Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, the former Wizards of the Coast game design director and creative director who led development on Dungeons and Dragons 5e, have joined the rival Darrington Press, makers of up-and-coming fantasy RPG Daggerheart. Darrington Press announced this star signing on Monday, June 16 – coincidentally the same day that DnD’s video editor Todd Kenreck announced he had been laid off from Wizards of the Coast, and the day after DnD’s VP for Franchise and Product Jess Lanzillo announced she had quit her job.
According to a press release by Darrington Press, Crawford and Perkins “will be focused on developing new game concepts, innovative mechanics, and future iterations, including upcoming expansions involving the entire slate of Darrington Press products”. The pair quit their roles overseeing Dungeons and Dragons at Wizards of the Coast in April this year – Perkins had been with the firm since 1997, and Crawford since 2007.
Darrington Press is the publishing arm of DnD actual play series Critical Role. While it has published several RPGs, its most successful by far is the recently released Daggerheart, a DnD-adjacent fantasy adventure game with its own analogues for the DnD races and DnD classes.
“Storytelling has always been at the heart of everything I do, and joining Darrington Press feels a bit like coming home,” Perkins says in a press statement. Crawford adds: “This team is passionate, wildly creative, and committed to building welcoming, connected, amazing story-driven experiences—I can’t wait to expand on what Critical Role has already created to develop some really fun and unique games.”
While ex-DnD staff are joining Darrington Press, DnD publisher Wizards of the Coast continues to shed veteran employees.
Jess Lanzillo announced on Sunday that she had quit her role as the VP for Franchise and Product: DnD at Wizards of the Coast, via a LinkedIn post. She says of her role it was “either the best job title ever invented or proof that late-stage capitalism has finally achieved absolute absurdity”. She adds “I’ve been ridiculously fortunate for these eight years, and now I’m lucky enough to, yet again, get to choose my own plot twist.”
Todd Kenreck announced he had been laid off from his role as the video content producer for DnD marketing on BlueSky on Monday, stating: “I have been laid off from D&D. Thank you to Chris Perkins, Jeremy Crawford and the entire D&D team for being some of the kindest, most talented and passionate people I’ve ever known. This was my dream job. The tabletop community has given me everything.”
Wizards of the Coast has lost a lot of veteran staff in the last two years. This was most obvious when owner Hasbro made cuts across the organization to deal with unprofitability in its toy business in December 2023, affecting many DnD staff. In October 2024, the firm let go Dixon Dubow, a key figure who helped rebuild community trust after the OGL debacle. And in April 2025, many of the staff assigned to the Project Sigil virtual tabletop project were fired.
The success of DnD fifth edition was driven partly by the large and diverse creative team who were led by Crawford and Perkins, and in part by the massive visibility that actual play shows like Critical Role gave to the game. Those two forces are now joined together – if Daggerheart looked like a serious contender in the RPG market before, it could now be on track to be DnD’s number one rival. Our own Mollie Russell tested it early in development and called it “DnD for players who give zero damns about combat”.
It’s a wild time in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and the tabletop gaming industry as a whole. What do you think of Crawford and Perkins joining Darrington Press? Are you excited to see what they can do with the freedom of a smaller and more nimble company? Are you worried that their DnD influence may stop Daggerheart from exploring really new territory? Share your thoughts in the official Wargamer Discord community!
Check out our handy guide to the official DnD release schedule to see what’s coming next for the original tabletop roleplaying game.
Source: Wargamer
