D&D General Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford Join Darrington Press

Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have a new home, joining Critical Role’s Darrington Press. The LA Times was the first to report on the news of the pair joining Darrington in undisclosed roles. [UPDATE: Per Darrington Press, Perkins is Creative Director and Crawford is Game Director, matching their roles at Wizards.] According to the article, Perkins and Crawford were approached by Critical Role shortly after news broke that the pair were departing Wizards of the Coast.

I was committed to staying with Wizards until after D&D’s 50th anniversary, which gave me lots of time to work on succession planning and exit strategies,” Perkins told the LA Times. “What brought me out of retirement was the chance to work with Jeremy and the brilliant folks at Critical Role on things that have a lasting, positive impact on the world.”

“Chris and I talked about his retirement plan for years, so his approaching departure was long on my mind. When we sent the new D&D rule books to the printer last year, I felt it was time to explore a new chapter for myself,” Crawford added. “I love the game and its team, but 18 years is a long time. I was ready for a new adventure. The chapter that we’ve now opened feels like coming home — resuming work with Chris and returning to Southern California.”

Darrington Press just launched Daggerheart, a fantasy TTRPG that’s more narrative focused than D&D, but also has significant rules-crunch. Many have described Daggerheart as a rival to D&D, a comparison that will likely be made even more now that Darrington has snatched away two of D&D’s primary architects for the last 10+ years.

 

[popuman]

Pasadena is many things, but "affordable" hasn't been on that list in a long time.

I love California, but real estate is a p-p-p-p-p-pain!

 

[SteveC]

If you're into OSR, then Daggerheart is not for you (near as I can tell). It's for the players who want drama to be the main thing and adventuring for context.

This has been my experience as well. There are some folks out there who really don't like Daggerheart and have expressed that dislike very strongly. Maybe it's that they don't like Critical Role. Maybe they don't like narrative play, and maybe they like a specific style of OSR play that's antithetical to how they see RPGs. This is a beats me situation.

I have some friends who really are into OSR play, and I recently came back from running Fabula Ultima for them, which they really enjoyed. I suggested they take a look at Daggerheart, too, and it received a warm reception. Since they normally do not play this style of game at all, I asked about what was up. Survey results were that it just looked different enough to be something to do when they wanted something very different. So I don't think it's all OSR players by any means, but ... if you don't like narrative play, I don't think you'll be happy with it. I do, so I'm excited to play.

 

[Clint_L]

Daggerheart is the new hotness, and getting Perkins and Crawford will certainly help give Darrington some clout, but I highly doubt this is some threat to WotC or DnD as a brand. 5e will continue, as will DnD. Paizo and Pathfinder didn't kill it, I don't think Daggerheart and Darrington will either.

Do we know that they are going to be working on Daggerheart? WotC responded to the announcement by congratulating them and teasing new adventures and unexected reunions.

Is it possible they will be taking charge of the pretty significant 5e wing of DP?

 

[jmartkdr2]

This has been my experience as well. There are some folks out there who really don't like Daggerheart and have expressed that dislike very strongly. Maybe it's that they don't like Critical Role. Maybe they don't like narrative play, and maybe they like a specific style of OSR play that's antithetical to how they see RPGs. This is a beats me situation.

I have some friends who really are into OSR play, and I recently came back from running Fabula Ultima for them, which they really enjoyed. I suggested they take a look at Daggerheart, too, and it received a warm reception. Since they normally do not play this style of game at all, I asked about what was up. Survey results were that it just looked different enough to be something to do when they wanted something very different. So I don't think it's all OSR players by any means, but ... if you don't like narrative play, I don't think you'll be happy with it. I do, so I'm excited to play.

My other intuition is: no one only watches one kind of movie, or at least it's weird if you do. Most people will watch a superhero movie or a comedy or a Western or a horror flick... some will only watch 3/4 of those, but it's an odd thing to only watch one.

Same goes here: people who normally prefer OSR can totally enjoy another genre, but they'll come back to OSR in time. This statement works for any ttrpg genre.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure that I buy that OSR players, writ large, are down on Daggerheart. Daggerheart shares plenty of DNA with Blades in the Dark, and plenty of OSR folks cannot shut up about how much they love that game.

People can just have individual preferences.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I concur. I picture D&D as the "middlest" fantasy TTRPG. The most agreeable, compromise game. Pathfinder if you want more crunch, Shadowdark if you want more fast and dangerous, Daggerheart if you want more soap opera.

And D&D is there for when your table can't agree on one of the more specialized ones.

Which is a pretty great place to be! Look at how many "it's fine, I guess" burgers McDonald's sells each year.

 

[Scribe]

I concur. I picture D&D as the "middlest" fantasy TTRPG. The most agreeable, compromise game. Pathfinder if you want more crunch, Shadowdark if you want more fast and dangerous, Daggerheart if you want more soap opera.

And D&D is there for when your table can't agree on one of the more specialized ones.

Based on what I read, Daggerheart 'fails' into a 5e/5.5 state of play.

I dont know if thats correct/accurate, but I've seen it in one of the threads here.

 

[OB1]

Do we know that they are going to be working on Daggerheart? WotC responded to the announcement by congratulating them and teasing new adventures and unexected reunions.

Is it possible they will be taking charge of the pretty significant 5e wing of DP?

I was wondering the same thing. In fact, I'd be surprised if this move doesn't mean even more 5e compatible content coming out of DP. Exandria could easily support 3-4 more setting books with APs and mini adventure compilations. Why not try to become the largest D&D 3rd party publisher at the same time you are building your own system?

Also, it's not impossible that those setting books and adventures could be made cross compatible with 5e and DH. I know people keep saying DH is a narrative first play to find out game, but what I'm seeing in AoU is that CR is using it primarily as a way to make conflict more cinematic, with the overall plot still being generated primarily by Matt, and the system does a pretty good job of that so far. It's possible that Crawford could help work on a set of Exandria specific modular rule set to fit with DH to further lean into that style of CR play while also building on their immensly popular IP.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Daggerheart had a very successful launch. I suspect that Matt Mercer is out of bandwidth. He's the face of Critical Role and the creative inspiration behind it. Throw in the animated series and all the other stuff going on. Not enough hours in the day. He needs very senior people he can entrust Daggerheart to as it goes forward...because it's clearly going forward. A fascinating development.

 

[haakon1]

My first thought was … what’s Darlington Games?

Who they hired answers that.