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

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wizards used to host it on the community D&D Wiki but that got scrubbed a while back - here's an archived version: The Wizards Community 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

Maybe so, but I like Age of Sail and Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

 

[bedir than]

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?

Because when Stewart was there he talked about working on BG3 and Honor Among Thieves both, as he was the head of franchise -- the purpose of his role was to work on those projects.

What did happen is that nearly everyone who worked with Llarian is gone. They were not all laid off. Some retired. Some changed employers of their own free will. Some were laid off.

This does remove the personal connections that Vincke and team had, but not because Hasbro is evil, but because any project that takes that long will inevitably have changes in the people involved.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Because when Stewart was there he talked about working on BG3 and Honor Among Thieves both, as he was the head of franchise -- the purpose of his role was to work on those projects.

So yeah:

Or is this an assumption on your part that you know better than someone talking about their own experience?

You have no evidence to support your contention. It's an assumption based on guesswork and insisting that someone else you've never met is exaggerating and/or lying. It's quite possible Stewart worked on BG3 (and I note the lack of quote saying he did) without working with Swen.

This does remove the personal connections that Vincke and team had, but not because Hasbro is evil, but because any project that takes that long will inevitably have changes in the people involved.

This is a straight-up lie. They weren't removed gradually over time. They were all zapped as a group exactly as work on BG4 was starting up. It wasn't so much evil as completely moronic.

 

[bedir than]

So yeah:

You have no evidence to support your contention. It's an assumption based on guesswork and insisting that someone else you've never met is exaggerating and/or lying. It's quite possible Stewart worked on BG3 (and I note the lack of quote saying he did) without working with Swen.

This is a straight-up lie. They weren't removed gradually over time. They were all zapped as a group exactly as work on BG4 was starting up. It wasn't so much evil as completely moronic.

Sorry I'm not going to search for many years old tweets to satisfy your desires.
But if you think that D&D had no changes by choice over a decade long period it will be impossible to satisfy you no matter the evidence.

 

[mamba]

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

WotC also prints in China, not just the US. Any idea what eg TftYP costs them to actually print? If you can spread the fixed costs over 10x the units now then basing the price increase on inflation alone will give you a drastically inflated result.

Compare eg the Basic boxed set to the current starter set, the price went from $9.50 to $15 to $20 now, so nowhere near a 4-5 times increase in price

 

[Parmandur]

WotC also prints in China, not just the US. Any idea what eg TftYP costs them to actually print? If you can spread the fixed costs over 10x the units now then basing the price increase on inflation alone will give you a drastically inflated result.

Compare eg the Basic boxed set to the current starter set, the price went from $9.50 to $15 to $20 now, so nowhere near a 4-5 times increase in price

Starter Set is a loss leader, Basic was not. Yeah, they can lower costs to the bone if they need to...but then it isn’t replicating that old TSR modules feel.

 

[Umbran]

This is a straight-up lie.

Mod Note:
Tone down your rhetoric, or leave the discussion, please and thanks.

 

[pukunui]

Have...have you never heard of Iomandra?

I was also quite taken with his Valoreign setting, but that proved to be DOA.

 

[Nikosandros]

So I see a lot of people who think this is a good thing - and maybe it is in a sense? But if anyone things Perkins is going to have some big influence on D&D from this role, well, frankly, I doubt it. I very much doubt it. I also doubt he'll be in this role, or that this role will exist, for more than 3-5 years at the absolute outside. I'd be unsurprised if it was less. This is to be a me a sort of pre-retirement sinecure for a man who has been a part of making D&D successful again (albeit I would suggest a smaller part than Mearls or Crawford).

So, it seems you were quite right. Except it was more like 5 months than a few years....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So, it seems you were quite right. Except it was more like 5 months than a few years....

Wow. I wouldn't have been surprised if he only lasted a year in this (to me obviously) superfluous role, but five months, damn.