Taylor Navarro Joins Wizards of the Coast as D&D Designer

Wizards of the Coast has hired yet another D&D game designer - this time UK-based designer Taylor Navarro. Navarro announced that she was joining the D&D team this week on BlueSky. Navarro notably was a winner of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award back in 2024 and has worked for Ghostfire Gaming and Evil Hat in addition to working on several DMs Guild projects. Some of her most notable works was contributing to the DMs Guild publication Journeys Beyond the Radiant Citadel and publishing Not Yet: A Romantic Duet TTRPG.

Navarro is the fourth D&D game designer to join Wizards of the Coast in recent weeks, with James Haeck, Leon Barillaro, and Erin Roberts also announcing that they've joined D&D in a similar game designer capacity. Additionally, Justice Ramin Arman was promoted to Game Design Director of the group.

 

[Morrus]

They just had four new hires that they’ve publicized in about a month’s time and it comes on the heels of the 2024 release.

To clarify, WotC does not tend to publicise staff changes unless they're at a senior management level. These folks all posted about their new jobs on their own social media.

Which means there may be a bunch more we don't know about, because we only find out if the individual tells us.

 

[Retreater]

Within the confines of "It still needs to be D&D" what does that even look like though?

Well, I'm not a talented designer and I'm probably too steeped in the traditions to be creative in that way. But I'd steer away from slow, tactical, crunch and go with fast, narrative, and cinematic game play. It seems pretty clear that no new players care about tracking arrows and mundane stuff like that - leave that to OSR and make a system that runs on vibes instead of rules.
I mean, assuming you want to remain relevant in five years.

 

[Reynard]

When adventure books are badly written, the writers tend to be the reason. Putting a bad writer onto another project doesn't usually result in a good outcome. Pretty self-explanatory.

Why do you think Radiant Citadel is badly written? Are the adventures boring? Imbalanced? Simply not fun?

 

[Scribe]

Well, I'm not a talented designer and I'm probably too steeped in the traditions to be creative in that way. But I'd steer away from slow, tactical, crunch and go with fast, narrative, and cinematic game play. It seems pretty clear that no new players care about tracking arrows and mundane stuff like that - leave that to OSR and make a system that runs on vibes instead of rules.
I mean, assuming you want to remain relevant in five years.

Are 5e players tracking arrows anyway?

I mean the issue I see is, you have an edition that was WILDLY successful, with reach beyond Wizards wildest dreams.

5.5 is an iteration. 6 will will likely be the same?

 

[Superchunk77]

Why do you think Radiant Citadel is badly written? Are the adventures boring? Imbalanced? Simply not fun?

Adventures are boring/silly/dumb and the setting itself makes no sense. It's essentially written like a socialist utopia where nothing really bad can ever happen. I mean, if you want a D&D setting where the PC's don't actually adventure, and instead just enter cooking competitions, then I suppose it would cater to that crowd.

 

[Reynard]

It's essentially written like a socialist utopia where nothing really bad can ever happen.

Ah. Gotcha.

 

[Morrus]

But I'd steer away from slow, tactical, crunch and go with fast, narrative, and cinematic game play.

You're describing a bunch of existing games, but a narrative game is a different type of game to D&D. At that point it would not be D&D. I suspect that changing D&D into a narrative style game would be a very hard sell to existing fans. Might be great for new fans though! It's not necessarily a bad business strategy, but it does mean a radical change in what D&D "means" to existing gamers. To new ones, D&D is just a term for some kind of game they saw on Stranger Things, so hey, why not? It would probably work!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When adventure books are badly written, the writers tend to be the reason. Putting a bad writer onto another project doesn't usually result in a good outcome. Pretty self-explanatory.

Except that Radiant Citadel has tons of good reviews and sold well, so you are likely in the minority opinion, so it is reasonable to ask why you hold that opossing opinion.

Adventures are boring/silly/dumb and the setting itself makes no sense. It's essentially written like a socialist utopia where nothing really bad can ever happen. I mean, if you want a D&D setting where the PC's don't actually adventure, and instead just enter cooking competitions, then I suppose it would cater to that crowd.

Lol Star Trek is literally a post scarcity socialist utopia, and yet adventure occurs quite easily.

Radiant Citadel has plenty of reason and opportunity to adventure. Not your taste, fine, but acting like it is poorly written because you dont like settings where conflict doesnt come from the society being janky and bad is...not a super reasonable take.

 

[bedir than]

When adventure books are badly written, the writers tend to be the reason. Putting a bad writer onto another project doesn't usually result in a good outcome. Pretty self-explanatory.

She won an award for her writing.

Adventures are boring/silly/dumb and the setting itself makes no sense. It's essentially written like a socialist utopia where nothing really bad can ever happen. I mean, if you want a D&D setting where the PC's don't actually adventure, and instead just enter cooking competitions, then I suppose it would cater to that crowd.

It's not a socialist utopia and there is in fact adventure capable both in the Citadel itself (per the book) and obviously in the founding nations.
A simple reading of the book makes these things clear.

 

[Artamo]

To clarify, WotC does not tend to publicise staff changes unless they're at a senior management level. These folks all posted about their new jobs on their own social media.

Which means there may be a bunch more we don't know about, because we only find out if the individual tells us.

Ah, gotcha! I misunderstood and thought these were coming through PR articles initially.