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.

 

[dbolack]

I have a player who openly wants this content in our game. I have been considering Blue Rose 5E -- which is a different sort of romantic fantasy, confusingly -- but I'd love something that was explicitly about the contemporary romantasy vibe.

Out of morbid curiousity - why this over the AGE or Proto-True20 editions?

 

[Reynard]

Clean it up, pretty it up, aim it at the demographics they think are actually the majority of their players...boom 5.5.

I am not sure that is a good description of what they did with 5.5.

 

[SlyFlourish]

If they are talking about D&D youtubers and influencers branching out of D&D into other games that's mainly a result of the OGL crisis and a not insignificant part of them "dropping" D&D.

That has been corrected. Most are talking about D&D again with a sprinkle of other games (mostly Daggerheart or Shadowdark).

If they are talking about D&D youtuber reporting lower view counts, it is mostly because of changes in the YouTube algorithm.

Also I've heard that D&D TikTok is way bigger than D&D YouTube and it seems it's also a trend of people changing their video platform of choice. But don't quote on this last one.

Shorts; whether they're Instagram, Tiktok, or YouTube shorts; can get like 10x the views of longer-form videos (or even more) but I've heard from a few creators that it's equally harder to get those viewers to engage with you anywhere else. They don't "convert" to your other mediums if you have them, and that makes sense when you think about how people engage with shorts. They watch a minute video and flick to the next.

How much impact those videos are having is, for me, questionable.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that we can look at 4E as being an example of a change too far - at least for many fans.

But let's consider a few points:
1) 4E came out in 2008. And while I don't have the numbers, I'd suggest that it was trying to cater to an audience that hadn't grown in decades. Today's 2024 5E revision is trying to satisfy a group of players, the majority of whom have been in the hobby fewer than 5 years.

It was also a time when a lot of brands were trying to reinvent themselves. Something was in the air between the turn of the millennium and the emerging financial crisis, and a lot of popular brands attempted big reboots that didn’t end up working out for them. The exact same thing happened with “new” (at the time) World of Darkness. If I recall correctly that was also when Magic the Gathering changed the card frame for the first time, although that change stuck better.

2) 4E added complication, crunch, slowing down combats to a frustrating crawl. I propose speeding up and simplifying the game.

4e added crunch? Compared to 3.5e? Uh, no lol. It was actually highly streamlined in comparison, and that was one of the major critiques of it at the time - that it was “dumbing down” the game. Slow combats had more to do with inflated monster HP than mechanical crunch.

I remember during the D&D Next playtest, there were a lot of folks hoping 5e would bring back the crunch. I remember complaints about things like Advantage/Disadvantage and the unification of proficiency bonus progression not leaving enough room for “fiddly little differences” that at least some people viewed as something 4e had been missing! Fortunately, @mearls knew what he was doing and dismissed those requests, to the betterment of the edition.

 

[Scribe]

I am not sure that is a good description of what they did with 5.5.

Sure seems like that was the intent? I dont know that they stuck the landing though, but I'm open to being wrong either way.

 

[TwoSix]

You don't see the issue of condemning a writer / designer for a book she never wrote or designed for? That is a take I guess? Not one I think many should put much stock in though!

On the upside, when I see bad posting, that lets me know to avoid future posts!

 

[HatWearingFool]

I think both are past their cultural prime. Critical Role needed a major shakeup in the newest campaign to hold the interest of their audience, while Stranger Things has just ended in Game of Thrones Season 8 fashion. That is to say, with a finale fans were so disappointed with that it caused them to re-evaluate previous seasons in a less positive light. I don’t think we’ll be seeing nearly as many newcomers to the game who became interested because of Stranger Things from here on in.

I agree is downhill from here for Stranger Things as gateway unless the next show also leans into D&D and is a success. But it's hard to imagine the next barely connected show being as big a cultural hit.

But I think the disappointment in the finale is over blown. I think this was just a vocal minority online. I certainly, don't see fewer welcome to the hellfire club shirts being worn.

 

[dave2008]

Already said I wasn't getting into the how's and why's of 4e not being successful. Just showing that for whatever reason(s) applying a... The fans will buy any game with D&D slapped on it mentality... may not be the best strategy for WotC.



I guess life support is defined as being the largest and best selling ttrpg currently... ok strange definition but ok.



So none of these are actually the best in the world... just better(for however you are choosing to define that word) at specific aspects and I'd argue worse at certain aspects of play. But what if I want a game that does most of these fairly well but isn't horrible at any of them either...




Wrong D&D is the best for many because it doesn't pick a particular lane but instead is decent to very good in many aspects and runs the gamut depending on how you choose to run it of many playstyles. Furthermore it's created a vast ecosystem where if I do want a better take in a certain aspect there's a 99% chance some 3pp has provided it. You want D&D to be a specific thing that caters to you (which is really weird to me since DH already exists) but there's no evidence whatsoever this is what the majority of D&D players want.



Uhm... tons of people are playing and having a great time with D&D... If you don't or can't I'm truly sorry for you and the others who can't but assuming you're the majority is a big mistake.

Yep, pretty much this. I was going to reply to Retreater, but this you did better than I most likely would.

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree is downhill from here for Stranger Things as gateway unless the next show also leans into D&D and is a success. But it's hard to imagine the next barely connected show being as big a cultural hit.

But I think the disappointment in the finale is over blown. I think this was just a vocal minority online. I certainly, don't see fewer welcome to the hellfire club shirts being worn.

To be fair with the Hellfire Club thing, that logo is just excellent design and branding, and is also directly connected to what is widely agreed to have been the single best thing about Season 4.

 

[dave2008]

never mind