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.

 

[Stormonu]

This really raises more questions for me. Will they be writing Daggerheart material? Will they start doing seminars at conventions for Daggerheart? Will they help get an organized play program off the ground? Will they work on Candela Obscura? Will they write a heroic fantasy game based on the Illuminated Worlds system? So many ways this can go.

I imagine it will be a mix - possibly cross-compatible material. More likely though, I think they're being brought on for oversight and experience. Chris managed Dungeon for many years, and Crawford's been behind keeping the D&D designers churning out stuff.

We've seen others who have left D&D spin out to do their own things after a bit - Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Gary, etc. If they do their own projects, the first few will likely be very 5E strongly D&D tied, but given a bit of time should they stay we're likely to see it drift towards whatever feels most creative - possibly Daggerheart, most likely at some point a "Daggerheart+" system that has their hands in its DNA. With a lo more freedom at hand, at the very least they will stretch out and away from the confines of 5E D&D.

 

[The Soloist]

Someone should tell the 5E or bust crowd.

D&D is loosing players but it is gaining new ones faster. The new starter set with cards will bring in troves.

 

[beta-ray]

I didn't expect this. Best of luck to the two of them, I hope they find it fruitful.

For some reason, Daggerheart just hasn't captured me. No, I haven't bought it so maybe it will eventually, but from whatever I read about it, I just start losing interest about halfway through. Maybe the new creatives can change that, we'll see.

 

[Sulicius]

D&D is loosing players but it is gaining new ones faster. The new starter set with cards will bring in troves.

How do you know?

 

[Muso]

KABOOM! What a news!

 

[Aldarc]

And people forget that Jeremy has written indie RPGs in the past. At least one (Blue Rose) but I think there others he worked on? Either way, I doubt they are married to traditional gaming, so I think we can expect to be surprised by what they do now.

Jeremy Crawford was a designer on Blue Rose for Green Ronin Publishing, but so too were Steve Kenson, Dawn Elliot, and John Snead. On a fundamental level, Blue Rose isn't that far removed from 3e D&D in its design and how it plays. It's still a d20 game that uses 3.0 D&D skill, feats, levels, etc.

 

[sim-h]

Bit late to this thread, but I just love the expression on Matt Mercer's face in that photo

 

[The Soloist]

How do you know?

The initial response on the webosphere was excellent—almost no bashing. With the art style targeting younger kids (8+), it will look good on the shelves. Parents will pick it up.

 

[The Soloist]

Jeremy Crawford was a designer on Blue Rose for Green Ronin Publishing, but so too were Steve Kenson, Dawn Elliot, and John Snead. On a fundamental level, Blue Rose isn't that far removed from 3e D&D in its design and how it plays. It's still a d20 game that uses 3.0 D&D skill, feats, levels, etc.

Minor nitpicking. GR ported it to the AGE system.

 

[dbm]

I wonder how the Darrington Press folks who were there from the very beginning feel about these two big names swooping in and taking the spot of Creative Director and Game Director...

Hopefully this will being used to accelerate the development of the company in addition to any benefits to the products. P&C have already ‘retired’ once so they are unlikely to still be at DP in a few years time. If the DP team have any sense each of the industry veterans will have one or two shadows learning from them to keep the company growing when they decide to retire a second time.

So hopefully the existing team see this as a great opportunity to learn from someone who has done things before, rather than having to figure everything out from first principles.