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.

 

[Gradine]

I'm trying to imagine... like, what if when they announced Brandon Sanderson had been brought on to wrap up the Wheel of Time, somebody came in and insisted, repeatedly, that it was a bad choice because they hated how In the Name of the Wind was too idealistic

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not going to accept that it's rain at this point. With respect, you won't change my mind, I have eyes and the shift is obvious.

I don't expect to change your mind. But also, I'm not quite sure what you mean re: the shift. You mean the shift toward what? Or away from what?

I don't think anyone would argue against the idea it continues to evolve to reflect whatever "modern sensibilities" that seem prudent, so yeah, there's a shift. Is that what you're referring to?

 

[Scribe]

I don't expect to change your mind. But also, I'm not quite sure what you mean re: the shift. You mean the shift toward what? Or away from what?

I don't think anyone would argue against the idea it continues to evolve to reflect whatever "modern sensibilities" that seem prudent, so yeah, there's a shift. Is that what you're referring to?

Mostly the purple and pink and smiles, the arts headed that way and I put the flag at Tashas.

 

[Gradine]

I feel like if we've reached the stage where we're putting the term "modern sensibilities" in scare quotes, we can be fairly certain what is being left unsaid, and why it's being left unsaid.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

If you don't like how wotc "d&d" is now, then multiple that times a zillion and that is what is coming up. We'll just have to see if it's a good RoI or not. For me, wotc "d&d" doesn't even barely exist for me anymore. Which is a radical change compared to how I supported 5e financially when it first came out in 2014. We've completely moved on to other systems that capture what we enjoy in D&D, it seems to me they are narrowing their appeal and focus, not broadening it. But I believe in reality that was the goal all along, we'll just have to see if that "support" remains into the upcoming years... will be interesting to watch from afar.

You have mainly just shown up to insult recent books. No elaboration. Like when you laughed about Quests from the Infinite Staircase when that was really good. And have also given the impression of having not read the stuff you are talking about.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I ran Dragon Heist twice, the second time around in reverse. They were Xanathar's goons in charge of retrieving the dragons, which Jarlaxle stole. They had to reverse-engineer the whole heist to understand what happened, under pressure from their crazy boss. It was super fun — and only made possible with the inclusion of all the vilains' lairs in the book, which otherwise aren't used in the campaign if you only play it straight like it is. (But with a full gazetteer and all this fun material, it is simply begging to be stripped for parts and reorganized as you wish.)

I also ran or played Tyranny of Dragons, Curse of Stradh, Tomb of Annihilation (twice), Out of the Abyss (twice), Lost Mines and the Essential Kit, Rime of the Forst Maiden and Descent into Avernus (the first chapter twice). Oh and Shadow of the Dragon Queen and a bunch of small ones from the Anthologies.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen is the real outlier, here, as I found it to be barely playable, like the AP of old. Just a bunch of exposition scenes without any meaningful connective tissue, without any relevant choices for the characters outside of the immediate actions the set-pieces allow (which aren't especially great; at least in Tyranny of Dragons there's no forced exposition, and the set-pieces can be ran like a charm with the book on the knees and a quick reading just before the game).

All the other are quite good products and I'm happy to have them. Neither of them perfect, but all interesting in their own way. Some I played straight as is, with various degree of success, some required some work, some required a lot of work to get to something I was happy with, but I'm sure some other tables could play them straight without any trouble (like Dragon Heist). I'd say Lost Mines is probably the one with the fewest faults, but that's mainly because it's the safest, IMO. There is hardly any risks taken in there. At the opposite end of the spectrum, DiA might be the most flawed, but also one of the funniest, one of the most epic and inspiring. I had a great time with it (and I'm currently running it again and it's even better with this hindsight. We started from Elturel, this time). It's disjointed and messy, a sign of a chaotic process during production for sure, but still. Good book.

Ive been planning a DH game based on stealing the gold back, with investigation and planning and added-in flashback mechanics.

My concept is that Neverember is a bigger villain than anyone realizes except the PCs who do a job for him that ends up not only revealing to them his secret, not only indirectly helps him steal the hoard, bjt also lands them in trouble with both waterdeep and at least one of the villains of the original adventure.

Waterdeep will offer clemency if they fix. it. while the villain will want them to funnel the money to them while taking out Neverember.

And then a third faction will come into the mix, and transition the larger campaign to a game of powers with growing rumblings of widespread anti-aristocratic revolution styled on the American Revolution.

 

[Older Beholder]

I don't understand Tasha's being described as purple and pink and smiles.
Clearly these aren't literal complaints., so I can only guess what it's code for..

 

[Zardnaar]

You have mainly just shown up to insult recent books. No elaboration. Like when you laughed about Quests from the Infinite Staircase when that was really good. And have also given the impression of having not read the stuff you are talking about.

Always doomer always glazer. You opinion matters because.........

Staircase was one of the better books as well. Seems to be a popular view as well.

 

[Gradine]

I don't understand Tasha's being described as purple and pink and smiles.
Clearly these aren't literal complaints., so I can only guess what it's code for..

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