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.

 

[mamba]

This is why I'm so glad I insulate myself from the online echo chamber of media criticism. 3 was easily my favorite season

I was talking about how I liked season 3, I believe it was 3, definitely Hopper in Russia. No idea what the internet had to say about it, for me it was easily the low point of the series

 

[HatWearingFool]

My main critque is that it all went far too all out superheroes, we started with a teenager with some psychic powers and ended with Thanos

Sounds like it perfectly nailed the feel of D&D then.

 

[Charlaquin]

not sure about degradation of stakes, wasn’t it basically the world ending…

Sure, the world was ending. But also, we’ve gone from a single demogorgon being a season-long threat, to there immediately being an army of them, to now Mike Wheeler’s mom who has never seen one before can effectively fight one off with a broken wine bottle and a can-do attitude. And also-also, Hopper can apparently murder federal agents by the dozen with impunity, and not only face no legal repercussions but be offered a chief of police position in another state.

My main critque is that it all went far too all out superheroes, we started with a teenager with some psychic powers and ended with Thanos

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.

yeah, that didn’t really come as a surprise

Indeed, but a lot of queer viewers who aren’t yet as jaded as I am sure were let down by the alleged queerbaiting.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm curious do you think that those engaging in online discourse in general are a different beast than the average player? I ask this because what I often see here vs. what my mostly group of casual players presents to me about D&D and the wider hobby are often night and day.

This imho

 

[TwoSix]

It was one of my favourite as well. To me the second season was by far the weakest.

I’d go 4,3 & 1,5,2 for my ranking but 2 was waaaay behind the others for me. I almost stopped watching after the second season.

My personal ranking from favorite to least favorite is 3,1,5,4,2. 4 had the epic Max/Kate Bush scene, of course, but so much of the Eleven/Henry backstory portion I felt dragged.

 

[mamba]

I’d go 4,3 & 1,5,2 for my ranking but 2 was waaaay behind the others for me. I almost stopped watching after the second season.

1, 4, 5, 2, 3 for me. After a weak 2 and esp. 3 I had little hope, but they turned it around

 

[HatWearingFool]

No, but it could still have been, you know, good.

Everyone I know thought it was “good”; heck many said they got teary eyed…

They also each had things they wished it did better.

But it seems to have stuck the landing in my circles

 

[Reynard]

Hopper in Russia.

That is season 4.

 

[Zardnaar]

really? that is not what I am hearing, the low point were seasons two and particularly 3. 5 ended well, except that some people are unhappy that one of the kids turned out to be gay and that got a full five minutes or so on the show

We've got 2 episodes left of last season to watch. Its a struggle.

Show hasn't fallen apart like GoT did though. Its not as good as earlier seasons. Ymmv.

 

[Charlaquin]

Season 4 was such an improvement over the previous 2, I sort of figured we would see at least that level of quality in 5. But in the end, it was a vain hope; television shows, especially ones that are fandom phenoms, rarely stick the landing.

It is one of those shows that would have been better left a single season/limited series.

I thought that about season 4 when it first aired too, but in retrospect everything I really liked about season 4 boiled down to Eddy. Eddy was great. The Vecna plot was dumb, but Eddy was good enough to distract me from realizing it. Season 5 was more, equally dumb Vecna plot, without anything as compelling as Eddy to carry it, and it made me realize in retrospect that the problems I had with 5 were all present in 4 as well. Which is why I compared it to GoT season 8, which also had the effect of retroactively souring folks on the preceding seasons.