Darrington Press

Darrington Press is the tabletop game imprint for Critical Role Productions which launched in October 2020. Jeremy Crawford is the Game Director and Chris Perkins is the Creative Director, with Matthew Mercer as the creative advisor. The publishing label primarily produces board and card games along with role-playing games. It won two ENNIE Awards in 2022 – "Fan Award for Best Publisher" and "Best Setting Gold Award" for Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn.

The publishing label is named after the fictional player character Taryon Darrington played by Sam Riegel in Critical Role's first campaign who, in-universe, published a book on his exploits with the adventuring party Vox Machina.

In October 2020, Critical Role Productions announced a "new board and card game" imprint called Darrington Press; it was led by Ivan Van Norman with Matthew Mercer as the creative advisor. ICv2 commented that "Critical Role has broadly influenced tabletop gaming since splitting from Geek & Sundry in 2018". During the launch, Van Norman stated, "Darrington Press is not looking to utilize crowdfunding for any game releases". Darrington Press initially announced a slate of four upcoming games: Uk'otoa, Critical Role Adventures, Syndicult, and Guardians of Matrimonia. Uk'otoa released in May 2021 with mixed reviews; IGN called it a "solid first impression for what Darrington Press will offer in future games" while Polygon called it a "Critical Role bauble" with unfun gameplay.

In January 2022, Darrington Press released the campaign setting sourcebook Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn which is a revised edition of the out of print Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting sourcebook published by Green Ronin Publishing. In March 2022, the imprint released more development details on both Syndicult and Guardians of Matrimonia. In June 2022, A Familiar Problem was released for Free RPG Day.

In March 2023, Darrington Press published the two player board game Till the Last Gasp which received mostly positive reviews. The label also announced that they would reprint two out of print Critical Role art books in 2023: The Chronicles of Exandria Vol. I: The Tale of Vox Machina (2017) and The Chronicles of Exandria Vol. 2: The Legend of Vox Machina (2018).

The imprint's first "State of the Press" in April 2023 released updates on previously announced games and revealed new games in development; this included two new roleplaying game systems – Illuminated Worlds for short campaigns and Daggerheart for longer campaigns – which were scheduled to have a public playtest during Gen Con in August 2023. The announcement stated that while Guardians of Matrimonia, being redesigned by Banana Chan and Yeonsoo Julian Kim, and Syndicult are still in development, Critical Role Adventures is now on indefinite hold. Charlie Hall, for Polygon, stated that "Darrington Press has had mixed success so far with its creations" and commented that Illuminated Worlds was "perhaps the most interesting of the three new products" announced given co-designer Layla Adelman's background as "an accomplished game developer" who is also a member of the Off Guard Games team which has produced titles such as "the well-regarded Band of Blades and Scum and Villainy". Christian Hoffer of ComicBook.com called the announcement of new fantasy role-playing game systems "notable" since "Critical Role has a massive built-in audience of TTRPG fans, so a good fantasy genre TTRPG offering could make a major splash in the Dungeons & Dragons-dominated TTRPG market. Additionally, many have wondered whether Critical Role would potentially switch to an in-house TTRPG system for a future campaign, thus breaking away from Dungeons & Dragons altogether".

In May 2023, Critical Role Productions announced a new monthly horror–themed actual play web series titled Candela Obscura which will use the Illuminated Worlds System. Darrington Press released the Candela Obscura Quickstart Guide on May 25, the show's premiere date, which introduces both the Candela Obscura campaign setting and the game system. Darrington Press also ran gameplay sessions of Candela Obscura at Gen Con before the release of the Candela Obscura Core Rulebook in November 2023.

The open beta playtest of Daggerheart began on March 12, 2024; this playtest was made available at select game stores, as a PDF or on Demiplane via the Daggerheart Nexus. The Nexus edition includes digital character creation tools. Hayley McCullough, for the American Journalism, speculated that Daggerheart may allow Critical Role "to fully sever its connections to Dungeons & Dragons and allow Mercer and the other players to use Daggerheart as their go-to system going forward". She commented that the "potential rippling consequences of such a move" is worth keeping an eye on. Daggerheart was released in May 2025. The Age of Umbra limited series also started airing that month; the series features the cast of Critical Role playing Daggerheart in the "Age of Umbra" campaign frame created by Mercer for the system. Additionally in 2025, Darrington Press signed a sales and distribution agreement for U.S. and international markets with Macmillan Publishers to expand the release of their roleplaying game books in "the book channel, in addition to its existing distribution in the hobby channel". Lin Codega of Rascal noted this included both "their new fantasy heartbreaker, Daggerheart," and "their backlist" titles.