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Chris Perkins is enjoying playing D&D as a fan for the first time since joining Critical Role's Darrington Press

After more than 30 years working directly on D&D, Chris Perkins is finally able to treat the game like a fan

PAX East 2026 Descent Into Avernus — Image credit: Wizards of the Coast / Popverse

News by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Wed Apr 01 2026

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For more than half of Dungeons & Dragons’ 50-year history, Chris Perkins has been working on the game. He has, by his own admission, written more adventures for tabletop games than just about anyone on the planet at this point, with most of them being for D&D. Which may be why HBO wants him as a consultant on the upcoming Baldur's Gate show. However, that doesn’t mean that he’s leaving D&D behind. Even as he works on Critical Role’s Daggerheart system, Chris Perkins is still playing D&D – just in a very different way than before.

“Oh, I have turned my D&D designer brain right off,” Chris Perkins told us when we spoke to him at PAX East 2026. “It’s out the door. Gone. It’s locked in a closet… So I guess it was April last year when I retired, and I was just looking to basically do nothing for a long time, but very quickly, because I have a lot of friends in L.A., I got into a D&D game as a player, not a DM, and I still feel like I’m living the dream as a D&D fan.”

After almost a year away from Wizards of the Coast while he works on Daggerheart, this is the first time that Perkins has had some distance between himself and D&D.

“I have no idea what’s planned for the future of D&D anymore, and that is exciting to me because I’m sort of thrilled to see what direction it goes, but it’s not my responsibility,” Perkins said. “I feel like I haven’t felt since I joined Wizards a millennia ago, it seems. Since in my 20s, let’s put it that way, so I’m super excited about not just D&D but the whole hobby.”

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