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Chris Perkins is enjoying being free from the "50 Year Legacy" of D&D as he works on Critical Role's Daggerheart

Daggerheart is a new system, which means Chris Perkins is able to experiment and push the envelope more than he could while working on D&D.

PAX East 2026 D&D Beholder Header — Image credit: Wizards of the Coast / Popverse

News by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Thu Apr 02 2026

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In 2025, Chris Perkins retired from Wizards of the Coast, where he had worked on Dungeons & Dragons for more than 30 years. Just a few months later, he found himself back in the tabletop industry as Creative Director for Critical Role’s Daggerheart system. For the first time in decades, Perkins is working full-time on a new product and enjoying being able to work on a new system in every sense of the word.

We spoke to Chris Perkins at PAX East 2026, where he was there to run the convention’s Acquisitions Incorporated game. We asked him about the transition from working on D&D, which remains the biggest name in the tabletop industry. Since leaving Wizards of the Coast after more than 30 years, he explained that it was refreshing to be working on something different, but also on something that didn’t come with such a huge legacy.

“There’s no pressure of a 50-year legacy [at Daggerheart]. When you’re on D&D,” Perkins told us. “You have a responsibility to its legacy. You can go in new directions and do new things, I mean, it’s not shackles literally, but with a game that doesn’t have 50 years of expectations behind it, all those expectations have yet to be conceived. And so that’s just a different place and a fun place to find oneself.”

The legacy of D&D does come with some limitations on creativity that Daggerheart simply doesn’t have yet. “There are certain, I guess you’d call them sacred cows that you have to respect [with D&D]. If you twist the game too far, you get something that is not going to resonate with fans, whereas the Daggerheart fans are just like, ‘Just give us stuff. Whatever you got. We’re ready. Bring it on.’”

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