WotC D&D Hiring New Game Designer Months After Firing Many

The job pays from $86-145k and is for an experienced game designer—presumably much like one of those they let go a few months ago!

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Notably, one of those let go in December in Hasbro’s company-wide cost-cutting cull of over 1,000 jobs was D&D designer Dan Dillon. Dillon posted on Twitter—“Well. There it is. D&D is hiring a game designer, 8 months later. Was it worth it, you soulless f*****g cowards? Did you save enough money?”

 

[Von Ether]

With all of the experts here the position should be filled in no time.

I honestly had no idea that game designers made that much.

Part of it is cost of living in Seattle, the other part is working for a big dog like Hasbro; sadly the value the company places on the skill set is further down the list.

The vast majority game designers do not make this much, even those who own their ttrpg company.

WotC or Piazo are biggest outliers in our industry, which is why one of my pet peeves is when someone says the rest of the industry should be considered "indie" companies. We have a whole range of mid-sized shops like Green Ronin, Pinnacle, Free League, etc.

WotC is not the standard and we shouldn't judge the rest of the industry on their benchmarks.

 

[The Soloist]

Maybe someone on the current design team resigned unexpectedly to go elsewhere... happens all the time.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yay. If hired, stable work until Christmas.

I mean, this is seriously funny!

 

[DarkCrisis]

90K - 145K WTF?!?!

I'm in the wrong industry in the wrong state.

 

[KYRON45]

Gearing up for the next "non edition" possibly.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Ex-D&D staffer Dan Dillon posted on Twitter—“Well. There it is. D&D is hiring a game designer, 8 months later. Was it worth it, you soulless f*****g cowards? Did you save enough money?”

Talk about career suicide! That's a social media post that might follow that fella around for a while. Posting in anger... no good comes of that. Sort of like being out after 2 am... it might feel good in the moment, but you'll be paying the piper later.

Having been a part of many layoffs throughout my career, on both sides of the aisle, I think what's happened at WotC is one of:

1. They laid off folks eight months ago because of a larger corporate need. Those closer to the design team knew they needed them, and that they were quality designers, but there were bigger fish to fry at the corporate level to make those layoffs make sense. Doesn't mean that the corporate requirement made sense... it just means that the management overseeing the designers had no choice in the matter. Having said that, the likelihood that the corporate requirement had benefits to the company that outweighed the costs of letting good people go is high. Folks have a habit of dismissing those that take actions they are angry with as stupid and uninformed. That can be the case, but that is a very dangerous assumption to make.
2. Maybe there were actually problems with those let go! Not a nice thing to think about, and honestly pretty unlikely, but it's definitely a possibility.
3. Option 1 occurred. But... a new project(s) since came up that was too good to let pass by, and a larger design team was required.

My opinion (based on my history with these things) is that number three occurred. But who knows.

Whatever happened, not a thing to get upset about.

 

[kittenhugs]

That is interesting news. I suppose that means they intend to make something after the initial core books. It raises the question, to me at least, who actually designed 5.5E? I had a good notion of who designed 5E (including some controversial people), but I don't even know who the current or recently let-go designers are. Does anyone know who they are/were?

The 2024 PHB credits Crawford as leader designer and Perkins, Ben Petrisor, F. Wesley Schneider, Ray Winninger (which is funny, cus he left WotC in 2022), and James Wyatt as designers. Crawford, Makenzie De Armas, and Ben Petrisor are listed as rules developers specifically.

 

[Lanefan]

My guess is they already have someone specific in mind (or even quietly hand-shook) and the job posting is simply to comply with HR rules etc.

 

[Morrus]

Talk about career suicide!

He’s got a new job.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Talk about career suicide!

Not in this case, because pretty much every single other company in the TT RPG industry at least quietly agrees with him, or disagrees but understands the sentiment, and he's already been fired from WotC. WotC, especially in terms of their corporate behaviour, are not exactly popular with other TT RPG companies, are they? Even those most closely linked to WotC in that they produce 3PP stuff compatible with D&D will well-remember how WotC basically tried to completely screw them what, significantly less than a year ago?

You're thinking as if the TT RPG industry was full of companies of similar-ish sizes and behaviours to WotC, which one might move between, which is true of most office-centric industries, but absolutely not this one. This one has one absolutely huge company who employs a relatively tiny number of RPG designers (like, probably not significantly more than say, Paizo, maybe even fewer!).

So yeah, no. All he's doing is ensure WotC won't re-hire him, and I presume he wouldn't want to be re-hired by them.