Justice Ramin Arman Promoted to Game Design Director of Dungeons & Dragons

Arman now leads the D&D design group.
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Game designer Justice Ramin Arman has been internally promoted to the position of Game Design Director for Dungeons & Dragons. Arman announced the news yesterday over on Linkedin, and later specified what the role entails over on Discord. As Game Design Director, Arman will be responsible for directing the game design department as a whole. Previously, Arman was a Managing Game Director, which was a leadership position but not one placed in charge of the entire D&D department.

Arman has worked for Wizards of the Coast since 2022 and has led several projects, including the most recent Starter Set and Quests From the Infinite Staircase. Prior to that, he worked as a game designer for Beadle and Grimm's.

Several months ago, Wizards of the Coast announced that they were hiring a principal game designer for Dungeons & Dragons, seemingly to replace Jeremy Crawford (who left Wizards earlier this year), so it appears that Arman is stepping into that role at least in some fashion.

In a statement provided to EN World, a Wizards representative noted that they are thrilled to see Justice continue his great work with D&D.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

They really don’t. You learn more about what’s in and what’s out just by being a school teacher than WotC are aware of.
Anecdotally and locally, maybe: but WotC is spending really serious amounts of money on advanced market research...although, mostly focused on the U.S. most likely.
 

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There's always "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" for those craving a hardcore TTRPG!

Did Justice Arman have something to do with this?
 


WotC is spending really serious amounts of money on advanced market research
Not disputing this, but it's interesting that you're stating this as a fact rather than just a reasonable assumption - in general terms, how do we/you know this to be a fact? Like, an article about it in a marketing research journal or Forbes or HBR or something? I used to be in knowledge at a law firm and it is truly fascinating how much you can learn from specialist journals that are just simply not known to the public or even seemingly most journalists (albeit that latter speaks more to a combination of deadlines, budget cuts and journos who would rather make claims than check facts).
 

Not disputing this, but it's interesting that you're stating this as a fact rather than just a reasonable assumption - in general terms, how do we/you know this to be a fact? Like, an article about it in a marketing research journal or Forbes or HBR or something? I used to be in knowledge at a law firm and it is truly fascinating how much you can learn from specialist journals that are just simply not known to the public or even seemingly most journalists (albeit that latter speaks more to a combination of deadlines, budget cuts and journos who would rather make claims than check facts).
Statements from over the years by people at WotC, particularly in the late teens oversharing era. I know he talked about it on the Happy Fun Hour and other venues back in the day, but @mearls may have some insight here.
 

Statements from over the years by people at WotC, particularly in the late teens oversharing era. I know he talked about it on the Happy Fun Hour and other venues back in the day, but @mearls may have some insight here.
There was a fair amount of market research as part of 5e, mainly because the gap between forums and the reality of sales was so large that we needed a better way to get feedback.

Starting with the 5e playtest and going forward, we did regular surveys and studies to understand what people were doing with 5e and what they liked/disliked about it.

I think the methods are different - they seem to use D&D Beyond a lot more, rather than open calls for anyone to fill out a survey - but they still do that stuff. I know that they sometimes send marketing surveys to Beyond users. I received one a few months ago.

Two things stand out for me:

D&D surveys had huge response rates. People were always eager to share their opinions.

The gap between survey results and online discussion was vast. The fighter is a great example. A lot of online people consider the class incredibly weak and lame, but it was always one of the most popular and well-liked class in surveys.

The second point was a big reason why studying the market was important. Online feedback is good for tactical problems, like resolving ambiguity for specific rules. It’s terrible for strategic directions, like how complex the game should be.
 

The gap between survey results and online discussion was vast. The fighter is a great example. A lot of online people consider the class incredibly weak and lame, but it was always one of the most popular and well-liked class in surveys.
And the survey is also supported in practice. Anytime D&D and/or DnDBeyond shared character creation data the Fighter was always number one.
 



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