WotC Chris Perkins announces Retirement from Dungeons and Dragons

Over on Twitter and Bluesky, Chris Perkins has announced his retirement from Dungeons and Dragons.

Chris Perkins started officially working for Wizards of the Coast in 1997 as an Editor for Dungeon Magazine. Since then, he has functioned as the Editor in Chief of D&D Periodicals, A Senior Producer, and eventually landing as the Senior Story Editor over D&D 5e and Game Architect on D&D 5e 2024.

He also is known for acting as one of the Dungeons Masters for Acquisitions, Incorporated.

Personally, I'll miss the guy's work.

https://bsky.app/profile/chrisperkinsdnd.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3llyvdjkphk2p

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I hope this is an actual retirement, rather than a “retirement”.

I have lots of fond memories of Chris Perkins adventures. Running The Shackled City AP is still probably the high point of my DMing career, with Perkins writing 5 of the 12 adventures in that campaign.

My group still fondly remembers the first 2 adventures. It really got the campaign off to a cracking start.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I looked into this a while back, and came up with the following:

WotC Post in thread 'Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”'

Aug 13, 2023

so 2024 is the next half baked and rushed out the door cash grab?

Yes, it is. But not because they're trying to squeeze more money out of their existing base of tabletop players; rather, One D&D is only being made because WotC wanted to leverage Fandom to sell them D&D Beyond. But don't take my word for it, take Stephen Glicker's (who you'll recall had several of the most pointed insights into what was going on during the OGL scandal back in January):


And really, that explanation not only dovetails with what I mentioned before re: Ben Riggs saying that WotC...

• Alzrius

• 

This still is not a super solid source.

 

[Zardnaar]

I hope this is an actual retirement, rather than a “retirement”.

I have lots of fond memories of Chris Perkins adventures. Running The Shackled City AP is still probably the high point of my DMing career, with Perkins writing 5 of the 12 adventures in that campaign.

My group still fondly remembers the first 2 adventures. It really got the campaign off to a cracking start.

First 2 worth running as stand alones in 5E?

 

[DrJawaPhD]

This still is not a super solid source.

Yeah I love Stephen Glicker but he's basically just a conspiracy theorist who actually does have some great insights occasionally, and a decent chance of being correct once in a while.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

First 2 worth running as stand alones in 5E?

I’m not sure as it’s been over a decade since I ran those adventures.

Flood Season (which I think is the name of the opening adventure) has a memorable exploration of the gnome underground city of Jzadirune, but it is still largely a dungeon crawl.

I’d have to reread Drakthar’s Way to remember what it is even about as my only memory of it was that it involved a vampire (and I couldn’t even remember that as it was actually a vampiric bugbear).

Both adventures involve some investigation, but it’s investigation followed by dungeon crawls. So if that’s not your thing, then maybe not.

The mimic in Flood Season became a memorable NPC in my campaign (yes, really, the party befriended it) and there is a lot of foreshadowing of the rest of the AP in the first 2 adventures.

 

[Yaarel]

I am going to miss the D&D contributions from Perkins.

 

[bedir than]

Perkins is DMing Acq Inc at PAX East

Dungeons & Dragons at PAX East 2025

Join us in-person at PAX East, May 8 to May 11, for D&D play events, Acquisitions Incorporated live, and a sneak peek at Eberron: Forge of the Artif...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[MNblockhead]

Perkins is DMing Acq Inc at PAX East

Dungeons & Dragons at PAX East 2025

Join us in-person at PAX East, May 8 to May 11, for D&D play events, Acquisitions Incorporated live, and a sneak peek at Eberron: Forge of the Artif...

www.dndbeyond.com

Does anyone know if all the old episode of Acq Inc are recorded and available? I really enjoyed Acq Inc and made an effort to watch each one for years, but kinda fell away. Where would I go to catch up? I'm only talking about the live audience shows at the various PAX conventions.

Or have I not missed any? Have they not done the shows for the last 2‑3 years? The website only has live shows up to May 2022 (PAX East): Acquisitions Incorporated - Portfolio

 

[EthanSental]

Not sure why their site isn’t updated but the Acq Inc YouTube has the latest ones with Jeremy or chris DMing the pax event, 2023 pax east and unplugged con. I need to catch up as well as I enjoyed the set pieces and chris DMing as 5e was starting to take off.


I’d pay to have chris Dm a campaign for our group….he could make some bank while he’s retired and just run games….a guy can dream, much like when I was a kid thinking that my sports stars would come over for my birthday cause I wrote them a fan letter

 

[EthanSental]

Oddly enough, YouTube had the Lore you should know with Greg and Chris doing Barovia monsters for the revamped release. Chris mentioned 2e Ravenloft and him working on that monstrous manual and it made me think…dang that is pretty cool to work on D&D for an entire working career…well done!