Wizards of the Coast Is Hiring a D&D Worldbuilder

Wizards of the Coast is looking to hire someone to build new worlds for Dungeons & Dragons. Over the weekend, Wizards of the Coast posted a new job listing for a "Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons." The new position will help Wizards of the Coast "create exciting and inspirational new settings" alongside developing existing settings. Notably, this isn't a position limited to the D&D RPG design team - the position will also work with "ensuring narrative consistency" across video games, entertainment and the D&D RPG.

At a press event earlier this year, D&D franchise head Jess Lanzillo mentioned that new campaign settings were potentially on the way. "With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," Lanzillo said. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

The full job listing is below:

We are hiring a Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons. In this role, you will create exciting and inspirational new settings and develop existing ones. The settings you create will become part of our ever-expanding multiverse. Working closely with others in our creative team, you will give life to legendary characters, intertwine the narratives of D&D stories across various platforms, and provide new content for internal and external partners to play with across all expressions of D&D. We need a world builder with strong writing skills, a collaborative spirit, and a focused imagination.

What You'll Do:

• Build and develop comprehensive narrative worldbuilding materials for the D&D franchise
• Design and flesh out new worlds, locations, and settings within the D&D multiverse
• Evolve and expand existing D&D settings through compelling narrative development
• Build and develop franchise-level characters, factions, and storylines
• Ensure narrative consistency across the franchise portfolio including video games, entertainment, and the RPG
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align worldbuilding elements across different media
• Develop detailed lore documentation and creative briefs for our fans, partners, and team members.
• Lead narrative development for our world bibles and style guides

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Sounds like D&D is getting a Showrunner.

That was my first thought also.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

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Wizards of the Coast is looking to hire someone to build new worlds for Dungeons & Dragons. Over the weekend, Wizards of the Coast posted a new job listing for a "Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons." The new position will help Wizards of the Coast "create exciting and inspirational new settings" alongside developing existing settings. Notably, this isn't a position limited to the D&D RPG design team - the position will also work with "ensuring narrative consistency" across video games, entertainment and the D&D RPG.

At a press event earlier this year, D&D franchise head Jess Lanzillo mentioned that new campaign settings were potentially on the way. "With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," Lanzillo said. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

The full job listing is below:

We are hiring a Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons. In this role, you will create exciting and inspirational new settings and develop existing ones. The settings you create will become part of our ever-expanding multiverse. Working closely with others in our creative team, you will give life to legendary characters, intertwine the narratives of D&D stories across various platforms, and provide new content for internal and external partners to play with across all expressions of D&D. We need a world builder with strong writing skills, a collaborative spirit, and a focused imagination.

What You'll Do:

• Build and develop comprehensive narrative worldbuilding materials for the D&D franchise
• Design and flesh out new worlds, locations, and settings within the D&D multiverse
• Evolve and expand existing D&D settings through compelling narrative development
• Build and develop franchise-level characters, factions, and storylines
• Ensure narrative consistency across the franchise portfolio including video games, entertainment, and the RPG
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align worldbuilding elements across different media
• Develop detailed lore documentation and creative briefs for our fans, partners, and team members.
• Lead narrative development for our world bibles and style guides

Maybe some love to, say, Greyhawk? And improve Spelljammer and Planescape? I can only dream, can I?

I think fixing settings with products folks were upset with will be a priority (The SCAG & PS + SJ slipcases, maybe to a much lesser extent VRGtR). Hence the FR books righteous of the starting gate.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Have we not learned that metaplots are terrible? lol

I think, from some recent interviews (Mike Mearls in particular) book dependency is the bad thing not lore or metaplot per se.
If you sell a book that requires a setting book, then the sales of that book will be hurt by the dependency. The same if there is too much dependency in movies or TV series.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think fixing settings with products folks were upset with will be a priority (The SCAG & PS + SJ slipcases, maybe to a much lesser extent VRGtR). Hence the FR books righteous of the starting gate.

I don't think WotC will be doing the generalized fixing some people here want.

As much as we see huge problems with Spelljammer, and some weaknesses with Ravenloft and Planescape, I don't think WotC sees any of those as failures, despite various mistakes, particularly with SJ.

The FR is something that they neglected for a long time, and realized they could really cash in on, with a player-facing and a DM-facing book, when people are pretty keen for material for it and likely to be fairly uncritical.

 

[popuman]

Sounds like D&D is getting a Showrunner.

Joe Mangianello, come on down!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Start it! (committing Internet's #1 sin - replying before reading the rest of the thread)

I am so bad for that

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Sounds like D&D is getting a Showrunner.

More like it's own Kevin Fiege Marvel/Alex Kurtzmen (but hopefully better) Star Trek/James Gunn DC/Henry Cavalle Warhammer. Showrunner is more like Jac Shaffier (Agatha All Along & Wandavision).

They are looking for person who runs the showrunners and the direction of the Metasetting.

Honestly I suggest Ed Greenwood or failing that Jeff Grubbs has a huge amount of experience at this.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm surprised it took them this long to build a focus on world-building. The worlds and characters of D&D give Hasbro and their partners something to build off of to "monetize" the brand . . . video games, movies, tv shows, and merch.

It's the same relationship the comics have between Marvel and Disney. The comics don't actually make enough of a profit to satisfy a corporate overlord like Disney, but they do provide a wealth of stories and characters that can be adapted to film, TV, video games, and merch. Which Disney has been very successful with.

WotC needs to reinvest in its existing worlds and start creating new ones. It's a win-win, as players get new settings to explore, and the big studios have more to build on for movies, etc.

Maybe if Hasbro figures out how to do this Disney-style, the C-suite will be more hands off on our game!!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Joe Mangianello, come on down!

He deserves to get his DL show, but for the person driving the Franchise/Setting/Lore/Metastory/World Building I honestly believe Jeff Grubbs is the best person for the job, he has the experience and institutional memory.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I work in the video game industry and have friends in Hollywood.

This is written with the similar language to a lot of video game writing roles. This is not like what a showrunner or executive producer does -- they have much more input into the actual production, including casting talent, hiring directors, set design, approving marketing, etc.

You actually see a lot of overlap in language between video game roles with WotC job postings in general. It's clear they view themselves as running a business that's more like video game design than traditional publishing. That's good, actually, because traditional publishing pays poorly and doesn't really understand how to build and manage multimedia IP.