D&D actual play series Acquisition Incorporated is coming back

Acquisitions Incorporated, the long-running Dungeons & Dragons actual play, is heading off on a new adventure. This new series, which will premiere in September, stars Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Penny Arcade founders) alongside other role-playing celebrities Jasmine BhullarAnd Anna Prosser. Games will be led by Wizards of the Coast’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins — key designers on 5th edition D&D. On Wednesday, a Kickstarter campaign was announced. It will run through March. 8.

Acquisitions Inc. is an originator of actual play, a format that began with podcasts of people playing Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games before naturally evolving into live performances, streaming series, and more. In a recent interview, Holkins told Polygon that Acquisitions Inc. began 15 years ago as an experiment pitched by D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast to help kick off the launch of the game’s then-new 4th edition.

“It was essentially a wargame, in addition to everything else that it is,” Holkins said. “I think that they were — perhaps with reason, as it turns out — somewhat nervous about how people would approach it. Mike suggested we record our own playing of it. And it turns out that that’s actually a really profound medium.”

The original and largely uncut recording allows you to hear those initial rolls. Even as 4th edition faded away, eventually being supplanted by the much more popular 5th edition of the game, Acquisitions Inc. continued, helping give rise to the actual play movement — including The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, Dimension 20, and more.

But it was only just a month ago that Holkins said he was considering moving on from D&D entirely. The controversy surrounding the OGL (Open Gaming License), which made international headlines in January as it unfolded, had sullied D&D so much that he wondered out loud on social media if being associated with the brand any longer was a even a good choice.

“I had asked online, ‘Is it Dungeons & Dragons itself that draws you to Acquisitions Incorporated, or is it something about the game and how we do it?’” Holkins said. His Tweet, made on Jan. 18 — midway through the OGL fiasco — made it clear that the two brands were closely intertwined. “The vast majority of people really felt like AI was something special that occurred inside [D&D], and I was asking that question at what I would consider to be the darkest part of their timeline.”

Eventually, the OGL situation was resolved — in part due to feedback from diehard fans of actual play groups. Now a significant portion of the rules and lore that underpins D&D will be protected by Creative Commons licensing, placing the seminal tabletop RPG outside the reach of both its publisher and its corporate owner, Hasbro. Acquisitions Inc. can now explore the game’s world with greater ease thanks to this licensing arrangement, which seems to have taken some of the pressure off fan anger.

“Never in a million years would I have imagined that the message would have actually gotten all the way in, all the way through, and then resulted in this,” Holkins said. “That really put me at ease, but it’s something that I really had to think about.”

Holkins and Krahulik quickly pointed out that Wizards was merely providing its talents to the acquisitions Inc. reboot. The publisher of D&D is neither giving nor receiving any money from their project.

“We These are going to borrow briefly their entire rules and design sections,” Krahulik said, referring to lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford and senior story designer Chris Perkins, who will perform as Dungeon Masters. “And we appreciate that.”

Kickstarter success directly affects the project’s size and scope. It is anticipated that the core experience will consist of a 10 episode arc, roughly two-hour gameplay sessions. Each one was taped in a studio. Edited for easy viewing. Krahulik will of course return to his role as Jim Darkmagic (of the New Hampshire Darkmagics), while Holkins will reprise his role as the party’s founder, Omin Dran. As stretch goals, additional episodes, special guests and enhancements will also be available.

No matter how crowdfunding goes, one person is simply happy that they get to share in the magic of each day.

“I feel like I was in a very influential punk band that no one talks about anymore,” said Krahulik. “For my part, I just like to play Dungeons & Dragons with my friends.”