The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is Chris Perkins' Last Book as Product Lead

Chris Perkins will no longer serve as a Product Lead for official D&D books.

chris perkins hed.jpg


Chris Perkins has said that the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is the last official D&D product he'll be working on as a product lead. Yesterday, a number of sites (including EN World!) posted previews and reviews of the upcoming 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. Interestingly, Polygon's coverage of the 2024 DMG contained an extra quote from Chris Perkins, stating that the book was his last as a product lead.

“Although I made substantial contributions to the Monster Manual (2025) and the next D&D starter set, the Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024) is the last official D&D book in which I’m credited as a product lead,” Perkins said to Polygon. “Knowing that, I tried to stuff as much of my DM brain into [...] that book as would fit. Whether that’s a gift to the community or not, I’ll let the users decide.”

Perkins is currently a Game Architect for Dungeons & Dragons and helps manage the design team for the game. He's also served as a lead story designer for several campaign-focused adventures. He's also been a long-time face of Dungeons & Dragons, appearing at conventions, Actual Play shows, and marketing videos as an authority on the game and its past, present, and future.

EN World has reached out to Wizards of the Coast for additional context about Perkins' comment and his role with the company. We'll note that Perkins is a part of the marketing cycle for the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, so he doesn't appear to have left the company.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

mikeburke

Tarrasquesque
My take, “Director” is a more people-manager role/title. “Architect” more implies you’re an individual contributor working on big-picture design, handing off details to other designers to flesh out. Speaking as someone who has had both titles, albeit not in a game company!

In other words, even more meetings and emails. I hope he gets energy and fun out of the new role and it works out for him. I’d hate to see him leave.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
My take, “Director” is a more people-manager role/title. “Architect” more implies you’re an individual contributor working on big-picture design, handing off details to other designers to flesh out. Speaking as someone who has had both titles, albeit not in a game company!

In other words, even more meetings and emails. I hope he gets energy and fun out of the new role and it works out for him. I’d hate to see him leave.
Sounds about right: a fair degree of "making the role" as they go, possibly.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him


Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
Well I hope y’all like the cartoon.
Yeah, saw the stuff about "working with partners" and thought about how assiduously Perkins has been pushing the Cartoon and action figure characters...feels like pieces if some sort of plan, an architectural structure of some sort...

I actually only recently sat down with my 7 year old to watch the cartoon full through (instead of clips or descriptions), and, actually...it slaps. She loves it, her new favorite thing.
 




Hard to really know what this means when companies use job titles that don't exist outside that company. To be fair, the RPG industry isnt big enough to have standardized titles so I can't blame them.

Personally I don't like the whimsy that has been part of official products lately and I feel Perkins has always been a whimsy guy even back in his Dungeon Magazine days.
 

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