print modules, I just disagreed with the price point you arrived at

 

[Parmandur]

I agree with the opportunity cost, I am not expecting WotC to start creating short print modules, I just disagreed with the price point you arrived at

That is the price point for the equivalent of what TSR produced: high quality, printed in the USA, lookong to make lots of money.

Goodman Games is like the only RPG company doing small modules, for retro vibes reason, and they are made cheaply to boot. They don't have the same sturdy construction and folders of the TSR modules, let alone the binding, offshore labor etc.

Goodman is producing modules at a fraction of the price, and are not comparable. Printing in the US, which WotC, has gotten more expensive than it was 40 years ago *more than inflation(, so I feel comfortable with my number for actually comparable products.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Have...have you never heard of Iomandra?

...

That's part of what I'm referring to re: nothing surprising or cool. It doesn't seem like some of gem of creativity to me, rather just another homebrew about on-par with what half the posters here use in their home games. It's slightly atypical in that it's an archipelago rather than a continent or three, but that's literally the second-most-common form - I've run archipelago campaigns before.

So yeah I've heard about it and read the wiki back in the day. Do you think it's tremendously impressive or something? I mean it's more impressive than anything he's done in 5E, so there is that. I'd honestly have rather they released it than say, Spelljammer, as a campaign setting, because at least that would technically be a new campaign setting, something we are still waiting on.

I mean I guess that's a test - if he, as Creative Director of D&D, ushers in some actually new settings, like not just old ones made worse (c.f. Spelljammer, Planescape, Dragonlance, though I would say with the FR and Ravenloft it's more of a wash than worse), then maybe we can talk.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Have...have you never heard of Iomandra?

No. What is it?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. What is it?

IMO, a very cool campaign setting Mr. Perkins ran for 4e. It's a water world filled with thousands of islands. Dragons rule over many of them, but not all, with pockets of resistance (or more unusual choices) sprinkled throughout. It draws heavily on the Age of Sail, the Voyages of Sindbad, and myth and legend (e.g. the Odyssey and Aeneid).

While the fact that it explicitly includes dragonborn is of course an appeal, just the whole..."now YOU get to be Sinbad" thing is huge for me. I was gifted a collection of fairy tales as a child and I adored the Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor the most out of all of them, much as how The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was a formative influence (alongside all the Narnia books).

 

[bedir than]

Isn't it? Who exactly worked with Larian that they retained. Certainly Swen Vincke was very clear that they fired the people who he worked with.

He worked with Nathan Stewart, who left on his own to go into video games full time.
Stewart wasn't fired.

This lone example shows that Vincke's statement is an exaggeration.

 

[Micah Sweet]

IMO, a very cool campaign setting Mr. Perkins ran for 4e. It's a water world filled with thousands of islands. Dragons rule over many of them, but not all, with pockets of resistance (or more unusual choices) sprinkled throughout. It draws heavily on the Age of Sail, the Voyages of Sindbad, and myth and legend (e.g. the Odyssey and Aeneid).

While the fact that it explicitly includes dragonborn is of course an appeal, just the whole..."now YOU get to be Sinbad" thing is huge for me. I was gifted a collection of fairy tales as a child and I adored the Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor the most out of all of them, much as how The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was a formative influence (alongside all the Narnia books).

It does sound cool. Where did you hear of it? Is there a version of it available anywhere?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He worked with Nathan Stewart, who left on his own to go into video games full time.
Stewart wasn't fired.

This lone example shows that Vincke's statement is an exaggeration.

Does it? How do we know he worked with Stewart? Have we got an interview from either of them saying so? Or is this an assumption on your part that you know better than someone talking about their own experience?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It does sound cool. Where did you hear of it? Is there a version of it available anywhere?

Wizards used to host it on the community D&D Wiki but that got scrubbed a while back - here's an archived version: The Wizards Community > Wiki - Dnd:Iomandra and the Dragon Sea

To me that sounds like, a 7/10-type homebrew (at best!), but perhaps I'm picky! It certainly doesn't have much of a "WOW!" factor for me and I think I'm easily wow'd.