Critical Role became well-known through their Twitch streams for Dungeons & Dragons and recently released their own roleplaying system. They have now hired two key employees from Wizards of the Coast.
What happened? Christopher Chris
Perkins, the former Creative Director of the pen & paper Dungeons & Dragons, as well as Jeremy Crawford, the former Game Director of the game, left Wizards of the Coast in April 2025. It has now been announced that the two will start in the same roles at Darrington Press – the publishing subsidiary of Critical Role.
According to a news article on the Darrington Press website, the two are supposed to develop new game concepts, but also expand existing ones. Chris Perkins says:
Storytelling has always been at the heart of everything I do, and joining Darrington Press feels a bit like coming home. I’ve loved being a part of the extended Critical Role family as a regular guest over the years and I’m beyond excited to help create new worlds full of adventure.
Two heavyweights of pen-and-paper development have a new home
Who are the two new employees? Chris Perkins began his career at Wizards of the Coast in 1977 as an editor for Dungeon magazine. In 2007, he became the Story Manager for Dungeons & Dragons, shortly before its fourth edition was released. He later worked as Lead Story Designer on the acclaimed campaign Curse of Strahd
.
Between 2018 and 2024, he became the Creative Director of Dungeons & Dragons. He held this position until he left Wizards of the Coast in April 2025.
Fans of Critical Role could see Perkins twice in guest appearances during the live streams: in 2016 as the Goliath Shale during the Vox Machina campaign and in 2019 as the Kobold Spurt during the Mighty Nein. You can see the latter appearance here:
Jeremy Crawford was hired at Wizards of the Coast in 2007. As Lead Rules Designer, he accompanied the development of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. In 2011, he began working as Co-Lead Designer on the fifth edition of the game alongside Mike Mearls.
Only in 2024 did he take on his responsibilities as Game Director for Dungeons & Dragons. As Lead Designer, he worked on the Player’s Handbook of the 2024 edition. In April 2025, he left Wizards of the Coast. Regarding his start at Darrington Press, he says:
I’ve always believed that great games invite everyone to the table, and that’s exactly what excites me about joining Darrington Press. 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.
Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford were significantly involved in the creation of the current, as well as the acclaimed 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons due to their roles and long-standing work at Wizards of the Coast.
From 7 friends playing live to the most important pen-and-paper stream
What is Critical Role? Critical Role is a group made up of seven American voice actors at its core, who began live streaming their originally private D&D campaign in March 2015. From the stream via Geek & Sundry, additional formats such as Talks Machina emerged, discussing the events of the last session.
In 2019, Critical Role was founded as an independent company, and the group moved to its own Twitch and YouTube channel. There they launched their second campaign in the stream: The Mighty Nein.
Currently, the franchise includes:
- Streams on Twitch and YouTube as well as live appearances
- Streaming platform Beacon
- Cartoon adaptation of the first campaign The Legend of Vox Machina in collaboration with Amazon Prime Video
- Production company Metapigeon
- Darrington Press, the publishing company
In 2021, it was even revealed that Critical Role ranks among the highest-earning Twitch channels, having earned over $9 million in just two years there (via Business Insider).
With the two former employees from Wizards of the Coast, the company has secured two heavyweights of the industry for their game development and presumably their own P&P system. However, what exactly they will work on remains to be seen. In fact, Critical Role announced several months ago that they are working on a very different, special project: Anyone looking forward to a new game after Baldur’s Gate 3 can look forward to the new game from the biggest streamers of Dungeons & Dragons
