D&D Director Chris Perkins Retires from Wizards of the Coast
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Dungeons & Dragons Creative Director Chris Perkins has officially announced his retirement from Wizards of the Coast. The award-winning designer has been with the company for almost 30 years, working on some of the most popular D&D products of all time and later becoming one of the public faces of the company as both a spokesperson and Dungeon Master for a number of actual play events.
More recently, Perkins helped shepherd the development of the new D&D 2024 Core Books, and was a key designer on the revised Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual. His leaving comes at a crucial time for Wizards of the Coast and the D&D brand, with the company ringing in its 50th anniversary and facing a number of new challenges, including a shifting market and the collapse of their once much vaunted Sigil VTT.
So why is Perkins rolling off into the sunset and what might come next for the legendary designer? Below, we break out all the details.
Who is Chris Perkins?
Chris Perkins is a Canadian-American game designer and editor best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons. He originally began his career in 1988 under the pen name “Christopher Zarathustra,” publishing several adventures in Dungeon magazine before joining Wizards of the Coast in 1997 as an editor. Over the following decades, Perkins rose through the ranks, becoming editor-in-chief of periodicals, then a senior producer and eventually serving as Game Architect and later Creative Director. Perkins was a key figure behind the development of a number of major D&D products across multiple editions, contributing to the lore, mechanics and design of the game. Notably, he served as lead story designer on the Curse of Strahd campaign book in 2016 and played a major role in the development of the new D&D 2024 books.
Beyond his design work, Perkins became a beloved public figure in the D&D community through his work as a Dungeon Master for Acquisitions Incorporated live shows and the popular Twitch series Dice, Camera, Action from 2016 to 2019. He also wrote the long-running blog “The Dungeon Master Experience,” offering guidance based on his personal campaign world, Iomandra, which he continues to run privately. Perkins also routinely appeared in promotional videos for Wizards of the Coast, becoming one of the most recognized public figures associated with the brand, often appearing in his trademark black baseball hat.
Why did Chris Perkins retire from Wizards of the Coast?
It’s not entirely clear why Perkins is stepping down, other than the fact that he has been with the company for almost 30 years. In fact, the timing is a little unusual as just five months ago, in October 2024, he was promoted to Creative Director, and given a much larger role in shaping the D&D brand. Perkins is also 57 years old, so presumably isn’t entirely done working professionally in the TTRPG space.
In any event, Perkins posted the news of his retirement on both Bluesky and X (formerly Twitter).
Today I retire from Wizards of the Coast after 28 years. With D&D’s 50th anniversary wrapping up and the revised rulebooks doing gangbusters, this is the perfect fairytale ending for me. I can’t wait to enjoy D&D purely as a fan again, knowing the game is in good hands. See you in the Feywild!
— Christopher Perkins (@chrisperkinsdnd.bsky.social) 4 April 2025 at 11:00
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Final Thoughts
Dungeons & Dragons has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the past few years, but one of the most consistently positive forces working on the game has been Chris Perkins. He’s helped usher in a new (and much improved) version of the fifth edition books and showed the best aspects of the game in bringing people together and inspiring imagination. His departure leaves a significant gap at WotC and it remains to be seen who will step in to fill the role.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
