Acquisitions Incorporated, the OG D&D actual play series, returns for its 15th anniversary
Acquisitions Incorporated, the long-running Dungeons & Dragons actual play, is heading off on a new adventure. The latest series will air in September and star Penny Arcade co-founders Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik alongside role-playing stars Jasmine Bhullar and Anna Prosser. Games will be led by Wizards of the Coast’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins — key designers on 5th edition D&D. A Kickstarter campaign, announced on Wednesday, begins Mar. 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. And so Mike just suggested that we just record ourselves playing it. And it turns out that that’s actually a really profound medium.”
In the original, largely unedited recording, you can hear those first few tentative rolls of the dice as they happened. 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
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