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

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not getting dragged into this. I stand by my statement, and that is all I have to say about it, I'm moving on back to the actual topic of the thread.

No-one "dragged" you into anything.

You dove headfirst into pre-emptively defending people for the possibility that they defended sexism and misogyny. That's an incredible and bizarre thing to do, and whilst obviously you don't have to defend any further, it's definitely interesting that you decided to act so precipitously here.

To be clear: your statement that people who objected to the foreword's very mild callout of sexism are not "anti-inclusive" is both unreasonable and inappropriate on the face of things.

It seems to me the sensible approach would be to ask "Okay, but did any of these people actually object to the foreword?" because I've not seen any evidence they did (whereas others definitely did). I'm honestly mystified that anyone would not go with that and instead go with "Its okay to be mad because real and well-evidenced sexism got mildly mentioned so long as you're not racist, homophobic, or transphobic" (?!).

 

[wizard71]

View attachment 396018

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

I find this odd as a criticism of 2nd edition was too many campaign settings that split the player base.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I find this odd as a criticism of 2nd edition was too many campaign settings that split the player base.

The problem was that they had too many competing lines. Sure, those lines were built around campaign settings, but (as you'll see by the list of what came out for 2e) the problem was really that there were too many books - and that they put out books for their various lines (campaign settings) regardless of if (or not) there was enough demand to support that line.

5e has actually already featured more settings than 2e did - but under a very different model. And none of them (I would argue not even FR) has been "done to death"... yet.

 

[cole1312]

The problem was that they had too many competing lines. Sure, those lines were built around campaign settings, but (as you'll see by the list of what came out for 2e) the problem was really that there were too many books - and that they put out books for their various lines (campaign settings) regardless of if (or not) there was enough demand to support that line.

5e has actually already featured more settings than 2e did - but under a very different model. And none of them (I would argue not even FR) has been "done to death"... yet.

Specifically all the box sets is a thing I've seen come up, it's hard to convince people to keep buying setting box sets if they cost more than just like a book on its own AND you can play for long periods of time with just one.

 

[wizard71]

The problem was that they had too many competing lines. Sure, those lines were built around campaign settings, but (as you'll see by the list of what came out for 2e) the problem was really that there were too many books - and that they put out books for their various lines (campaign settings) regardless of if (or not) there was enough demand to support that line.

5e has actually already featured more settings than 2e did - but under a very different model. And none of them (I would argue not even FR) has been "done to death"... yet.

That is objectively not true since there are 2nd edition lines that have not been reprinted such as Dark Sun & Birthright, Mystara.

 

[humble minion]

Like, there is no other possible meaning. That's story and thus metaplot. There isn't an alternative meaning or interpretation.

I ... don't think so here, personally. I don't read it that way.

The line

Evolve and expand existing D&D settings through compelling narrative development

To me doesn't say 'metaplot designer', it says 'person who knows lore inside out and can mine if for bits and pieces we can use in modern-style narrative products, while without being so wedded to it that they'll get annoyed when we, for example, use Lord Soth's name and image in SotDQ because he;s an iconic character, but throw out all the actual character traits that made him interesting'.

When you want a place in Faerun that has properties X, Y and Z for an upcoming campaign book, then this person will put up their hands and say 'Durpar!' or whatever. They'll be the ones whose job it'll be to find an approximately lore-adjacent excuse to squeeze harengon somehow into a hypothetical new Dark Sun book, for instance, or to remember an obscure magic weapon from an old 2e FR soufrcebook that can be dropped into a new product as an easter egg.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That is objectively not true since there are 2nd edition lines that have not been reprinted such as Dark Sun & Birthright, Mystara.

Mystara was never a 2nd edition AD&D line (AFAIK), what are you talking about man? Mystara was published at that time, but it's for BECMI/RC, not 2nd edition AD&D.

And no, you need to think about this a bit harder. Yes we don't have Dark Sun and Birthright, but we do have a bunch of MtG settings, and however little you and I might think of those, they are settings.

 

[Alzrius]

Mystara was never a 2nd edition AD&D line (AFAIK), what are you talking about man? Mystara was published at that time, but it's for BECMI/RC, not 2nd edition AD&D.

In point of fact, towards the end of Mystara's life it did have several products published for AD&D 2E (and aspects of the setting got mentioned in other AD&D 2E products, such as a number of the setting's Immortals being explicitly presented as gods in the sourcebook Warriors of Heaven).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I ... don't think so here, personally. I don't read it that way.

The line

Evolve and expand existing D&D settings through compelling narrative development

To me doesn't say 'metaplot designer', it says 'person who knows lore inside out and can mine if for bits and pieces we can use in modern-style narrative products, while without being so wedded to it that they'll get annoyed when we, for example, use Lord Soth's name and image in SotDQ because he;s an iconic character, but throw out all the actual character traits that made him interesting'.

When you want a place in Faerun that has properties X, Y and Z for an upcoming campaign book, then this person will put up their hands and say 'Durpar!' or whatever. They'll be the ones whose job it'll be to find an approximately lore-adjacent excuse to squeeze harengon somehow into a hypothetical new Dark Sun book, for instance, or to remember an obscure magic weapon from an old 2e FR soufrcebook that can be dropped into a new product as an easter egg.

I feel like you skipped my entire rest of my post where I broke down the job description.

I'm not sure there's much point engaging with an argument creatively interpreting a single line of the job description when to understand it, you need to read all the lines!

If that was the whole job description, and narrative was never clarified, I admit I could see this argument, it would just be a weird use of narrative. But they later use "lore" and "worldbuilding" separately in the same job description! Just lines later! What you're describing is a pure "lore master" role, but the rest of the job doesn't support that this is pure lore master, and also shows "narrative" is not a stand-in for "lore" or "worldbuilding", but rather those are separate things the job also addresses.

Otherwise I refer you to the rest of my post.

 

[dave2008]

Renton has a large statue of a dragon down on 3rd and Wells. Also the free parking lots are marked with a dragon hanging on the nearest light pole. Additionally community artists regularly fill empty windows with dragon art.

I moved to Seattle last April, does that count?