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.

 

[Juomari Veren]

I'm suddenly way less worried about the future of WOTC (in a good, hopeful way) and way more interested in Darrington Press (in an "I love Jeremy and Chris" way).

 

[Staffan]

Also, it's not impossible that those setting books and adventures could be made cross compatible with 5e and DH.

In my experience, rules determine what kinds of adventures work, or at least work well. The prime example here are the Savage Worlds versions of Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne. PEG's license to convert them to Savage Worlds apparently required that they remain very faithful to the original design, and that design doesn't work well with Savage Worlds at all. The adventures are originally written for 3.5e (with conversions/compilations available for Pathfinder 1), and adventure design in 3.5e is attrition-based. Basically, you're expected to have an "adventuring day" of about 4 encounters that will wear you down to the point where the fourth encounter is actually dangerous because you're running low on hp and spells. But that's not how Savage Worlds works. 3.5e is also fairly deterministic about the outcome of encounters, at least at mid-levels once you're out of "dead in one hit" range – you can look at the numbers and make a pretty good guess about how many hp these monsters will eat from the PCs.

But that's not how Savage Worlds works. Combat in SW is far more random, due to lower numbers and exploding dice. Most PCs can sustain only three wounds, being KOed and possibly dying and/or being permanently damaged by a fourth – and due to exploding dice, one attack might very well deal a full four wounds or more. So a traditional D&D dungeon designed to sandbag the PCs just doesn't work in Savage Worlds. You can technically do it, but it will not be a good experience. It would work much better with, say, a Quick Encounter or Dramatic Task to infiltrate the place and avoid patrols and such, and then having one or two major fights instead of 4-5 minor ones.

So if you're converting a D&D adventure to Savage Worlds, it's probably best to remake it entirely. Keep the basic plot as well as relevant NPCs and such, but ditch the mechanics and encounters and rebuild those from scratch. And that's a little more than you can do in a dual-statted adventure module, because you need to make changes to the adventure's structure. Now, I'm not familiar with Daggerheart so I don't know if the differences from D&D are as pronounced as with Savage Worlds, but I really wouldn't recommend dual-statting anything for any D&D version and Savage Worlds at least.

 

[Umbran]

I think you are right, but still feel that Perkins and Crawford have been public facing figures for D&D / WotC in promotional material for long enough that people will at least still easily strongly associate them with the D&D brand.

Is that what Darrington Press really going to want? Associating their work with the D&D brand?

 

[Scribe]

"Boy, this was more successful than anticipated, know anyone whos experienced this?"

 

[overgeeked]

Yes, I know. What I'm saying is that gamers are notoriously not very faithful.

Someone should tell the 5E or bust crowd.

 

[dead]

How is the new game going? Are there many people playing it?

I must admit I haven't been following it but I might investigate it now. Surely it can't be too bad if it gets the backing of Perkins/Crawford?

 

[overgeeked]

Todd Kenreck just announced he has been laid off...

https://xcancel.com/ToddKenreck/status/1934697867710746686

Is there another round of layoffs incoming?

Lame. Get that man back to doing proper interviews stat.

 

[bedir than]

Is that what Darrington Press really going to want? Associating their work with the D&D brand?

they have three 5e books for sale on DnD Beyond. They still play D&D on their channel. They sell D&D books on other VTTs. They have another season of their D&D cartoon coming out after releasing three.

If they didn't want to be associated with D&D they're not really going about it in a way that makes sense.

Signing the two biggest names in modern D&D would strongly suggest they appreciate the game and want to be associated with it.

 

[Reynard]

They are both old and not necessarely in their prime. But they have name recognition, and that is certainly what Darrington paid for.

They aren't professional athletes
What does not "in their prime" even mean in this context?

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Between this, previously Monte Cook leaving to create Cipher System, Robert J. Schwab leaving to create Shadow of the Demon Lord and, well, Paizo, I suddenly realize why WotC CEO is so eager to replace real creatives with AI - you don't need to fix whatever is wrong at your company that ends up driving the talent into the arms of your competitors (sometimes outright BECOMING your competitors) if you don't have talent to begin with.

For the record, this is a joke.