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.

 

[Parmandur]

Stryxhaven is far from slop. It's bad, but that's because WotC abandoned it and cut it down from a boxed set to a short book, leaving essential material out. But a heck of a lot of work went into it.

Is bad, and horribly organised, but has a bunch of pretty good dungeons that can be repurposed.

Like some of the other behind the curve 5E products (thinking Waterdeep Dragon Heist here), a lot of the problems also come from genuine attempts to innovate and try something bold and new.

I agree that I don't know if it works)(I would have to run it to get a better handle), but the "what if we do a full 8 Semester, 4 year University career Campaign?" is not something D&D had even thought to try before, so Strixhaven gets points for creativity from me.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I agree that I don't know if it works)(I would have to run it to get a better handle), but the "what if we do a full 8 Semester, 4 year University career Campaign?" is not something D&D had even thought to try before, so Strixhaven gets points for creativity from me.

It should work fine with the right players, but you would need to create about double the number of incidents. I would borrow heavily from Forth Wing, down to the addition of consensual adult content. The big problem though is the lack of any feel of the world outside of the campus. I would move it to an established setting. Whilst Arcanix (Eberron) is the obvious choice, I would go for the Hosttower of the Arcane Brotherhood. Given that it's in ruins in SCAG, but still sending expeditions to Icewind Dale a couple of years later in Rime of the Frostmaiden, there is a story there for a start. But the most useful feature is that the institution itself is evil-ish and decidedly dodgy. So maybe those who want to destroy it have a point? It certainly won't worry about sending students into deadly situations, such as the undead infested dungeons beneath the campus.

 

[Mournblade94]

What about Radiant Citadel makes you feel like having people that worked on it on the design team will result in worse products?

It was Mardi gras, cooking?, and far outside the pseudo medieval identity of D&D. There are plenty of RPGs that cover this. Of course that's easier on my wallet because it doesnt look like the new roster of designers have worked on anything I'd be vaguely interested in. Yes I've read Radant citadel as a shared resource on D&D beyond. So its not just the Mardi Gras art turning me off.

 

[Parmandur]

It should work fine with the right players, but you would need to create about double the number of incidents. I would borrow heavily from Forth Wing, down to the addition of consensual adult content. The big problem though is the lack of any feel of the world outside of the campus. I would move it to an established setting. Whilst Arcanix (Eberron) is the obvious choice, I would go for the Hosttower of the Arcane Brotherhood. Given that it's in ruins in SCAG, but still sending expeditions to Icewind Dale a couple of years later in Rime of the Frostmaiden, there is a story there for a start. But the most useful feature is that the institution itself is evil-ish and decidedly dodgy. So maybe those who want to destroy it have a point? It certainly won't worry about sending students into deadly situations, such as the undead infested dungeons beneath the campus.

Yeah, the thing is the Magic team probably asked them to do a Strixhaven tie-in because it was tracking to be an incredibly popular card set (and it was), but the Magic world team did no work to build anything outside of the School itself...whicbh is, yeah, kind of shady.

I'd be inclined to place Strixhaven on the Radiant Citadel.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'd be inclined to place Strixhaven on the Radiant Citadel.

I don’t think that would work. Whenever you have a major university in a small town it completely dominates all aspects of that town. See Cambridge, Durham or St. Andrews.

An American style university would be off brand for the Radiant Citadel in any case.

Sigil would work.

 

[Mournblade94]

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.

With the new shareholder lawsuit the leadership will be lucky to keep their jobs. If this lawsuit is successful WOTC could be sold off in parts.
Its just beginning but Chris Cox is in some trouble.

Allegedly Magic sets were released to pump quarterly earnings to inflate stock price because D&D and Toys are just not making numbers

 

[mamba]

With the new shareholder lawsuit the leadership will be lucky to keep their jobs. If this lawsuit is successful WOTC could be sold off in parts.
Its just beginning but Chris Cox is in some trouble.

Allegedly Magic sets were released to pump quarterly earnings to inflate stock price because D&D and Toys are just not making numbers

huh, what lawsuit, what are they suing over?

 

[Mournblade94]

All of the Powered by the Apocalypse books? Blades in the Dark?

I don't think something needs to be Lasers & Feelings to be significantly more narrative in its approach than 5E D&D.

No corporate entity with shareholders like Hasbro could survive on that revenue. Its extraordinarily niche within a niche.

The current kickstarter is massively successful relatively. It needed 18K and got over 200K. That is not in the league of D&D.

 

[Mournblade94]

huh, what lawsuit, what are they suing over?

Magic the Gathering being used to boost quarterly sales. Claimed to be fraudulent. I was very dubious because I come here for gaming news and I couldn't find or missed the information. But my wife who controls our stocks confirmed it. And its mainstream news now.

 

[Mournblade94]

Time for a Single Store Anecdote!

At my FLGS, we've sold... 25x Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Compare that to 47x Candlekeep Mysteries, , 40x Ghosts of Saltmarsh, 38x Tales from the Yawning Portal, and 24x Keys from the Golden Vault. I'll point out that these are LIFETIME Sales, and Yawning Portal has nearly TEN years on Radiant Citadel (though it was before they printed Exclusive Covers, so that would explain why it loses out to Candlekeep and Ghosts of Saltmarsh).

Golden Vault is only a year younger, so the most apt comparison puts it at... about right. It's selling fine.

(Honestly, I'm surprised by Candlekeep, which I think isn't great, having suffered from over-stuffing. Each adventure would have been better if they'd been given more space to breathe.)

I see a TON of Radiant Citadel in my FLGS. They never reordered it. I have never met anyone offline with a vague interest in exploring it. Every Barnes and Noble around me has 2 copies at least on the shelves.