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.

 

[Scribe]

I can’t agree more on the whole grim dark thing. I am so tired of Settings being Grimm dark. I actually went back and rewrote my 70,000 word draft novel because I wanted to be more hopeful because Grimm dark is just dumb. A grim dark society doesn’t function at all unless it is literally at its end and it’s the apocalypse.

 

[Gradine]

I think for some people simply having lots of colors means that there cannot be bad things.

<shudders in pre-release Diablo 3 discourse>

Edit: <and also Dragon Age: Veilguard discourse>

 

[beta-ray]

Just had a quick flick through. Radiant Citadel cartographer is also ugly. Compared with GV and Staircase. All were published close to each other. I can post pictures if you like.

I hope you meant cartography, otherwise that is kind of out of bounds.

I read through this entire thread. I feel terrible for the hire that a lot of conversation was spent in this thread. I look forward to seeing what Navarro can bring to D&D. I hope it will be good.

And I do find it interesting there seems to be a lot of new hires coming onboard. Hopefully it takes us places we haven't been before.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thats the rub though... by the time they got ready to release 5e, by all accounts D&D was DoA, 5e was supposed to basically be a farewell edition and Im sorry but the game being in that state was on 4e. Not going to get into the why's or whether they were right... bottom line was it didn't perform well enough and it almost killed D&D as a brand and as a published game.

Hasbro idiocy about industry market size and what a product could ever possible do almost killed dnd as a brand, not 4e.

With normal, reasonable, expectations, 4e made plenty of money and would have done even better had execs not forced them to wrap development early.

Regardless of what any of us think about 4e as a game, hasbro/wotc suits killed it. Period.

 

[Imaro]

Hasbro idiocy about industry market size and what a product could ever possible do almost killed dnd as a brand, not 4e.

With normal, reasonable, expectations, 4e made plenty of money and would have done even better had execs not forced them to wrap development early.

Regardless of what any of us think about 4e as a game, hasbro/wotc suits killed it. Period.

I dont think this...especially the middle paragraph...can be proven true. But im not trying to debate 4e's what if's and maybes... for whatever metrics would have made it successful...it failed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dont think this...especially the middle paragraph...can be proven true. But im not trying to debate 4e's what if's and maybes... for whatever metrics would have made it successful...it failed.

No, it didnt. Lol it literally made tons of money and spawned a bunch of great games drawing inspo from it. Hasbro/Wotc fumbling it doesnt make it a failure, it makes those execs failures.

ETA: its like saying that Joanns or Sears failed, when in fact Joanns was bought by private equity in order to scrap it for parts, and Sears was destroyed by disastrously bad executive mismanagement.

None of these things "failed" in any rational use of the word. They were mercked by incompetent or maliciously shortsighted c suite golden parachute enthusiasts.

 

[Imaro]

No, it didnt. Lol it literally made tons of money and spawned a bunch of great games drawing inspo from it. Hasbro/Wotc fumbling it doesnt make it a failure, it makes those execs failures.

ETA: its like saying that Joanns or Sears failed, when in fact Joanns was bought by private equity in order to scrap it for parts, and Sears was destroyed by disastrously bad executive mismanagement.

None of these things "failed" in any rational use of the word. They were mercked by incompetent or maliciously shortsighted c suite golden parachute enthusiasts.

Im not doing this...the game failed, unless you were part of WotC at that time all you're doing is speculating. You dont actually know anything and this isnt a thread about 4e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Im not doing this...the game failed, unless you were part of WotC at that time all you're doing is speculating. You dont actually know anything and this isnt a thread about 4e.

I am objectively right but okay i will drop it i guess. Have a good one.

Eta just saying if i tell you to jump to the moon and you hop over a building, you havent failed, i have.

 

[Zardnaar]

I hope you meant cartography, otherwise that is kind of out of bounds.

I read through this entire thread. I feel terrible for the hire that a lot of conversation was spent in this thread. I look forward to seeing what Navarro can bring to D&D. I hope it will be good.

And I do find it interesting there seems to be a lot of new hires coming onboard. Hopefully it takes us places we haven't been before.

Cartography auto correct. No idea who did the maps buy over had full colour since 2001 or so.

Doesn't even look retro.

 

[Imaro]

I am objectively right but okay i will drop it i guess. Have a good one.

You're not...unless the definition of objectively has changed

Eta just saying if i tell you to jump to the moon and you hop over a building, you havent failed, i have.

Ben Riggs cited that the 4e phb sold "far" less over its lifetime than the 3e phb did...thats not a failure based on expectations thats a failure based on measurements of adoption.